• by Bill Duggan , December 12, 2023

Last week, MediaPost Editor-in-Chief Joe Mandese nominated “MFAs” for the ANA 2023 Marketing Word of the Year. Sorry, Joe, but we announced this week that the word is “AI.” Joe wrote: “I'd be surprised if MFAs are not at least in the consideration set.” 

There is no doubt that the idea of made-for-advertising websites was one of the major news items in 2023. The ANA’s "First Look" report issued in June put MFA on the industry’s radar screen. Made-for-advertising websites comprised a startling 21% of study impressions and 15% of spending.

Among the 21 advertiser participants in the ANA study, every advertiser recorded at least some media spending on MFA websites, with one of those having 42% of total spend on MFA sites. Certainly, that finding was a surprise to that advertiser.

Our report urged advertisers to “audit your activity to understand the percent of impressions and spend represented by MFA websites.”

After the publication of the "First Look" report, a consortium of industry trade associations (ANA, 4A’s, ISBA, WFA) developed a definition for "made-for-advertising" websites, leaning on work done by Jounce Media and DeepSee.io as foundations.

According to the definition, MFA sites usually exhibit some combination of the following characteristics: 

• High ad-to-content ratio 

• Rapidly auto-refreshing ad placements 

• High percentage of paid traffic sourcing 

• Generic content (non-editorial or templated, low-quality content) 

• Poorly designed, templated website designs.

Reporting on MFAs in the trade press was extensive in 2023. The MFA revelation sparked a surge of interest from companies along the supply chain, with many introducing MFA-blocking solutions.

That brings us back to the ANA 2023 Marketing "Word of the Year." ANA staff identified a list of finalists and then asked members to cast their vote to determine the winner. There were ten finalists, including MFA.

AI was the runaway winner, with almost 70% of all votes. That was no surprise to me, but I did expect MFA to place high on the list -- perhaps second or third -- given all the buzz and coverage.

Where did it place? Tenth of ten options. Dead last. 

Then consider another data point. In September a survey was sent to ANA client-side members who have responsibilities for media management to provide quantitative insight on key topics covered in our programmatic studies. Asked “Do you currently track activity for made-for-advertising websites that are part of your programmatic advertising activity (i.e., amount of spend and impressions)?”: 

• 21% indicated they do 

• Another 33% said they do not, but plan to do so going forward 

• 46% do not and either don’t plan to in the future, or don’t know.

I will stress that the respondent base for this survey was members with media management responsibilities (and not a more general population of members).

Now let’s put those two data points together. Despite all the noise about MFAs, there are still 46% of media management professionals who do not currently track or plan to track the activity for made-for-advertising websites that are part of their programmatic advertising activity. The question asks about tracking -- not reducing or eliminating.

What this tells us is that this group apparently don’t even want to know the amount of MFA activity in their media investments. Yikes!

And then placing MFA dead last in word of the year voting is also a concern. Don’t people care about this issue?

One of the fundamental conclusions in the ANA programmatic report is that advertisers are responsible for more active stewardship of their media investments.

Media is often the largest marketing expenditure at most companies, and advertisers need to "lean in" and be more active stewards of their media investments rather than delegating that entirely to their agencies. 

Advertisers should appoint a Chief Media Officer (either in title or function) who should take responsibility for the internal media management and governance processes that deliver performance, media accountability, and transparency throughout the programmatic media supply chain.

Advertisers that outsource their media management without active internal stewardship do so at their own risk.

The new ANA Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency Study: COMPLETE REPORT provides a road map to help advertisers better manage their programmatic media investments. MFA is just one of the various points covered. 

Yes, Joe – I expected MFA to be higher on the list of important words/issues for 2023. Advertisers -- please wake up and ignore this at your own risk.