Blog post
How Publishers Can Get Started with Sustainable Ad Strategies
Today’s ad buyers are increasingly looking for advertising sites and placements that minimize the environmental impact of digital advertising.
At writing, multiple regulatory groups have introduced policies for reporting emissions worldwide, increasing the urgency for publishers and platforms to meet the needs of advertisers and digital advertising solution providers.
The EU has created the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Much like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—which serves as an industry standard for privacy—the CSRD is leading the way for emissions reporting and accountability. And in the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures by public companies. The State of California has also passed two climate-related disclosure bills for companies.
With these impending emissions reporting regulations, publishers and buyers are especially looking for sustainable media solutions that reduce carbon emissions without compromising on return on ad spend (ROAS).
To better understand the rising demand for sustainable ad inventory in programmatic buying, let’s look at recent ad industry insights.
Building Better Trust and Performance with Sustainable Ad Strategies
Marketers are becoming more aware of the levels of energy required to support digital advertising and see the need for change to help reduce carbon emissions generated from their digital campaigns.
- 51% of U.S. marketers say their organization plans to reach net zero in digital advertising.1
- Two-thirds of U.S. marketers say they’re tracking emissions generated by their digital advertising campaigns.1
- 66% of U.S. marketers believe minimizing carbon emissions should be the target of every marketer.2
- 9 out of 10 marketers in the U.S. agree that the digital advertising industry has a responsibility to reduce carbon emissions.1
- 76% of brand and agency marketers support the view that the ad industry needs to do more to reduce emissions.1
As a publisher, aligning your advertising monetization strategies with corporate social responsibility objectives can also have many positive brand impacts.
By differentiating your brand from competitors and engaging with new, conscientious media buyers who are increasingly prioritizing social and environmental issues, you can build greater trust with them and enhance your brand’s reputation. This is true for both brands and consumers. And according to a recent study by the ANA and Scope3, embracing sustainability in media can also lead to better performance, attracting media buyers wanting to meet their emissions goals without compromising on media performance.
"We’ve found that when we put brands on a sustainability agenda, they grow faster because they’re more aligned to the consumers of today and tomorrow. We’ve also saved about €1 billion in costs through responsible sourcing."
— Former Unilever CEO Alan Jope 3
How to Start Reducing Your Carbon Footprint as a Publisher
With the growing emphasis and regulations on sustainability, it’s crucial for you to take tangible actions today to reduce the environmental impact of your inventory. And one of the first steps you can take as a publisher is to optimize your creative assets for sustainable advertising.
Creative assets play a pivotal role in the digital advertising ecosystem. Their creative weight, or data volume, significantly impacts carbon emissions associated with ad delivery.
For instance, a 15-second video ad can generate up to 85% more carbon emissions than a standard display ad, due to increased load times and data processing demands.3 To mitigate this, you could lower video resolution, reduce frame rates, or decrease bit rates. Additionally, you could use advanced video compression codecs, like H.264, which can further reduce file sizes without sacrificing content quality.
So mindful management of your creative weights can be crucial in both ad server hosting and collaboration with third-party buyers.
By optimizing and compressing the size of your ad creatives, you can reduce data transmission and storage requirements. This lowers emissions from servers and network infrastructure tasked with ad delivery and retention, while still retaining ad quality and efficacy.
Microsoft Advertising’s Commitment to Your Sustainability Goals
Beyond optimizing your creative assets, innovative ad tech companies are developing solutions to help you make your advertising more sustainable.
At Microsoft Advertising, we’re committed to doing our part towards helping publishers like you drive performance while simultaneously achieving our own corporate sustainability commitments.
Our sustainability work starts with taking accountability for our operational footprint across our campuses, datacenters, devices, software, and value chain. It also involves working to establish a comprehensive methodology to fit the complexities of a global omnichannel digital advertising platform across the web.
Already, media buyers on Microsoft Invest are increasing adoption and purchase of less environmentally intensive media inventory available from Climate Shield by Scope3 and Impact+. For example, a case study4 of media buyers from RelevanC trading team reduced electricity consumption and Grid Emissions Factors (GEF) where Microsoft Invest DSP integrated with GreenMetrics which measures carbon emissions of publisher websites and Impact+ evaluates the carbon emissions of the campaign allowing for more green advertising decisions while maintaining similar ad performance and sometimes better.4 And with Microsoft Monetize, you can access scaled programmatic demand and powerful insights across all channels, formats, and transaction types.
Microsoft Advertising is here to be on this journey with you. And in an upcoming blog, we’ll share 6 more publisher tactics to minimize your environmental impact and maximize your profit while delivering high-quality and engaging ads to your audiences, so stay tuned!
In the meantime, you can learn more about how solutions like Microsoft Monetize can help you access media buyers interested in sustainable media by contacting your sales representative today.
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