Since 2014, DigiTrust have been encouraging publishers and ad tech platforms to get involved and become part of an industry measurement revolution. Infectious Media, an early member, recently held a forum to outline the benefits of DigiTrust to the end-users, the industry and, more specifically, the publishers. ExchangeWire speak with Dan Larden (pictured below), global strategic partnerships director, Infectious Media, about DigiTrust and the key takeaways from the forum.

ExchangeWire: Infectious Media recently hosted a DigiTrust Publisher Forum – for those who are unaware, what is DigiTrust?

Dan Larden: DigiTrust is a not-for-profit, industry-wide collaboration of companies, which includes Infectious Media, that is working to build and support technology solutions that can improve the digital experience for consumers, publishers, advertisers, and ad tech companies. In particular, we are pushing to implement a standard ID for web users, to make the bidding process much simpler for advertisers and improve the experience for users by avoiding the slower page-load times that multiple user IDs create.

How did Infectious Media become involved with DigiTrust?

Whilst we weren’t part of the original group of companies that launched DigiTrust, we’ve always believed in what they're trying to achieve. Since joining in 2014, we’ve taken the lead in flying the flag for DigiTrust here in Europe. We believe the opportunity is just as big, if not bigger, this side of the Atlantic. The UK ad tech market, for example, is a close-knit community, predominantly found within the same square mile in the heart of London. It’s the perfect environment for the kind of collaboration DigiTrust require for it to really take off.

The forum contained a panel, discussing how publishers can benefit from cross-industry collaboration – what were the key takeaways?

Dan Larden, Global Strategic Partnerships Director, Infectious Media

The most important takeaway for me was the point we ended on; which was that publishers recognise that DigiTrust is greatly needed and we’re now reaching a tipping point for its adoption. Publishers are learning that they need to put their faith in broader industry alliances in order to help improve the overall health of the media and advertising ecosystem.

Another important discussion was on the need to level the playing field for publishers struggling to compete with Google and Facebook. DigiTrust, and the standard ID, essentially allow members to pool resources and achieve the kind of scale that the big platforms and walled gardens have attained, albeit in a much more open and collaborative way. It’s allowing publishers to compete in a way they’ve not been able to do on their own.

How do you think DigiTrust will change advertising?

The most important thing DigiTrust is doing is helping to create a more transparent and open relationship between advertisers and consumers. A key part of this is the clear guidelines the organisation is laying down around consumer opt-outs for sharing data with advertisers.

​​The problem with opt-outs is that most people don’t really understand what they mean – what information they’re being asked to share or how it’s going to be used, etc. The simple reason for that is it’s seldom properly explained to them; and even if they do opt-out of one company or publisher, there are hundreds of others that are disconnected from that decision. Through DigiTrust, however, users will have much more of a chance to be clear about what they are opting into and out of, and why. It will build up more trust by explaining exactly what the tradeoff is and, crucially, why it’s so important to get free content. It both improves the r​relationship and helps to educate the user on how a free internet is funded.

What needs to happen for the industry to see wide-scale adoption of DigiTrust?

Getting more publishers on board is essential and it’s true that uptake on that side hasn’t been as quick as we’d hoped. The media world is one with old rivalries and intense competition; so we’ve had to work hard to help change attitudes and raise awareness of the benefits of greater collaboration. We’re now seeing very positive signs that this is helping to make a difference.

Equally, more ad tech companies will need to sign up. DigiTrust is a sign that we’re maturing as an industry. We’ve gone through the VC funding, the rapid staff growth, the tech evolution, and it’s all been fun. But now we need to take a step back and accept responsibility for our role in powering the internet. Ad tech companies drive 50% of the ads online – potentially more, if you believe the figures that programmatic claims. We need to come together to be more responsible, asking ourselves how we can make this work and how we can make it better. We can only do this by having very open, collaborative conversations across our sector.

With more publishers and ad tech firms on board, we can then take DigiTrust to the next stage, which is making it a truly global effort. We’ll need to have a committed DigiTrust team in order to make that happen, and I’m not just talking about volunteers. It will require dedicated tech staff, software engineers, and talented people to run the business, plus regulatory experts to cover policy and speak to publishers and privacy teams to ensure global cohesion.

This was Infectious Media’s first educational event focused on publishers – what has their reaction been to DigiTrust?

The initial response has been extremely positive, but publishers still have concerns. A number of them have been asking questions like: “Why do I need more technology to solve tracking problems?” And: “How can we deploy one solution across multiple platforms?" Many struggle to understand why they should invest in yet another technology solution, when there are so many out there already. What makes DigiTrust different to other solutions is that it’s a cross-industry initiative – it’s being built by people who understand this space, designed by people who have no other interest than making it better.

To help break down these concerns, DigiTrust are setting up technical working groups which will be attended by senior product executives from across the ad tech industry to answer publishers’ questions directly. The idea is to enforce the fact that that this will become an open-source solution that anyone can test and contribute to, as well as move the product forward so it suits the largest population of users and is as easy to implement as possible.

What other events do you have planned to help champion the European effort to drive DigiTrust forward this year?

There are a few events in the pipeline; and all partners are going to help where they can to host talks and working groups throughout the year – I believe SpotX are hosting the next session. What's clear is that it's time to drive the conversation forward and, especially with the impending GDPR regulations coming into place next year, it is time to open the doors of all our partners and competitors alike and encourage further discussions across the industry.