In my current role leading the sales organization at Simpli.fi, I have the pleasure of interacting with all levels of media buyers representing local and national brands, advertising agencies, trading desks, publishers, ad networks and resellers. Predictably, the contacts making media-buying decisions within these companies span a broad range of age and experience levels. While […]
I don’t think it’s news to anyone that there is more readily-available audience data than ever before. “From the dawn of civilization until 2003, humankind generated five exabytes of data. Now we produce five exabytes every two days… and the pace is accelerating.” – Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google In fact, according to Rick Smolan […]
In a programmatic world, clients seem to be increasingly concerned about what they call “duplication,” or the overlap of inventory or audiences across multiple demand-side platforms. The fear is that the same ad will be served to the same user by two different DSPs, or worse yet, that the client is bidding against themselves for […]
Icebergs are deceptive. Their icy peaks jut out of frigid waters, revealing only a fraction of their volume. What appears to be a small, confined piece of floating ice that can easily be navigated around might very well turn out to be a massive barrier below the surface. Perils Of Segment-Based RTB Segment-based, real-time bidding […]
Marketing technologies and strategies are like a runaway train these days — if you blink, you’ll probably miss the latest techniques; and, if you don’t hold on for dear life, they will pass you by entirely. The good news? It doesn’t have to be this hard. An evolving market has far more benefits than disadvantages, if only […]
Buying display ads through an ad tech platform is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get – and this can be disastrous to programmatic media buying. Instead of being strategic about your ad buy, you’re forced to take your vendor’s word for it that the consumers you’re targeting are actually being […]
Data is so often discussed and so very misunderstood! Data is nothing more than values of qualitative or quantitative variables. It turns out that the term [Data] is as generic as the term [Food]. There are all kinds of food, food groups, and food ingredient combinations. You see, data is the lowest level of abstraction. […]
There are literally thousands of online publishers seeking to monetize the “unique” traffic visiting their websites. Concurrently, there is a thirsty crop of data brokers lining up to assist publishers in connecting their data with the ever-growing advertising demand online. We live in an era of increasing concern about privacy, which makes sense, given there […]
I believe display advertising is actually in its infancy. There are powerful dynamic variables at work that are creating major challenges for the advertising technology industry at large. Depending on the vendor, its technology stack and its level of commitment to legacy beliefs, this is either a problem that is of concern or the opportunity […]
Back in May, I wrote a blog post documenting the top 10 alternatives to “Last Touch” attribution. Last touch is the common practice of awarding credit for an online conversion to the last advertising vendor to put an impression in front of a user before that user returns to a website and converts. This methodology […]
Premium inventory is a term used by publishers and networks to generate higher demand and higher fees for advertising on portions of their Web properties. Often, premium inventory is defined as the pages that see the most traffic. Sometimes it is the degree to which the advertiser can customize the advertising space for their needs, […]
Over the last two years, we’ve seen companies develop display solutions that show ads based on the keywords prospects search as they navigate the Web. The introduction of search retargeting represented a major leap forward for direct response and brand marketers who were thirsty for new audience acquisition and engagement solutions that performed better. What […]
I am sure you have heard the expression “the only constant in life is change”. If you make a living buying, selling and evaluating online display advertising then you understand this all too well. The days when companies in the ad tech industry fit into simple-to-define silos seem to be behind us. Company capabilities continue […]
Big data seems to be the buzzword around our industry these days, and is there any wonder based on the recent explosion of data in terms of growth, availability and use? IBM does a pretty good job of explaining big data and I’m not one to mess with a good thing. According to the company’s […]
Over the last 24 months the display ad space has continued to see rapid acceleration of budgets moving through programmatic media buying platforms such as Demand Side Platforms (DSP). The forces behind this growth are well documented: Impression level price transparency Ability to “cherry pick” desired impressions with granular focus Hands-on control of campaign data […]
At a recent birthday party for one of the children in my neighborhood, I had my hopes for a slice of delicious birthday cake dashed. As the singing began, Mom came out with a candle-covered pizza. It turns out that junior just won’t eat cake. You can imagine my angst at learning that a three-year-old […]
In politics, the act of drawing, reviewing and re-structuring district lines for voting purposes to ensure that like demographics are aligned is a common practice. These lines appear bizarre when viewed on a map due to the non-uniform nature of redistricting. Why don’t politicians just use ZIP codes? Politicians learned many years ago that zip […]