IAB Gold Standard 2025 - Why We’re Backing RefSettings
A Step Toward a More Sustainable Programmatic Ecosystem
At Skyrise, we believe that a people-first approach makes advertising better for everyone. We’re helping to define a new way advertisers reach their customers, and we want to achieve this while being good corporate citizens. More specifically, we want to have a positive impact on the world around us.
We’re tackling climate change head-on and maximising our positive impact on the environment, on our own journey to net-zero.
The drive for effective media solutions that help advertisers reduce emissions is obvious. It’s better for brands, better for people, and better for the planet. Transparency and industry-wide collaboration are critical for a better future.
That is why we’re voicing our support for one of the most meaningful new additions to criteria for the IAB Gold Standard 2025: the introduction of its new Sustainability pillar and in particular the support of RefSettings.
We often discuss efficiency and transparency in programmatic advertising, yet a less visible cost lingers beneath the surface. That's why our support for the IAB Gold Standard RefSettings approach isn't just about better buying – it's a step towards a more sustainable digital future.
Consider the seemingly innocuous act of ad refreshing, a common publisher tactic to boost revenue. Each automatic reload, each new ad served without user interaction, carries an environmental weight. Until now, the bidstream has lacked a standard to track this behavior, leaving buyers in the dark about the true frequency and impact of these invisible transactions.
This lack of transparency has tangible consequences. Beyond reduced viewability and undermined campaign performance, unmanaged ad refresh inflates the digital ecosystem's energy consumption.
Every refresh triggers a cascade of computational processes: new bid requests, creative serving, and data processing. These micro-transactions, multiplied across billions of impressions daily, contribute to a significant, often unaccounted-for, carbon footprint.
RefSettings, a seemingly small addition to the IAB Tech Labs OpenRTB 2.6, offers a crucial intervention. By allowing publishers to declare refresh type and interval within the bidstream, it introduces a level of accountability that has been sorely missing. This simple act of standardisation has the potential to unlock profound benefits:
- For Advertisers: Transparency empowers informed decisions, allowing them to prioritise inventory with responsible refresh practices and potentially reduce their campaign's environmental impact.
- For Publishers: Declaring refresh strategies fosters trust with buyers and encourages a shift towards optimised yield rather than sheer volume, potentially leading to more sustainable revenue models.
- For the Planet: By mitigating redundant impressions and unnecessary compute cycles, RefSettings offers a pathway to a lower-carbon programmatic ecosystem.
Our position as an AdTech provider places us at a critical juncture. While we don't directly implement technical specifications, our influence lies in fostering change across the value chain. We are committed to:
- Advocating for RefSettings adoption among our SSP partners, encouraging a collective move towards greater transparency.
- Prioritising inventory that embraces sustainability and transparency, signaling the growing importance of these factors.
- Championing best practices in bidstream integrity and data clarity, recognising that environmental responsibility is intertwined with overall ecosystem health.
RefSettings isn't just a technical update; it's an invitation to a more conscious approach to programmatic advertising.
It prompts us to consider the hidden costs of our digital practices and recognise that a focus on efficiency and transparency can – and must – extend beyond campaign performance to encompass environmental responsibility. This isn't just about a better bidstream; it's about building a more sustainable future, one impression at a time.