Tag Archives: accountability
By Anna Mer | Critical Mass Chicago
How many of your banners are running on x-rated sites?
How many are running below the fold?
Or running in countries outside the US?
Now the moment of truth: Does the network you’re partnering with even know the answer to these questions?
As networks and exchanges continue to expand, it becomes more difficult for them to provide the 100% transparency they promise. Recently we’ve seen companies, such as Double Verify, step into the vendor space and try to police it. Double Verify uses their detection technology to find: hidden iframes within network properties that lead to x-rated sites, banners running below the fold beyond what you were promised, or impressions that have been incorrectly geo-targeted. But can these ad verification companies really stop the corruption happening behind the scenes? The answer… Not really. As Brian Morrissey points out, “Misplaced ads aren’t a problem unique to the Internet, but the digital medium, with its millions of sites, magnifies the risk.”
These protection tools do a great job of crawling the web and finding fraud. Once fraud is discovered, the agency verifying tool and the network vendor discuss where the error occurred and what to provide in added-value to cover the mistake. But that’s really only solving the problem one brand at a time. Will this monitoring insert enough fear into the hearts of networks to begin their own process of weeding out bad site partners and poorly monitored targeting techniques? I think that’s something we’ll have to wait and see. As Morrissey reported from a source at Media Math, “The future is in the prevention technologies.”
In the meantime, tools like Double Verify can help regain impressions lost to banner fraud while keeping networks in check. But that is still one site negotiation at a time and it happens after the fact. For brand-driven clients, they need to demand more of networks and hold them accountable. To implement these crawlers (without a fee to the advertiser), verifying partners need to be alerted and fees need to be negotiated into each partnership insertion order to ensure that campaigns are tracked correctly. Or as a co-worker of mine put it, “It seems like agencies have to do double the work just to get an honest view of a campaign. Shouldn’t the networks do this for us?”
I suspect in time the advertising networks will start to feel the pressure of someone watching their every move and begin to implement more defenses on their own exchanges to prevent this type of fraud… or they might just sit at their desks with their doors closed and hope this whole verifying thing just blows over.
What should smart marketers do in the meantime? While the fraud tools aren’t perfect, they’re still a step in the right direction. Ensure that Double Verify (or a similar vendor like Cyveillance, Adsafe, or Collective Networks) is part of every network buy. If not for any of the reasons listed above, it will help show which networks are committing a higher level of fraud and help guide you to choosing correct network partnerships for future campaigns.
Anna Mer is a Media Manager out of the Chicago office.
Bloggers have been abuzz about the necessity of transparency in business for longer than the word “tweet” has been commonplace. Transparency, for a list of terrific reasons, is being touted as a win-win for businesses and consumers alike. Because major corporations are using the same networks as the Joe Nine-to-Fives of the world, openness allows for new 
scenarios that are both challenges and opportunities. Opting to live in glass houses gives way to what The Cluetrain Manifesto terms The End of Business as Usual and leads to a new level of connectedness, accountability, documentation and the overhanging threat of being caught and called out in a mistake or a lie.
Just as Mark Zuckerburg recently said, “public is the new social norm” and transparency doesn’t end with business. Personal lives are often conducted under the watchful eye of social media, which allows friends and followers to know a user’s status and location. As Community Moderators, Jessi and I have been tasked with living and breathing social media. Our lives are as increasingly transparent as the emerging media dictate they should be. With the mainstreaming of location-based applications, that’s pretty see-through. Every move is documented and made available to whomever we deem worthy.
Checking in on Four Square is somewhere between a habit and a nervous tick for me. As I sat down to meet an ex at a Chicago loop watering hole, I checked in as per usual. My roommates, who aren’t enormous fans of this character, had text messaged asking where I was. When I failed to answer, which I will now admit was on purpose, they referred to my last check-in on Four Square and saw that not only had I checked-in, so had my ex. At which point, I received the following text message: “Busted. You and Ryan both checked in at Emerald Loop.” Busted indeed.
Inspired by my own text-message lashing, Jessi and I will walk through the elements of transparency to demonstrate the benefits to those who properly employ it and the risks to those who fail to realize its effects. I will be taking on transparency in one’s personal life using my own failed attempt and Jessi will be talking about it from a business POV.
Element 1: Connectedness
- Personal: Being linked to friends, colleagues and clients in the social sphere provides more robust real-life connections as well as insights into shared connections and interests. Friends influence each other’s information consumption, and by being connected to the interesting and intelligent, people can be exposed to news, posts and technology that wouldn’t have been on their radar otherwise. Before adding contacts exercise caution, applying privacy settings with the “significant other’s parent” rule: if you would be comfortable sharing your stockpile of photos or posts with a significant other’s parent, allow contacts to view it. If not, keep it private.
- Professional: Businesses have the obligation when entering the social space to connect to users in that space. Friending, fanning, favoriting and more become a crucial element to build relationships within this space. That information is public and so companies must be aware that these connections will be examined and become meaningful to a potential customer. If a business does not follow anyone then they risk gaining the image of being egotistical or oblivious. This is a social space and businesses must treat it as such.
Element 2: Accountability
- Personal: Be yourself. Be honest. Friends will become disinterested or stop following entirely if a user comes across as corporate, dishonest, or negative (sarcastic negativity is a different thing entirely). If a user is pretending not to hear text message alerts, but checks in on Foursquare, his friends will take note and get feisty. However, if users are honest, speak in a human tone of voice and hold their tongues if they don’t have anything nice to say, they will be seen as a trustworthy source of information.
- Professional: For some businesses this is a dangerous category. The fast pace and high expectations to maintain that pace will surface early when entering any social media platform. Set a realistic expectation up front with the community so if answers take time or further research is necessary, the community is aware and knows that you are not avoiding them. If a business creates a platform then they must acknowledge the activity that happens there—and engage.
Element 3: Always on the record
- Personal: Please see professional.
- Professional: “What you say can and will be used against you.” Didn’t TV teach you this already?
Whether the context is personal or professional, it’s important to remember that with social media, comes transparency, and ultimately, responsibility. Friends, colleagues and business associates have more ways than ever to listen, keep tabs on you, engage with you, and hold you accountable. If you forget this, you may well end up like me…getting busted!
