• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 20, 2013

Digital ad standards continue to be tough to come by for marketers, media agencies, and publishers.

As OMMA RTB Seattle moderator, Kevin Ryan, chief executive officer/founder of Motivity Marketing, notes: “It took 13 years to define a click.”

But the problems with transparency as it pertains to programmatic buys can be worse -- such has what margins publishers and media agencies are getting from their deals.

“As the percentage of programmatic goes up, procurement [at the clients] will get involved,” says Eric Picard, chief executive officer/founder, Rare Crowds. “It’s inevitable.” It’s is going to be the standard to talk about margins, and other financial details, says Picard.

Clients may want deeper transparency -- but they have to be ready for it. Nicole Scaglione, director of advertising solutions, OpenX, says: “They could get thousands of lines of data. Are they ready for that?”

Long term, other programmatic transparency issues will be raised, such as those who buy direct buy display ads, says Picard.