Adalytics

Adalytics is happy to see our research on Made for Advertising (MFA) sites recognized as one of AdExchanger's most-read stories of the year. While we focus on delivering actionable insights and optimizations for our brand clients, we also take pride in our public interest work, which has directly helped many brands mitigate waste and improve transparency. Thank you to AdExchanger, James Hercher, and Sarah Sluis for covering this piece of research. Our findings in 2024 highlighted that, despite commitments from media agencies and SSPs to reduce MFA inventory in 2023, many continued transacting on these sites. While research like ours has driven improvements in the ecosystem, we strongly believe no brand should be subject to MFA delivery. This remains an ongoing issue, and we believe it warrants further public discussion in 2025. To help advance that dialogue, we’ll be publishing another MFA transparency report in 2025 to highlight how this issue continues to impact the programmatic ecosystem. It’s worth considering whether some agencies—including, potentially, Principal Media buying arms—are still transacting MFA inventory on behalf of brands. We look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue through our public interest work around this topic in the new year ahead.

Adalytics applauds the U.S. Department of Justice National Security Division’s finalized rule on protecting Americans’ bulk sensitive personal data and data on U.S. Government activities and personnel. Adalytics previously worked with the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the United States Senate Committee on Finance to identify a serious data leakage by a major technology company that was exposing meta-data about NATO-countries' citizens to a Kremlin-controlled Russian data broker sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). This threat intelligence research was covered by Craig Silverman and ProPublica. Adalytics’ cyber threat intelligence work and the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's actions helped cease this leakage of sensitive personal meta-data to the OFAC sanctioned Russian data broker. Adalytics is committed to safeguarding US national security and Americans' sensitive personal data. Read more about Adalytics' work to protect US national security here: https://lnkd.in/e3FuxjN8 (ProPublica) #nationalsecurity #homelandsecurity #sanctions #OFAC #threatintelligence #cybersecurity #adalytics

How Transparency Empowers Advertisers to Drive Accountability At Adalytics, we aim to equip advertisers with the insights they need to make informed decisions and hold their partners accountable. Recently, a leading brand leveraged findings from one of our reports to uncover a significant media delivery issue. After reviewing screenshots and analysis in our brand safety technology report, including one of their ads appearing on a page related to abusive content, the advertiser discovered that what was promised as a curated premium media package had instead been delivered as a run-of-network inventory. This underscores the importance of not assuming curation works as intended but verifying it through independent checks. Armed with this information, they approached their supply partner and secured a substantial make-good credit for the erroneous delivery. This case highlights the value of independent reporting in empowering advertisers to identify and address discrepancies on their own. By providing transparency and actionable insights, we enable brands to maximize the value of their media investments while fostering greater accountability across the ecosystem. We’re proud to support the advertiser community in their pursuit of media quality and transparency.

We’re honored to be recognized by Ad Age as one of the most impactful ad tech stories of the year. As the leading technology company driving actionable insights, transparency, and optimization for the world’s largest brands—and helping defend the United States against foreign surveillance and cyber threats. Our research into Made for Advertising (MFA) sites—including the initial report on the prevalence of MFA followed by research uncovering a hidden MFA operation on Forbes, published in collaboration with the Wall Street Journal (Patience Haggin)—highlighted that MFA schemes continue to evolve. These schemes are no longer limited to obscure, longtail publishers but are increasingly being implemented across platforms and publishers traditionally considered premium. What many don’t see is the work we do behind the scenes. This year, our unpublished efforts led to another tier-one premium publisher quietly shutting down their MFA operation. It’s a testament to how far Adalytics goes to defend brands—fighting without publicity or thanks to protect marketers and the broader digital ecosystem from exploitative practices. This is a complex and persistent challenge for the programmatic ecosystem, and Adalytics remains committed to helping marketers navigate it. Looking ahead to 2025, we’ll be revisiting the evolving MFA landscape with updated research and findings. Marketers, stay tuned. Thank you to Ad Age for the recognition, and to our partners and clients for trusting us to help make digital advertising more transparent, secure, and effective. And thank you to all the reporters who have covered our work over the past year. Jack Neff James Hercher Kendra Barnett Ronan Shields Marty Swant Jessica Heygate Catherine Perloff Tim Cross-Kovoor Link in comments below.

If you’ve ever wondered why frequency caps don’t seem to work, Adalytics CEO Krzystof Franaszek explains it perfectly in a recent Ad Age article by Jack Neff: “It can be difficult for a media buying platform to de-duplicate bid requests arriving at the same time and/or to synchronize the media buying platform’s user and ad frequency databases. This problem can be compounded in situations where a very large number of intermediaries are representing the same ad inventory and consumer to media buying platforms at the same time. Selective participation in ad auctions can help reduce the scale of this problem for media buying platforms.” High ad frequency isn’t just an accident—it’s often baked into the system. Programmatic marketplaces, auction duplication, and fragmented identity tracking all contribute to poor frequency management. For marketers, this underscores the importance of inventory curation to ensure your campaigns are efficient and effective. At Adalytics, we work to demystify these challenges and help brands navigate the complexities of frequency management to optimize their media investments. Check out the full article in the comments for insights into why frequency capping often falls short and what you can do about it.

Exciting news for advertisers! Ad Age today covered Google's significant update that new Search and Performance Max advertisers will now be automatically opted out of parked domains starting in October. This shift comes after Adalytics report in November 2023, which highlighted that 58% of known Google Search Partner (GSP) sites were parked domains—many with questionable value. Here's the full quote from our founder Krzysztof Franaszek to Ad Age in response to this latest move: “Adalytics applauds Google for taking yet another important step to improve the quality and transparency of the media buying experience. After publishing our report in November 2023, which identified that 58% of known GSP sites were parked domains, we're pleased to see Google continue its commitment to addressing these concerns. In December 2023, Google allowed brands to opt out of GSP placements in PMax campaigns, followed by increased transparency into GSP site placements in March 2024. Now, by making parked domains opt-in rather than opt-out as of October 2024, Google has empowered advertisers with more control over their campaigns, ensuring more effective media placements. It matters little how these concerns were brought to Google’s attention—the important thing is that they are responding to advertiser issues raised by us and others. We applaud Google for using criticism to improve its products and for taking meaningful steps to enhance the advertising ecosystem for everyone involved.” This change gives advertisers more control over their media spend, ensuring better targeting and reducing exposure to low-quality placements.

At Adalytics, we believe that true brand safety goes beyond just domain-level monitoring & that sophisticated media buyers need URL-level transparency. With our in-ad measurement pixel, we provide clients with full URL-level transparency, ensuring they know exactly where their media is being delivered. As the industry calls for more precise and comprehensive media insights, we're proud to lead the charge, offering unparalleled visibility into page-level content. This capability empowers marketers to make informed decisions and align their media with their brand's values.

Mark your calendars for September 25th, 12:05 PM - 12:30 PM at AdExchanger Programmatic I/O in New York City! Adalytics Founder, Krzysztof Franaszek, will be taking the stage to share insights on one of the hottest topics in programmatic advertising: "Why You’re Probably Doing SPO Wrong – And How To Fix It." If you're looking to truly optimize your media buying and avoid common pitfalls in supply-path optimization (SPO), this is a session you can't afford to miss. Krzysztof will uncover the mistakes that can derail even the best SPO strategies and offer actionable solutions to get it right. Join us to learn how to navigate the complexities of SPO and make your media buying more efficient and profitable!

🌟 Adalytics Joins the AdExchanger Programmatic Power Players 50! 🌟 We're excited to announce that Adalytics has been named to the AdExchanger Programmatic Power Players list. Our inclusion on this list validates our commitment to delivering advanced ad verification and optimization solutions. With over $1 billion USD in media spend under audit. It reflects the trust and adoption of our technology by the world's leading Fortune 500 brands. Thank you to our team, clients, and Ad Exchanger for this incredible honor. We look forward to continuing our work advancing the industry and protecting brand clients.

Adalytics is pioneering domain spoofing detection capabilities for Fortune 500 brands! We are the premier analytics partner to uncover industry news-making instances of domain spoofing multiple times over. Our methodology combines in ad measurement pixels with log file analysis to validate every impression across the media supply chain from multiple measurement points. If you'd like to learn more or would like a demo of these capabilities. Please reach out through our contact page found below. https://lnkd.in/e_EjZPVP