The Transparency Gap Explained

Sponsored by Playwire

Digital advertising has come a long way toward cleaning up its act. The industry has matured, regulation has evolved, and many players have worked hard to make transparency and quality measurable. But there’s still work to do.

Today, publishers operate under an extraordinary level of scrutiny. Every impression is evaluated. Every metric is dissected. Made-for-advertising (MFA) sites have cast a shadow over legitimate publishers, forcing even the best to constantly prove their worth. That’s not necessarily bad. Quality matters, and bad actors should be exposed.

But while publishers are held to the highest standards of transparency, much of the ecosystem continues to operate behind a curtain. The Ad Tech Explained team developed this explainer, in partnership with Playwire CEO Jayson Dubin, to shed light on the transparency gap that still exists across the digital supply chain, and what needs to happen to close it.

Let’s start at the beginning: The digital advertising industry has made great strides when it comes to improving transparency, but there’s still a ways to go. Where have we seen the most progress, and where does the industry need to focus more attention?

In the past several years, heightened scrutiny of publisher practices has significantly cleaned up the market. Frameworks around quality, performance, and transparency (QPT), along with accountability standards from organizations such as Jounce Media, have pushed publishers to modernize their operations.

These efforts have worked. Publishers who embrace transparency have seen improved monetization, stronger relationships with advertisers, and greater trust across the ecosystem. But this intense oversight has not been matched by reciprocal accountability on the buy side.

That imbalance is where the transparency gap begins.

Let’s get a little more specific. What’s missing?

Critical transparency gaps remain, including hidden fee structures, lack of visibility into what each player in the ecosystem paid and is subsequently charging for an impression, and anonymous buyer behavior that enables malicious ads. Consider:

Purchase price versus final bid. Many SSPs pass along a bid and expect publishers to trust that it’s fair. But publishers often have little visibility into what the SSP originally paid for the impression, making it nearly impossible to verify whether the SSP is adhering to the contracted fee structure.

Some partners share this data openly. Others ask publishers to “trust the numbers” without providing verification. That’s not transparency. That’s asking the industry to operate blind.

Universal buyer identification. Publishers spend countless hours tracing the source of malicious redirects or bad creative, often hitting a dead end because the actual buyer can’t be identified. Even after investing heavily in ad-quality tools, many are still playing whack-a-mole because the supply chain lacks consistent buyer visibility.

Transaction IDs were designed to give the buy side a clearer view of the publisher landscape. But there’s no equivalent mechanism for publishers to identify buyers, leaving half the ecosystem in the dark.

Is this opacity happening across the board? Is the entire ecosystem at fault?

According to Playwire, the answer is nuanced. Not every partner is part of the problem, but enough are to make it a systemic issue.

Playwire’s experience with a recent SSP partner highlights the problem. The SSP’s terms were opaque, reporting was limited, and verification was impossible. When Playwire pushed for more insight, inconsistencies came to light and were eventually corrected.

But that discovery raises a larger question: If transparency can suddenly “appear” when scrutiny increases, what was happening before? This pattern suggests that opacity isn’t always an oversight. Sometimes, it’s a choice.

Not every company is part of the problem. Playwire notes that some are setting the bar for what true partnership looks like. Industry leaders such as Magnite, PubMatic, and Index Exchange demonstrate that transparency and profitability are not mutually exclusive. These partners provide clear visibility into fee structures, share purchase price data, and maintain open communication with publishers.

They’re proof that transparency benefits everyone.

When SSPs disclose what they paid for an impression, publishers can optimize yield with precision. When universal buyer IDs exist, bad ads can be traced and eliminated faster, protecting both publisher integrity and advertiser investment. When the supply chain operates openly, inefficiency declines, and total revenue grows.

OK. So, how do we fix it? What needs to happen?

The solution isn’t complicated. It just requires the same accountability on the buy side that publishers already live with. For example:

• Purchase price and subsequent bid reporting should be mandatory. If publishers must prove their value at every turn, SSPs should disclose their take rates and margins. Transparent pricing is the foundation of trust.

• Universal buyer IDs need to become standard. Every buyer should have a persistent identifier across the supply chain. When a malicious ad appears, publishers should be able to trace it to its source immediately rather than spending days investigating.

• Industry bodies need to enforce buy-side standards. The IAB, TAG, and other organizations have spent years establishing frameworks for publisher quality. It’s time those same principles applied to SSP and DSP transparency.

These measures would move the industry from selective transparency to shared responsibility.

What’s Playwire doing to bring this future into focus?

Playwire continues to advocate for transparency that flows in both directions. The company has built its reputation by providing publishers and demand partners with detailed analytics and open reporting, grounded in the belief that knowledge is power. Its recognition as a Bellwether partner by Jounce Media reinforces this approach, validating that operational transparency leads to higher performance and healthier relationships.

Playwire works exclusively with demand partners that maintain clear fee disclosures and provide data access to validate performance. The company also encourages wider industry adoption of reciprocal transparency frameworks.

Ultimately, Playwire’s view is simple: Transparency should not be a competitive advantage. It should be the cost of entry for doing business in digital advertising.

About Playwire

Playwire is dedicated to helping publishers, portfolio managers, and app developers accelerate their business by amplifying ad revenue and operating more efficiently. This purpose drives every decision we make; it’s at the heart of every new tool we roll out.

For more information, visit www.playwire.com.