TAG Announces First Companies To Earn “Certified For Transparency” Seal
July 27, 2023
TAG (Trustworthy Accountability Group), the world’s leading program to fight criminal activity and promote brand safety in digital advertising, today announced the first ten companies to earn the TAG “Certified for Transparency” Seal for setting industry best practices around supply chain transparency, including the adoption of a log-level data transparency framework, TAG TrustNet.
The initial group of industry leaders achieving the TAG Certified for Transparency Seal include:
- Adform
- DoubleVerify
- Frameplay
- Horizon Media
- Integral Ad Science
- Octillion
- Omnicom Media Group
- OpenX
- Oracle Advertising
- Xandr
“These companies stand at the vanguard of our industry’s efforts to create a more transparent digital advertising supply chain,” said TAG CEO Mike Zaneis. “They have established the baseline transparency practices that will give ad buyers and their partners the visibility they need into their campaigns, including log-level data. By working together as an industry to adopt a shared transparency framework, we can improve accountability, reduce misplaced advertising, and save billions in misallocated spending.”
A landmark ANA study released last month found advertisers could drive up to $20 billion dollars in improved efficiencies by increasing transparency in their supply chains. The ANA’s recommendations urged advertisers to create supply chain contracts that “provide complete access to data and full transparency of websites purchased” including access to “log-level data (LLD) from every AdTech vendor across an advertiser’s supply chain,” such as the framework established by TAG TrustNet.
Participation in TAG TrustNet’s common transparency framework is a central requirement of the program, as it creates a “shared truth” on campaign data for participants across the supply chain. Each trusted record for transactions is based on real-time reconciling and sharing advertising log files with counterparties through TAG TrustNet.
In addition to participation in TAG TrustNet, other requirements to obtain the Seal include annual compliance training for the certification, employing and honoring Ads.txt and App-Ads.txt (direct sellers and intermediaries), and employing and maintaining Sellers.json (intermediaries).