Digital ad technology is a topic that ought to be top of mind for marketers, especially as it poses certain threats of which today's advertisers might be unaware.

Programmatic ad buying is on the rise; ad fraud and ad blocking are ongoing concerns; and viewability standards essentially depend on the platform the ad is being served.

To help sort out this minefield, Marketing Dive interviewed Rajeev Goel, co-founder and CEO of PubMatic, a marketing automation vendor focused on publishers, to gain insights on and tips on ad tech. Goel outlined four key ad tech threats facing marketers: ad blocking, fraud, viewability and mobile. The first three aren't new threats to marketing success, but Goel sees mobile revenue as not keeping up with the shift to mobile consumption, and thus, a looming concern.

Meeting the ad blocking and ad fraud challenge head on

For ad fraud, Goel suggested implementing “proactive protection.” That is, to continuously focus on automatically limiting and filtering suspicious ad impressions and inventory. He adds that the most successful players in the ad tech space have implemented technical solutions that filter and detect fraudulent ads before they are ever sold or served on publishers’ websites.

Ad blocking is a different type of challenge. Goel believes bad actors pushing non-relevant ads that are disruptive to adjacent content is a main reason why consumers are embracing ad blocking tech.

“The growth in popularity of ad blocking now forces marketers to rethink the way that ads are created, targeted and built into content experiences,” he explained. “We, as an industry, need to refocus our objectives in digital advertising to create an ad-supported content experience that is more seamless and enjoyable for consumers.”

Marketers and publishers should be concerned about ad blocking because the majority of internet content is ad-supported, so ad blocking damages publishers “that create the amazing content that entertains and informs us,” Goel said. He added consumers need to understand the trade-off between free internet content and having ads served on those websites.

“People block ads for many reasons — from privacy to aesthetics — but the primary reason appears to be to improve the performance of their experience,” he stated. “The dozens of trackers and widgets deployed on sites and apps today add bulk and drag on load times. Also, badly designed ads interfere with the user experience. ... Taking a hard look at the content and advertising experience of users will pay dividends.” 

Echoing similar views voiced at Advertising Week last week in New York, Goel said publishers and advertisers need to come together to combat the real issue behind ad blocking: improving ads for relevance and effectiveness. Goel offered the Washington Post as an example of a publisher improving its website for performance with a front page that now loads in around one second, and GQ revamping its site and cutting load times by 80%.

Taking a look at viewability

Viewability is a key currency for media buying and supplementing the traditional CPMs and CPCs, which means marketers should include viewability metrics in campaign objectives. At the same time, Goel said, standards organizations like the Media Rating Council (MRC) have developed baseline standards for viewability, but publishers and marketers at times have conflicting objectives for viewability. Also, not all publishers – from media outlets to social media platforms – adhere to MRC’s baseline standards.

Goel does see viewability becoming a bit more sorted out over the next six to 12 months, especially in regards to inventory pricing.

"Viewability will become more standardized as marketers test and learn within ‘viewable’ campaigns," he said. The MRC's Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative put forth baseline viewability standards based on a subset of campaigns. "Those recommendations were not meant to be definitive. The standards were meant to evolve over time as publishers and advertisers became more accustomed the metric," he said.

Mobile is not going away

During Advertising Week, discussions about mobile largely shifted from mobile as "the next big thing" to mobile-first as the current reality. Goel says he sees a mobile ad tech future.

“There are certainly challenges to first overcome, but it is clear mobile is here to stay. As an industry, we should be heavily invested in developing the right tools and hiring the right people to guide us through this mobile path,” Goel said.

He thinks the short term focus should be on resolving the fragmentation issue inherent in mobile advertising that exists between a multitude of devices, formats and sales channels. Cisco estimates there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020. Goel explains that this means marketers should look beyond just mobile and think more about holistic, cross-channel solutions.

That being said, having a clear mobile strategy should be a top priority for marketers. Goel explained, “Mobile is not desktop, and the both marketers and publishers need to understand that." He describes desktop users as being fully immersed with content "in a more lean-back state of mind," while mobile users are often on-the-go, looking for quick distractions and sometimes juggling multiple screens.

“We, as an industry, have to continue to innovate within mobile advertising to accommodate for variable mobile use cases and still preserve high-quality content experiences for consumers. That's what it's all about," he said.