Written by Robert Leach, General Manager, Kargo APAC.
After a scathing report by the ANA US, more advertisers are waking up to the scourge of “made for advertising” content. These click-bait websites use recycled and AI generated content to game the system and attract audiences, which in turn attracts advertiser bids through programmatic channels. The problem is that the content creates a terrible user experience, and in turn creates a poor context for an ad. Simply put, MFA is a waste.
The IAB Executive Tech Council Australia recently warned advertisers in the region to avoid MFA sites, creating a document that explains what MFA is and what the dangers are for audiences, advertisers and publishers. Jonas Jaanimagi, IAB Australia Tech Lead commented “Our goal with this document is to support each part of the ecosystem with guidance that will not only reduce exposure to MFA sites – but as a direct consequence, reduce wastage, benefit genuine publishers, ameliorate consumer experiences online and ultimately improve both campaign performance & advertising ROI.”
Identifying MFA Supply
Made for advertising content has been unfortunately a part of the digital media ecosystem for several years. Anyone who has searched for pictures of Princess Kate, or for top beach destinations on the Gold Coast has probably ventured onto an MFA site. These sites have somewhat typical looking images and headlines, but it’s clear to the reader pretty quickly that the content itself is thin at best, or totally false at worst. MFA sites often use AI to scrape real websites and copy content, assembling huge networks of content very quickly. They are optimised to rank well on search results and get a lot of clicks from unsuspecting readers.
MFA supply is the inventory available on these sites. Usually populated with many ad slots, MFA sites create a poor user experience and a cluttered ad landscape. However, because the prices are low and the sites don’t get caught in a brand safety filter, millions of ad dollars have been funneled to these sites in the past few years through programmatic bidding on the open web.
In 2023, the ANA issued a report about MFA and the supply chain that was supporting it, estimating that the $88b programmatic ecosystem is “riddled with as much as $20b in waste.” This report set off alarm bells with advertisers around the world as they started to put pressure on their media agencies and ad-tech partners to rid the market of MFA. Major agency holding companies like GroupM and ad-tech companies like The Trade Desk made public promises to avoid MFA. And publishers including Forbes and Perion shuttered sections of their business that were considered to be MFA.
Building a Better Strategy
At the same time that MFA has been identified as low quality, AI has become a major issue for publishers and advertisers to contend with. Google’s AI Overviews is upending search, the primary driver to content websites around the world. Publishers can only hope that AI driven search will favor good quality content and turn away from MFA.
The best way for advertisers to avoid MFA and whatever AI-driven threats will follow is to forge direct relationships with quality publishers. Committing to quality content and tight brand safety does require some mindset shifts from advertisers. There is a finite universe of good content, and there are only so many consumers within a specific target audience. This means campaign scale will be lower and CMP prices will be higher. However, this is a fair tradeoff to ensure that ads show on real websites to real people. It also means we can have a healthy media ecosystem.
Setting Expectations With Partners
In many cases, having only direct publisher relationships creates too much complexity for advertisers and agencies. The role of exchanges, DSPs and SSPs is still important, but they need to work hand in hand with advertisers and agencies to avoid waste like MFA and AI-driven content. Media Buyers need to have strict brand safety protocols in place that are more transparent and more granular.
In addition to blocking MFA sites, advertisers need to focus on placement-level insights. One recent report from Scope3 found that many advertisers look at brand safety only at the domain level, allowing in as much as 33% “problematic placements” - ads that are misconfigured in some way even on a decent website. Other brand safety partners like Jounce and Adalytics are useful in identifying the partners that are diligent about blocking MFA, and can help media buyers avoid problems. For example, Jounce found that Kargo was the only scaled SSP to have 100% MFA-free content in their recent report.
Creating Positive Momentum
Advertisers must understand the limitations inherent in media buying. There will always be a finite amount of good quality content and a finite audience to reach, which naturally keeps CPMs at a slightly elevated level. MFA warps that perspective, providing cheap reach on what appears to be reasonable content unless an advertiser is willing to look more deeply at what they are buying.
Committing to granular brand safety, working with partners who are MFA-free and accepting the trade-off of quality for a slightly higher price and more realistic scale are the ingredients that brands need in a recipe for better digital advertising.
Check out the IAB Australia Made for Advertising document here.