I hope you are having a prosperous, and profitable, New Year. Recently, I read an interesting post written by Jay Friedman on iMedia Connection and felt compelled to offer my two cents on the subject. In his post, Jay invites agencies and ad network providers to volunteer full disclosure to their advertising partners on the placement and performance of their ads. Well, d’uh. Full disclosure so you know what you are getting when you place a big media buy? Why is that so controversial? Well, it’s because ad networks have made it that way. They have created these ad exchanges with publishers to purchase remnant inventory and now that advertisers know they can purchase them and get placement on premium sites without buying it directly from the premium site, content publishers suddenly hate ad networks.

Ad networks make a great villain in the online advertising space. Some of it warranted. Ad networks created a way for advertisers to purchase ad impressions at a cheap rate with the blind faith that they were reaching their targeted audience on reputable sites. As the ad networks grew, the blind network became a risk the advertisers had to manage. In addition to getting lucky and getting your ads placed on premium sites; advertisers also discovered their ads were running on questionable sites. Reaching failblog.org audiences may be appropriate for some retail clients, but probably not where American Express should see their ads.

So, ad networks became the villain; the scary out of control “outlet mall” of advertising. As a group of former publishers we created ad channels for our clients with full disclosure from day one. We have never built a “blind ad network” for any of our clients. We negotiate pricing at a fair rate and we believe you get what you pay for.

If you only want impressions for your client, buy remnant and rock bottom ad impressions from any number of ad networks. If you want to know that your ads are reaching their intended audience, are on reputable premium content websites and are above the fold and not buried in unsold inventory, contact us for a full site list of where we will place online ads.

We whole-heartedly endorse the policy proposed by Mr. Friedman. In fact, most of what was suggested, is a part of the standard service we provide for all our clients.

At Broad Street Interactive you have a right to know on what sites and where on those sites your ads appear, you have a right to be protected from unfair or ineffective placement practices and only have your ads appear on an approved site list in premium placements.

Our policy of full disclosure and accountability is an integral part of how we ensure positive, long-term relationships and trust with our client partners. Being completely transparent is how we demonstrate the efficacy of our ad distribution channels and provide real ROI for what is the most measurable and effective form of advertising.

If you are working with an ad network that won’t provide you with a full site list and consult with you on where your ads should and will be running, then you should call us right away.