The advertising technology world is confusing. There are hundreds of ad tech startups and technologies, but few standard ways or APIs for marketers take data from one and mix it with another. The Council for Accountable Advertising, a new industry trade organization I first caught wind of in January, hopes to change all that. It is now about to formally launch.
The Council’s goals are to create standards for data integration and transparency, define standards of accountability for the online advertising industry, suggest best practices, and provide original industry research. “You can’t even download reports from two different tools and put them next to each other and know what they mean,” says Stephen Messer, one of the founding members of the Council and vice chairman of Cross Commerce Media. The ad tech industry needs to simplify things and make them less confusing.
The Council will be more inward looking than other industry groups like the IAB (it will also launch a private blog for industry executives and their customers). But it will also provide a forum for the industry to coem together around some of the privacy issues bedeviling the online advertising industry. WIth the FTC calling for a Do Not Track list and concerns about behavioral targeting on the rise, the industry obviously still needs to figure things out.
The main goal of the Council is to promote interoperability and to educate marketers about the industry. To that end, it will commission original research. Forrester analyst Joanna O’Connell and Colin Gillis of BGC Financial will act as the Council’s chief research officers. Evan Korth, a professor at NYU, will act as chief academic officer.
The Council at this point is invite-only. The founding members are Cross Commerce Media, MediaMath, and TARGUSinfo. The other launch members include Admeld, AdSafe, AudienceScience, Peer39, Solve Media, and TidalTV.