A big fear among agency buyers is that ad networks will take behind-the-scenes risks to ensure they serve enough ads to meet their monthly guarantees. What might surprise a good number of the people who work at ad networks is that buyers are often quite familiar with many of the tricks of the trade that network salespeople and ad operations folks use to enhance performance.

Yes, buyers know about click farms and targeting ads to people who have a propensity for clicking in general. They know about the practice of network affiliate relations people buying up inventory or clicks outside the network for certain campaigns. They also know about undisclosed application of frequency caps and most of the other little tricks that networks use to give advertiser campaigns a short-term performance boost.

What scares buyers is the notion of coming to the office one morning to find a voicemail from an angry client about the display of an ad on an unapproved affiliate, or a disproportionately small number of website conversions despite a surge in click traffic. That's why buyers are looking for more transparency from their networks. They want as much disclosure as possible so they can do their jobs and keep their clients happy.

That's why buyers often want to see lists of affiliates, have contractual language that keeps their ads out of unapproved editorial environments and get a call from a rep when significant changes are made to the composition of a network buy.

Transparency is a big reason why the most reputable ad networks are in the position they're in. It is also an important reason why agencies trust their network partners.