Can Blockchain solve the payment issues of digital advertising?
Imagine a big brand is planning to spend $100 million on paid digital marketing, they want to spend on different DSPs, Ad networks and try out some innovative ad formats with some ad tech vendors.
But the brand's only condition is to get 100% transparency on where each ad dollar is going, they are ready to write a cheque to DSPs, agencies, and publishers individually.
Ironically this is a very big ask, because of how the display marketing ecosystem and the sequential supply chain payment is set up.
Last year, we saw a series of lawsuits regarding payment transparency and campaign issues, Uber sued Dentsu-owned mobile agency Fetch, The Guardian sued Rubicon Project and some agencies are busy with counter lawsuits.
Major brands like AT&T and Bayer are not happy with all this and determined to bring back the transparency to the digital supply chain, they are working with Blockchain tech vendors like Amino Payments and AdFin to control the release of the payments directly to vendors using Blockchain as a ledger.
These Blockchain based payment companies might have to face a lot of resistance, as they are trying to change the power dynamics in a profound way, for this model to work the initiative has to come directly from the brands and put pressure on their vendors and agencies.
According to a recent article from AdExchanger, some agencies and intermediaries are delaying the payments to sell side and collecting interest on the dollars they control, giving up the power to a Blockchain based start-up is the last thing they want to do.
This article is to express my point of view, not to endorse any company or degrade another. I’m really curious to know your point of view on this matter in the comment section below.
Link to Reference Article
Co-Founder at Inner Economy | Holistic Therapist | SALES/BIZ Coach | Trauma Informed
6 年We are all aware about the impending issue of payments and more so ever transparency in the programmatic space. Although, blockchain looks promising, however,?the scale and speed that programmatic advertising requires means that blockchain-based platforms are still years away, if they arrive at all. The transaction validation time and getting added to the public ledger takes anywhere between 10-30 seconds which is phenomenally higher to milliseconds response time required to return an ad. Having said that, blockchain can definitely be used as a tool to validate transanctions in the post-campaign phase but due to the inherent design of the technology it works as intended only if it has reached the critical mass.?Would love to know your thoughts on this :)