Revolutionizing Digital Advertising: The Shift to Quality and Trust

"I think we have a trust problem."

This hard truth was the outcome of months of talking to my leadership team, reviewing our company performance, and surveying the landscape of this industry.?

I’ve spent decades working in advertising technology. Trust is paramount in our industry.?

When you refer someone in business, or you buy a new product, a referral is ten times more impactful than anything. You’re vouching for the experience someone will have. We weren’t seeing our customers raise their hands and speak for our value. We realized that potential partners were saying, "I don’t know if I trust this.” As a leader, I have to personalize that. My company is what I can control, so I had to consider the fact that the message may be, “We don't trust you."

Quality, Performance, and Transparency

To address this, we made a drastic decision.?

In an industry of gray space, we decided we were going to do a full body cavity search of every practice, every protocol, and every partner in our ecosystem. The goal? To create such profound clarity that we could say with confident:

• We are unquestionably compliant
• We go above and beyond industry standards
• We cross every T and dot every I

This transition wasn't easy, not because we were in the habit of bad practices but because we work with thousands of publishers and websites. To earn and maintain their trust, we needed to shift from business as usual, which required another radical overhaul.?

Convincing a Business to (Temporarily) Make Less Money

We discovered a counterintuitive truth through extensive testing and analysis:?

Fewer ads served at a lower frequency with high viewability = astronomically improved performance.

Adopting this formula takes time, and we had to cash in on that publisher trust to convince people: if you let us do this, the future impact will be far more revenue.?

We didn’t sugar coat it, admitting that publishers may initially face a 15% to 20% decrease in revenue over a short time period. We took the time, took the case studies, took the data, and ultimately convinced everyone in the long-term payout.

It worked.

Be Bold

The path to quality in digital advertising requires bold decisions and a commitment to transparency. By prioritizing trust and performance over short-term gains, we've improved our standing in the industry and demonstrated that it's possible to serve fewer ads while generating more revenue. This approach benefits everyone: publishers, advertisers, and ultimately, the end users who experience a cleaner, more relevant ad environment.