Differentiating between proxy and direct measures creates a path forward for
ecological sustainability within the advertising and media ecosystem

POV by Hannah Pavalow, ThinkMedium Client Advisor

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Green Media Summit presented by Sharethrough, a conference focused on ecological sustainability within the advertising and media ecosystem.

Everyone is pretty new to this topic and this conference couldn’t have provided a better overview. Sharethrough put together a series of panels, speakers, and interviews showcasing the industry’s perspectives. Never have I seen a topic so comprehensively covered by advertisers, agencies, publishers, DSPs, SSPs, and industry bodies.

While I’m newer to ecological sustainability, I have deep experience in measurement, which is core to the conversation. Every speaker at the conference stated a need for standardized measurement frameworks, metrics, and data. This was clearly the biggest blocker identified. Establishing industry measurement frameworks is a tough challenge, as demonstrated by the lack of consistency for effectiveness and cross-channel measurement. Like other measurement challenges, ecological issues are urgent, with multiple speakers suggesting that we cannot let “perfect be the enemy of good.” Generally, that phrase is often cited concerning measurement and does little to speed up the process because precise measurement tools require time to establish and, no matter the desire, cannot be rushed. Collecting data, running pilots, validating methodologies, and iterating, are all necessary and time consuming.

Simultaneously, every session referenced examples of why taking action now has led to positive outcomes. While the efforts varied by actor (e.g., agencies focusing on minimizing low-quality impressions at the campaign level and publishers auditing their partners/vendors), there was an immediate action and, in most cases, a claim that it would lead to better overall performance and not just sustainability gains. The session by the IAB Tech Lab’s Sustainability working group referenced a series of checklist items to get companies started.

At first, these two concepts seem contradictory: how could a lack of measurement be a barrier to taking action, while there are already known strategies/tactics to drive positive outcomes? After thinking about the problem from a measurement perspective, the contradiction is a lack of distinction between proxy metrics and direct measures. And if you begin to explicitly label the metrics as a proxy or direct, you can identify immediate calls-to-action and a clear path forward for the industry. The success of industry-wide improvements in ecological impact will require a direct measure of the carbon emissions created by each part of the ad supply chain at the campaign level, but in the meantime advertisers, agencies, publishers, DSPs, SSPs  can make progress using well selected proxy measures.

Proxy metrics often get a bad name within measurement. However, understanding and using them appropriately can unlock value quickly, specifically when tackling new problems. There are three issues with proxy metrics: they aren’t universal, are imprecise, and only sometimes scale. However, when faced with an entirely new problem where there is low-hanging fruit, these harms are negligible. In the short run, a lack of universality is acceptable, as each party can optimize towards their own proxy, and the lack of scale minimizes interaction effects. While precision matters in fine-tuning optimizations, the first gains to be made do not require precision to achieve. Blunt tools are sufficient initially and often speed up a process, with more precise instruments needed for final details. An example of immediate impact would be using proxies to assess and prioritize the checklists created by the IAB Tech Lab’s Sustainability working group.

One of the most significant flaws is that proxies can often break down in the long run once scale is achieved. For example, while countable measures of impressions are usually a reliable proxy of awareness of a new brand, if nobody has ever heard of your brand, every new impression is definitionally a new exposure. However, if everybody knows your brand already, then incremental exposure to a new audience is what matters, and that requires direct measurement tools.

The benefit to using proxy metrics, in this case, is two-fold:

1. It enables all parties to take immediate actions while ensuring that the direct measurement frameworks have the required time and data to be developed.
2. The reporting of a correlation between ecological action and positive business outcomes implies that either something has fundamentally shifted in the ecosystem, making the activities better for business than they were historically (e.g., made-for-advertising is no longer effective) or that there is a first-mover advantage (e.g., if you’re the only one buying the high-quality impressions then the prices will be lower until everyone shifts behavior). If the latter is the driver, taking action now will create an immediate benefit even if the exact ecological value isn’t quantified.

Even more importantly, proxies can enable development of explicit and measurable strategies in the short run, providing the industry with the ability and runway to establish direct measures – and better informing these ultimate metrics and practices. Without these parallel strategies, the direct measures that the industry desires will be continually held back by trying to achieve everything (short-term and long-term effects), making generalized adoption and acceptance difficult.

While more consciously labeling proxy and direct measures may seem like a pedantic action, it unblocks the question of “How do we know where to start?” and “How can we take action without knowing the goal?” And often, having a short-term strategy can start progress on overwhelmingly big problems. Industry initiatives should acknowledge the use of proxy measures, providing guidance on metrics and usage, while further specifying the requirements for direct frameworks and a path to get there. Individual companies can then start to create structured short-term strategies, and begin the process of decarbonizing the ad industry.