28th April 2025

Skyrise: Committed to Elevating Digital Advertising Standards

At Skyrise, we are dedicated to fostering a transparent, accountable, and sustainable digital advertising ecosystem. As members of the IAB, we recognise the pivotal role the IAB Gold Standard plays in codifying and promoting these principles.

Sitting at the intersection of the digital advertising supply chain - empowering brands and agencies to activate media with precision, efficiency, and care - it’s our responsibility to help develop a more respectful, sustainable, and user-centric advertising ecosystem. That’s why we support the Coalition for Better Ads (CBA) and its globally recognised Better Ads Standards.

The IAB Gold Standard represents a powerful convergence of industry expertise, integrating the efforts of IAB TechLab, TAG, the Coalition for Better Ads, and IAB Europe. This unified approach tackles critical challenges such as enhancing ad quality, aggressively combating fraud, bolstering brand safety, improving supply chain transparency, and ensuring robust privacy compliance. For Skyrise, and for the broader industry, these pillars are fundamental to building a trustworthy and effective digital landscape.

Since joining the IAB, Skyrise has actively tracked and embraced the annual evolutions of the Gold Standard. We strongly encourage our supply chain partners to adopt key advancements like the DemandChain Object, SupplyChain Object, rigorous (app-)ads.txt diligence, the integration of FCA register insights for financial client onboarding, the proactive use of ASA scam ad alerts, and the comprehensive implementation of the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) version 2.2. These updates are vital steps towards a more secure and transparent ecosystem.

The latest 2025 updates to the Gold Standard further underscore the IAB's commitment to progress in crucial areas:

  • Sustainability: The introduction of RefSettings offers a tangible way to reduce the environmental impact of digital advertising by controlling ad refresh rates. This not only contributes to a greener web but also enhances advertiser visibility and aids in identifying Made for Advertising (MFA) sites.
  • Video: The enhancements brought by the Ad Creative ID Framework (ACIF) and the VAST addendum for Connected TV are set to significantly improve video ad experiences by addressing challenges like frequency capping, ensuring brand separation, and enabling more accurate cross-platform campaign measurement. The new IAB Tech Lab video signals provide essential, standardised guidelines for classifying video ad formats, fostering greater clarity and consistency.
  • Podcasts: The establishment of consistent measurement standards through the Podcast Measurement Guidelines 2.2 addresses the unique dynamics of this rapidly growing digital channel, paving the way for more reliable and comparable data.

Our Commitment to Better Ad Experiences Through CBA Standards

Every campaign we facilitate is an opportunity to build and strengthen the crucial bond of trust between advertisers and their audiences. Intrusive ad experiences, such as auto-playing videos with sound or screen-dominating formats, erode this trust and negatively impact the user experience. The CBA's data-driven standards identify the ad formats that consumers find most disruptive across desktop, mobile, and video environments. 

By actively minimizing these unwelcome formats, the CBA is instrumental in helping the entire industry deliver better, more positively received ad experiences. 

The strength of the CBA's standards lies not only in their focus on user experience but also in their foundation of extensive consumer research conducted across diverse geographies. This global perspective provides us with a vital common framework to effectively evaluate inventory quality, ensure publisher compliance, and champion more meaningful and user-friendly creative innovation. 

At Skyrise, we are actively integrating these standards into our rigorous quality assurance processes, our campaign setup procedures, and our guidance for buyers. This ensures that our partners can activate their media with confidence, knowing they are contributing to a better online experience for everyone.

Our Actions:

  • We are fully aligning with CBA Standards across all major ad environments and formats.
  • We actively help our buyers identify and avoid non-compliant inventory during the crucial campaign setup phase.
  • We are committed to supporting publishers and Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) that demonstrate a clear commitment to removing disruptive ad formats.
  • We prioritise educating our clients on the profound impact that creative choices have on user experience and, ultimately, on campaign performance.

Respecting the user experience is not just an ethical imperative; it’s sound business strategy. Campaigns that adhere to CBA standards consistently tend to achieve stronger performance metrics, including higher engagement rates, significant brand lift, and a reduced risk of ad blocking. By actively supporting these standards, Skyrise is playing a vital role in building a digital ecosystem that delivers value for brands, publishers, and, most importantly, consumers.

Skyrise is committed to upholding the principles of both the IAB Gold Standard and the CBA. We encourage our clients and supply chain partners to prioritise collaborations with certified companies and to embrace these evolving standards. Together, we can collectively forge a cleaner, more respectful, and ultimately more effective future for digital advertising.

For more detailed information on how these standards can enhance your campaigns please reach out to your Skyrise account contact or visit IAB UK and www.betterads.org/standards.