Google Debuts Tool for Ad Buyers, Publishers to Confirm That No Additional Fees Were Taken

Google introduced Confirming Gross Revenue Wednesday, calling it a solution that helps buyers and publishers verify that no hidden fees have been taken from their digital advertising transactions. President, Americas and global partners Allan Thygesen explained in a blog post Wednesday, “Our advertising partners often ask me, ‘How can I better understand where my dollars are being spent?’ This question isn’t new. But as buying and selling digital ads has become more complex, tracking where the money goes has become more difficult. On average, 15% of advertiser spend is unattributable, according to some industry estimates.” He continued, “One of my biggest concerns about this trend is its impact on marketer confidence in digital advertising. How can we all provide greater visibility into the investments of agencies and advertisers to properly inform future media spend? While we can’t speak for the many other companies in this space, our platforms do not take hidden fees. Working with others in the industry, we’re committed to investing in solutions that bring greater trust to programmatic buying and advance a more transparent ecosystem.” IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur said in Google's blog post, “Greater transparency in the digital advertising supply chain through solutions like Confirming Gross Revenue is sorely needed. That’s why we’ve made it a priority to invest in creating industry standards like ads.txt, sellers.json, DemandChain Object and buyers.json to help everyone raise the bar on trust in programmatic buying. We look forward to working with Google on this privacy-forward solution and potentially incorporating these concepts into IAB Tech Lab’s standards portfolio.” With the Confirming Gross Revenue, publishers can use the new Revenue Verification Report to see aggregate gross revenue received from a specific buyer, and buyers and publishers can verify that the media cost from the former’s reporting matches the gross revenue received by the latter. Confirming Gross Revenue is being tested with Display & Video 360, and Thygesen said Google is in “communication and collaboration” with other agencies, demand-side platforms, publishers and sell-side platforms to further test the solution and provide feedback. He also stressed that Confirming Gross Revenue only uses whatever data is needed to confirm that no hidden fees have been taken from transactions, and it relies on aggregate gross revenue amounts, rather than combining granular log-level data, in order to lower the risk of user identification. Thygesen wrote, “Confirming Gross Revenue is one part of our efforts to address concerns over lack of transparency that we have heard from publishers, agencies, advertisers and regulators. Over the next few months, we’ll continue to work with the industry on shaping this new solution and, more broadly, initiatives to instill more confidence in online advertising. Bringing greater transparency to advertisers, agencies and publishers is core to our approach. We welcome participation from others who want to work together to advance an ad-supported internet that works for everyone.” Mediavine CEO Eric Hochberger said in the Google blog post, "Transparency and trust go hand-in-hand, and giving us additional access and insight into media costs is a step in the right direction. We look forward to being early adopters of the solution and partnering with Google to provide feedback on how to make improvements.” Omnicom Media Group Australia chief operating officer Philip Pollock added, "OMG prides ourselves in being industry-leading advocates for full supply chain transparency. We believe this feature will be a great first step toward confirming that there are no hidden fees in programmatic buying, and having a seat at the table gives us the best opportunity to affect positive change for advertisers."