The fight against made-for-advertising (MFA) sites continues. And supply-side platform Equativ has finally had enough.
In 2023, Equativ blocked MFA from all of its private marketplace deals. Now it’s taking the next step and blocking MFA content from all exchange activity, including open exchange.
Equativ determines which sites are MFA-qualifying via a list maintained and distributed by Jounce Media. Jounce updates and recirculates this list daily.
Equativ’s goal, Chief Innovation Officer Curt Larson told AdExchanger, is to fund quality content and journalism and ensure that “a free and open internet can continue to thrive.” MFA publishers, simply put, “are not contributing to that vision,” said Larson.
It’s going down
The good news for Equativ and similarly frustrated SSPs is that MFA content has seen a sharp decline over the past couple of years. Back in 2023, Larson said, 20% to 30% of publisher revenue was going to MFA sites.
And now?
Between zero and 2%.
But this decline isn’t all about good faith and lofty values. It’s also about the money.
One of the biggest factors that helped curtail the monetization of MFA content was the 2023 Association of National Advertisers report that demonstrated the waste and inefficiency of funneling ad dollars to MFAs.
Jounce has also been quite outspoken about combatting MFAs and pushing the online advertising industry to do the same.
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MFAs operate on an arbitrage business model – in fact, some people refer to MFA as “made for arbitrage” rather than “made for advertising” – which is innately low margin. After the ANA’s report, many MFA sites withered, as more buyers began blocking that supply and squeezing those already razor-thin margins, said Chris Kane, founder of Jounce Media.
And this is all to the good, including for advertisers, Larson said. MFA sites might be good for vanity metrics like clicks and page views, but they don’t drive actual marketer outcomes, he added.
Better late than never
It’s well known that MFA sites are low quality and don’t help marketers achieve their goals. So why is Equativ only now taking the step to fully block MFAs from its exchange?
Larson believes the industry wasn’t ready for a complete MFA ban until now.
“It would have been pretty disruptive to some DSP campaigns [and] some advertiser campaigns,” he said, noting that certain advertisers were “overly reliant” on MFAs.
But it wasn’t just buyers who weren’t ready. Two or three years ago, an exchange would have taken a “huge revenue hit” if it excluded all MFA from its supply, said Kane. There’s still a financial downside today, but a lesser one now that MFAs account for a smaller share of programmatic inventory and spend.
Equativ is making a calculated risk, but an appropriate one, according to Kane, for the sake of bolstering its reputation as a “high-quality marketplace.”
All eyes ahead
Equativ is a relatively early adopter of this anti-MFA policy, Kane added, but he expects to see more exchanges follow its lead, as buyer demand for MFA supply wanes.
“I think there’s going to be a day where it’s hard to find an exchange that does sell MFA supply,” said Kane.
Equativ agrees.
As exchanges increasingly adopt this practice, Larson predicts it will be “the final nail in the coffin” for MFAs.
