The supply side of the RTB Programmatic industry walks a precarious line between maintaining important publisher partnerships and ensuring those same partners are sending quality traffic. Inevitably, a time will come when a publisher’s traffic sends quality flags flying. So now what? You want to maintain the partnership but at the same time issues with invalid impressions, brand safety, and viewability need to be addressed. It’s time to be candid with your supply partners.
Communicate Concerns – Early and Often
Communicating concerns with your publishers on a regular basis shows that you’re committed to quality and it clearly outlines your expectations early on. Regular communication and feedback can help foster long-term relationships as well as quality supply.
Show Them the Evidence
There’s nothing more frustrating from the supply side than a partner who suddenly shuts you off with no explanation. While it depends on the partner, if a normally quality publisher starts sending sketchy traffic, they may be unaware of it and will want to know what’s been flagged and why. Handing over some evidence can help them get to the root of the quality issue and cut it off at the source.
Don’t ‘Set It and Forget It’
Some platforms check publisher quality when they do initial onboarding but then fail to ever check on them again. This opens platforms up to being blind-sided by discrepancies and demand-side clawbacks or the loss of buyers all together. A publisher’s traffic quality can change at any time - new domains or traffic sources can quickly introduce quality issues. Waiting to address fraudulent inventory doesn’t benefit anyone in the ad tech chain.
Know When To Cut the Cord
You’re reviewing your logs and notice that it’s the same publisher week after week that sent a massive amount of invalid traffic. They always swear that their traffic is 100% organic and they have no idea where the fraud is coming from. They also make no efforts to improve the situation. At this point, as a respected platform in the supply chain your reputation, as well as your demand partnerships, are on the line. If you decide to keep low-quality publishers around, keep in mind the negative hit your brand faces along with the loss of trust from the demand side on top of buyers going elsewhere for better quality. Ask yourself if the revenue involved with this one publisher is worth the potential financial fallout when buyers discover fraudulent impressions.
The supply side of the RTB ad chain is increasingly being held accountable for the quality of their inventory, and while publisher relationships are crucial, they cannot supersede buyers’ demands for clean traffic. Platforms must consistently communicate quality concerns with their partners and be sure all parties in the ad tech chain are working to fight ad fraud and maintain quality.
