Agencies, technology providers and media owners have to take responsibility for the user experiences that they create. These organisations must strike a balance between generating income that enables free access to online content and not frustrating users such that it changes their perceptions and behaviours. We were the first independent agency to be awarded IAB Gold in 2018 and since then the number of accredited organisations has exploded.
Even before the IAB Gold accreditation was launched last year, The Kite Factory didn’t use formats that annoyed users: instead of promoting our client’s brands, we felt it would create negative brand perception. Studies have shown that people prefer ads that are tailored to their interests or needs; they view them even more favourably when formats blend seamlessly into the user experience.
We have always had a mentality of spending our client’s money as if it was our own. No testing for testing sake or pushing new innovations if they aren’t appropriate for the brief. We use market leading audience tools combined with advanced data analysis to determine the media mix and final budget distribution, so we want to make sure we are showing our ads to real people. Ad fraud and brand safety concerns have rocked confidence in digital media in recent years, especially for programmatic, by pushing partners to implement best practices such as ads.txt we can close some of the loophole’s criminals are exploiting. As an agency we are also proactive in this space, utilising MRC accredited technology in IAS and MOAT for pre and post bid analysis, blacklisting sites with brand safety concerns or high invalid traffic.
We are proud to have been awarded the IAB Gold Standard & JICWEBS accreditations for a second consecutive year, but as technology advances quicker than ever we know the hard work to maintain standards will continue.