Right now, the digital advertising industry is in a frenzy over how it will adapt to new privacy restrictions that will inhibit marketers’ ability to serve targeted ads quickly and widely. Yes, the nature of digital advertising is changing. However, the direction it’s headed regarding ad quality is on a collision course with high quality user experience. Everything is on the line — including the bottom line.

These new and legacy ad quality-related brand safety challenges are poised to have an outsized impact on publisher revenue in 2021. Over the course of the past year, low ad quality has proved to have drastic effects on user churn, brand reputation, and revenue. Across the ecosystem, ad inventory is flooded with offensive, deceptive, off-brand, and malicious forms of advertising. In fact, 85% of publishers reported seeing increased or constant levels of low-quality advertising in the last year. The most common types of low-quality ads are: poor creative or creative not to spec, auto-redirects, inappropriate formats and inappropriate ad content.

Further, 89% of publishers report that they encounter deceptive ads coming through demand channels on weekly basis. And a fifth of publisher’s report that they’ve lost advertising revenue and/or paid subscribers as a result of deceptive ads. With that’s said, one of the core challenges of programmatic advertising is the lack of control of sites’ user experience.

Experience matters

When a publisher processes thousands of bids per second, unwanted ads will inevitably slip through. And as publishers move away from cookies, they must enact stronger quality control measures to ensure they’re never serving ads off brand ads that kill user experience. This negative association with the publisher weakens their market value. It also makes it difficult for them to attract high-quality, more valuable advertising. Nearly half (47%) of all advertisers say that they avoid working with certain publishers due to the high number of low-quality ads on the publisher’s website. Brands do not want to be associated with, let alone do business with, publishers that serve bad ads. And publishers lose revenue because of them.

Yes, losing cookies poses an enormous business challenge. Without cookies, they’ll have to alter their business models and put hyper focus on user experience to maintain steady revenue. That adjustment should include a pivot to higher-quality advertising, to root out unwanted ads and strengthen relationships with their users. Unfortunately, common ad quality practices often over block or leave money on the table. Nearly half (49%) of publishers often inadvertently block safe ads as they’re racing to keep out bad actors. There’s an obvious need for publishers to be able to fine tune tactics for blocking low-quality ads. 

Precise and premium

The solution is to avoid automated blunt blocking solutions which block safe ads, thus reducing legitimate revenue streams. For digital publishers operating in an open marketplace, a precise solution is an important asset to protect readers and brands alike.

In essence, a better ad experience, means a better user experience. A better experience means more engaged users, and higher engagement means the publisher’s ad inventory is even more valuable. Fueling this flywheel is premium advertising from trusted, vetted providers.

Buying and selling large amounts of media has never been easier. However, the most successful publishers will prioritize quality to maintain a quality user experience. The trick is to ensure that your partners reinforce the integrity of your site.