Why we signed up to the IAB UK transparency FAQs

IAB UK believe increased transparency is essential to creating a better internet. And that transparency is about a lot more than pricing.

Transparency provides an internet that works for advertisers in terms of better targeting, clearer supply chain management, and more money funding quality content generation. And an internet that’s less intrusive and more relevant for all of us as users.

We’re totally with them, which is why we’ve signed up to the new IAB UK initiative for advertising companies to show their commitment to transparency.

They’ve asked advertisers, agencies, media owners, data handlers and consultancies to answer a list of FAQs about pricing models, ad placement and data, so that digital ad buyers can get information quickly and easily about which businesses are going to add most value for them.

Sixteen businesses (and counting) have already submitted FAQs, and we’re proud to be one of the first to do so.

For us, signing up to a scheme like this is a no-brainer. Transparency is on a rapid rise in terms of its importance to our industry, but it’s always been at the core of what we do. It’s a big part of the reason why we founded our business in 2010.

The opaque practices and black box mentality that marked the early days of programmatic made everyone’s lives harder. If you’re not sure what you’re spending, where you’re spending and whether you can trust the results you’re getting in return, it’s very difficult to advocate for further investment in programmatic.

Even more challenging than that, it makes it nearly impossible to derive meaningful insight to inform future campaigns and understand the influence programmatic has in driving business outcomes.

That’s why when we talk about transparency, we don’t just mean giving our clients numbers and costs relating to their investment, ad verification, brand safety, inventory quality and viewability. We think transparency is an interactive process between us and our clients. We want them to dive into our strategy with us, so they see exactly what the lines of targeting are doing, how each is influencing performance and so they really understand how our approach makes the most of human and machine-led intelligence.

And, as a by-product, we’re able to share insights on things like audience, creative, campaign delivery and macro influencers like the weather, or brand sentiment as default in a way the client can access themselves. This puts the power in the hands of our clients and forces us to stay at the top of our game.

Our whole goal is to give power to marketers: to help them get great results with numbers that they can point to and say, “That’s why we succeeded – this is how we can do it again.”

Transparency is essential to doing that and it’s why we’ll always be committed to it.

You can see the full list of companies signed up to the IAB UK’s FAQs here and you can jump straight to the MiQ page here.