• What Will It Take To Get To RTB 2.0?
    The business world is prone to radical changes, and change brings a mix of feelings, many of them negative. Yet transition occurs whether industries embrace the change wholesale or initially resist. Look at the music industry, which went from selling CDs to MP3s to focusing on streaming services in a little more than a decade. In digital advertising, marketers had barely begun to grasp the thousands of computations necessary to deliver an ad to a consumer's browser when real-time bidding came along. Now, all of these computations are done in real time, with even more complex decisions added to the …
  • Labels Matter For Publishers In Programmatic
    I was raised to avoid using labels. Describing people, countries, and companies with broad descriptions that can border on stereotypes, positively or negatively, can be very dangerous and inappropriate. Still, In today's world of programmatic buying and selling, and more specifically in the expanding world of private exchanges, labels are critical.
  • The Reality Of RTB & Today's Mobile Ad Tech Landscape
    Much has been made of the use of premium inventory vs. performance inventory on RTB platforms. Some detractors claim that RTB traffic is worthless and that DSPs are polluting their premium traffic with remnant inventory that costs the same but doesn't convert. This may have been true of RTB platforms in their early days. But now, especially in the case of mobile, RTB has proven itself as both a branding tool and a way to engage consumers in the context of relevant content in real-time.
  • UM's COO On RTB: If It's Not Programmatic, It's Manual, Not Premium
    Gregg Colvin, U.S. COO at Universal McCann (UM) is very experienced with both programmatic (@agency) and premium (@Fox Networks). As a trained lawyer and COO, he has a pragmatic grasp on all aspects of the RTB marketplace. I recently interviewed Colvin, who has watched the programmatic revolution from the inside. Believe it or not, he sees the glass as more than half full and herein even addresses a few of the issues to make RTB even better.
  • The Emerging Role Of The Independent Media Trader
    Have you heard about the independent media trader (IMT)? This catalyst of change is an emerging discipline focused on executing ad inventory buying and selling on behalf of marketers, agencies, and publishers, and -- at times -- on behalf of its own and/or others' risk capital.
  • What M&A Means For Programmatic Marketers
    The ad tech industry is always simmering with activity, and has been particularly active with M&As lately. This is (usually) great news for investors, executives, and similar companies and technologies that benefit from a valuation boost. But in ad tech, and especially programmatic, the untold story is what happens to clients.
  • To Save The Ad Industry, Diversify Targeting
    Not too long ago, Will Doherty speculated what digital advertising will be like once cookies are past their peak.There's no doubt that cookie pools are shrinking, driven (per Doherty) by the consumer's move to mobile. To market at scale, he envisions tracking mechanisms in all mobile -- and eventually all household -- devices. In other words, the alternatives will function pretty much like today's cookies. With all due respect, device type tells just a part of the story of the shrinking cookie pool. The ad industry likes to say that our top priority is listening to the consumer. If that's …
  • Why Fewer Ads Will Benefit Our Entire Industry
    The most potent opportunity of digital marketing is the ability to access and leverage data about nearly everything. Data-driven or "programmatic" marketing isn't just about RTB, exchanges, DSPs, or trading desks - those are means, not results. It's about the ability for marketers to understand and make intelligent decisions about where their messages are being placed, to whom they're being targeted, and with what specific outcomes. This is an incredible economic opportunity for both marketers and publishers if the two sides come together and get it right.
  • Digital Auto Industry On The Leading Edge Not Lagging In Programmatic
    The auto industry is usually a first in everything digital - and programmatic is not an exception. The auto digerati are innovators and early market leaders who are always the first to jump into new formats and strategies. You do not visit Detroit just for the hockey, to see Ann Arbor or to get a beer with Kid Rock. The auto industry's investment in dollars is time well spent in digital advertising. They really scale programmatic direct deals (auto up-fronts), programmatic private exchanges and real-time bidding for performance, as well as branding.
  • Thinking Differently About Agency Trade Desks
    Just when you thought there was no more room in investment bank Luma Partners' Lumascape, with the advent of so many new programmatic business models it may be time to consider a new way to think about and characterize the current box/category labeled "agency trade desks (ATDs)." ATDs are in fact media traders, who by business design may or may not be acting purely on behalf of clients. It is becoming clear that media traders are one of two breeds:
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