You Get What You Pay For

“You get what you pay for” is the take-away message of this article published by ClickZ in its Marketing News & Expert Advice edition. Quality is in the Eye of the Beholder discusses the decreasing amount of attention being paid to the quality of the advertising environment where an advertiser’s creative appears.

The article poses that overreliance on advertising-related technology is doing a disservice to individual budgets and to the industry as a whole. Today’s Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) claim to be delivering audiences, but the reality may not prove that premise true. “Why? Because most likely the inventory they are purchasing is below the fold, and often very far below the fold.”

The authors suggest that “Clients should place a premium on providers that can better illustrate the actual quality of the advertising environment on multiple dimensions.” They advise advertisers to start the evaluation of any plan, provider, or publisher by asking whether their advertising has a chance to influence their intended target. “If you don’t know where the ad is likely to be on the page or how competitive the environment is, how can you know the quality or the value?”