In 2021, digital ad supply isn’t enough. Today, ad buyers want to know the provenance, the pathway and the performance of that inventory.
If those are the three Ps of the practice known as supply path optimization (SPO), then here is another framework.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Ashwini Karandikar, EVP, Media, Technology, Data of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As), sets out what she calls a “clean supply framework”.
Multi-pronged approach
“Cleaning up suppliers is not just a function of adding a tag to your brand safety tag or what-have-you,” she says. “It takes all parties to participate to ensure that what you are curating is suitable and clean for your brand.
In fact, Karandikar sets out four “pillars”:
- “Technology vendors: working with partners that will help you figure out which kind of supplies is sort of for your brand and which is not”
- “Publishers: are finally the owners of the supply and ensuring that they are curating it on your behalf, that they’re curating the supply on your behalf.”
- “Contracts: there are many legal frameworks that you can put in terms of the contracts, in terms of the type of media you want to buy.”
- “Education: lots of education across the board for everyone.”
Demand for supply optimization
SPO has risen as more ad buyers have wanted a better handle on the kinds of inventory they are really buying, and how.
It has also grown in importance as ethics and responsible behavior have risen on the agendas of not only publishers but, crucially, ad buyers.
In the past, Karandikar says, the notion of cleaning up supply was mainly restricted to programmatic media.
But now that more media have become digital media, applying SPO principles – in terms of how advertisers can plan, buy, optimise, analyse and go back and feed all this data back into their next planning cycle – is possible for all media types, Karandikar says.