IPA secures deal for 95% delivery of website ads

by Andrew McCormick, Media Week 22-Jan-08, 10:00

LONDON - Advertisers and agencies have succeeded in their bid to ensure websites deliver more of their ads, but have failed to secure a system of compensation when websites under- deliver.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has secured backing from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and advertisers’ body Isba for a deal under which websites agree to deliver at least 95% of ads requested by advertisers or media agencies for any campaign. Currently, this figure stands at 90%.

At present, online media owners are given leeway, known as a tolerance level, of 10% when running ad campaigns. For example, if an advertiser or agency buys 10,000 ad placements, and the online media owner serves 9,000, the advertiser will not seek recompense.

After months of effort by the IPA, advertisers, media owners and agencies have also agreed to an annual review of the percentage of ads that must be delivered. All parties also agreed to aim towards reducing the tolerance level to 2% by 2010. In addition, ads are to be audited by ABC Electronic and media owners are to train staff to agreed standards.
The industry failed, however, to agree on compensation arrangements. The IPA recommends that advertisers or their agencies are recompensed in the form of money or additional inventory when media owners deliver under the agreed level.
There has, in the IPA’s view, been a failure to consider the effects of “campaign delivery variance”. It says under-delivery can mean missed targets and failing to offset set-up costs, while over-delivery can lead to unwarranted ad serving and campaign handling costs.
The new IPA-led measures were prompted by media agencies reporting many campaigns being under and over-delivered. Media Week first reported on the IPA’s desire for new arrangements in November 2006.
Wayne Arnold, chair of IPA Digital and European chief executive of digital agency Profero, said the changes will save clients thousands of pounds annually, but that the measures don’t go far enough.
“This is a very positive step, but we will not be happy until the agreed level of under-delivery is below 2%, which will be next year’s goal,” said Arnold.

Comments

Dean Cook - 24/01/2008

This is clearly the direction we should be going, but policing the policies will be a minefield: in my experience, as long as the publisher flags any over/under delivery issues early on, an amicable agreement can usually be met. In this instance, legislation forcing publishers to payback set amounts will damage publisher-agency relationships to everyone’s detriment. Also, it has to swing both ways: If the publisher is facing greater penalties for failure to deliver, then they have to have some protection from the advertisers/agencies supplying creative late or not to spec, or changing campaign details at the last minute. If there are such setbacks, is the publisher still obliged to deliver the full 95%? Is there some sliding-scale system? Who polices that? Again, in my experience, late creative issues can easily be ironed out with a little gave-and-take and good customer service.