Chris woke us up with a bang, delivering a highly insightful session at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO. He shed light on bidstream congestion, a major issue complicating digital advertising today. Bidstream congestion occurs when the same ad impression opportunity is offered multiple times through different supply paths. 

It leads to discrepancies, increased cost, and complexity in the bidding process. Chris addressed this by walking us through the intricacies. His emphasis on “deepening the dependencies” was vital to understanding the financial flows within the supply chain, urging the audience to think beyond surface-level transactions. From the open internet share shift to the nitty-gritty of auction duplication, Chris provided a deep dive into how advertisers, publishers, and intermediaries interact in such a crowded space.

The explosive growth of the industry catalyzed an arms race among publishers competing for attention in an overly saturated market, leading to challenges for advertisers and media agencies alike.

The Big Players and Their Influence

Chris started his session with a detailed analysis of open internet ad spend over the past eight years. Over this timeframe, we saw Google’s gross ad spend take off in 2021, with them dominating the market from 2020 to 2024. Google leads open internet gross ad spend projections for 2024, with The Trade Desk and Amazon DSP right behind them.

Walled gardens like Google, Meta, and Amazon operate closed systems that significantly influence market dynamics. Google’s non-search advertising is projected to hit $35 billion, Meta commands between $100 billion and $120 billion, and Amazon is at $45 billion. In contrast, the open internet still retains a significant share of the market, valued at $70 to $75 billion, providing an alternative to these walled gardens.

What’s also interesting is how these platforms reshape how the industry allocates spending.

According to Chris, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest are rising challenger gardens. But things are shifting. While these platforms may not match the spend of the giants, they are creating their own lane. This share shift could totally reshape the competition. In his overview, Chris highlighted just how huge the Walled Gardens’ influence is over market activity. This was the central theme of his discussion as he dove into detail about the various aspects of the ad tech supply chain.

While walled gardens offer a streamlined approach with integrated services, the open internet is more flexible. Navigating between these two requires a nuanced understanding of each platform’s strengths and limitations. Enterprises must strategically balance investments to optimize their advertising reach and efficiency.

The Anatomy of Bidstream Congestion: The Bloat

Bidstream congestion happens when multiple publishers send the same ad impression through different supply paths, resulting in redundant auction entries that DSPs need to sift through.

DSPs process approximately 30 million bid requests per second, a number that grows as publishers try to ensure their inventory gets noticed by the right buyers. Each publisher competes fiercely to make its inventory attractive to DSPs, who ultimately decide which auctions are worth pursuing.

Chris emphasized how ads.txt bloat has become symptomatic of this congestion. The average number of authorized supply paths for top RTB-traded websites, mobile apps, and CTV apps has skyrocketed from January 2020 to January 2024.

This means more paths for advertisers and more complications for DSPs drowned with duplicate and redundant opportunities. Despite publishers initiating numerous auctions, DSPs often listen to the same bid requests. This disparity reveals a harsh truth: initiating more auctions doesn’t necessarily improve a publisher’s chances of being selected.

Auction Duplication: A Path to Efficiency or Chaos?

One huge contributor to bidstream congestion is auction duplication. In this process, publishers engage multiple SSPs to re-auction the ad inventory, aiming to increase the likelihood of being selected by DSPs. While this strategy may seem rational for publishers seeking higher demand, the more SSPs involved, the harder it is to trace each dollar of ad spend. 

“When it comes to rebroadcasting supply chains, four out of every ten bid requests are duplicative options that take multiple fees and expose problems in the supply chain. Today 40% of the midstream is multi-hop resale.” Chris said when illustrating rebroadcasting. In terms of direct paths and monetizing sites and apps the median across the full web, mobile app and CTV supply is 16. 

“The average total impression is presented 16 times through direct supply chains, 41% of bidding requests are rebroadcasted and 59% are direct supply chains. With each impression made available 16 times through direct supply chains, plus another 14 times through rebroadcasted supply chains there is a 30x auction duplication.”

Yet, despite the congestion and duplication, this structure is seen as a necessary evil to maximize monetization potential, raising questions about whether the duplication ultimately serves or hinders the industry’s long-term growth. While it’s a way for publishers to ensure their inventory gets more eyeballs, this duplication creates inefficiencies that the entire industry must grapple with, inflating bid streams and increasing the overall cost of ad placements. 

In simpler terms, rebroadcast paths mean that bid requests go through multiple hops before they reach a potential buyer. “DSPs who do not take advantage of rebroadcasting opportunities will go out of business,” Chris pointed out. The industry is evolving, and those who don’t evolve with it — whether they’re buyers, sellers, or intermediaries — could be left in the dust.

A Look to the Future: Will Duplication Save the Day?

Chris closed by exploring whether auction duplication is an efficient solution to bidstream congestion or a stopgap for masking deeper issues. On one hand, duplication is a great opportunity for publishers, providing them multiple chances to get their inventory seen, thus maximizing potential revenue. On the other hand, it adds layers of complexity that make the supply chain inefficient and opaque, driving up costs for everyone involved.

“Understanding the programmatic supply chain is no longer optional for stakeholders in the ad tech space. It requires the operational mindset of an insider — someone willing to get their hands dirty in the technical details of how inventory is auctioned, sold, and bought. You have to deepen the dependencies to really understand how money moves in the supply chain,” Chris said.

The ad tech ecosystem is changing rapidly, and bidstream congestion is but one symptom of the evolution. Whether auction duplication can effectively mitigate congestion or add more fuel to the fire is still a debate. But for those in the trenches of ad tech, understanding these dynamics is essential to navigating the future — and making sure they come out on top.

Industry leaders must innovate and adopt new practices to mitigate the detrimental effects of bidstream congestion. Auction duplication, while currently the norm, requires reevaluation.

Publishers and advertisers need to explore ways to streamline the bidding process, perhaps by improving the transparency and efficiency of SSP-DSP interactions or implementing more advanced targeting algorithms to reduce unnecessary bid requests.

The post Bidstream Congestion: Cracking the Ad Tech Supply Chain Code appeared first on AdMonsters.

Technology is evolving faster than we can blink and it’s becoming clear that it’s time creativity and control were reclaimed. As monopolies and walled gardens dominate and limit access, the balance between innovation and content creation is more crucial than ever. In a rapidly changing ecosystem,  publishers are exploring strategies to navigate an open internet increasingly challenged by distribution obstacles and signal loss.

Once a beacon of free and open access, the open web faces an identity crisis. Media companies that once thrived on direct consumer connection are struggling with the rise of walled gardens. Marketers, for their part, acknowledge their role in building these silos as they increasingly funnel media budgets into tech giants. Reclaiming control of data, creative strategies, and audience engagement is critical to preserving the future for both sides.

Publishers should not look at these shifts as threats but as opportunities to develop new strategies that align with consumer behavior and market demands. 

From the rise of social-driven search and FAST channels to Google’s ongoing antitrust trial, ProgIO spoke to many of the challenges facing publishers today. As the industry continues to push for transparency, fairness, and a more open ecosystem, the path forward depends on innovating while maintaining trust with consumers and each other. 

Here are our top takeaways from Day 1.

Breaking Free: How Marketers Can Reclaim Creativity in a Tech-Driven World

Eoin Townsend, Chief Product Officer at Cadent, talking about convergence at programmatic IO. Photo by Donna Alberico.

Eoin Townsend, Chief Product Officer at Cadent, walked us through industry shifts driven by audience, inventory, optimality, and privacy. He says, “The technology we have today is not the technology we’ll have tomorrow.”

Let him tell it: marketers need more control to move away from monopolies and hone in on new technologies to transform their roles in the industry. Eoin emphasized that marketers spend too much time on tech rather than creative marketing. We are evolving from scale, automation, and walled gardens to a new phase focused on integration, alignment, and collaboration. 

More highlights from his talk:

• Let AI automate the hard stuff.
• Take advantage of multi-faceted solutions that integrate third-party data and work across walled gardens.
• Adopt new technology and legal frameworks to ensure compliance and consumer trust.

Eoin’s main argument is: “Let marketers be marketers” free them from technological constraints!

The Future of the Open Internet Is?

Allison Schiff, Managing Editor at AdExchanger, Ben Hovaness, CMO at OMD, Cavel Khan, Chief Growth Officer at Group Black, and Ari Paparo, CEO & Contributor of Marketecture Media discuss the future of the open internet. Photo by Donna Alberico.

What is the open web? The term has gotten lost in the mix, and AdExchanger’s Allison Schiff ensured the panelists revealed the definition from their perspectives early in the session. According to Ari Paparo, CEO & Contributor at Marketecture Media, if you can access a website for free and buy ads freely, it is part of the open web. 

Media companies are losing distribution channels and struggle to connect directly with consumers. What are the biggest challenges of the open web? Walled gardens and signal challenges. Can marketers blame consumers for this mess? Not exactly. Marketers helped create the walled gardens by continuing to invest in and work with them.

“The open internet lost the resources to create the content and do a lot of things that it did to keep the communities it had built,” revealed Cavel Khan, Chief Growth Officer at Group Black. “That’s why we are all seeing the decline over the last three years. Big publishers are going out of business or restructuring.”

More key points from this session:

• The cloudiness around Chrome’s plan for cookies makes it difficult for publishers to determine the best strategy to combat signal loss. 
• Publishers have great tools like WordPress, Beehiiv, and Ghost, along with podcasting, as new solutions for reaching people and monetizing those connections. 
• When asked what the future of the open internet was, the panelists responded bright, sleek, diverse, and changing. 

TikTok, The Latest to Step In the Search Game

AdExchanger’s Executive Editor Sarah Sluis sits down with Blake Chandlee, President of Global Business Solutions at TikTok, to talk about the platform entering the search business. Photo by Donna Alberico.

TikTok is the app beating Google as the number one search engine. With data showing significant search activity on the app, we’re learning that rich, social media-driven search results are key for connecting with consumers and influencing their discovery and purchase intent. It’s no surprise the company is investing in bringing advertising to search. 

“There are two key data points that triggered this for us. One is that independent research proves that 55% of people get their search results from social media and video,” said Blake Chandlee, President of Global Business Solutions at TikTok. “It was just a very good box of rich examples. An example might be if you’re planning to travel to Singapore when you visit a traditional search engine, you’d find links to guide you through that process. On the other hand, you go on to TikTok or some other platforms where you’ll get really rich videos of people like you going through the same decision-making with their experience. It’s a very different experience in the back end of this.”

Ads have been part of TikTok’s monetization model for a while now, but the TikTok shop shook up the game when it came to fruition last year. Live-streaming allows creators to earn money by getting “tipped” from their audience, while the TikTok shop facilitates seamless transitions within the app. TikTok’s investment in logistics and the closed-loop shopping experience allows it to fully capitalize on the commerce generated by creators.

More interesting insights:

• The social media company’s motto: “Don’t make ads, make TikTok’s” works.
• TikTok caters to its users’ diverse interests, allowing brands to connect with highly engaged audiences.
• Ensuring that ads are native is key; don’t oversaturate because ad fatigue can be real.
• TikTok stands out because it is independent and doesn’t rely on partnerships or external links for e-commerce.

Why The Trade Desk is Winning According to Wall Street

Shweta Khajuria, Managing Director of Wolfe Research shared her predictions for the industry from an investor’s perspective. Photo by Donna Alberico.

With the ongoing regulatory scrutiny of Google and the pending cookie deprecation, scale and first-party data are both emerging as leaders in the industry.

Shweta Khajuria, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, dove deeply into The Trade Desk’s success. Partnering with agencies leads to higher retention rates. Product innovations like CTV and UID2 have kept The Trade Desk at the top of the industry. Also, their independence and omnichannel approach allow them to maintain objectivity and avoid conflicts of interest. 

“Trade Desk saw the potential of bidded programmatic and connected TV before most others in the industry,” said Shweta. “As a result, with the head start that they saw, they saw a step change in their growth rates and trajectory.”

Shweta also predicts that Google will spin off one of its ad tech businesses, which could level the playing field. 

Shweta’s other predictions:

• The Trade Desk’s Open Path and Magnite’s clear line anticipate the convergence of the demand and supply sides.
• Efficiency gains will be necessary, and pricing pressures might arise as DSPs and SSPs merge.
• Larger publishers may develop their yield management systems, leading to supply-side consolidation.
• The demand side might gain an upper hand due to its proximity to ad budgets.

Google on Trial: The Battle for Fairness, Transparency, and the Future

Allison Schiff talked to Claire Atkin, Co-founder & CEO of Check My Ads and Jason Kint CEO of Digital Content Next about the ongoing DOJ vs. Google antitrust trial. Photo by Donna Alberico.

Google’s monopolistic practices have heavily hindered the publishing industry, and we are all standing on our toes, waiting to see the outcome of this decision. Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, explained how Google is extracting value that should go to newsrooms and entertainment companies. 

Jason talked about “dynamic revenue sharing,’ where Google manipulates bid prices to maintain its margins, often behind publishers’ backs. With a press box seat at the trial in Virginia, he says Google’s defense strategy is to confuse the market and redefine it to include more competition, like TikTok or TV. Isn’t this what we’ve all been thinking? Isn’t this a weak defense?

It was great seeing Claire Atkin again doing her best: exposing the real. According to Claire, Google plays a huge role in monetizing misinformation and lacking transparency. Smaller businesses suffer since they don’t receive funds or adequate support from Google when campaign issues arise. Claire argues for log-level data transparency and know-your-customer laws to ensure fair practices. 

Other important highlights:

• Judge Leonie Brinkema is skeptical of Google due to evidence purging, which impacts the credibility of Google’s witnesses. 
• The trial is part of a broader antitrust movement against major tech companies, and breaking them up could lead to more opportunities and fairness in the industry. 
• Both speakers hope to see a future where advertisers can better track and verify their ad placements, leading to more accountability and fewer fraudulent practices.

FAST is Moving Fast

Katie Barrett, Head of Strategic Sales at LG Ad Solutions talks the future of FAST at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO Day 1. Photo by Donna Alberico.

Several factors are contributing to the rise of FAST, such as subscription fatigue and evolving audience behavior. On a daily basis, consumers are shifting their mindset from avoiding ads to accepting them if they come with free content. 

“We see that 53% of our consumers are spending at least 2 hours a day in FAST, and the average time of the session is 73 minutes,” said Katie Barrett, Head of Strategic Sales at LG Ad Solutions. “Eighty-seven percent of FAST users have free streaming channels they watch regularly. This shows high levels of habitual viewing. Eighty-one percent believe that FAST streaming channels offer high-quality content. This is important because this perception of fast being low quality is being challenged here.”

Contrary to popular belief that FAST viewers are less engaged or loyal, Katie argues they are developing strong followings due to curated content. The stereotype that FAST viewers are solely budget-conscious is false, as the data shows a diverse and affluent audience.

Other Factors of FAST:

• The median income of FAST users is $85,000, with an average of $110,000, and 43% earning over $100,000 annually. 
• FAST is popular among family units, with a high percentage of users owning homes, being married, and having children, underlining its family-friendly nature.
• FAST is a valuable platform for brands aiming to reach key demographics.

On the Horizon: A New Era for Publishers and Marketers

Publishers and marketers are standing on the brink of significant change. With walled gardens tightening their grip and signal loss challenging traditional methods, publishers are redefining their approach to audience engagement, while marketers are pushing for more autonomy in how they reach and connect with consumers. 

From publishers exploring innovative content distribution methods to marketers reclaiming creative control, the next chapter is about pushing beyond the familiar and embracing new opportunities. 

The journey doesn’t stop here. Day 2 included more revelations and strategies, so stay tuned for our Programmatic IO Day 2 wrap-up on Monday. We’ll dig deeper into the discussions, highlighting key takeaways and what lies ahead for publishers and marketers in this fast-moving space. 

The post PROGIO Day 1: The Next Chapter for the Open Internet, Google vs. DOJ Face-Off, and More appeared first on AdMonsters.

While there have been some positive developments, as highlighted in a recent study by the ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) in collaboration with MAVEN/Media Framework, LGBTQ ad spend nearly doubled from 2020 to 2022, reaching $15 million. However, there is still room for improvement. 

Exactly one year ago, we delved into the challenges faced by LGBTQ publishers, including the issue of keyword blocklists, which often block advertisers from reaching diverse audiences. We also shed light on the bright side, showcasing ad tech vendors who support LGBTQ publishers.

Today we revisit this topic by consulting industry experts to gauge whether these challenges persist. Unfortunately, our findings reveal that these issues are far from resolved. We caught up with Nandini Jammi, co-founder at Check My Ads Institute, Chris Kenna, CEO and Founder of Brand Advance Group, and Michael Kelley, Chair and President of Growth/Development at equalpride.com.

Jammi was our primary source in our research last year, and according to her, the hate groups are having their way this year.

Hate Group Success Scares Marketers Off 

You read it right, in 2023 hate groups are still thriving. These hate groups and outlets make a full-time job out of engaging in hateful theatrics geared toward the LGBTQ+ community. 

“Hate groups have been building out disturbing narratives around the LGBTQ+ community for years,” Jammi explains. “And this year, they decided to focus their attention on big brands, specifically ones with brick-and-mortar stores. Target, Kohl’s, and North Face faced harassment online but had to contend with the physical threat of violence in their stores. This year is uniquely violent, and I can understand how they successfully spooked marketing executives who normally wouldn’t think twice about openly celebrating Pride.”

Jammi predicts we will see a lot of internal reflection in the next 12 months as corporate marketers assess what’s happening. 

The Rocky Road of Navigating LGBTQ+ Ad Spend 

Chris Kenna reassured us that 2022 – 2023 has been a challenging year for LGBTQ+ community and media. 

“The implementation of Brand Safety and Brand Suitability settings such as GARM which has a social issues setting allows brands to block 95% of LGBTQ+ media if they put this setting too high,” Kenna says. “Most LGBTQ+ issues are social issues. It’s imperative that when a brand and their agency wishes to support the community they adjust what they deem to be brand suitable. This will ensure as much budget is spent in that community’s ecosystem.”

He advises brands and agencies to use single person assets or product assets if they don’t want to produce an LGBTQ+ campaign to run in the communities direct media. 

On the Bright Side 

When asked about ad spend challenges at equalpride.com, America’s #1 media voice for the LGBTQ+ community, Kelley mentioned programmatic, social media, and performance-based advertising methods as challenges. It seems with these methods the intended messages get misconstrued.

“While these methods may deliver intended audiences at scale, they also deliver unintended audiences, the minority of which are lying in wait to weaponize the diverse intentions against the brands and destroy reputations and brand equity,” Kelley explains. 

Kelley reassures brands that they do not have to spend an arm and a leg to reach LGBTQ+ audiences if they invest in the community each year. 

“Brands consistently spending with minority media are reaping the very simple benefit of love and loyalty in return for showing love to the LGBTQ+ community. LGBTQ+ audience numbers are as high as 40m Americans and 2.4 trillion in household spend. We are recession proof,” says Kelley. 

The post LGBTQIA Publishers Continue to Face Ad Spend Inequality appeared first on AdMonsters.

But we’d be remiss not to mention that advertisers are also underspending on the Hispanic market relative to the total population, media consumption habits, and growing economic power.

And the situation is far worse for Hispanic/Latinx media companies, who really aren’t seeing their warranted share of coins coming from advertisers. Slow and steady sometimes wins the race, but in 2022 Hispanic media’s ad revenue should not still be so far behind.

We know that Univision’s ad sales were off to an amazing start earlier this year,  but they can’t be the only go-to for advertisers, as there are other equally deserving media companies with phenomenal reach across Latinx communities.

“We heard from our research that to authentically connect with diverse social media companies, it’s better told from a first-person experience,” Fernando Romero, Head of Advertising Sales at Fuse Media, mentioned at That Big TV Conference.

“So when it comes to understanding our audiences, we accomplish that because we operate with many of the same challenges our communities face. We understand the challenges of getting distribution, accurate measurement, and our voice out there. At Fuse, we take pride in that first-person ownership and not just telling a Latino story because that’s not the way the world is.”

Many Hispanic/Latinx-owned publishers share the same sentiment but lack the financial backing crucial to filling their inventory. We chatted with five Hispanic ad tech professionals working to help increase minority-owned ad spend.

Challenges Hispanic/Latino Media Face With Ad Spend

Across the board, many Hispanic/Latinx-owned media publishers feel that the biggest challenge is that brands simply do not prioritize minority audiences over mainstream audiences. Companies assume they will reach minorities with general audiences; while they can, that is only the tip of the iceberg. 

A deeper and more meaningful connection to the audience is needed, and it’s great that some brands are looking to make that step more inclusive.

Isabel Rafferty Zavala, CEO & Founder at Canela Media pointed out how brands have been looking to her company for assistance connecting with the Hispanic audience. Partnerships seem to be a major theme in publishing and ad tech in 2022, but when it comes to Hispanic/Latinx ad spend, all parties in the ecosystem need to do their share to facilitate change.

Gerry Ramirez, VP of Partnership Development at My Code, laid out some obvious challenges that, from his perspective, are holding Hispanic/Latino media back from remaining competitive, afloat, and relevant to key advertising multicultural strategies:

Lack of Consolidated Access to Mass Reach

This has the power to retract engagement from digital publishers across the multicultural landscape. Since these entities are much smaller than general market publishers, agencies creating over-arching multicultural strategies for US brands aren’t seeing them. These publishers are rich in culture, more than authentic, and relevant, which is an excellent combination for any brand to want to work with. Nonetheless, the scale they bring to the table on their own can lead to operational problems for the type of partnerships these publishers typically wish to establish.

The Misconceptions About Reaching Multicultural Segments

The one-size-fits-all approach will never work with targeting any niche audience, and the Hispanic/Latino audience alone is not monolithic and should not be treated as such. Utilizing the same in-market publishers has decreased ad spend amongst small and niche publications dripping in real culture and providing the type of content that Hispanic/Latino audiences want to consume.

These niche publications focus on the Latino audience’s sub-segments, creating an in-culture, in-language outlet for brands to reach Latino communities. For instance, Mexicans may be in one subset, Columbians in another. Keeping nuances across subsets can help brands stay relevant amongst Hispanic/Latino communities.

These setbacks have turned brands away from engaging with some Hispanic/Latino publishers and led to unfortunate events as other issues still stand in the way of Hispanic-owned media getting the coins they deserve.

“Often-touted challenge presented is that Hispanic/Latino audiences can be targeted programmatically via General Market and therefore it’s unnecessary to invest in in-langue copy or contextually relevant publishers,” said Anthony Dominguez, Director, Publisher Development (Multicultural) at Colossus. “While we believe in the power of programmatic, it’s been proven that US Hispanic Audiences reward brands that deliver a more personal message and appear in more contextually relevant sites.”

Are AIMM Memberships Holding Minority-Owned Media Pubs Back?

Christopher Kenna, Chairman & Founder of Brand Advance Media Group, expressed his disdain for agencies and brands’ ability to require minority-owned media to get certification bodies such as AIMM and others.

The certification states if a publisher is Hispanic or African-American-owned and is issued by private companies free to charge whatever they wish. It’s evident that these private companies are not always minority-owned, but despite that, they can charge publishers anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000 to register and become certified.

Small and medium-sized publishers shouldn’t have to pay thousands just to prove themselves worthy of some funding.

“Does ‘White’ media have to do this? Does ‘Mainstream’ media need a certification that allows brands and agencies to spend with them other than the normal IAB, etc.?” Kenna asked.

Solutions To Help Pump Up Hispanic Ad Spend

We spoke to some of our friends in the industry who work closely, if not directly, in maximizing Hispanic Media ad spend, and we asked them what they think would be the best next steps toward implementing change. These are their answers.

Isabel Rafferty Zavala, CEO & Founder at Canela Media

Isabel Rafferty Zavala, CEO & Founder at Canela Media

“At the end of the day, brands will follow other brands who are having success. They will learn from their successes.

We see big brands like McDonald’s putting weight behind multicultural advertising, and it’s paying off. These examples will lead the way for other brands to do the same.

Advertisers who recognize the power of the Hispanic purse and take the time to reach this audience will benefit greatly.”

Gerry Ramirez, VP of Partnership Development at My Code

Gerry Ramirez, VP of Partnership Development at My Code

“Marketers need to understand the audience that will engage with their brands fully. This entails advanced research and partnering with mass outlets ALWAYS supplemented by ethnic media. 

At My Code, we continuously study the audience and its sub-segments to give our clients the expertise supported by research. This includes panel interviews, digital surveying, online lift measurement studies, and deep categorical analysis. Understanding your audience’s digital lifestyle and nuances allows messaging to resonate authentically, boosting engagement.

In addition, our publisher onboarding process allows brands to access a vast array of digital publishers who cater to all sub-segments of the Hispanic/Latino culture, accompanied by an audience-based approach that fully understands where the audience lives online and how they engage with the content.

We champion the scale and influence of the multicultural audience to increase access and authentic representation across our network and beyond. We provide resources and tools to the publisher network to drive best practices in growing traffic and ensuring premium visibility and performance for advertisers. In addition, we support our publishers’ commitment to serving diverse audiences and advocate to maximize their ad revenue and all other revenue streams.

Pairing relevancy and reach creates an impactful opportunity for brands to connect.”

Christian Carrillo, Associate Director of Ad Operations at Dotdash Meredith

Christian Carrillo, Associate Director of Ad Operations at Dotdash Meredith

“There is an opportunity to work with Hispanic/multicultural agencies that are looking to target English-speaking or bilingual Hispanic visitors and not limited to just Spanish-language users. 

As a solution, I recommend that publishers invest more time in researching Hispanic purchasing power and create relationships with agencies that can educate sellers on client needs in the multicultural market, which applies to direct and programmatic strategies. 

The Univision and Telemundos of the world shouldn’t be the only major brands these agencies work with because Hispanic users visit other publishers. Still, some are limited to browser tools that translate content or, worst case, rely on social media to get advice, news, and content that professionals do not write, yet share with family members and friends.”

Anthony Dominguez, Director of Publisher Development (Multi-Cultural) at Colossus

“Invest more internally on teams that can develop in-language creative and work with technology companies that programmatically target US Hispanic audiences easily.

This a friendly reminder that US Hispanics/Latinos are not a cultural monolith; therefore, our digital media consumption is extremely wide-ranging. 

Partnering with a technology company that understands these nuances can effectively deliver and target these audiences at scale.”

Christopher Kenna, Chairman & Founder of Brand Advance

Christopher Kenna, Chairman & Founder of Brand Advance

“Get rid of certification bodies like AIMM and others like it! There should never be a barrier between ad spend and the minority/underrepresented publisher. Many states, including NYC, already have a certification, and it’s free, so it is unreasonable for agencies and brands to require private certificates that are putting a financial strain on publishers, including myself, but also are discriminatory to only underrepresented groups.

I hope that highlighting this can lead to change and that the industry says that Hispanic/Latino publishers no longer have to get this certification to gain access to media spend. At this time, it is unfortunate that big agencies will not work with you without this membership. We have four magazines, and they want $15,000 per magazine.”

The post 5 Ad Tech Professionals Provide Solutions to Pump Up Hispanic Ad Spend appeared first on AdMonsters.

But that doesn’t mean it’s been all smooth sailing for pubs. Besieged by a crude cast of characters — fragmentation, fraud, frequency, and let’s not forget measurement — publishers need better control of their inventory to grow monetization.

With significantly higher CPMs compared to online video, most publishers are either ready to stake their claim in CTV land or expand their footprint but in order to do so, the complexities of the industry need to be fully understood before they are addressed.

That’s when having an end-to-end solutions oriented SSP partner comes into play. We spoke with Peter Ackerman, Director of Product Marketing at Unruly to learn more about the challenges facing publishers as they expand their footprint into CTV, understanding inventory control through ad pod targeting and how ad tech can solve for these problems.

Raquel Hudson: It’s no secret that CTV is exploding and therefore publishers are eager to tap into this space. But there is also a major learning curve for those who have lived in the world of online video, particularly around the differences in viewer behavior and the use of ad pods so let’s start from the beginning. What Is an Ad Pod?

Peter Ackerman: For some initial context, it’s important for OLV publishers to keep in mind that distributing content in CTV environments means delivering full-screen video on the largest screen in the home. So right off the bat, there is an expectation from consumers they are going to have the same high-quality viewing experience they are used to with linear TV.

Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Whether it’s seeing that dreaded blank screen, seeing the same ad creative repeating or multiple ads from the same brand category within a single ad break, consumers can be turned off from the experience, which is bad for the publisher, bad for the advertiser, and bad for the viewer.

Ad podding is a technology used most often to monetize longform content on CTV. An ad pod enables a sequence of ads to play together in a single ad break, just like a traditional TV commercial break, and enables pubs to generate multiple ads in sequence from a single ad request.

For ad podding to be successful it needs to meet the needs of publishers, their audiences, and buyers. For buyers, they need to provide frequency capping, creative deduplication, competitive separation, and a seamless buying experience.

For ad podding to be successful it needs to meet the needs of publishers, their audiences, and buyers.

Consumers, on the other hand, need a harmonious commercial break free of buffering and definitely no ad fatigue. And for publishers, it’s about maximizing yield for each impression, increasing the fill rate, and keeping both advertisers and their audiences happy.

Where it gets complicated for publishers is managing buying modality, those direct ad buys/insertion orders that handicap a publisher and you lose the benefits of transacting digital, and the related complexities of creating and managing ad breaks. Things like determining the duration of the break, the number of ad slots within that duration, setting the optimal price for each slot, managing for competitive separation, time between exposures, and the list goes on. That’s why you need the right ad tech and ad tech partner in place.

RH: Although CTV is seeing great success, there are still lots of questions about how to best monetize while weeding through some of its pain points (fragmentation, fraud, measurement). What are Unruly’s best practices for approaching CTV and ad pods?

PA: Lean On Industry Experts

Whether you’re just starting to dip your toes in CTV, or diving into deeper CTV waters, you want to take a tandem approach with a partner who lives in this world and has an advanced understanding of delivering a high-quality TV experience.

Discovering the right ad tech goes hand in hand with identifying the right people behind it who know the business and can help navigate uncharted waters. From issues with brand safety to the fragmented CTV landscape, as well as dealing with the robust targeting and measurement expectations that advertisers have, publishers can find themselves in murky waters unless they find a reliable partner at the onset who can help them find their way.

Diversify Ad Pod Positioning

As the CTV market grows, buyers are looking for the same kinds of targeting parameters and competitive separation they are used to in traditional TV. Ad pods provide publishers with the power to bring these requests to fruition for advertisers. For example, enabling a publisher to place a premium on certain positions like the first slot in an ad break.

Employ an End-to-End Tech Stack To Manage It All

This is where we come in. Publishers will not be able to effectively deliver this quality consumer experience if they are not working with a lead system like ours that can make ad decisioning holistically across demand channels, knowing that there is essential data passed with external connections that is key to this process.

One system decisioning makes a better decision when it comes to how the ad break is configured – and what ads should be delivered – to deliver the best quality consumer experience, while optimizing across direct-sold and programmatic demand.

Publishers also working with our SSP enables our connection to DSPs to give us better control over ad decisioning, access to unique data from our DMP to enhance the value of a publisher’s supply, and gives publishers access to the full programmatic deal capabilities of our SSP plus unique demand from our direct sales channels.

We also give publishers a single point of access to these capabilities on a self-service basis through a consolidated UI, enabling a publisher to manage, traffic, and track the revenue and performance of campaigns through a consolidated interface.

RH: There’s a lot to learn and unpack in CTV which can be a little daunting for publishers. How would you suggest they start?

PA: To start securing those higher CPMs associated with CTV, there is a lot for publishers to combat. But they shouldn’t be intimidated by the complexity of the space and understand that both buyers and sellers alike are all still figuring out the medium in real-time. It really comes down to choosing the right partner and technology solutions to solve for specific publisher needs, objectives, and KPIs. If you start from that point, you’re already setting yourself up to ride far into the land of CTV.

The post Best Practices For Monetizing CTV Ad Pods appeared first on AdMonsters.

Anyone reading the state of affairs would wholeheartedly believe that the Coronavirus completely obliterated ad spend. If you’re one of those folks, I’mma let you finish but, we’re starting to see some data analysis come in from the past few months and I gotta tell ya there are definitely some bright spots.

First, in response to consumer’s stay-at-home behaviors, we saw a hike in gaming TV spend, along with esports. More recently, we learned that as consumers continued to shop for clothing, that category has topped paid ad impressions. Coincidentally, digital ad spend is set to eclipse traditional for the very first time and we have programmatic to thank for that advancement.

We even discovered that brands were heavily investing in mission-based marketing, because it builds trust.

The latest deviation from the advertiser pause on ad spend that we’re hearing about is in the financial services category. For the last couple of years, the category has lead in digital ad spend and during the pandemic, even when loads of people are out of work, it seems to be no different.

As you can guess, I was a little skeptical. To gain a better understanding, I spoke with  Rachel Tuffney, EVP, US Operations for Dianomi, an advertising platform for financial services, to learn about the current trends within financial ad spending and how premium publishers could take advantage of this shift, as well as the future of advertising.

Lynne d Johnson: It seems that while ad spend is down across the board, digital is doing a lot better than traditional. But it only appears that a few categories are actually spending. There’s gaming because, well, that’s what quite a few people are doing with all of their time now.

And then there’s clothing because people are still buying—probably for their Zoom meetings and they’re catching fitness fever. But when I heard that financial brands were spending I was a little baffled. With tens of millions of people laid off, are they really digging deeper into financial products? What’s going on here?

Rachel Tuffney: It is interesting to think that financial brands would be increasing spend during these unprecedented times, but we are seeing spend on our platform increase. In Dianomi’s marketplace, which encompasses 600 blue-chip financial brands, such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and Charles Schwab, we’ve seen ad spend increase during the height of the pandemic in the U.S.

In conversations with our clients, we’re hearing that there is an increase in personal investors engaging with the stock market, as they either have more time on their hands or perhaps need to create an income during a period of less work or furloughs. Our clients are focusing on engaging their professional and personal client bases to ensure they are present and proactive in providing help with important choices in uncertain climates. For financial brands, this is an opportunity to lean in, educate and be a resource on complex and often high stakes financial topics.

The reason we’re seeing the spend increase on our platform in particular is because we’re able to align their ads natively with premium content environments right next to the very content the consumers are seeking out. So that means the ads get placed right into the correct environment and that leads to great engagement. For example, a fund manager reading an article about a new ETF investment vehicle will be likely to be receptive to a financial brand’s white paper on that subject.

LdJ: So this sounds more like a B2B play than a B2C play. What kind of numbers are we talking about? Are you seeing growth from last year or are your numbers relatively the same?

RT: When comparing April 2019 to April 2020, we saw ad spend increase by more than 70% in our marketplace. We’ve also seen our advertiser network grow by nearly 20% this year, signifying that financial and professional service brands are looking to invest more in advertising, especially native and contextually relevant advertising. I also think that our platform is breaking through the clutter due to the unique and premium nature of the publisher partnerships.

LdJ: How can premium publishers take advantage of this trend?

RT: It’s a tough climate for media brands and publishers, even the premium publishers are struggling with their cost-base. So revenue is important and connecting your supply with quality platforms like Dianomi has been a great way to develop new revenue streams with premium brands.

In the past, a lot of publishers partnered with native platforms who drove revenue but delivered questionable ad quality. This is not a fair pay off and so we’ve seen a lot of the big publishers lean into our philosophy of quality and aligned content and brands. The winning formula is to prioritize premium brands and ads that not only enhance the financials (for the business) but also the experience for their readers.

In simple terms, if you’re looking to better understand ETFs, you’re not looking for cat food.

LdJ: Contextual targeting is gaining an attention revival as government and big tech have become staunch consumer privacy advocates. For instance, the enforcement date for CCPA just passed and Chrome is sunsetting the third-party tracking cookie soon. Let’s not forget that usage of the third party-tracking cookie led to a lot of fraud, which brings me to another issue.

In the era of COVID-19 and with growing concerns about racial injustice, we’re seeing blocklist approaches to brand safety hurting both publishers and advertisers. Legit pubs are missing out on revenue opportunities and brands aren’t reaching all of the audience segments they need to reach. How does contextual targeting benefit both advertisers and publishers when it comes to privacy and brand safety?

RT: First of all, let me say that this is a great question. Raising awareness of what blocklists (and term blocks) can do to important causes and journalism is important. At a macro level, there is a lot of focus on supply market places specifically designed to help brands support journalism and BLM type content which is fantastic.

Furthermore, contextual targeting, especially considering CCPA concerns and uncertainty around the future of targeting, is an exceptionally effective way for technology companies and publishers to work hand-in-hand to help brands engage the right audiences in the right place and at the right time without drifting into privacy issues.

Context is the most effective proxy and getting it right always leads to the best ROI. It ensures advertisers are reaching precisely who they want to reach–whether its financial planners, to lawyers to healthcare administrators–creating adjacency with the content that those bankers or lawyers or those healthcare execs are actively leaning into–such as the latest medical device for treating the coronavirus or the latest ETF options for financial planners. That’s what an optimal native, contextual content strategy really delivers.

LdJ:  There’s been a rise in native content marketing in recent years. Why does native make sense for financial brands and publishers alike?

RT: I think the answer is simple, native and contextual technology helps publishers and consumers because it leverages the inherent benefit of quality publishing which is to give consumers the very best content and experience possible—linked exactly to what the reader or viewer is interested in.

The simple fact is that if we as an industry can more accurately match advertising to the content that consumers (both professional and individual) are looking for—then we raise vs diminish the experience. That benefits everyone and in my opinion, that’s the future of advertising.

The post Financial Ad Spend Is Surviving the Pandemic, Says Dianomi appeared first on AdMonsters.

It’s little secret that investment in digital advertising is growing worldwide; that the audience for digital ads is growing; and, that publishers are slowly turning their backs on print. But, just how fast is digital taking over the reins?

Well, if ad spending is any indication, digital is growing pretty fast, according to new data by eMarketer. In fact, worldwide ad spending is expected to continue growing at double-digit rates until, at least, 2015, reaching the quarter mark in 2016. Last year, digital ad spend worldwide reached over $100 billion, and is on pace to reach over $160 billion in just three years.

Unsurprisingly, North America represented the biggest chunk of the digital ad-spend pie, spending 39 percent of ad revenue on digital. And, while North America and Western Europe are the largest digital ad spenders, growth in both continents is lagging behind — with growth in Africa and the Middle East, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe outpacing the two leading digital-ad continents.

Per user ad spend shines in North America and Western Europe, with each country estimated to spend $168 and $112, respectively, in 2013.

But, while digital ad spending is on the rise, brand-based budgets are slow to ramp up their digital investments.

“While digital advertising now gets the majority of media spend in the UK when taken as a single channel (30% vs 26% for TV),” Turn’s Pierre Naggar said in a recent AdMonsters article (Roll Out the Red Carpet: Premium’s Entrance Into Programmatic). “When you examine brand budgets, the IAB estimates that just 13.5% of digital advertising is brand-based rather than direct response.”

RTB in Europe – Cautious, Yet Optimistic

Wrapping your head around the state of real-time buying in Europe can be, at times, painstaking. While RTB can be seen as nearly ubiquitous among North American publishers, those across the pond are bit more cautious about diving into the programmatic game. This isn’t that surprising considering that issues from privacy to highly localized markets make integrating automated selling systems across the European landscape a seemingly Herculean task.

But, tides are changing; and, European publishers continue to make an about-face, latching on to RTB and programatic more and more. In conjunction with PubMatic, AdMonsters released its 2013 European Publisher RTB Report on Tuesday. Putting Europe on center stage, the 2013 report evaluates the state and future of real-time buying as the continent’s digital ad markets increasingly globalize, and programmatic becomes increasingly important in the European digital advertising landscape.

The report also features insight from industry opinion leaders, including Future Publishing Limited’s Rob Brett, BSkyB’s Lyndsi Plummer, Salary.com’s Michael Guerin, and others, giving readers a true eye into the many attitudes towards programmatic and real-time buying in Europe from a keen perspective.

Ad-tech company Infectious Media rounded up its facts, figures and insight about the growth of real-time buying in Europe with its ‘Real-Time Buying: Year Review Europe’ infographic (PDF). Among the findings, France, Germany and the UK lead the push for RTB in Europe, with the RTB percentage of total display inventory doubling for each country in 2013. According to Infectious, RTB is expected to increase by 75 percent in 2013 alone, and increasing by more than four-fold in the next four years.

Put Your Money Where Your Mobile

This week’s buzzword is mobile (Who are we kidding? It’s the buzzword of the year, maybe second to ‘native’). And, as companies like Facebook brag about ramped up mobile spending (yes, that’s 1-in-5 ad dollars being pushed towards mobile); but, the question remains: Is all of this investment in mobile paying off?

Ad Age’s John McDermott takes a look at, arguably, the most mobile of digital-media companies – Pandora to answer the question.

More than 80 percent of Pandora’s users log in from mobile devices, making the service “the most heavily indexed major U.S. media property on mobile devices,” according to ComScore. For reference, Twitter users are almost split down the middle between desktop and mobile use.

“Mobile still is a new revenue stream. Last year, on the display side, there were half a billion dollars spent against it domestically, and we accounted for 20 percent of that spend,” John Trimble, Pandora’s chief revenue officer, told Ad Age Thursday.

“Now, mobile is about 55 percent of our overall revenue. We’ve leaned really hard against monetizing mobile because we see it as the future. It’s where our audience is.”

With such an immense mobile user base, Pandora represents a sort-of anomaly among digital media; and, the company’s relationship with advertisers shows the uniqueness of Pandora’s platform. A lack of research, data and standardization may make advertisers wary of push dollars into mobile.

“The budgets allocated to mobile don’t really coincide with the amount of consumption, users and ability to influence,” Trimble said. “If you’re a CMO, you’re going to need more data, more research, standardization.”

The post This Week in Ad Ops: Double-Digit Digital Growth, RTB in Europe, and Monetizing Mobile appeared first on AdMonsters.