Xandr - TFAQs
These FAQs have been developed by IAB UK members from different parts of the industry to help buyers understand more about the companies operating in digital advertising and where value is being added.
Content correct as of May 2020
The questions fall under three different categories:
Pricing
What is your business model and how do you make money?
Xandr is a technology company that provides solutions for the buying and selling of digital advertising. For content owners, also known as publishers or suppliers, we offer them an ad server, a supply-side platform (SSP), and Yieldex Analytics to manage their advertising inventory. For use of these technologies, we charge various transaction and usage fees. For advertisers, also known as buyers or demand side, we offer a demand-side platform (DSP) through which they can manage their advertising campaigns. Through this technology, we charge various transaction and usage fees. For advertisers who uses another DSP but would like to transact in our marketplace, we charge various usage fees.
Can you outline the full details of the agreement on a booking form / contract?
Our clients choose to use our products through various lengths of time. At the end of each contract period, Xandr seeks to renew our relation with them.
Will you share who your trading partners are?
Xandr operates technology that connects publishers and buyers of digital advertising. In addition to our direct relationships with publishers and advertisers, we allow DSPs, SSPs, ad agencies, etc. to either place their ad inventory within our marketplace or buy ad inventory in our marketplace on their clients' behalf. We also work with third party vendors, such as Moat and White Ops, for analytical solutions for viewability and brand safety.
Placement
Do you own the inventory you sell?
Not directly, although as part of AT&T we have affiliates that own inventory. Our inventory comes from the publishers who use our technology or from publishers using a different technology to make their inventory available in our marketplace.
If you don’t own your own inventory then how do you access inventory and which platforms do you use?
We use our own technology such as an ad server or SSP to allow our clients to make their inventory available.
Do you specify your media placements and positions?
Yes, we specify our media placements and positions. This is especially a common practice with our Private Marketplace (PMP). Sellers have the ability to restrict visibility to buyers for things like domain and url. So, as a platform, we encourage transparency by default, but sellers can override.
What insights do you provide back to advertisers?
Our DSPs offer a full range of analytics with insights into spend, campaign effectiveness and full logs of winning auctions.
Does the inventory you own or access include UGC content?
The majority of our publishers create and own their own content. We do have a small number of publishers who use user generated content as well.
What brand safety measures do you use?
We have both a proprietary process and policies focused on brand safety, but also partner with White Ops, an MRC accredited third-party to assist with brand safety as well. We have sell-side and buy-side policies that outline acceptable content and practices for our platform. The content policies include many brand safety measures that prohibit content that contains piracy, hate speech, pornography, and other objectionable content. We have systems and processes to block and deactivate content that violates our policies. In addition, we enable our customers to enable their own enhanced brand safety measures through integrations with 3rd party providers and from platform quality features, such as sensitive attribute labels.
Which industry standards have you been certified against?
We are key members of the IAB and look to adhere to IAB standards. Through partnerships such as with Moat and White Ops, we utilize third-parties to ensure we meet MRC standards also for areas such as viewability and brand safety. We maintain certifications with TAG, including Certified Against Piracy, Certified Against Malware, and Inventory Quality Guidelines, and with JICWEBS we are certified with DTSG Brand Safety.
Do you have a policy in place for ad-misplacement?
Yes, we have policies regarding sell-side practices and content, including a prohibition against inventory misrepresentation. We have systems and process in place to detect and enforce these policies. We take appropriate recourse when we detect a violation, up to and including suspension. We also run a fraud refund program for our buyers.
Are you happy to share your optimisation tactics?
We have internal systems and algorithms that check for brand safety. We also have real human review of all of the creatives that enter our marketplace (unless the buyer opts out) and we partner with White Ops to further ensure these standards. For our buyers, we provide a range of optimisation algorithms that they can use to optimise their campaigns.
Data
Under GDPR what legal basis are you providing your services under?
When acting as a data controller, Xandr processes data under GDPR for the following purposes under the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework 1.0: ad selection, delivery and reporting. Xandr relies on legitimate interests for those purposes. We also need consent for information storage and access under the ePrivacy Directive in the UK. When acting as a data controller, Xandr processes data under GDPR for the following purposes under the TCF v2.0: to select basic ads, measure ad performance, and to develop and improve products and services. Xandr relies on either consent or legitimate interest (flexible) for these purposes.
If consent is the mechanism then can you prove how you obtained it?
Where Xandr relies on consent as a legal basis, we obtain consent via our partners. The Xandr Platform includes configuration options that our partners may use to indicate whether or not the Xandr platform should use cookies or other advertising ID's on an impression and where a customer is using the IAB Framework, Xandr listens to and abides by IAB Framework signals. Xandr records and audits TCF signals and client settings. Xandr offers publisher tools to ensure that their integrations with Xandr operate correctly.
Are you using the IAB Framework?
Yes, including TCF 2.0.
What other 3rd party data partners require consent for your business to deliver its service?
Today, we do not rely on third-party data partners to perform our services. Third-party data providers that are integrated with the Xandr Platform are responsible for obtaining the necessary consent to make their data available on the Xandr Platform.
What do you do with data you obtain from advertiser’s campaigns or data tags?
While we do not currently use advertiser data to create Xandr audience segments, we may use data related to advertisers' campaigns for reporting, analytics, optimization, fraud and security detection.
Are advertisers permitted to appoint their own 3rd party partners for verification and measurement?
Yes. Our DSP is customizable and if they have existing third-party relationships, they are able to use these solutions as well.
Will you provide a link to your privacy and data policies?
https://www.xandr.com/privacy/platform-privacy-policy/
Will you share how you build audience, contextual and targeting segments?
Our clients can use tools on our platform to build audience, contextual, and targeting segments and report on them. Both our DSP and SSP incorporate algorithms and product features to assist in creating these for our clients. In addition, for our publishers, we offer Yieldex, which is an analytics and forecasting solution. Through this, a publisher could also gain insight on audience and creating targeting segments.
To find out which other companies have completed the FAQs, please visit our members directory here.
Please note the answers given are self-declared and are not verified by IAB UK or independently audited, unlike under industry-owned programmes such as JICWEBS. To view the latest JICWEBS Certifications, visit https://jicwebs.org/certification-process/signatories/
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