Our Pledge to Clients

Financial Times Commercial Charter¹

Our commercial charter sets out the standards we will uphold when we deal with our advertising partners. It clearly explains how we will transact and the level of service you can expect from us. By publishing this we wanted to explain what we believe is fair and to demonstrate that we will operate in a transparent and open fashion. We hope that others follow suit.

1. User acceptance
   
   1.1. Our foremost concern is the experience of our readers and maintaining the relationship of trust we have with them. In our reader charter we clearly set out our commitments to readers around transparency, data privacy and user experience, including how we will serve advertising to them.
   
2. Viewability
   
   2.1. Where a transaction includes a viewability guarantee, we use the IAB viewable ad impression guidelines to define when advertisements are counted as viewable:
   IAB standard units: 50% or more of the pixels are in view for one or more seconds.
   High-impact ads²: 30% or more of the pixels are in view for one or more seconds.
   Video ads: 50% of the pixels are in view for two continuous seconds of the ad.
   2.2. We offer cost-per-hour which is a 100% viewable solution and allows clients to transact on attention rather than impressions.
   
3. Non-human traffic and fraud
   
   3.1. We measure non-human traffic at a campaign level using Moat. We make this data available to advertisers.
   3.2. We do not count traffic we consider to be non-human towards campaigns.
   3.3. We will continue to work with technology providers and partners across the industry to identify non-human traffic and exclude it from our sites.
   3.4. We only make FT inventory available programmatically through specific ad exchanges: Google (AdX), Pangaea (Rubicon) and TrustX. If you think you are buying advertising on FT.com elsewhere, it is likely to be fraudulent.
   
4. Audience segment composition
   
   4.1 We are completely transparent with our commercial partners about how all our digital audience segments are built.
   4.2 Our premium audience segments are all solely based on first-party, declared data³. Where we use behavioural or third-party data we are clear about this and typically charge lower rates (although as with all our digital rates, this depends on supply and demand).
   
5. Brand safety
   
   5.1 Additionally, advertisers are able to supply custom blacklists of sites to exclude from their campaign.
   5.2 Where scale permits, we use whitelists to optimise campaigns towards premium sites.
   5.3 When we buy advertising on behalf of our clients we make available full reporting, as provided by Google DoubleClick Bid Manager, showing the sites on which campaigns have run.
   5.4 For campaigns running on FT properties:
   5.5 We have members of staff specifically tasked with monitoring for stories which are inappropriate advertising contexts (e.g. disasters), whether in print or online. If in doubt, we exclude these stories until we have spoken with the advertiser.
   5.6 Using semantic targeting technology we offer off-the-shelf and custom topic exclusions for advertisers who may not wish to be seen against certain content.
   
6. Pricing
   
   6.1 We are completely transparent with clients around the media costs and data fees when we buy inventory on their behalf.
   6.2 We will not arbitrage or add fees onto third party costs, such as creative design and adaptation.
   6.3 Our programmatic inventory is not heavily discounted. If you think you are buying FT inventory for significantly less than our published rates, it is very likely to be fraudulent. Please contact us if this is the case.
   6.4 Our published rate card is clear and simple for digital as well as print. Our digital rates are based on supply and demand.
   
7. Reporting and verification
   
   7.1 Our print circulation figure is genuine and not artificially enhanced by free copies; every newspaper is paid for⁴.
   7.2 We make full reporting - as provided by our ad server (Google DoubleClick for Publishers) - available to our clients for on-site and off-site buys.
   7.3 All digital campaign metrics are verified by independent third party technology providers - Viewability by DoubleClick Active View or Moat, CTR by DoubleClick for Publishers.
   
8. Personnel and customer service
   
   8.1 We will ensure that all our advertising clients have trained, knowledgeable FT representatives who are able to provide guidance on how best to achieve their marketing objectives.
   8.2 We will respond to all enquiries within one working day, both from existing and new clients.
   
9. Takedown policy
   
   9.1 If as an advertising client you wish to have your adverts taken down, in circumstances where they have been published in an inappropriate environment, we will action this within one working day following a request being logged with your Account Manager.
   9.2 The consequences of any adverts removed under section 9.1 will be determined in accordance with the FT’s Terms and Conditions, as agreed on either the Insertion Order or on a case by case basis with the buyer.
   

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¹ This charter applies to the Financial Times newspaper and supplements, FT.com and off-site buys where specified.
² The IAB definition of high-impact unit is one larger than 242,500 pixels.
³ Excluding our business travellers segment, where we use first-party login data to determine those users that regularly travel.
⁴ This applies only to the FT newspaper and its supplements; the FT group publishes a number of ‘controlled circulation’ specialist titles which are provided without charge to professionals who meet specific criteria.