In the absence of a widely accepted reporting mechanism for itemizing costs and fully quantifying the ad tech tax, buyers must be willing to work with—and pressure—each partner to make this a reality. (Blockchain won’t fill that role in 2019, if ever.) But this practice will be far from perfected in 2019.

This spells out the areas that brands, agencies, DSPs, publishers and others in the programmatic supply chain should focus on to fulfill their legal obligations, and also achieve good results.