Designing Distributed Ledger technologies, like Blockchain, for advertising markets

Abstract

Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), like Blockchain, could help improve brand safety, consumer privacy and transparency in digital advertising. However, paid advertisements transfer attention, money, and data between three parties: advertiser, consumer, and publisher. Therefore advertising-focused DLTs face more complex design considerations than currency-focused DLTs. We describe four key DLT characteristics: structure, participation/governance, transparency, and terms of exchange. We survey current advertising-focused DLTs and find they each serve only two of the three contracting parties in advertising transactions. We make design recommendations for future advertising-focused DLTs, including a goal of serving both consumers and publishers in addition to advertisers. We also recommend governance, transparency and terms-of-trade considerations. Advertising-focused DLTs have significant promise but also significant obstacles, including multi-sided “chicken-and-egg” problems in standards adoption.