Manifesto for Ethical Adtech
Initiated by
We fundamentally believe that the adtech industry must do the right thing to benefit clients and consumers. In order to achieve this, the digital supply chain needs to be overhauled in order to rebalance the whole ecosystem and respect all parties in the supply chain. We believe that adtech needs to follow an ethical code and have outlined here a manifesto for change to achieve this.
What we mean by Ethical Adtech:
- A transparent digital media supply chain
- Definition of what constitutes ‘transparency’
- Publishers getting the right value for their inventory, with unobtrusive ad formats
- Advertisers able to buy valid, brand safe, fraud free inventory
- Buying by the right metrics, getting rid of media investment waste
Manifesto
Transparency
& Fair Trading
- Promote transparency in all media transactions throughout the supply chain. This includes:
- Pricing – clear details of rebates, costs and margins relating to spending media budgets. Itemisation of all third-party service provider costs.
- Placement – clear information of all media placement.
- Data Usage – clear details of what data is collected and stored. Clear about how this data is used and whether it is reused.
- Optimisation – clear about what strategy is used to choose media. Clear whether media selection is impartial and serving only the interests of the advertiser.
- Selection of partners through a fair process, selected on merit through a tender or RFI process, or due to customer demand. Continuously audit suppliers to ensure they continue to meet high standards of ethics.
- Clients should be presented with a wide choice of media and technology partners, with selections made or recommended only in the interests of the client.
Efficiency
& Effectiveness
- The use of technology to optimise towards client campaign goals, not towards increasing the vendor’s margin.
- Creating campaign targets that are fair and in line with the desired outcome.
- Make sure campaign targets are clearly communicated to all parties to ensure everyone is aligned to the same goals.
- Make sure the attribution method is aligned to the campaign targets.
Brand Protection,
Security & Privacy
- Only work with companies audited by JICWEBS DTSG compliance for brand safety and JICWEBS Ad Fraud compliance for ad fraud.
- Insist on implementation of ads.txt solution (blacklist) to reduce ad fraud.
- Encourage partners to use third parties for tracking and measuring brand safety.
- Utilise only non-intrusive ad formats and creatives.
- Implement consumer privacy controls, including:
- Putting in place data processing agreements with partners.
- Obeying the ‘Do Not Track’ option and implementing an opt-out of tracking for consumers.
- Only collecting agreed data from partners and alerting them to any unrequested data being leaked.
