Ad-tech leaders are challenging the status quo of black box platforms, advocating for transparency over Google’s monopoly in advertising.
Jason Fairchild of tvScientific advocates for a white box model, offering full transparency in ad placements and performance.
Fairchild weighs in on the importance of asking critical questions about ad transparency and fee structures.
In ad tech, powerful forces like Google and Facebook have set the expectation that data is made inaccessible in exchange for traffic. But in light of the ruling that Google held a monopoly over advertising and search, ad-tech leaders are calling out that advertisers simply don’t have to accept the status quo anymore.
Walled gardens: The battle between black box and white box platforms is defining the future of advertising strategies. For Jason Fairchild, Co-Founder and CEO of tvScientific, the stakes couldn’t be clearer. “If I’m a marketer, I probably have to buy from the scaled walled gardens because there’s so much volume there,” he acknowledges. Outside the walled gardens, he says, it doesn’t have to be that way. “On the open web, the black box paradigm shouldn’t exist,” Fairchild stresses. “Yet in places like the Google Ad Exchange, it still does.”
At tvScientific, Fairchild and his team are building an alternative. “We’re creating Facebook-like machine learning optimization, but it’s a white box,” he explains. “Marketers can see exactly where their ads were placed, in what order, with full log-level detail and verification. We’ll even export that data to other measurement platforms, so everything is interoperable.”
Asking the right questions: Fairchild explains that asking the right questions makes all the difference. “You just have to ask: Do I get to see where my ads ran, with log-level detail? Do I get to see who makes money, how much, and where?” he says. “Meaning, if I’m buying from a platform, I need to understand: How do you make money? Are our incentives aligned or misaligned? What’s the transparency of your fee structure?”
These questions, he argues, are fundamental—yet too often go unasked. “Maybe marketers have been trained not to question it, especially with Google and Facebook,” he says. “But they should. And if a partner can’t answer, it’s simple: Don’t work with them.”
Playing by the rules: Fairchild likens the walled garden model—dominated by players like Google, Facebook, and increasingly Amazon—to shopping at a massive retailer. “It’s kind of like Costco,” he says. “If I want access to their huge membership, I have to play by their rules.”
But in ad tech, those rules often mean sacrificing critical insights. “At Facebook, you upload an ad, set your price target, and their algorithms do the rest,” Fairchild explains. “You might sell a bunch of products, but you don’t know who you sold them to, or why the campaign worked—or didn’t. That’s all hidden behind the black box.”
Becoming smarter: He believes radical transparency is not just a nice-to-have—it’s the key to building smarter marketers. “If you buy from us, you learn what works. You understand what programming drives performance. That creates institutional value—you actually get smarter,” Fairchild says.
Virtuous cycle: Ultimately, Fairchild urges marketers to be intentional about their choices. “It’s not about philosophy. It’s not about doctrine,” he emphasizes. “It’s simple: If you work with transparent partners, you get information that makes you better. And the next time you run a campaign, you’ll do it better. And that virtuous cycle feeds off of transparency and information.”Â
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