Can a New Definition Solve the Internet’s Quality Problem?

Since the dawn of programmatic advertising, unscrupulous publishers have been devising ways to manipulate digital ad auctions, getting brands to spend money to run ads without putting in the work to develop content that actually brings in viewers.

These spammy websites have had a lot of names over the years, from clickbait to content farms, and despite numerous industry initiatives they are still abundant. This past summer, the industry has been working on a way to operationalize and eliminate some of these bad actors, dubbing them Made for Advertising (MFA) sites: publishers that aren’t outright fraud or hate speech, but aren’t what most advertisers would consider legitimate either.

But some industry sources told Adweek they are unsure whether these efforts will actually help the intractable problem of advertiser spend wasted on low quality publishers. And then there’s the risk of only making matters worse.

An Association of National Advertisers (ANA) study published in June found that 15% of ad spend went toward MFA sites, kicking off the industry focus on the issue. Subsequently, supply-side platforms have removed the sites from their private marketplaces, and the world’s largest media buyer GroupM said it would limit its purchase of ads on MFA sites.

These efforts have most recently culminated in a definition of MFA websites created by four industry trade bodies—the ANA, the 4A’s, the World Federation of Advertisers and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers—in consultation with two programmatic experts: Chris Kane of Jounce Media and Rocky Moss of DeepSee.io.

The new definition gives five criteria for MFA websites:

• A high ad-to-content ratio
• Rapidly auto-refreshing ad placements
• A high percentage of paid traffic sourcing
• Generic and non-unique content
• Poorly designed websites

Industry sources who spoke to Adweek said that while the definition is a great step toward identifying and potentially eliminating low quality inventory, there is a risk that the efforts to standardize MFAs will just mean bad actors shapeshift to avoid detection. Meanwhile, quality publishers could get dinged.

“The problem is not that people care about MFA, because they definitely should,” said an ad-tech source who asked not to be identified to protect industry relations. “Creating some threshold with some arbitrary rules will have a lot of unintended consequences.”

The critique speaks to the difficult nature of creating reform in programmatic, where misaligned incentives, complicated technology and a lack of transparency allow problems to persist.

A definition that’s too narrow?

Made for advertising sites generally have highly viewable ad placements that programmatic algorithms favor. That’s partly because they’re designed for the viewability standard, which was devised nearly 10 years ago to root out another unscrupulous ad practice: stuffing ads in places users couldn’t see.

“Metrics create incentives,” the source said. “One of the reasons the web is so cluttered today is because the incentives that viewability created.” The idea is that viewability may have fixed the problem of below-the-fold placements, but created other challenges like webpages loaded with ads.

Some worry bad actors would also game any standardized version of MFA sites. For example, the current definition suggests a high ad-to-content ratio could be greater than 30%—sites could start piling their pages with ads such that the ratio grows to 29%, just shy of the level that would be a violation, the source continued.

Made for advertising sites are always adapting to avoid detection. The top 150 MFA sites didn’t exist even just a few months ago, Jounce’s Kane told AdExchanger.

A definition too broad?

A narrow definition of made for advertising might make it too easy for bad actors to avoid enforcement, but a definition that’s too broad might put legitimate publishers in the crosshairs of MFA-wary ad buyers.

Sources said many publishers are guilty of violating at least one of the definition’s MFA criteria. ANA president Bill Duggan told Digiday that a publisher would likely need to meet at least three of these criteria to be considered MFA.  

“Publishers are trying really hard to make ends meet in a very challenging economic climate,” said Jeremy Gan, svp of revenue operations and data strategy at the Daily Mail, who emphasized that defining MFA was largely a good thing that would help premium publishers. “We vilify MFA and publishers doing the wrong thing but, conversely, when publishers do the right thing we don’t talk about it enough.”

Kane told Adweek the definition was designed to not be overly punitive to publishers.

“There is a real risk that buyers are embarking on an MFA witch hunt that winds up harming reputable publishers,” Kane said. “We’re trying to be thoughtful about this and avoid the temptation to work off anecdotes.”

And even if the new MFA definition will be gamed by some publishers, that doesn’t mean it won’t improve the programmatic ecosystem as a whole.

“This is the constant battle of any ecosystem. You work to stamp out fraud, and it doesn’t mean you make it impossible,” said Curt Larson, chief product officer of SSP Sharethrough. “You keep raising the bar that keeps the level of fraud down.”