How Publishers Use SPO to Cut Carbon Emissions, With an Eye on Growing Revenue

“Publishers should look who they’re working with,” said Mike Racic, president of publisher organization Prebid, when asked what publishers can do to make an immediate impact on their carbon footprint.

“Every publisher is working with too many resellers … If you start there, you’re going to get more efficient,” he added. “You’re going to see less fraud, 100% higher viewability rates, and I think you’re going to see an uptick in CPMs because you’re starting to control the narrative of your inventory to the open market as well as [private marketplaces].”

SPO initiatives are in vogue as the programmatic ecosystem shifts from a more-demand-is-better mindset to one emphasizing premium user experiences. Some supply-side platforms have recently faced economic distress as they struggle to adapt to this new reality.

A supply path that is shorter and involves fewer tech partners should result in fewer carbon emissions.

Insider is one publisher already experiencing this. It recently worked with media decarbonization firm Scope3 to assess its Ads.Txt files to look at the resellers and partners generating revenue, according to Chao Liao, svp of revenue operations and data strategy at Insider Advertising. In so doing, Insider reduced its carbon emissions by 20% in the first quarter of 2021.

Supply path optimization can help the advertising industry make strides toward media decarbonization, but the initiative is still relatively new and has many unknowns. There is no common metric for publishers and advertisers to measure their carbon impact, as industry trade bodies, holding groups and new ventures deliberate on standards.

And there is still a lack of industry knowledge. Fewer than five out of 100 requests for proposals recently received by demand-side platform Adform had any mention of sustainability whatsoever, said Joseph Dressler, vp of sales, America at Adform, at the event.

Navigating questions around carbon offsets and how to SPO

While publishers agree that SPO goals and sustainability goals can align, there is less agreement on the optimal way to improve supply paths.

Publishers have to choose how soon they want to cut ad-tech partners not delivering results versus working with partners to help them better meet their needs.

“Specifically for the green initiative, our strategy has been to optimize our partnerships instead of cutting partners,” Liao said. “For overall SPO, we actively evaluate partner performance, and we would terminate partnerships due to performance issues.”

Another choice for publishers (and advertisers) is how they’ll use carbon offsets in their media plans, an area that has caused confusion in the market since not all offsets are created equal.

While Insider parent Axel Springer is purchasing offsets to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2024, the company is not buying these offsets on a campaign basis, Liao said.

Publishers and advertisers can work with firms to buy carbon offsets that correspond to their emissions in a particular programmatic campaign, but this can come at a per-CPM cost for both advertisers and publishers.

“It seems to be another tech tax,” Liao said.

Growing publisher revenue is not immediate

And while there is emerging evidence that supply path optimization can benefit sustainability, publishers are still gathering evidence that it will improve their bottom lines.

While culling ad-tech partners has had no positive—or negative—impact on revenue for Insider, yet, Liao said he sees promise in faster-loading webpages that bring in more readers and the ability to package green inventory at a premium to attract higher-CPM deals with eco-conscious buyers. But these benefits are still somewhat theoretical.

“Negative effects would be immediate,” Liao said. “Positive effects would not.”

In fact, sustainability efforts could have negative effects on publishers. Fewer ads on a page generate fewer emissions but potentially earn a publisher less revenue. A growing media decarbonization strategy on the buy side is to stop buying from publishers that are high carbon emitters.

But publishers should be more likely to survive sustainability initiatives because they bring audiences to marketers, especially when compared to ad-tech vendors that solely exist to generate demand, Jon Schulz, chief marketing officer at DSP Viant, told Adweek.

“Publishers stand to gain,” said Schulz, “It’s really people that sit between the publishers and the buyers, the aggregators and the resellers [that are at risk]. My contention is if you’re adding value, you’re fine.”