Sizmek Fortifies Transparency and Brand Safety Standards

Sizmek Fortifies Transparency and Brand Safety Standards for Better AI-Enabled Ad Performance

Sudipto Ghosh

January 4, 2018

Latest Move Reinforces Sizmek’s On-Going Commitment to Empower Agencies and Advertisers With Greater Transparency, Control, and Superior Ad Performance

Leading DSP provider, Sizmek has announced it will now offer full transparency across its AI-enabled platform. The decision is designed to empower and differentiate agencies and advertisers with increased visibility, control and performance over their media planning and buying. Currently, Sizmek is ranked as a leading independent buy-side advertising platform delivering impressions that inspire. The fortification of brand safety standards to deliver better ad performance and transparency comes on the heels of Sizmek’s recent acquisition of Rocket Fuel.

In 2017, trust/transparency had emerged as a major challenge for the brands and advertisers. Now, media buyers demand greater insight into where their dollars are going and the ROI associated with their investments into media inventories, especially if it’s programamtic inventory. 90% of advertisers review programmatic ad contracts specifically seeking out the providers who offer greater transparency — and this demand isn’t going to reduce in 2018.

By combining Sizmek’s powerful AI-enabled media recommendations with greater control and transparency, agencies and advertisers no longer need to compromise campaign performance for visibility into true campaign cost.

At the time of this announcement, Mark Grether, CEO of Sizmek, said, “The industry has spoken and Sizmek has listened and reacted. Agencies and advertisers are demanding greater visibility and control. They want their partners to move away from black box practices which hide true campaign costs and weaken confidence that media investments impact results.”

A recent study from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) found that 90% of advertisers review programmatic ad contracts specifically looking for providers who offer greater transparency. The study further revealed by offering greater transparency into the fully loaded cost of a media plan, agencies felt they could better evaluate and communicate ROI to their clients.

Recommended Read: TechBytes with Dr. Mark Grether, CEO, Sizmek

Grether added, “There’s no question that agencies and advertisers value AI-driven insights, but they want full visibility in the process. That’s why we’ve decided to lead the industry with AI-powered recommendations for traders and AI-powered optimization across the entire media plan offered with full transparency.”

Sizmek is offering transparent pricing across its media, creative, data, technology, and service related costs. This move will help agencies and advertisers to gain a clearer understanding of AI-driven campaign performance and cost. Further, Sizmek expects that the new platform would help set up a more contemporary standard in an industry often criticized for its hidden pricing and selective access to campaign insights.

In the past, agencies and advertisers were forced to make difficult trade-offs between transparency, control, and performance. Concerns about limited visibility into campaign pricing and ease of data access were cast aside in favor of the enhanced performance automated solutions afforded. Agencies either chose to work with non-transparent providers who delivered impressive results or working with more transparent providers offering lesser results.

Andrew Casale, President & CEO at Index Exchange, said, “With an increased emphasis on trust and transparency in our industry, having a clear view of overall costs drives confidence and demand. Every piece of the ecosystem has a role to play in ensuring transparency is the standard, and we’re proud to partner with Sizmek to help raise the programmatic
bar together.”

It’s never been easy for agencies and advertisers to strike the right balance between the control they need, knowing what their true costs are, and getting big results. Sizmek is changing that—they’re making it easier for agencies to understand, use and benefit from AI to make better, more informed media decisions.

Currently, Sizmek is the world’s largest independent buy-side advertising platform that creates impressions that inspire. In the digital world, creating impressions that inspire is vital to fostering relationships of trust with agencies and brand as well as building meaningful, long-lasting relationships with customers.

Sizmek provides powerful, integrated solutions that enable data, creative, and media to work together for optimal campaign performance across the entire customer journey. Our AI-driven decisioning engine can identify robust insights within data across the five key dimensions of predictive marketing—campaigns, consumers, context, creative, and cost.