Editorial policy
Everything published here is written from primary documents, dated at the point of checking, and labelled according to how strong the evidence behind it is. This page is the standard the work should be held to, and it is specific enough to fail against.
Sourcing
A fact enters an article only if it can be traced to a document a reader can open. Technical claims about ad delivery come from the specifications themselves. Legal claims come from regulator guidance or statutory text, never from a law firm's summary of it. Research findings are cited by author, publication and year so they can be looked up rather than taken on trust. Market figures are attributed to the research house and the forecast date, because a spend forecast without its vintage is close to meaningless.
Reviews of ad networks published by other affiliates are excluded as sources entirely. They copy from each other, and a number that has circulated for four years without anyone returning to the primary source is not evidence. The consequence is applied in the review methodology: a network figure with no traceable origin does not get published.
Labelling claims against verified facts
Three labels do most of the work, and they are visible in the text rather than hidden in a footnote. A verified fact is stated plainly with its source. A vendor claim — anything a company asserts about itself that no outside party has audited — is marked as the company's own figure. A reported figure from trade press is attributed to the outlet and the month. Where a claim could not be verified at all, the honest move is to leave it out, and that is what happens.
Dates and expiry
Every page carries a review date, and figures that decay carry their own check date in the sentence that contains them. Prices, minimums, platform features and regulatory positions all move. A reader who finds a number here that has since changed should treat the review date as its expiry stamp and is invited to report the drift through the contact page.
Corrections
Factual errors are fixed as soon as they are confirmed, and the page's review date is updated when they are. Substantive corrections — anything that changes what a reader would decide — are noted in the text rather than quietly overwritten. Typographical and formatting fixes are made silently. Nothing is unpublished to hide a mistake.
Independence from commercial revenue
The site earns money from partner links, described in full on the affiliate disclosure page. Four rules protect the editorial side of that arrangement, and they are absolute rather than aspirational. No advertiser reviews a draft before publication. No position in a comparison is for sale. Commission rates play no part in how anything is ordered or described. And a network's shortcomings are published whether or not it pays, which is why the current reference names the weakest evidence on its own page rather than burying it.
Use of AI tools
Research assistance and drafting support are used the way a spell checker is used, and neither replaces verification. Every factual claim in a published article has been checked against its source by a person. Nothing is published that has not been read end to end and signed by Christoph Trappe, who is accountable for it.
Scope
This policy covers the reference on native ads and every supporting page on this domain. Background on the publication is on the about page.