Monumetric : Managing Malvertising

WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW HERE

What role does Monumetric play in the ad tech industry?

My name is Kevin Hill. I'm a Co-Founder and the CTO of Monumetric. The best way to describe the role that our company plays in the ad tech industry, really centers around where this piece of art comes from. Behind me is the artwork of the Rings of Saturn and a view of the Pale Blue Dot, or the image of Earth and its relationship to it within our solar system. This comes from the monologue, written by Carl Sagen (American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and author) about the Pale Blue Dot, and how everything that we know and everything that's important to us is on this Pale Blue Dot, or this world. We firmly believe at Monumetric through empowering our content creators and our publishers, and making sure that they are able to dedicate the necessary time to supporting what they do, is a fundamental part of what we do here at Monumetric.

Why did Monumetric look for an ad threat intelligence solution originally?

I think one of the most painful concerns we had, brought up by a content creator or publisher, would be around malvertisements, or advertisements that were negatively impacting that user experience. And the reason it would be so frustrating is because of how elaborate, and how complicated, and technically savvy these bad players are in the ad industry. It was a constant cat-and-mouse chase. But the thing is, it was like it was a phantom mouse. You felt like you could just never find the true culprit. And you weren't able to ever give enough information to ad providers so that they could stop the bad player.

You gotta understand the sophistication of these ad threats. I mean, they've got them dialed into the point where they're either only playing, or rendering, in instances where it's on a mobile device that is connected to certain cellular networks, and only certain geographic locations. They are constantly rotating where that is happening, and which types of devices they are targeting.

How did Monumetric choose among solution providers?

Several years ago we met with Confiant and the conversation, the dialogue, was just so much different than anything else we had worked with in that industry. They were more concerned about solving the problems we were experiencing, instead of just going after the symptoms. It wasn't until we started working with them, that we actually felt that we were getting ahead of the pain points that we were experiencing around ad threats. Instead of just monitoring randomly a few ads here and there, or sampling those, they were actually integrating with our code. And every single ad impression was being diagnosed, vetted for quality, and making it so that it wasn't just a haphazard effort to track down the bad players. But it was actually a fully comprehensive solution.

Also, their pricing was so much more reasonable than a lot of the other people in that industry. Frankly, we still feel to this date that Confiant is on the cutting edge of what is being demanded as part of this industry. They are always trying to innovate and it feels like they are attacking more of the issues at hand in a more comprehensive, and effective way, than any of the other competitors that we've worked with.

What are your results?

We have now worked with Confiant for numerous years, and their performance has never degraded. They've always been on top of things. When we do have instances where we have a Malvertisement or an ad thread that becomes prominent and our publishers start to experience it, reaching out to Confiant is really a very easy process, and they're super responsive. Before (Confiant) it was frustrating when you'd reach out to an advertiser to say, ‘you know, I can tell we're getting ad threats from your network, and we need it to stop’. But, just by the nature of how our industry works, there is so much integration with other exchanges, that it makes it hard, even for them, to track down that issue.

Monumetric 2021 Total Blocked Ad Impressions

Why does Monumetric like this solution?

One of the things we have experienced working with Confiant is also allowing us to be more selective and more strategic in the advertisements that we are blocking. Before we were doing so many different blocking criteria and ad types within the individual SSPs, and we still do quite a bit of that. But even then you have ad threats that mis-categorize themselves, or they're trying to circumvent those filters and those categorizations. And it's just so relieving to be able to have a partner that can then also read those back, in a different way, to make sure that those ads continue to be within the bounds that we have set.

One thing that we like to leverage is the weight, or heavy ads, by controlling the weight of those ads. With SEO putting so much emphasis on load times, and on the heaviness of a website, making sure that our ads don’t contribute negatively to peoples’ SEO, is very important to us. And, making sure that we are able to identify heavy ads, and prevent them from loading, to ensure that we maintain a good user experience for our publishers is quite important. Confiant plays a major role in that, to make sure that we don't have those issues.

How is the customer support experience?

I think Confiant does a phenomenal job as far as their customer support, in the sense that they make you feel empowered as a client of theirs. It doesn't feel like there's a man behind the curtain or that it’s a black box. They're very transparent, in a lot that they do, in trying to collaborate with you so that they know for a fact, they are actually resolving the pain points instead of just taking care of different symptoms that you and your clients are experiencing.

What does Monumetric like best?

One of the things we've been really impressed with about Confiant is their constant desire to be on the cusp of what is affecting our industry. It's rare, we feel, to find another organization that is just as passionate about maintaining the quality of the user experience as we are at Monumetric. That's pretty incredible to us.

How else does the solution help Monumetric?

You know, several years ago, there were aspects of our organization that just focused 100 percent on ad threats, to make sure that those always stayed in check, and controlled. That is no longer a major portion of our organization. A lot of that really, has been handled effectively by Confiant, and their solutions that they have provided to us. It truly has allowed us to focus more on the things that we do competitively, and to provide better service to our publishers. To focus on what our core mission is as an organization, and that's to empower our content creators, and publishers that we work with.