Agencies Face Fresh Ad Buying Challenges
Even as agencies expand into consulting, they’re being challenged to do a better job at their core business of buying media. Third-party measurement of “walled garden” audiences from Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter has been one sore point. Another is preventing ads from running on offensive Web sites, in particular those owned by extremist groups that are effectively being funded by the ad revenues. Programmatic buying is the culprit, since ads are placed with a human deciding where they’ll be seen. Better technology to identify offensive sites will probably be the answer but it won’t be adopted without pressure from advertisers — which is starting to appear.