Junky made-for-advertising (MFA) sites are being kicked to the curb.
That’s according to a new Programmatic Transparency Benchmarks study by the ANA, tricking us all with another report in December after dropping a report a few months ago timed to Cannes.
That June report found that the percentage of media dollars spent on MFAs had dropped from 15% to 4%. In its latest report, the ANA shares that the “downward trend in MFA ad spend continued,” with the advertisers analyzed “cutting their MFA spend from 15 percent in 2023 to 6.2 percent.”
So, by the end of the year and with a bigger sample of data, the final number shared for 2024 will be 6.2 percent, which is over 2 percentage points higher than last reported. Still, this does represent a continued and significant decline overall.
Relatedly, the ANA also reported that the number of publishers across campaigns has declined, from 44,000 to 22,634, though the number of SSPs being used has risen slightly to 19. Still, the cut in publishers reflects “a trend toward more refined and secure ad placements,” says the ANA. (However, it does raise the question of how many legitimate publishers might have been unfairly swept up in the MFA crackdown we’ve seen over the last two years.)
One key factor behind improvements in supply path optimization (SPO) has been access to more transparent data. The ANA highlighted that “most suppliers” now access log-level data, with shoutouts to Yahoo, Adlook, Viant, TripleLift, and Equative for their contributions.
Why This Matters:
What does this all mean? More efficient advertising.
As SPO has improved and the supply path has been pruned a bit, more ad dollars are now reaching consumers, which translates into fewer dollars being wasted on intermediaries or low-quality inventory. According to the ANA, for every $1,000 entering a DSP, 44% now reaches consumers—an increase of basically 8 percentage points, or an additional $79 per $1,000, compared to prior numbers.
Better transparency has played a role here, of course. More insightful log-level data allows advertisers to better manage where ads appear. Additionally, advertisers are proactively curating lists of approved publishers (inclusion lists) while maintaining exclusion lists to steer clear of lower quality or suspicious inventory. Verification companies like DoubleVerify and IAS have also fully launched MFA detection capabilities, which are now widely integrated into leading DSPs. Basically, it took a lot to get the ANA’s latest numbers.
Experts React:
“Marketers face a critical challenge optimizing their programmatic investment: information asymmetry, where sellers possess more or better information than buyers,” says Bob Liodice, ANA’s CEO in the press release announcing the study. “This Benchmark is meant to correct this imbalance, empowering brands to regain line of sight into their full programmatic supply chain and paving a crucial pathway to more effective decision-making that drives growth in the open web programmatic ecosystem.”
Our Take:
These results are a positive step forward for the industry. The ANA’s findings highlight that the adtech sector’s efforts to tackle inefficiencies like MFA sites and wasted ad spend are making a real impact. However, the momentum must continue. The rise of AI presents both opportunities and challenges, especially in relation to media quality. AI images, AI video — more of that is coming to create new forms of MFA across the open web.
