Tech
Dysfunctional dynamics continue to blight ad tech’s prospects
Any time a buyer has to sacrifice quality to meet a big-budget spending constraint, that buyer is in a lemon market and should exit until that hard reality trade-off can be overcome.
It’s a critique often levied at the state of online advertising. And for good reason: the further out media buyers go into the online ad market to buy publisher inventory the more low-quality inventory they end up buying. But as long as ad tech vendors can deal with that inventory, media buyers don’t have to (i.e incorporate that trade-off cost into ROI) and the money keeps flowing.
It’s getting harder to continue being so passive. Recent investigations are sobering reminders of how warped that logic is.
First, there was the total failure of DSPs, SSPs, and verification companies to miss the fact Gannett was giving advertisers inaccurate information for nine months per independent researcher Braedon Vickers last week. A day later Morning Brew reported that brand safety vendors are secretly profiting from publisher data. Both issues were foreshadowed a week earlier at an industry conference where ad tech came under the microscope.
“The problem is there’s no universal measurement,” said D.J Perera, director of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Media Center of Excellence at the event. “There’s very little transparency. You don’t know if consumers are on their mobile device or watching on television.”
Add up all these instances and one thing is certain: there are still areas of the ad tech chain devoid of much transparency where vendors are incentivized to act badly. Some marketers are, of course, worried. They worry that if recent moves to get transparency into ad tech missed all these snafus, what else are they missing. Other marketers, however, don’t know why to care about these types of issues.
Take the Gannett incident, for example. Current safeguards did not catch the fact that advertisers weren’t buying the ads they thought they were within the Gannett roster of sites. Yes, it was an error as its vp of product-display advertising Jeff Burkett has explained on Twitter. But it also begs the question: what is there in place to stop shady sites from intentionally pumping the same inaccurate data into the ecosystem?
The answer is complicated.
On one hand, the data is there to keep on top of all these issues, but it’s not being watched by the necessary companies. On the other, the data isn’t even always accessible. Otherwise, marketers would have more reason to at least start buying more premium inventory. Then again, if they did that there wouldn’t be as many ad impressions to buy — a potential problem given the economics of programmatic outlined in this post from the Quo Vadis newsletter by Tom Triscari, an economist at consulting firm Lemonade Projects.
None of the advertisers mentioned in the Gannett report are commenting on the issue so it’s hard to say what their stance is on the matter. It’s not even clear whether they’ve asked for refunds. There are reasons to wonder.
“Marketers have been addicted to three key things: large quantities, low prices and high click-through rates, all of which were possible by bot activity,” said Augustine Fou, anti-fraud and security researcher. “It was a perfect storm to keep advertisers spending money on total crap that was useless.”
There are, however, signs of change.
“We’re still at the stage where the marketers who want to know more about the programmatic impressions they win and lose, do so out of principle and not out of a data-driven decision,” said a senior ad tech executive who spoke to Digiday on condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak on behalf of their company. “That said, we’re starting to see more of those questions come through.”
The reason: the same confusion and urgency that filled advertisers in the wake of concerns over kickbacks, rebates and undisclosed fees is gripping (albeit slowly) them again as the ad industry stares down the barrel at the prospect of blunt tracking and profiling users at scale. Data provenance will be the new media transparency issue. In many ways, it already is for advertisers like Unilever and Deutsche Telekom.
“These are big advertisers who are pressuring ad tech vendors to give them data needed to audit how their money is being spent,” said an ad tech exec who spoke on condition of anonymity due to confidentiality clauses with clients. “They use that data to audit who their counterparties are and then make decisions on which ones they trust and those they don’t. It doesn’t require log file data, but does require some form of unique data to be able to make these calls.”
A big catalyst for this is the evolution of tools like Sellers.json and the SupplyChain Object, which give marketers insight into how impressions are won and lost, as well as auction data from ad tech vendors. Buyers can now determine how the exchange is sourcing the inventory. Is it direct from the publisher? Or is it from another exchange?
“This kind of data-driven fact-based evidence trail points to the difference between “transparency” (which has lost all meaning in programmatic land) and “radical transparency,” said Triscari.
The former is meaningless, Triscari continued. The latter asks “what is true about programmatic ads and how can marketers get better at practicing what is true to get what they want,” he explained. For example, spend large ad budgets responsibly on behalf of shareholders or stakeholders and buy the highest quality inventory possible at the same time.
No moment sums up this change more than the current flight to provable impression quality in ad tech. Granted, it’s one that’s been in the offing for a while (advertisers have been moving from normal CPMs to a quality CPM for years now), but momentum is building. Agencies and ad tech platforms are trying to steer media dollars down fewer, more direct paths to publisher inventory. Or to put it another way, spend more media dollars in private marketplaces of fewer, trusted publishers.
In fact, these companies are inventing new services, from GroupM’s Premium Marketplace to The Trade Desk’s Open Path, to play point on the deal because that’s where the money will be (and increasingly is). In turn, money will leave the open marketplace, where aggregated inventory from multiple partners is made available to the highest bidder in real-time.
By and large, this is already happening. Indeed, ad spending in these curated marketplaces across Europe is set to dip from around 40% in 2021 to around 25% in 25%, per the IAB Europe. For context, this spending includes banner and online video advertising but excludes CTV, retail and mobile ad networks. It’s a delicate transition to make: the more this move to curated supply happens the more it throws the economics of the market out of whack.
“When it comes to this topic it often leads to awkward conversations with marketers where they say they want to avoid all this junk inventory but when they realize it means paying a higher price for fewer better that ads, which in turn knocks viewability and conversion rates then they don’t want to know,” said the ad tech exec. “Maybe they needed a catalyst like cookie deprecation.”
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At a glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Very accurate color
- Great out-of-box image quality
- Good range of image adjustments
- Smooth, clear motion performance
Cons
- Expensive for a 1080p monitor
- Bland, basic design
- Modest SDR brightness
Our Verdict
Acer’s Nitro XV272 costs more than a lot of 1080p monitors, but the IPS, 165Hz screen provides above-average image quality and motion performance, and a full range of monitor-stand adjustments and a generous array of ports make it worth the cost.
Best Prices Today: Acer Nitro XV272
1080p resolution isn’t cutting-edge, but it remains the most popular resolution among modern PC displays. This is often because of budget: There are dozens of cheap 1080p monitors. But what happens when a 1080p monitor makes image quality a priority?
Acer XV272: The specs
The Acer Nitro XV272 (LVbmiiprx) is a 27-inch, 1080p monitor with an IPS panel and a 165Hz refresh rate. This puts it smack-dab in the most crowded segment of the monitor market. Here are the XV272’s most noteworthy specs.
- Display size: 27-inch
- Native resolution: 1920×1080
- Panel type: IPS
- Refresh rate: Up to 165Hz
- Adaptive sync: AMD FreeSync Premium and G-Sync Compatible
- Ports: 2x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort, 4x USB 3
- Stand adjustment: Height, tilt, swivel, pivot
- VESA mount: Yes, 100x100mm
- Speakers: Yes
- Price: $349 MSRP, around $279 typical
A few features help the Nitro XV272 stand out. It has a 165Hz refresh and is compatible with both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync. It also has three video inputs, four USB ports, and a stand with numerous ergonomic adjustments. These features signal that the Nitro XV272, though not expensive, is a cut above entry-level 1080p monitors.
Acer Nitro XV272: Design
The “Nitro” name might sound exciting, but the XV272, like all such monitors from Acer, looks pretty plain. Acer’s Nitro sub-brand focuses on performance over design. Essentially all Nitro monitors use a simple, matte black housing paired with a skinny stand with round base. It’s dull but inoffensive.
Matt Smith / Foundry
The stand feels cheap when handled but offers plenty of ergonomic adjustment. This includes height, tilt, swivel, and even pivot. Swivel and pivot aren’t guaranteed at this price point, so it’s good to see them here. There’s also a 100x100mm VESA mount for attaching a third-party monitor arm or stand.
There is one problem with the stand: cable management. You won’t find a hole in the stand for routing cables. Instead, Acer uses a tiny clip on the base that does a terrible job of keeping cables bundled.
Acer XV272: Features and menu
Connectivity includes two HDMI 2.0 ports, plus one DisplayPort, and a total of four USB-A 3.0 ports for connecting wired peripherals. This makes the monitor a moderately useful USB hub, though it lacks more advanced features like USB-C with Power Delivery. Still, the Acer Nitro XV272 has more ports than most 1080p gaming monitors.
Matt Smith / Foundry
The Nitro XV272’s menu system could be better. It looks basic, with simple icons and unattractive fonts, and doesn’t feel responsive while using the joystick to scroll through options. The joystick and select buttons are easy to use, but the power button is a bit too close to the select buttons. I accidentally turned off the monitor several times.
These issues hide a surprisingly robust slate of image-quality options. This includes precise gamma presets, several color temperature modes, and six-way adjustment of color saturation and hue. There’s also a few gaming-centric features such as a frames-per-second counter and built-in aim points. The monitor lacks a black equalizer setting for brightening dark areas, however, which might disappoint fans of competitive shooters.
The monitor includes a pair of two-watt speakers. They’re not great but well suited for podcasts, YouTube, or games with less impressive audio. You’ll want to put on a headset when sound quality matters.
Acer XV272: SDR image quality
The Acer Nitro XV272 is towards the high end of pricing for a 27-inch 1080p display. Gamers can snag a 1440p or 4K monitor for about the same price. Acer combats this with a vivid, accurate image.
SDR brightness comes in at about 250 nits. This is low but, as you’ll see when I discuss HDR, it’s not the monitor’s true maximum brightness. Acer appears to be limiting the monitor’s maximum potential in SDR mode. That said, the monitor is still bright enough for use in nearly all situations. It will only appear dim if used opposite a sunlit window.
Matt Smith / Foundry
The Nitro XV272’s modest contrast ratio is typical for a modern IPS gaming monitor without Mini-LED technology. Like its peers, the XV272 suffers from “IPS glow”—a hazy and blotchy appearance noticeable in dark scenes.
That said, the monitor’s contrast ratio is good for the price. Aside from LG’s new IPS Black panel technology, which is currently available in just a couple displays from Dell, no IPS monitor without Mini-LED performs significantly better.
Matt Smith / Foundry
Color gamut is solid, covering the entire sRGB color space plus 88 percent of DCI-P3. The range of colors it can display is great for a mid-range gaming monitor and does provide an advantage over alternatives with a more narrow color space. The added color provides a vivid, saturated look that’s attractive in games.
As for color accuracy, the Nitro XV272 knocks it out of the park, with a default color accuracy more typical of a high-end professional monitor than a mid-range gaming monitor.
Acer doesn’t sell the XV272 as a professional display, and its meager 1080p resolution will take it out of contention for many, but creators who stick to 1080p resolution will find this monitor surprisingly capable when editing photos, video, and digital art.
Matt Smith / Foundry
The monitor had an ideal gamma curve of 2.2, which means content looks about as bright as was intended. Default color temperature came in at 6200K, which is slightly warmer and more reddish than the typical temperature of 6500K. As mentioned earlier, the monitor offers multiple gamma and color temperature settings, so there’s a lot of room to tweak the image if you want.
But you don’t need to—and that is the monitor’s greatest strength. The XV272’s decent contrast, accurate color, and lack of noticeable flaws makes for a fantastic out-of-box experience. The SDR image is lively and inviting.
Matt Smith / Foundry
There’s one obvious limitation: resolution. This is a 27-inch 1080p monitor, which translates to a meager pixel density of 81 pixels per inch. Fonts are poorly defined, videos lack sharpness, and games show distracting shimmering and pixelation. This isn’t a dealbreaker for me, but you should know what you’re getting into. A 1440p alternative will look much sharper.
Acer XV272: HDR performance
The Acer Nitro XV272 supports HDR and is VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified. HDR support is becoming common among gaming displays, but it still feels special at this price point. I measured a maximum HDR brightness of 450 nits, which is solid.
Though it supports HDR, the Nitro XV272 failed to automatically detect an HDR signal and turn on HDR mode. I had to select it manually. This is a minor annoyance but disappointing, as nearly all monitors I test have no problem detecting HDR automatically.
The Nitro XV272’s HDR performance is better than expected. It delivered performance that was superior to more expensive monitors, such as the Gigabyte M27Q X and Asus ProArt PA279CV, with better color gamut and accuracy in HDR.
Still, ultimately, this is a budget monitor that can’t do HDR justice. HDR content can deliver a bit more detail in bright areas but otherwise isn’t necessarily more colorful or rich than in SDR—it just looks slightly different.
Acer XV272: Motion performance
Acer’s Nitro XV272 has a maximum refresh rate of up to 165Hz. This delivers smooth, fluid motion in games and a quicker, more responsive feel when using the desktop. The monitor officially supports AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync, so you don’t need to worry about whether the monitor will work with your particular video card.
Shoppers should remember this is a 1080p display, which is less demanding than 1440p or 4K resolution. Achieving a frame rate that fully uses the 165Hz refresh rate is possible in a wide range of titles. This is good news for gamers on a budget.
Motion clarity is good at the monitor’s default response-time setting. The monitor has an OverDrive mode, which can be activated when using several gaming-oriented image-quality presets. This can improve clarity but also causes overshoot, an issue where a pixel moves beyond the intended color, resulting in artifacts around high-contrast objects. Most owners should just leave OverDrive at the default setting of Normal.
Final thoughts
The Acer Nitro XV272 LVbmiiprx is a good monitor for gamers who want attractive image quality at a mid-range price. Resolution will be an obstacle for some, as it’s possible to buy a 1440p monitor on the same budget, but the XV272’s accurate image and great motion clarity makes up for the lack of sharpness.
The XV272 is also a good choice for content creators who want accurate color for less than $300, making it a well-rounded, budget-friendly choice for those who work from home and want one display for both productivity and gaming.
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While nothing beats a full-featured PDF editor like Adobe’s Acrobat Pro DC, sometimes you don’t need all the bells and whistles. When you just have to edit a few lines of text, add or reposition an image, or make some review notes, a free PDF editor may be the way to go.
Free PDF editors offer a few advantages over their paid partners. First and most obviously, they don’t cost anything. If you don’t work regularly with PDF files, a premium editor probably won’t be worth the investment and a free editor can get the job done on the occasions you need to make some quick changes to document. Second, free PDF editors generally work in your browser so, unlike paid PDF editors, there are no platform- or device-compatibility issues to worry about. (The exceptions are free trial versions of paid editors, which need to be downloaded to a device.) Finally, because free online PDF editors are used on-the-fly, they generally have much simpler, more-intuitive interfaces and tools than paid editors do.
Of course, you can’t expect a free product to have all the sophisticated features of a paid one. Most will let you edit PDF files by adding and modifying text and images and annotating with shapes, freehand drawings, and notes. Fonts and font sizes, colors, and shape options will almost assuredly be more limited than what you’d find in a paid editor, though. Free editors will also let you create PDFs and convert them to other file formats. This is probably all you need for occasional work with PDFs.
You may find features like form filling, e-signatures, and content redaction in some free editors. But capabilities like password protection and bates numbering are almost unheard of. Frankly, if you dive deep enough into PDFs to use any of these features, you’re probably better served by one of the desktop editors in our best paid PDF editors buying guide.
1. PDF Candy – Best free PDF editor overall
Pros
- Many advanced features
- OCR capability
- Very easy to use
Cons
- Lacks a single interface, which some users may not like
- Free version limits you to one task per hour
PDF Candy is the rare free PDF editor that offers a lot of the features you’d typically have to pay for. We’re talking scanning, multiple file-conversion options, and OCR functionality. While the free version has access to the expansive toolset of the paid version, you’re limited to one PDF task per hour. For unfettered access, you need to shell out $6 month.
2. Apple Preview PDF editor – Best free PDF editor for Mac users
Pros
- Full set of PDF markup tools
- Supports form filling
- PDFs can be protected with passwords, encryption, and permission controls
Cons
- Limited native sharing options
- Only available to Mac users
Mac users have an excellent PDF editor built right into their operating system. Although its ostensibly a photo viewer, macOS’s Preview app is rife with PDF-editing capabilities including tools for adding text and shapes, redacting content, making freehand drawings, inserting sticky notes, and capturing your signature using your trackpad, camera, or iPhone.
3. Sejda PDF editor – Most versatile free PDF editor
Pros
- Online and desktop versions available
- Performs dozens of PDF tasks
- No frills interface is easy to use
Cons
- There are daily usage limits without a subscription
- Limited font options
Offered as both an online tool and a desktop editor, Sejda is capable of performing dozens of tasks including editing, form creation and filling, Bates stamping, file encryption, and more. If the daily usage limits are too restrictive for you, you can upgrade to the affordable paid version.
Read our full
Sejda PDF editor review
What to look for in a free PDF editor
- Content editing: As its name indicates, a PDF editor’s primary function is to enable you to edit a document. That includes the ability to add and modify text; insert, resize, and move images; and reorganize pages in the PDF. Most free PDF editors will let you perform these tasks, though they may impose daily limits on how many you can perform or how many documents you can edit.
- Create, convert, and export PDFs: A common need for a PDF editor is to create PDF files from scanned hard copies or by converting digital documents. A good free PDF editor will be able to convert common file formats such as Word, JPG, and HTML to a PDF and preserve the original formatting. It should also be able to export PDFs into other editable formats such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, HTML, or plain text, maintaining the original files hyperlinks, images, and other elements.
- Review and annotate: Most free PDF editors allow you to add comments and other annotations to PDF files during review. Typical annotation tools include sticky notes, shapes, and drawing markup options.
- Signatures: Often all you need a PDF editor for is to sign a document. This used to be a premium feature only available on paid desktop editors, but more free PDF editors are allowing users to create and add electronic signatures to documents.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.
- Productivity Software
Author: Michael Ansaldo, Freelance contributor
Michael Ansaldo is veteran consumer and small-business technology journalist. He contributes regularly to TechHive and PCWorld.
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Acer Nitro XV272 review: Top-tier gaming on a 1080p monitor
Best free PDF editors: Our top picks
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