Horizon Media, the largest Independent media services shop not owned by one of the major agency holding companies, is integrating a new system for evaluating the way it makes its online media buys,
giving the agencies digital planners and buyers the ability to predict which websites and ad networks will create the best environment for its clients advertising messages. The system, Trust Metrics,
utilizes an array of tracking and measurement technologies, as well as the editorial point-of-view of a team of analysts who essentially rate the impact website content can have on brand advertising
adjacencies - from big portals to the long-tail, and even social media.
While other big media shops have been working with Trust Metrics, Horizon is the first to integrate its website ratings
data into its entire digital planning and buying system, says Mary Shirley, vice president-digital media activation at Horizon.
Shirley says the Trust Metrics data goes beyond other so-called
"brand safety" filters that Horizon also works with, because they are generally "reactive," flagging inappropriate content on a website only after an advertiser's ads appear there. The value of Trust
Metrics, she says, is that it enables Horizon's planners and buyers to predict the relevance and appropriateness of a Web site's content for a brand, even if it's a long-tail site that the agency has
never worked with before.
That's because Trust Metrics utilizes a variety of "semantic" filters that were created and are overseen by former editors trained to understand the impact of editorial
content on brands.
As technologically automated as that process may be, Shirley said Horizon's planners and buyers will utilize it as part of their tool chest, applying their own perspective and
insights about their clients' brands and ad messages to the ratings.
"This will allow agencies to focus on what will be a good thing for brands and brand advertising, vs. what is bad," says Andy
Lerner, CEO of Trust Metrics, who says the system has already been tested and vetted by some other major shops, including Interpublic's McCann Worldgroup, Publicis' Hill Holliday, and MDC Partners
agency trading desk Varick Media Management.