Building Programmatic Trust with TRUSTX. An Interview with David Kohl

David Kohl, President and CEO, TRUSTX, has been working on issues like fraud and lack of transparency in programmatic since 2013. As a consultant, “a major media industry trade organization engaged my firm to evaluate and quantify the impact of these issues on their members,” he explained. “I gained a first-hand perspective on these critical challenges and saw a lack of urgency among many in the ad tech side of the business to address what was clearly a growing industry problem. It was then that I realized it was time for me to set out and take on this problem in a more active way.”

Kohl noted that “The complex programmatic supply-chain – originally created to make digital advertising more efficient – instead has made it harder for digital advertising to be effective.”

Charlene Weisler: How did TRUSTX get started and what is it?

David Kohl: I proposed the concept of TRUSTX to industry trade leaders, recognizing the importance of cooperation if we were going to make a positive impact. In September 2016, TRUSTX launched as a collaboration between the publisher trade organization, Digital Content Next, 30 of its members – all premium, professional content publishers – and some of the smartest ad tech software engineers in the industry.

TRUSTX is a purpose-driven programmatic marketplace singularly focused on restoring trust, transparency, and safety to digital media. We are a public benefit corporation (B-Corp) wholly-owned by the premium publisher trade association, Digital Content Next. This corporate structure enables us to go to market as a non-profit, with a mission to restore the promise of value to advertisers and their agencies, and to our exclusive membership of professional news, sports and entertainment publishing companies. We are the only purpose-driven technology company in programmatic media.

Weisler: What do you mean by purpose-driven.

Kohl: Good branding is about purpose and understanding your place in the world:  Why do you exist?  How do you change the world for the better?  What is the true impact you have on customers?  Leading companies are making purpose-driven business decisions around the things like the sustainability of natural resources and advocacy for equality, because it is core to their values and beliefs. 

In digital advertising, it seems that we’ve lost our values, or our sense of purpose. Low price, rather than quality, has been driving many decisions. But there is a high cost to that low cost of media: fraud, hidden fees, murky business practices.  Particularly in the last few years, we have let technology lead and we’ve lost not just control and oversight, but also a commitment to a baseline set of values in how we trade media and hold partners accountable.

Weisler: Who are you are your direct competitors?

Kohl: While we compete with other SSPs when it comes to supply choice, we do not have a direct competitor in how we enable 100% viewability across our premium marketplace. Unlike the major SSPs, we have a real-time viewability capability that pre-certifies an impression before it’s billed. Our methodology enables us to guarantee viewability on every individual impression. No averages. No samples. No questions of which impressions were and or were not seen by humans. Our approach ensures the cleanest, most effective path to quality inventory, and it has two clear benefits:

·         For brands, we not only eliminate any media costs for non-viewable inventory, our approach reduces buy-side technology and data costs, which results in higher media buying power on every dollar spent. 

·         Since we measure viewability on every impression, buyers benefit from real-time pacing to human and viewable inventory. This eliminates the time and resources normally spent reconciling impressions and managing makegoods.

Weisler: What are the areas of Programmatic that are untrustworthy? How does your company improve this and increase trust?

Kohl: Opaque trading practices, high fraud rates, low viewability and a general lack of accountability are big flaws that have given programmatic advertising a bad name. With TRUSTX, an impression must be certified as human and viewable in accordance with MRC standards before an advertiser is charged. The approach ensures that there is no waste. Buyers also experience 100% transparency down the publisher URL, along with 100% financial transparency from bid to delivery, reporting and billing.

Weisler: Please explain the sales process from planning to stewardship.

Kohl: At a tactical level, we try to educate our clients and prospects on what 100% human and viewable inventory can do for their campaigns. With average viewability at around 50% on most exchanges, that means that only half of the impressions in a campaign are seen; the other half are wasted.  

Spending time on comparative CPMs is important. The ability for TRUSTX to deliver 100% certified human and viewable campaigns may look more expensive at first, but once buyers understand the apples-to-apples comparison and see the results on branding or sales, they realize how cost effective we actually are.

After a campaign is live with TRUSTX, we monitor the campaign and offer bid reporting, insights on placement optimization and guidance on publisher supply.  Additionally, we offer our clients Media Buying Power scorecards and summary reviews that help them understand the full value of their media investments. Several clients have taken advantage of our transparency promise to execute custom studies, knowing we’ll provide both buyers and sellers with granular, transparent reporting. 

Weisler: What does the future hold?

Kohl : In the next five years, we anticipate the media supply chain to transform dramatically, with more control in the hands of buyers and sellers. TRUSTX intends to be how buyers engage with premium publishers in the evolving programmatic ecosystem.

This article first appeared in Mediapost