Update is part of an iterative process in further support of GDPR-compliant programmatic transactions

 21st August 2019, Brussels: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem, in partnership with IAB Tech Lab, today announced the launch of the second iteration of the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF).

The TCF is an industry tool that supports companies within the digital advertising ecosystem as they manage their compliance obligations under the GDPR and ePrivacy Directive. This follows a 12-month review period which has included market feedback from all sectors of the digital advertising industry, notably publishers, and nine meetings with Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) throughout Europe.

Announcing the updates to the TCF, Townsend Feehan, CEO, IAB Europe said “The original TCF was launched to help a complex industry value chain manage their obligations under new regulations, notably the GDPR. With the number of constituents involved and disparate regulatory interpretations across multiple jurisdictions, it was essential that the evolution of the framework was handled sensitively, with the final specifications able to be adopted in a manner consistent with differing business models in a wide range of operational markets”. She continued “Whilst the TCF will continue to evolve to meet the needs of our dynamic industry, I am confident this update addresses all the feedback we have received from many DPAs throughout Europe, as well as the needs of each part of the digital advertising value chain.”

The TCF is comprised of technical specifications and policy documents enabling companies that participate in the delivery of digital advertising and personalised content to work under an appropriate legal basis for processing personal data in each market where they operate. It is a framework for publishers, technology vendors, agencies and advertisers to clearly and consistently communicate with end users about how their data is being used, while also providing an opportunity for users to object.

There are 28 markets within the European Union, with each possessing a DPA that interprets the rules regarding GDPR compliance in different ways. Equally, the commercial requirements of each part of the value chain, from publisher through to advertiser, are different and may have conflicting goals. As a result, it is important that the TCF is flexible in its approach, so it can accommodate these different constituents’ business needs and regional interpretations of the GDPR and ePrivacy regulations.

In the UK, it is well known that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has taken a specific view, as detailed in the publication of its ‘Adtech Update Report’ in June. IAB Europe has continued its close-working relationship with the ICO and is confident this update to the TCF will allow companies to adopt a GDPR-compliant approach to RTB within the UK.

TCF 2.0 continues to support the overall drive of the TCF to increase consumer transparency and choice, management by digital properties of consent and compliance, and industry collaboration that centres on standardisation.

 “The TCF is the only privacy compliance solution that was built by the industry for the industry – and for everyone who benefits from digital media and services,” stated Dennis Buchheim, EVP & General Manager, IAB Tech Lab, whose members develop the technical specifications for the framework. He continued “The consumer is the principal focus of the TCF and the vision for version 2.0 was to provide clear explanations and choices to consumers regarding how their data may be used if consent is given, while providing greater control to publishers over how consent and other guidance is followed by their technology partners”.

The TCF Steering Group (SG) was tasked with drafting the new Policy documents and engaging with the IAB Tech Lab, which managed the technical specifications. With participation from 10 National IABs and 55 organisations, and EU-level associations, publishers, media owners, technology providers, and media agencies, the SG enabled an inclusive, fair and consensus-based participation of stakeholders to deliver the vision.

On the update, TCF SG member, Alice Lincoln, Senior Vice President of Data Policy & Governance, MediaMath said “MediaMath’s participation in developing the TCF v2 is a cornerstone of our mission to drive the industry toward greater accountability. The data subject rights to transparency and control prescribed by GDPR present an important opportunity to make overdue improvements to the digital media supply chain. Version 2 of the TCF will better surface how we connect people to the brands and content they value and give consumers and publishers alike greater control over who they trust to handle their data and for what purposes“.

Under TCF 2.0, not only can consumers grant or withhold consent but they can also exercise their ‘right to object’ to data being processed. Consumers also gain more control over whether and how vendors may use certain features of data processing (for example, the use of precise geolocation).

Tamara Daltroff, Director General of The European Association of Communication Agencies (EACA), said: “EACA is excited about the launch of TCF 2.0. We are confident that the changes will increase the transparency and choice provided to users who want to continue benefiting from content and services that they would otherwise have to pay for. For agencies, industry standards are a vital instrument to ensure consistent implementation, oversight and application of policies and technical specifications across borders. The TCF is an essential tool for them to ensure compliance with the GDPR and ePrivacy Directive.”

Publishers employing TCF 2.0 gain greater control and flexibility with respect to how they integrate and collaborate with their technology partners. New publisher functionality allows them to restrict the purposes for which personal data is processed by vendors on a publisher’s website on a per-vendor basis.

Commenting on how the engagement of publishers has driven the creation and purpose of TCF 2.0, Angela Mills Wade, Executive Director, European Publishers Council (EPC) said “The EPC and Publishing members of the TCF Steering Group were able to provide valuable feedback on how the framework could be improved and better serve the community. Under TCF 2.0, publishers can provide more transparency to their users with the introduction of clearer and more detailed purposes and standardised flexibility in how these purposes are described to their users. This enables publisher confidence in delivering more choice, transparency, and control to their readers”.

Commenting on these changes, Kate Teh, Group Legal Director, The Telegraph Graph said “Publishers are at the vanguard for securing user consent for the processing of their data. Whilst informed consent is the default for data which enables better targeted advertising, publishers also need to notify users when cookies and other technologies are used to administer their sites, for example analytics or ecommerce functionality. These use cases are considered a legitimate interest so it was important that the updated TCF incorporated this option for publishers. In doing so, we can deliver a transparent and consistent experience to consumers, with one platform managing the notification and consent process, ensuring consent signals are adhered to throughout the value chain”.

As businesses adopt the new updates, the TCF 2.0 will operate in market alongside TCF 1.1 through to the close of Q1 2020. This will provide publisher websites and Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) with an appropriate timeframe in which to adopt TCF 2.0. It also provides the vendors they work with sufficient time to develop and implement the code needed to adhere to the protocol of TCF 2.0.

--- ENDS ---

EDITOR NOTES

Additional TCF Steering Group Quote

“TCF v2 will provide more transparency, more choice, and more control for consumers and support publishers and brands in complying with EU privacy and data protection laws. As a participant in the creation and development of the TCF from day one, Quantcast is excited to see the release of this second iteration after more than a year of truly industry-wide collaboration.” Ari Levenfeld, Chief Privacy Officer, Quantcast

The Transparency & Consent Framework Steering Group:

There have been 55 companies from across the digital media, publishing, advertising and analytics ecosystems, alongside 10 National IABs that have collaborated on the TCF through their Steering Group membership. 

About IAB Europe

IAB Europe is the European-level association for the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem. Through its membership of National IABs and media, technology and marketing companies, its mission is to lead political representation and promote industry collaboration to deliver frameworks, standards and industry programmes that enable business to thrive in the European market. For further information please visit https://iabeurope.eu/

About IAB Tech Lab

The IAB Technology Laboratory (Tech Lab) is a non-profit consortium that engages a member community globally to develop foundational technology and standards that enable growth and trust in the digital media ecosystem. Comprised of digital publishers, ad technology firms, agencies, marketers, and other member companies, IAB Tech Lab focuses on solutions for brand safety and ad fraud; identity, data, and consumer privacy; ad experiences and measurement; and programmatic effectiveness. Its work includes the OpenRTB real-time bidding protocol, ads.txt anti-fraud specification, Open Measurement SDK for viewability and verification, VAST video specification, and DigiTrust identity service. Board members include CBS Interactive, ExtremeReach, Facebook, Google, GroupM, GumGum, Hearst Digital Media, Index Exchange, Integral Ad Science, LinkedIn, LiveRamp, MediaMath, Microsoft, Neustar, OpenX, Oracle Data Cloud, Pandora, PubMatic, Quantcast, Rakuten Marketing, SpotX, Telaria, The Trade Desk, Twitter, Verizon Media, Xandr, and Yahoo! Japan. Established in 2014, the IAB Tech Lab is headquartered in New York City. Learn more at https://www.iabtechlab.com.

For more information, please contact:

Helen Mussard, IAB Europe (helen@iabeurope.eu / +44 7399 919 594)

Laura Goldberg, IAB & IAB Tech Lab (laura.goldberg@iab.com / +1-347-683-1859)

Victoria Johnson, Too Many Dreams (victoria@toomanydreams.ltd / +44 7939 594 637)

Stephen Jenkins, Too Many Dreams (stephen@toomanydreams.ltd / +44 7957 803 685)

First published for PerformanceIN, The AdEx Benchmark report author, Dr Daniel Knapp, chief economist at IAB Europe shares a broad market overview of the study's key findings with a detailed focus on the search results, across mobile and desktop.

29 July 2019, The European Paid-For Search Market: Stable Growth, but Structural Transformation Ahead

The AdEx Benchmark report author, Dr Daniel Knapp, chief economist at IAB Europe shares a broad market overview of the study's key findings with a detailed focus on the search results, across mobile and desktop.

Every year, the IAB Europe, a European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, publishes its AdEx Benchmark report. The report outlines the performance of the European digital advertising market and breaks down growth figures by both format and region. This July, IAB Europe released the latest edition of the study, which covers performance over 2018.

Looking first at Europe’s overall digital advertising sector, the story that emerges from the report is one of sustained growth. By the end of 2018, the total market had grown to €55.1 billion from €48.4 billion in 2017, an increase of 13.9% and the fastest the market has grown since 2011. From 2012 to 2018 the market has more than doubled in size driven largely by increasing advertising investments in social, mobile and video formats. Overall, since the first AdEx Benchmark study in 2006, the market added some €48.5 billion in annual value.

Figure 2: total digital ad spend growth

Paid-for search shows economic resilience

For some years now, paid-for search has been an important growth driver. In 2009, for example, it was the only medium in Europe not to fall into decline as a result of the recession, largely due to its ability to measure and pay by performance.

This resilience has been highlighted by ten years of like for like growth figures in the category. Indeed, of all the advertising formats that IAB Europe tracks in its AdEx Benchmark study, paid-for search has maintained the strongest growth rates in periods of economic uncertainty. Where other marketing spend gets cut when times are tough, the pay-by-performance model allows marketers stricter budget controls, and low entry costs enable tactical marketing interventions.

Growth is unevenly distributed

In 2018, despite the maturity of the format, growth in paid-for search continued in double-digit figures (12.5%) enabling it to maintain its total share of the European digital advertising market at 45%.

However, this growth was not spread evenly across Europe. At the top end, the paid-for search market in Belarus grew by 37.5% while at the bottom end, Belgium’s market grew by 1.9%. The top six markets in terms of growth are located in Central and Eastern Europe, while Finland (20.7%), Ireland (16.7%) Norway (15.9%) and Sweden (14.5%) are among the fastest-growing search markets in Western Europe.

Nordic markets have a strong local history of directories spend, which delayed the proliferation of the paid-for search market in the mid and late 2000s. The higher growth rates in the region are due to those historical reasons. The UK is the largest paid-for search market in Europe and still grew above the European average (14.3%).

Figure 33: paid-for search growth in 2018

The contribution of mobile search

One of the reasons that the paid-for search market is seeing strong growth is because prices for mobile search are beginning to catch up with desktop search prices. While the share of mobile searches is still roughly 10% higher than the share of mobile ad spend, the gap is shrinking. What’s more, mobile search has benefitted from an increase in mobile search volumes overall, helped by better integration with maps and changing consumer habits.

Figure 35: mobile search ad spend and growth

As a result, in 2018 mobile search grew by 28.6% to €11.6 billion and increased its share of the total search market by 5.8 percentage points. Once again, the growth leaders are Central and Eastern European nations such as the Czech Republic (70.6%), Belarus (54.4%), Ukraine (44%) and Slovenia (43.8%). Norway (35%) is the fastest-growing Western European market. The UK, which is by far the largest mobile search market (worth €4,646 million compared to the €1,313 million generated by Germany, the second-largest market) is growing in line with the European average.

Additionally, eight markets can now be considered mobile-first, in that their mobile share of search exceeds 50%. Five markets have a mobile share larger than 60%: Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and Ireland.

Figure 37: mobile share of paid-for ad spend by market in 2018

Outlook: the changing nature of search

The nature of search itself is transforming. One of the biggest changes is the rise of Amazon, which is becoming a default destination for product-related searches. Mobile, and in particular app-based media consumption, are leading to a further verticalisation of the search market. Verticalisation means that consumers conduct search in specific functional apps - such as travel or entertainment - not all of which is paid for. At the same time, new opportunities to monetise mobile search arise, in particular through maps and in-car integrations.

Often, voice is highlighted as the next generation of search. Yet there still is a lack of systematic evidence that consumers are adopting voice to conduct diverse, and more complex search queries beyond daily, habitual tasks (checking the weather, for example). Monetising voice search also remains a challenge, both from a product and a privacy perspective.

In sum, these observations suggest that the future of search is defined by a more diverse set of factors than before. This will change how we define, buy and use paid-for search.

First published in Mobile Marketing Magazine, The AdEx Benchmark report author, Dr Daniel Knapp, chief economist at IAB Europe provides insight into the state of the European mobile advertising market on the back of the report.

25 July, 2019, Mobile continues to drive growth in European digital advertising

This July, IAB Europe published the latest edition of its annual AdEx Benchmark report on the state of the European digital advertising market. The report, which focuses on market performance over 2018, brings together facts and figures from across Europe relating to growth, and delivers a breakdown of spend across digital advertising formats.

The top-line figures for the overall market show that the entire European digital advertising sector grew by 13.9 per cent in 2018, which represents the fastest growth in the sector since 2011. Digital remains a significant driver for growth in the overall paid-media advertising market and now accounts for 45 per cent of the total. Between inception of the AdEx Benchmark study in 2006 and this year’s index, the market added €48.5bn in annual value.

Mobile increases market share of display
Where does mobile advertising fit into this picture? Mobile advertising first made a truly significant impact on the digital advertising market back in 2013, when it accounted for a double-digit share of digital spend for the first time. By 2017, mobile was one of the key drivers behind growth in display spend.

In 2018, mobile continued to drive growth. Overall, mobile display advertising spend grew by 34.2% to reach €11.4bn. This growth means that mobile accounted for 48.9 per cent of total spend in display advertising.

The strong performance of mobile display is in contrast to desktop display, whose share dropped to 51.1 per cent in 2018 from 57.2 per cent in 2017.

The growth of mobile display is largely due to the continued proliferation of social media and improved targeting options. The growth in optimised mobile pages from publishers has also played a part, as has the use of ad campaigns to drive app installs. Gaming apps were a particularly strong driver for growth in mobile display and we saw large gains recorded by app developers in this space.

Looking at the regional breakdown, the growth leaders are mostly emerging markets such as the Czech Republic (105 per cent) and Ukraine (65 per cent). However, Germany also demonstrated a surge in mobile display growth, coming second in the rankings at 65.4 per cent. Overall, mobile display spend is dominated by Western European countries, particularly the UK, which accounts for €4,759m of the total (almost four times as much as the second biggest spender, Italy, which accounted for €1,051m). Of note is the fact that 13 markets are now mobile-first (i.e. the share of spend on mobile exceeds that of desktop).

Mobile search spend trends upwards
Mobile also performed well in the search space, growing 28.6 per cent in the year to total €11.6bn. This represents an increase of market share of 5.8 per cent on 2017 (40.5 per cent vs. 46.3 per cent), bringing it closer to spend on desktop search. While this is a lower share of the market than in mobile display, it accounts for €0.2bn more in actual spend due to the larger size of the market.

Higher ad rates were a driver of growth in this market. This is significant because historically rates for mobile search have lagged those for desktop. And while the share of mobile spend still trails the share of mobile searches by around 10 per cent, the gap is closing. Mobile search also benefited from higher mobile search volumes overall, helped by better integration with maps and changing consumer habits.

In this category, nine of the ten largest markets are in Western Europe (with the exception of Russia, which ranks fourth). The fastest-growing markets are once again in Eastern Europe, with the Czech Republic (70.6 per cent), Belarus (54.4 per cent) and Ukraine (44 per cent) leading the pack. Eight markets are now mobile-first (i.e. where spend on mobile has overtaken desktop), with the top ten in terms of mobile share coming from a mix of Western and Eastern European nations.

Across all formats, mobile ad spend is still catching up to changed media consumption habits, especially outside of the social platforms. As the social share of digital ad spend begins to plateau, this is where new pockets of growth are emerging. The ascent of digital audio advertising around music streaming and podcasts, is also predominantly mobile. This will be further fuelled by the proliferation of connected cars in the years ahead.

Cologne, 13^th September 2017 – At dmexco today, IAB Europe in collaboration with IHS Markit announced that the total programmatic display advertising market in Europe experienced another year of double-digit growth jumping 42.7% from €5.7bn in 2015 to €8.1bn in 2016.

The report reveals that 50.1% of European display ad spend is now traded programmatically. Additionally, programmatic video grew by an exponential 155% and now accounts for more than 45% of total online video ad spend. Mobile continues to be the ‘most’ programmatic format with 65% of mobile ad spend traded programmatically in 2016.

Whilst CEE is still small in size and maturity, it is starting to catch up and grew by 53% in 2016 compared to Western Europe which grew by 42%.

Programmatic revenues by format:

• Mobile - €3.5bn
• Video - €1.37bn

Programmatic revenues by region:

• Western Europe - €7.5bn
• Central and Eastern Europe - €0.6bn

The European Programmatic Market Sizing research is produced by IAB Europe and IHS Markit, taking a holistic approach to aggregating the data to ensure all stakeholder perspectives were included. The numbers are based on ad spend reported by IABs, transactional data, statistical and econometric models to infer a European market size and knowledge from industry experts. This programmatic research complements the IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark Report¹, the definitive guide to the state of the European digital advertising market.

As programmatic becomes the primary mechanism for trading, it is important for data to be integrated into programmatic trading tools, indeed IAB Europe’s Digital Measurement Priorities Report² reveals that more than 90% of stakeholders state that is it important for industry-agreed digital audience and effectiveness studies to be available in programmatic trading tools alongside measurement and trading data.

IAB Europe’s efforts in advancing programmatic trading across Europe with its Programmatic Trading Committee are focused on enhancing transparency and education in key areas such as mobile and data.

Daniel Knapp, Executive Director TMT at IHS Markit said: “Europe is now programmatic-first. In a big leap, programmatic transaction mechanisms have matured and enjoyed large-scale adoption, up from 18.3% of spend in 2013 to 50.1% in 2016. Adoption across Europe remains uneven, with less mature advertising markets lagging behind market leaders such as the UK or the Netherlands. Growth in online advertising now largely means growth in programmatic, but uncertainty related to the evolving EU regulatory landscape on the collection and use of data puts in question the degree to which companies will be able to realise future growth.”

Gustav Mellentin, Co-Founder and CEO, Adform said: “While the major news in this report is the continued mass adoption of programmatic, the key takeaway for advertisers should be what this translates to looking forward. Expanded programmatic adoption across multiple channels, particularly video and mobile, pave the way for more sophisticated buying. Adoption extends far beyond traditional digital formats to include out of home, programmable TV, audio and even Print. The widespread adoption of programmatic combined with more intelligent and connected platforms enables added overall transparency and a simplification of the buying process for true people-based marketing. The industry, through consolidation and innovation, is rushing to create more unified advertising platforms that can reduce the tech tax, deliver added transparency while increasing simplicity for the media buyer.”

Fabien Scolan, VP of Ad products, Schibsted said: "There is no big surprise to see that automated media trading is over 50%. Advertising is now living what financial trading dealt with more than 20 years ago. With the arrival of the direct guaranteed in programmatic, the revolution in media trading has ended and entered a new phase driving new ways of mastering all conversions KPIs. While large advertisers and media agencies have been the first one to face this revolution publishers have largely contributed in making it go mainstream.. For a publisher like Schibsted, the next challenge will be to have one-stop-shop automated platform that allows all advertising sales channels, business models, products and formats. Ultimately, we want to allow both top advertisers and long tail spenders to benefit from a holistic automated media trading model."

The report can be downloaded here.

For more information, please contact:

Alison Fennah, Executive Business Advisor, IAB Europe (fennah@iabeurope.eu)

Marie-Clare Puffett, Business Programmes Manager, IAB Europe (puffett@iabeurope.eu)

¹ IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark 2016 Report 

² IAB Europe Digital Measurement Priorities Report 

About IAB Europe

IAB Europe is the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem. Its mission is to promote the development of this innovative sector and ensure its sustainability by shaping the regulatory environment, demonstrating the value digital advertising brings to Europe’s economy, to consumers and to the market, and developing and facilitating the uptake of harmonised business practices that take account of changing user expectations and enable digital brand advertising to scale in Europe.