As I was thinking about how we (Centro) can help publishers solidify the quality of inventory, I came across a story on the IAB’s task force to guard against non-human traffic and fictitious publishers. It’s clear that there are market concerns over the legitimacy and value of the inventory that brand marketers are purchasing. Advertisers are getting more digitally savvy, and as they increase their digital budgets, they’re itching for more guarantees and more accountability. Now, the process of standardizing metrics and guaranteeing viewable impressions may not eradicate the bots, but it certainly is a start.

Eric Franchi of Undertone wrote in AdExchanger recently that companies in the space should take the viewability debate seriously, suggesting that it’s only a matter of time until the viewable impression becomes standard. Franchi suggested that publishers should begin to “work with vendors who can help you understand your universe of inventory, make an effort to educate both internally and externally, and create a roadmap for the eventual viewable impression standard.” I could not agree more. I would argue that publishers willing to put the work in now will position themselves far ahead of their counterparts when the day of standardization finally arrives. The early bird gets the worm, if you will.  Publishers should be working closely with the technology companies available to test and better understand their inventory. There are several sound vendors out there — comScore, DoubleVerify, RealVu, C3Metrics, to name just a few.

That said, publishers can and should be doing more than just testing. They should be looking at ways to better optimize their sites to increase their percentage of viewable inventory. eMarketer put out an article, “Viewability Metric Favors Persistent Rich Media Formats,” that explored the impact of rich media formats and the research suggested that they tend to be the most viewable. However, running more rich media units isn’t the only option.

Centro has a lot of energy surrounding this topic. In speaking with a colleague, Centro Brand Exchange VP of Operations Jennifer Schaen, her advice was that we “should be encouraging our partners to start thinking about and planning for site optimization. It will only put them in a favorable position as it relates to viewable impressions.” So let’s put our “guaranteed viewability” thinking caps on. With the right mix of testing and innovation, publishers can take control and actually create more viewable inventory.

Viewability Through Site Design

In early 2012, Yahoo launched a visualization tool that offers insights from their C.O.R.E. (Content Optimization and Relevance Engine) algorithm. Based on this tool, content is selected for display on Yahoo properties (how stories should be ordered, dependent on each user, etc.). It’s genius, but it’s not just for portals!

Look at the philly.com site redesign. By learning about the viewing trends of their audience, they revamped their website based on a similar content optimization model. Depending on the time of day, the content modules will shift to support the type of content their audience is most hungry for in that given time period. Imagine the impact this will have on their ability to garner viewable impressions. I suspect that by shifting the content based on user preferences and trends of their consumption, sites will see an increase in the percentage of viewable inventory on their site. This kind of site redesign will likely lead to an increase in CPMs and revenue share.

Even the naysayers believe the viewability debate is an important one. On Econsultancy.com, Doug Conely of Exponential suggests that viewability isn’t where it should be from a standardization perspective and that the industry is not ready to officially coin guaranteed viewability as a metric. However, he adds, “The more we can use this to encourage publisher partners to create web experiences with fewer ads with richer creative options that are more likely to be seen and the more we encourage advertisers to value that then the better the web will be for publishers, advertisers and consumers alike.”

Well, isn’t that grand? What better way to service clients than to do so in a way that benefits us (the publishers) and the clients’ clients (the consumers) at the same time! I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Recently, Centro was named the Best Place to Work in Chicago, according to business

publication Crain’s for the third year in a row. As much as we’d like to credit our freebies (yoga, food, etc.) and great health benefits for helping us attain this award, there are factors at our core that drive the happiness in our employees across the U.S. These are simple ideas that, when put into action, return incredible results.

Centro hires responsible adults that care about the betterment of this company, their team and the individual. Sounds like common sense, right? Unfortunately common sense is not always common in corporate America. Trust in employees and managers is a foreign concept for many corporations. When it is practiced, it cannot just live within Talent & Development (HR) either. You need all executives, managers and individual employees to care about keeping that trust intact.

We trust that if we allow employees to work from home, then they are high performers who know their business can be done just as effectively as being in the office. We also believe they will let us know if they recognize it’s not working. We trust our employees to get their job done during some time of the day. Passing the time until the 5:00 pm whistle blows is not something we enforce, and it has never proved effective across companies.

Shawn Riegsecker (our CEO), says there is no such thing as work/life balance, it is just a “Life Balance.” Thanks to technology, employees can now work 24/7, so how do we stop them from doing that? We let them know that we care. Our company cares about their well-being. We care about how their family is doing. We also care about enabling them to become the best version of themselves. Not just a great employee, we want them to be a great PERSON —  father, mother, friend, partner. Got personal conflicts? Leave. Go home. Take care of it. We’ll still be here tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week. Let us know how we can help. Got a personal achievement? Tell us about it. Let’s all celebrate it!

HR teams and corporations often give up on trusting their employees too quickly. Hiring the right people with competencies important to the company allows us the freedom to trust and empower each individual. It’s what makes Centro a great environment for our 300 employees.