In this weekly segment, ExchangeWire sums up key industry updates on ad tech from around the Asia-Pacific region – and in this edition: Australia ad tech industry wants more accountability; Twitter Ads now available to more APAC SMBs; and WWE & Exponential sign multi-year APAC deal.

Australia ad tech industry wants more accountability

Marketers in Australia are calling for better brand safety, ad fraud detection, and viewability, according to IAB Australia's State of the Market: Marketing & Advertising Technology report, which polled almost 200 respondents.

However, the online survey found that 48% of agencies in the country were not tapping brand safety technology, while 52% of publishers were not using ad fraud detection tools. Some 76% were using ad viewability tracking technology.

Commissioned by IAB Australia, the study further revealed that most respondents intended to use attribution modelling, data visualisation, and content personalisation technologies within the next six months.

Some 15% of marketers planned to use mobile analytics or marketing tools this year, while 10% of marketers and agencies would tap video analytics. Some 29% of publishers said they would use attribution modelling.

IAB Australia CEO Alice Manners said: "As more and more consumers are using mobile and engaging with online video, marketers and advertisers are acknowledging they need to better analyse and use a range of tools to understand and serve their customers.

"The industry has expressed a clear hunger for greater accountability and a growing sophistication in their needs, so we will continue to work towards supporting their needs."

New ad specs for HTML5

Separately, IAB Australia also revealed its standards and guidelines council would soon publish new ad specifications around Flash support on web browsers. These would supersede existing HTML5 guidelines that were published in 2013.

With the changes, Adwords would no longer serve Flash ads on Google's Chrome browser. While Flash ads running on third-party ad server would continue to serve on Chrome, these would see reduced click-through rates since online users would have to click twice to view the ad.

Manners said: "As an industry, we need to be nimble and work to the strengths of modern browsers, so our council has focused considerable attention on refining and updating our Creative Ad Guidelines to assist marketers and advertisers.

"These guidelines are the first step in the industry transitioning process to HTML5 and address a few key issues, including larger base file weights to accommodate increased ad payload requirements, acknowledgment that material will be developed by creative teams rather than fully qualified front-end developers, and outlining distinctions between creative specific JavaScript/CSS and common libraries that power ads," she said.

Twitter Ads now available to more APAC SMBs

The self-service ads platform has expanded into more than 200 markets to now include Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, and the Philippines.

Targeted for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), Twitter Ads is available in 15 languages and is touted to help "level the playing field" for smaller companies in digital advertising.

The microblogging service said SMBs accounted for 98% of Asia's enterprise community, quoting stats from Asian Development Bank, but faced the most challenges and had the least resources to promote their services.

Twitter said its platform currently had some 100,000 active advertisers, including SMBs, and more than 316 million active users globally.

WWE & Exponential sign multi-year APAC deal

Exponential Interactive has signed a three-year, exclusive partnership agreement to deliver desktop and mobile online ads on WWE.com for customers across seven Asia-Pacific markets, including Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Under the partnership, advertisers will gain access to WWE's rich-media, video, and standard display ad inventory and reach the media outlet's users in the region.

Chris Marsh, WWE's Asia-Pacific general manager, said: "Through Exponential's solutions, digital advertisers in the region will now have the opportunity to engage with our fans in a large-scale manner, giving WWE the opportunity to generate incremental revenue."