A Sustainable Programmatic Marketing Strategy — Is It Possible?

From various reports, including Deloitte’s Spend Report(link)and the IAB Europe Sustainability Report 2023(link)we see that sustainability is one of the most important themes for marketers. Initially, emissions were mainly discussed in relation to offline channels like print advertising, but it appears that the digital advertising industry also contributes significant CO2 emissions. This is summarized in the Scope3 report. In this blog, we will primarily focus on CO2 emissions within programmatic advertising, where they mostly come from and how things currently stand, so we can offer you concrete advice on what to do. At Draft, we believe that a sustainable marketing strategy can also lead to improved performance.

The Research

Scope3 conducted research in Australia, France, the UK, Germany, and the US to measure CO2 emissions across different advertising stages, ad creation, device usage by consumers, hosting, and ad delivery. A new metric called gCO2pm was introduced, measuring grams of CO2 emitted per 1,000 impressions. Key findings include:

By Country

The US has the lowest relative emissions, while Germany has the highest. Although the US emits the most overall, differences between countries are relatively small, which makes sense given the widespread use of international programmatic tools like Google and Xandr. For context, billions of impressions are served daily, and 1,000 impressions equal roughly one load of laundry. 

By Publisher

Emissions vary widely by publisher, ranging from 187 to 1,772 gCO2pm, compared to 511 to 631 by country. Publishers with sites primarily designed for ads (MFA sites) score poorly in emissions, as do sites with low editorial value or fraudulent activity. Steering your strategy away from such sites can reduce emissions. MFA sites typically show:

• High ad density
• Mostly clickbait content
• Traffic largely from paid channels

On average, MFA sites emit 13% more CO2. 

Programmatic Process Stages: How to Practice Sustainable Marketing

The programmatic process consists of four stages:

Ad Selection

The supply path where ads are traded, including SSPs, data sources, and targeting tools. 

Creative Distribution

Emissions linked to producing the ad, like banner creation and involved suppliers. 

Media Distribution

Total emissions associated with media delivery, including company emissions, data transfer, and electricity grid impact.

Consumer Device

The time consumers spend viewing ads on their devices. 

As expected, Ad Selection and its related processes generate the most emissions. Real-time bidding depends on many parties (SSPs, DSPs, Ad Servers, data providers). The prevalent open market strategy triggers many tool requests for each bid offer, multiplying system emissions. However, there are ways to reduce these. 

Steering Towards CO2 Reduction: Positive Results

A Scope 3 study found that pausing the top 10% highest-emitting sites led to positive results, a 1.4% increase in completion rate and a 9.9% reduction in emissions. This illustrates how CO2-focused steering can benefit performance.

Sustainable Marketing and Emission Reduction in the Dutch Market 

The Dutch market is also making progress to reduce emissions. Agencies are increasingly tracking their media’s carbon footprint to foster conversations and action. DPG Media is developing a self-serve platform that integrates with their tools to limit tool use and reduce emissions. Adform is working to incorporate emission studies in their DSP, automatically excluding MFA and other high-emission sites. These tools help advertisers steer toward sustainable marketing.

What Can You Do to Create a Sustainable Marketing Strategy? 

Reducing emissions can be challenging, especially for smaller agencies and advertisers. Conducting a CO2 audit of your programmatic supply path can be costly and may not be feasible for all. However, there are steps you can take:

Sharpen your whitelist

As mentioned earlier in this article, MFA sites emit 13% more CO2 than the average website, making it a simple choice to reduce emissions by excluding them. It might be wise to first conduct a domain analysis to assess the impact of excluding these domains. However, we have found that the quality of these sites is often lower since their traffic mainly comes from paid advertising. The value of remaining on these sites is relatively low. 

If you’re not already using a whitelist, Draft strongly advises you to start. The internet is vast, with thousands of websites, making it impossible to monitor whether your ads appear on trustworthy sites without a whitelist.

Prevent Fraud

Fraudulent sites also contribute significantly to emissions, and this is something that can be identified. In 2022, NOS published an article revealing that tens of billions are lost annually due to fraud. Additionally, fraudulent impressions hold no value, and excluding them can lead to improved performance. Therefore, addressing fraud is a logical and important step.

Ways to do this include:

• Use brand safety settings available in various DSPs.
• Utilize anti-fraud detection tools like DoubleVerify or MOAT. Always evaluate whether these tools continue to add value over time, and discontinue use if they don’t.
• Implement a stricter whitelist.

Take Inventory of Your Current Advertising Stack

Take a critical look at the tools currently under your management and evaluate the added value of each. Are all these tools still necessary to keep in use? 

Engage in Conversations with Partners

Even if you don’t have insight into the footprint of your digital ads, it can still be worthwhile to engage in conversations with your partners. They may have this information and be able to help optimize it.

Analyze Your Buying Strategy

Even if you don’t have the footprint of your digital ads, it can still be valuable to start a conversation with your partners. They might have this insight and be able to help steer it.

Ambition for the Dutch Market

Since this topic is relevant for the entire market, it would be logical for industry organizations to take the lead in analyzing what is and isn’t emitting, so all advertisers and agencies can benefit. This approach also enables smaller parties to contribute and ensures the entire market views this major societal issue consistently.

Want to learn more about sustainability in media? get in touch with us .