The rise of programmatic advertising quickly led to an increase in middlemen and third parties that served as conduits between advertisers and publishers. What followed was the buy side often found the same inventory being offered over and over again, creating a need for supply path optimization (SPO).

That led to a dance that continues today between demand looking for the most efficient path and/or unique value-generating inventory, while supply attempts to offer its traffic through multiple pipes to help ensure they are reaching the maximum number of buyers.

Tactics like SPO and measuring supply chain directness and true value creation forced some much-needed partner expectations and procedures to market.

The current issue at hand is the demand-side’s current algorithms and manual manipulation of supply paths assumes users are equally addressable from each path. However, with the loss of third-party cookies, the advent of alternative identifiers and bid enrichment supply paths can yield dramatic differences in buyer match rates.

With cookies eventually going away for good, SPO may never be the same. So where does that leave SPO and how will advertisers and suppliers work together again to retain the efficiency to which they’re accustomed?

SPO in a Post-cookie World

Without third-party cookies, there will be no specific and obvious direct route to target users the way we used to. Advertisers whose main interest is in identifying matched users will be adversely affected.

While URLs and domain-based inventory aren’t going anywhere, the ability to recognize the user is getting more difficult. The elimination of cookies means there’s no guarantee that any one path will get the volume of matched users you need for your campaign.

In some ways, it’s similar to driving a car. Many people believe there is an ideal route to any particular destination. But, the rise of online map applications like Waze reinforced that many variables determine what the best route is. Do you want to get there as quickly as possible? Would you prefer saving money on tolls even if it took a little bit of time? Is your biggest concern avoiding the major highways where accidents are more likely?

Third-party cookies depended on a simple map for the best possible route to optimization; however, creating a disjointed addressable landscape has created a Waze-like situation in digital advertising to take into account real-time campaign requirements.

Would you rather take the route of one hop when you cannot match the user, or two hops, which may cost a bit more, but can match? Because, now, limiting access points can suppress potential addressability. As cookies continue to deteriorate, the demand side should monitor their match rates looking at supply path directness. If it’s not sufficient, they know they will need to return to using multiple paths.

By no means is SPO going away. While the variables of SPO are changing it will always have a place in the post-cookie advertising world as we continue to find ways to improve efficiencies in the next generation of programmatic advertising.

But, removing a core element that led to commoditization will require a new approach to achieve the right balance between efficiency and performance. It will take the supply side working hand-in-hand with the demand side to see the value in working with multiple supply paths now.

While the market tests and adopts identity solutions that improve addressability, several unknowns, such as the final rollout of the Google Privacy Sandbox, will need to be taken into account.

Without third-party cookies, SPO will not be as static and directional as it is today. As addressability becomes increasingly fragmented, buyers will need to work closely and understand their partners’ SPO strategies since additional variables will impact scale when employing multiple solutions. If buyers do not take a multipronged approach, they run the risk of.  of driving off a cliff because they were using an old map!

The post Beyond Cookies: Rethinking Supply Chain Optimization in the Face of Advertising Challenges appeared first on AdMonsters.

This year, our Decoder series covered the gamut — iOS 17 privacy updates, state privacy laws, and supply path optimization. If you missed them or want a chance to revisit them, here are the top AdMonsters’ Decoder stories from 2023.

If you see an ad tech term and are still thinking, WTF?!!! This is the place for you. 

Everything You Need To Know About the iOS 17 Update and Its Lasting Impact on Advertising

When Apple introduced its iOS 17 privacy updates, consumers awaited exciting new features, but publishers were concerned about the impact on their businesses. Marketers faced significant updates affecting link tracking, reducing the ability to track user behaviors through shared URLs in messages, email, and Safari Private Mode. 

We spoke with several industry experts who shared advice about how publishers should handle the new updates. They said publishers must prioritize transparent practices, understand third-party data usage, and embrace advanced measurement technologies. It’s crucial to pivot towards contextual advertising, leverage first-party data, and ensure privacy compliance while maintaining engaging ad experiences to uphold user trust.

What Are Made for Advertising (MFA) Sites and Why Are They a Scourge on Ad Tech and Sustainability?

Currently, MFA sites account for at least one in five online impressions, consuming 15% of global programmatic ad spend and generating 26% more carbon waste than legitimate publisher sites.

Major brands are paying for advertising on these low-quality sites, almost certainly without their knowledge. The number of these sites is likely to increase as AI-generated content continues to be more commonplace and as the industry phases out the use of third-party cookies. This is because MFA sites rely in part on outdated contextual targeting tactics to bring in clicks.

Oregon Sets the Bar: Landmark Consumer Data Privacy Bill Becomes the Strongest in the Nation

Oregon passed the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act (OCPA). Oregon stood out amongst six states to enact such laws this year, setting the bar as the strongest bill nationwide. Unlike other states’ regulations, OCPA mandates opt-in consent for 13 to 15-year-old Oregonians, adding extensive protections for sensitive data like national origin and victimization status.

OCPA’s data minimization rules could pose challenges, particularly for marketers aiming to match customer IDs for CTV outreach. This law demands businesses to disclose third-party data sharing and categorize entities involved.

“The data minimization is huge. It is one of the biggest issues the trade groups have against the draft federal privacy law. It has the potential to minimize not only data but the value of data. And it hurts creating a profile,” said Wayne Matus, Co-Founder, General Counsel, and EVP at SafeGuard Privacy. 

What Is Dynamic Flooring?

With the help of Keith Candiotti, Founder and CEO of Optimera, we explored the concept of dynamic flooring in programmatic advertising, focusing on publishers’ strategies to maintain ad inventory pricing competitiveness in the open marketplace. Flooring, the practice of setting a minimum price for ad inventory, empowers publishers to control pricing while participating in real-time bidding. Publishers using GAM leverage Unified Pricing Rules (UPRs) to ensure bids meet their minimum price requirements.

However, setting optimal CPM floors manually poses challenges, as publishers face a constant trade-off between maximizing revenue and maintaining ad fill rates. Dynamic flooring emerged as a solution, using real-time data to adjust floors intelligently for each page view. Nevertheless, not all dynamic flooring solutions are equally effective, with some favoring specific demand partners and failing to generate additional revenue.

What Is Supply Path Transparency & Optimization?

According to an IAB report, the ad tech industry is witnessing substantial growth, and they projected it will increase by 5.9% YoY. However, this growth introduces unique challenges, notably the necessity for transparency within the programmatic supply chain. Supply Path Optimization is a solution to enhance efficiency and transparency by reducing intermediaries that don’t add significant value. 

SPO benefits both supply and demand sides by providing visibility into the ecosystem, improving brand safety for advertisers, increasing revenue opportunities for publishers, reducing ad fraud, and enhancing overall efficiency.

For this explainer, Abhinav Choudhri, Director- Customer Success at AdPushup, dove into recent industry developments, such as the implementation of the OpenRTB 2.6 draft, Ads.txt 1.1, and Transparency Center, and how they have further advanced the cause of supply chain transparency and optimization.

What Is IAB Tech Lab’s ‘Green Initiative’?

The IAB Tech Lab’s Green Initiative aims to address sustainability in the programmatic supply chain. Despite the widespread commitments to carbon neutrality by major tech firms and brands in 2021, putting these commitments into action has proved challenging. 

To tackle this, IAB Tech Lab partnered with AdNetZero to establish a standardized emissions framework. Leveraging expertise and available data from contributing members, the Tech Lab plans to expedite progress in this crucial area to counteract the environmental impact while acknowledging the limited time available.

How Can Publishers Boost Their Ad Revenue with Header Bidding?

Automation has transformed business operations significantly. Consequently, companies are compelled to adapt by integrating advanced technologies. Programmatic advertising, particularly Header Bidding has revolutionized ad buying and selling, boosting efficiency for publishers and advertisers.

Header bidding refers to a real-time auction where multiple demand partners bid on an ad impression before it reaches the ad server. By integrating JavaScript code into a website’s header, this technology enables publishers to simultaneously offer ad space to multiple buyers, enhancing transparency and fostering competition among demand sources.

What is vCPM, and How Does It Relate to Viewability?

vCPM, a metric for measuring the cost of viewable impressions, aids advertisers in maximizing ROI and empowers publishers to boost ad revenue. Despite the rise of attention metrics, viewability remains pivotal for advertisers. 

Marketers must ensure ads are not just seen but viewable. Unlike before, ads generated revenue regardless of visibility; advertisers now prioritize viewable impressions. Publishers must understand how to gauge impression costs to monetize their digital ad space effectively.

An ad must fulfill specific criteria to be viewable, typically with at least 50% of its pixels visible on a user’s screen for at least one second. Unlike traditional CPM, which accounts for all impressions, vCPM zeroes in on viewable impressions, allowing advertisers to allocate budgets more wisely and enhance their return on investment.

The post Explain This to Me…Best of AdMonsters Decoder 2023 appeared first on AdMonsters.

Throughout history, there have been revolutionary changes that have remade industries and created powerhouses of those companies that took a leap to prepare for the future.

IBM,was early to identify the personal computer revolution. Netflix created the modern streaming industry while it was an extremely successful DVD supplier.

And for as many industry champions, there were those who felt it was too soon to embrace the future because their revenue was tied to historic ways of doing things.

The advertising industry isn’t immune to this kind of thinking. For years, we have known a cookieless future awaits. Google is committed to a cookieless future, despite their moving of timelines. Soon — the vaunted cookie will be no more — with a decline starting in Q1 2024. 

And yet! Few seem prepared for this inevitability. Despite the necessity for the advertising industry to adapt, some organizations are not heeding these warnings. Embracing the future without third-party cookies requires experimentation today to understand exactly what awaits. 

Today’s advertising environment is governed by traffic-shaping algorithms that will prioritize cookie-based traffic until they’re specifically instructed not to do so. The short-term benefits dictate this.

Publishers and SSPs are influenced by higher CPMs and fees and DSPs crave the audience targeting and segmentation provided by cookies.

On one hand, this is completely understandable. Most businesses are driven by short-term benefits. On the other hand, we’re not preparing for the storm arriving at our shores. And the storm is this: Google has remained steadfast in its complete phase-out of cookies in the latter half of 2024. 

A charitable look at this current state brings to mind several fairy tales about what happens when you don’t prepare for the future ( Or maybe you remember the story of the ant and the grasshopper.)

Put simply, if we do not encourage the use of cookie alternative traffic in advertising today, the entire industry will take a huge step back when it becomes a reality.

Here’s the important thing: done right, organizations that embrace cookieless traffic today will gain an important competitive advantage today and tomorrow. 

5 Justifications for Bending the Ad-shaping Algorithm

Here are five justifications for bending the ad-shaping algorithm

• • Reduced dependency: You can either begin tapering off third-party cookies now or have a very painful detox later. Reducing your reliance on third-party cookies for ad targeting will make future campaigns more successful. 
  • Create a clean, open environment to succeed: Almost all of today’s traffic shaping and supply path optimization was built for a user-commoditized internet where you could target and measure the same user across multiple paths.  When addressability is at a premium, an unthrottled, mult-hop connection may be required to reach addressable scale.  Yesterday’s tactics were built for a different battle.  
  • Zig where others zag: With fewer bids for this traffic and therefore less competition, advertisers will yield higher win rates. Likewise, suppliers that focus on this will earn revenue on inventory that’s typically ignored
  • Capitalize on underserved Safari users: As Salon CRO Justin Wohl pointed out at a Digiday Summit, Safari users are a very desirable audience that advertisers discount because it doesn’t allow cookies. He called them among the “highest-value opportunities,” but yet the publisher sees half the yield of cookied traffic. This ideal audience is just not seeing as many ads, giving advertisers more opportunities to reach them and lessening the likelihood of ad fatigue.
  • Begin addressing what will work best for your audience: When cookies disappear, organizations will have several options for how they try to replicate what cookies provided (spoiler alert: no one will be able to replicate it exactly). Options include relying on first-party data,clean rooms, universal identifiers, contextual targeting, and other methodologies. Trial and testing each right now will help your organization understand what will be successful for them. That way, you’re ready to lean into one or two strategies that are most effective when your advertising depends on it. 

Focus on Cookieless Traffic, Today

Ignoring cookieless traffic at this stage is a critical error because of the reasons described above. Safari and Firefox took the first step and Google will soon join them. 

Acknowledging a future driven by cookieless traffic and taking decisive action is necessary to stay in line with the competition.

By reducing dependency on third-party cookies, organizations can future-proof their campaigns while standing out in a less crowded market, as few competitors focus on cookieless traffic, leading to higher win rates for advertisers.

Organizations must recognize the evolving landscape, adapt their strategies, and test alternative approaches to secure a competitive advantage against companies that will ride the cookie train until the last moment. 

The post Why Actions, Not Words, Are Needed to Face the Cookieless Future appeared first on AdMonsters.

Remember when Verizon decided to part ways with Yahoo? Well, it was a blessing in disguise. Since Apollo Global Management acquired Yahoo in 2021, the global media and tech company has been up and up. Now, Yahoo is making strategic moves to drive value creation for its customers.

We spoke with Elizabeth Herbst-Brady, CRO of Yahoo, during a break between sessions at Advertising Week NY. Navigating working under new owners can be an adjustment; however, Herbst-Brady refers to the last two years as an amazing journey, starting with the appointment of Jim Lanzone, Yahoo’s CEO.

“Previously, there was Yahoo Finance, Yahoo sports, email, the news ecosystem, ads and subscriptions, which is really the legacy AOL business,” Herbst-Brady explained. “You would think it was just dial-up, but it is way more. He put GMs in place for each of those businesses.”

As CRO at Yahoo, she is the General Manager of the advertising business, which mainly consists of the DSP. She also develops monetization strategies that help elevate the company’s future. In a sea saturated with undifferentiated SSPs, Yahoo decided to shut down its supply-side business earlier this year to focus on the buy-side and provide direct connections to publishers.

Yahoo Advertising: From Four Intermediaries to One

When Apollo Global first acquired Yahoo, the media and tech behemoth had four technology platforms. It all started with their SSP, Gemini (their native platform), their DSP, and their reserved ad server. But today, in 2023, Yahoo is DSP-focused and offers advertisers direct access to their own media properties.

With direct consumer relationships, exclusive 1st-party data partnerships, and premium omnichannel inventory, the Yahoo DSP operates in a space between walled gardens and independent ad tech companies. 

After evaluating their other ad tech platforms, the DSP realized the most success, making it easy to rule out the other three ad tech counterparts. It was really based on the ‘may the best man win’ ideology. 

In February, Yahoo created a transformational partnership with Taboola, which allowed them to shut down their native ad platform, Gemini. Now, Taboola serves as Yahoo’s native platform, and they are fully focusing on their product and engineering resources. As a by-product of this move, Yahoo also exited the SSP and exchange business, further highlighting the difficulties some SSPs have had differentiating themselves and proving their value to publishers.

 Now known simply as Yahoo Advertising, the DSP-focused business is rolling out numerous products and partnerships to offer clients and partners better reach, relevancy, and results. 

Yahoo Backstage: A Direct Path to Premium Publisher Inventory

 In their ad tech reinvention, Yahoo focuses on three main tools to connect the buy side with premium inventory and quality audiences. For starters, they rolled out Yahoo Backstage, an exclusive offering accessible solely through Yahoo’s DSP. It provides:

• A direct avenue to curated premium publisher inventory
• Transparency and optimization within the supply path
• Maximized media spend and ROI for advertisers

Setting it apart from other Supply Path Optimization (SPO) solutions in the market, Yahoo Backstage capitalizes on the robust publisher relationships established by Yahoo over the years through its now-retired SSP.

That noteworthy roster of premium publishers includes Yahoo’s owned and operated properties and over 100 others, including A+E Networks, Dotdash Meredith, Newsweek, Raptive, The Arena Group, and VIZIO. Almost 40 of these are Connected TV (CTV) publishers, making it the most extensive representation of direct CTV supply currently available. Seamless expansion of CTV inventory into Yahoo Backstage is facilitated through integrations with industry leaders like FreeWheel, Magnite’s SpringServe, and Publica by IAS.

“We have something called the cross-platform planner, which allows you to understand incremental reach, meaning when you’re looking at something on your phone from some advertiser and then watching something on television, or maybe you’re looking at something on your computer and when you see the same ad over and over and over again like that’s super annoying, right?,” Herbst-Brady explained. “For the DSP, our job is to make sure that brands understand the audience they are reaching.”

With the ad tech hot topic du jour being wasted advertiser spend on MFA sites, it’s worth noting that Jounce Media credits Yahoo Backstage as the largest source of MFA-free supply in the open Web. 

What about ID Solutions?

Like the rest of the digital media and ad tech industry, Yahoo is dedicated to solving the identity and addressability issues that will result from the cookiepocolypse. Yahoo has some pretty extensive identity solutions that can help advertisers connect with their intended audiences. 

Yahoo ConnectID, their addressable identity solution relies on known, logged-in users, and Next-Gen Solutions, designed to address non-addressable audiences at scale across targeting, buying, and measurement. The major tech company also recently unveiled strategic partnerships with LiveRamp and Twilio Segment to further enhance advertisers’ reach.

Yahoo’s Connected ID Partnerships

LiveRamp: Yahoo recently announced a significant partnership between its ConnectID and LiveRamp to broaden the reach of their cookieless identity solution and enhance addressability within the advertising ecosystem. Publishers utilizing LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) will now have the opportunity to harness the benefits of Yahoo ConnectID. This collaboration enables Yahoo to tap into additional addressable demand within the Yahoo DSP, catering to the evolving dynamics of the cookieless world.

Brands utilizing Yahoo’s DSP stand to gain increased reach through Yahoo ConnectID, now enriched with expanded scale from LiveRamp’s ATS. This strategic alliance emphasizes a concerted effort to empower publishers and advertisers with enhanced tools and capabilities, which is essential for an evolving ecosystem.

Twilio: Yahoo ConnectID is now directly integrated with Twilio Segment customer data platform, which helps advertisers future-proof their business while activating first-party data across screens in a cookieless world. Twilio Segment users can now seamlessly synchronize hashed, cookieless data with their real-time customer profiles, allowing them to enhance the reach and relevance of their campaigns.

Integrating Yahoo ConnectID with Twilio Segment ensures greater relevance and reach for advertising campaigns and emphasizes the importance of precise measurement in gauging campaign success. Advertisers now have the means to confidently navigate the cookieless world, leveraging the combined strengths of Yahoo ConnectID and Twilio Segment for more impactful and targeted advertising efforts.

Should Other DSPs Take Notes From Yahoo?

Yahoo has been resolute in its pursuit of value creation for marketers. The decision to streamline operations and exit the SSP and exchange business reflects a keen awareness of monetization dynamics and a commitment to delivering meaningful value to advertisers and publishers alike.

The post How Yahoo Is Doubling Down on Buy-side Offerings, As Told by CRO Elizabeth Herbst-Brady appeared first on AdMonsters.

Supply path optimization is a topic that has the industry buzzing right now because a lot of changes are happening, and not all of them are easy to understand. Whether you’re on the sell or buy side of the equation, tracking these changes and understanding how they may impact your business going forward is important. 

A panel at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O in New York City on September 26 titled “The SPO Squeeze” dove into this subject headfirst. The chat was moderated by Sarah Sluis, Executive Editor, AdExchanger, and featured Jess Breslav, Chief Customer Officer, Index Exchange; Will Doherty, VP Inventory Development, Publishers, The Trade Desk; Katie Evans, Chief Operating Officer, Magnite; and Lara Koenig, Global Head of Product, MiQ. 

Increasing Value and Efficiency in SPO

Koenig is on the buy side of the SPO journey, and she shared that SPO is a crucial problem for buyers to tackle right now. The current setup creates a slew of problems for marketers. 

For example, there are too many intermediaries in the supply chain. “About three years ago, we  got supply chain logs from our DSPs. We thought we were buying from six different supply vendors, but when we looked at the logs, we figured out that in reality 384 downstream vendors are participating in our auctions, which leads to so many safety, suitability and economic risks,” Koenig explained. 

Marketers can succumb to many pitfalls, and almost as many folks are trying to solve the problems with SPO. The problem is that with the multitude of emerging platforms the goal of programmatic – to simplify the process for buyers – is being lost. 

One potential solution to this problem is bidding through open paths. This eliminates some of the hops back and forth and saves time. Doherty says this also ensures you see the true number of avails, giving the buyer a more accurate depiction of a supplier’s inventory, which allows them to compare and contrast publishers. 

“What open path has allowed us to do and where the market is going is it’s starting to consolidate around the top. As that consolidation occurs, the economic benefits for both the publisher and the buyer become much clearer,” Doherty notes.

As an industry, we need to start redefining the word “value” in terms of partnerships. Breslav says, “Gone are the days where you add a partner and expect immediate outcomes, immediate ad spend.” The value may be in benchmarking performance and relaying that information to partners. 

Open path is future-facing, says Evans, toward new technologies like CTV, which operates very differently. “We’re trying to create an ecosystem that is going to be successful for the future, based on all the technologies that have developed over the last five or six years,” she says.  

Seeing Double: Duplicate Impressions Limit Value

Duplication in impressions is a concern when each publisher is partnering with 35-40 SSPs. SSPs are all sending the same things to DSPs, and the DSPs are not getting the rest of the picture, creating problems for buyers. 

From a buyer’s perspective, says Koenig, partner companies are largely doing the same thing – collapsing intermediaries to make buying more direct. The pressing question now is whether supply chain intermediaries add any value. 

Doherty notes there are two types of duplication – publishers working with multiple partners and within SSPs themselves, tuning up or tuning down traffic, which leads to intra-SSP duplication. Some DSPs will lean into solely getting their match traffic, possibly even only for what they historically bid on. This can reduce your bottom line and limit your reach.

Decisions based on a DSP’s customer portfolio and what buyers have bought in the past can limit pathways for new buyers and over complicate the process, forcing buyers to work with multiple DSPs to get the reach they’re looking for. Koenig believes there should be transparency in the process that empowers buyers to advocate for the pathways they want to pursue. The current process also hurts the SSP because they are sending avails that aren’t monetized. 

To combat this, Breslav recommends better communication between SSPs and DSPs. “Filtering done correctly helps our partners to be more successful and buyers on the other side of it. Part of that is about a conversation making sure that we are all aligned on what we are sending each other and using traffic shaping as a tool when it’s effective,” she shares. 

A View Toward the Future

Communication within the industry is crucial for making sure pain points continue to be addressed and that we remain on the same page. In the face of a shifting digital landscape with emerging technologies, ultimately we all want the same thing – to succeed. 

The complicated landscape makes it more difficult than ever for SSPs to drive positive outcomes for publishers. According to Breslav, there is a flight to quality and safety as well as a focus on sustainability, and all of these considerations are changing how the industry views strategy and innovation. 

She adds, “I think there’s an incredibly healthy dialogue happening in our ecosystem right now, and I really appreciate it. I think about what I read in the trades and the push towards sustainability. Our community feels incredibly active. I think that that’s a wonderful thing.”

Looking ahead, experts agreed that it is important to avoid letting new technologies like CTV fall into the same trap we’re currently in with duplication and intermediary traffic. In the coming years, there will likely be some consolidation of players, particularly intermediaries, in addition to greater efficiency and quality. The consensus was cautious optimism about what the future holds. 

The post Escaping the Trap: Supply Path Optimization Can Create Transparency and Increase Efficiency appeared first on AdMonsters.

“Grouchy” Greg Watkins is the co-founder of AllHipHop.com, a website that has been doing successful business in the music space since its inception in 1997. The site’s mission continues to be the same as it was then, a place to share news, feature articles, and any other pertinent content for people who make and enjoy hip-hop. 

Most importantly, the site has an incredible reach, which it achieves largely thanks to Watkins’ knowledge and expertise in the online advertising space. Leading up to his talk at PubForum in Coronado Island, California, we caught up with Watkins to learn more about his career journey and how he is helping others learn the ins and outs of ad tech. 

Music & Technology Paved the Way for Watkins’ Career

Watkins says he knew he was destined to be a part of the music industry since he was only three years old, listening to tapes on his parents’ tape recorders at home. When he was just a kid, he also began tinkering with technology. 

“My dad had an old reel-to-reel machine in his basement that he listened to music on. He had transistor radios that I would take apart and look at,” he says. 

As he grew up and began getting involved in music, he started a recording studio. Then he went to the Art Institute of Philadelphia, where he received an Associate’s Degree in Music, Business, and Audio Engineering. 

By 1996, Watkins was pressing records and having success selling those online to people worldwide. That’s when he registered AllHipHop.com, which he originally conceived as a way to sell records but quickly morphed into the hip-hop news site it is today, with the help of his long-time business partner Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur.

Watkins Was an Early Adopter of & Believer in the Power of the Internet 

Witnessing the evolution of communication through the web via early programs like AOL convinced Watkins that the Internet would be the way of the future. At that time, he began reading trade publications to understand the ins and outs of this new communication tool. 

“By ‘96 or ‘97, I don’t want to say I was a veteran of the internet, but I knew my way around. At that time, I knew HTML, how to code, and how to make websites. I saw it as a logical step when I saw people buying the music online, and how it reduced my overhead by having a direct-to-consumer relationship,” he explains. 

That direct-to-consumer relationship completely changed how Watkins and his team sold music and connected with their audience. He knew then that the internet would change how we share news and information globally. 

Awareness of the Internet’s Advertising Potential 

If you asked Watkins back when he launched his website whether he would be so involved in ad tech today, he says the answer would be both yes and no. 

“I’ve been reading the trades since ‘94, 95. I visited San Francisco. I saw Yahoo in its early days before they were even a worldwide known brand – I saw cabs riding around with ‘Yahoo’ on top and billboards around San Francisco. That blew my mind that an internet company was marketing in that manner. That opened my eyes to see there is an advertising business here,” he shares. 

Even so, the urban advertising system was basically nonexistent until the year 2000, which is when AllHipHop.com began to dive into the world of online ads. Watkins notes, “I helped launch our first ad server. I bought it off the Internet, ‘software as a service.’” He began launching ad campaigns, doing the creative, HTML, and tracking codes with a small team of sales reps. 

At first, the advertisers were direct-to-consumer marketers, but AllHipHop.com landed a campaign with the anti-smoking organization The Truth. The money from that campaign helped the website hire more writers and salespeople who did brand cold calling. This eventually led to some big fish advertisers like American Airlines and Pepsi. 

“I did know that the advertising business would be big on the Internet and that this would be a way to directly speak to consumers in a way that possibly had never happened in media history. When you’re dealing with television, it’s usually a one-way transaction. When you’re dealing with the internet, especially at the time, you could develop actual relationships with these consumers, depending on what type of ad campaign you’re running,” he notes. 

Understanding the Supply Chain Leads to Success

Watkins says his biggest advice for publishers looking to succeed in this industry is to understand the supply chain we are all a part of. 

AllHipHop.com started as a direct selling business, then it began dealing with ad networks. When programmatic started, the supply chain became more complicated and less transparent. 

Ten years later, the supply chain has become even more complex and even wasteful, up to the billions of dollars in terms of waste spent by brands and agencies. This is what Watkins says he will be speaking to at PubForum. 

“There are a variety of headwinds impacting our industry right now that will probably be issues for the entire ecosystem in the supply chain for advertising over the next two years. Those are going to be some of the things I’m talking about and telling publishers: what to look out for, and how to avoid bad actors in the space. I’ll also be giving some actual testimonials,” he says. 

Making Ad Tech a More Inclusive Space

The lack of diversity and inclusion in the ad tech space confounds Watkins. “One thing that has always surprised me is the fact that Black, Latin, and other minority-owned businesses still have this difficulty in the 21st century having their audiences respected. We have huge audiences, yet only 1 percent of ad budgets go to Black and minority-owned and targeted websites.” 

For his part, Watkins makes it a point to take time out of his busy schedule to speak to college students and mentor minority owners of small businesses.

“I speak at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) and colleges, in general to encourage the students to understand ad tech, one for the impact that it has on society and how we see ourselves, but two, there has to be human capital available for these companies to hire for change to happen,” he states. He believes it’s important to make sure these students know how low lucrative ad tech can be.

He also is involved with BOMESI, the Black Owned Media Equity and Sustainability Institute, which assists publishers with resources, grants, and training to help serve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the publishing industry. “I mentor a variety of these brands and some of their executives on what’s happening in the business,” Watkins says. 

To hear more about Watkins’ journey and his advice for publishers looking to succeed, make sure to attend his keynote speech, “Lessons From the Trenches: 25 Years as a Publisher Navigating Ad Tech,” at AdMonsters’ upcoming PubForum in Coronado, California on August 7. 

The post Ahead of His Time: How “Grouchy” Greg Watkins Leveraged the Power of the Internet Into a Successful Publishing Career appeared first on AdMonsters.

Predictably, the economy, the growth of attention metrics, and cookie deprecation are top worries for publishers. What is surprising is just how low supply path optimization (SPO) is on their priority list. Only 30% of publishers say it’s important for them.

Despite less than a third of marketers ranking it high in priority, some see SPO as more of a concern for a buyer than a publisher. “SPO is a buy side issue and publishers are concerned about how it’s impacting them but the other issues are bigger concerns, SPO will always be there,” explained Jana Meron, the founder of Lioness Strategies and seasoned digital media monetization and data strategy leader. In other words, SPO is a persistent, but low-grade issue.

But others believe publishers have a vested interest in promoting SPO. The open programmatic markets can be convoluted at best and, for buyers keen to stay within a specific price range, they may be dissuaded from purchasing quality inventory if it has multiple intermediaries demanding a piece of the CPM paid. And all those commissions mean that publishers collect a smaller percentage of revenue for their inventory. 

What’s more, by focusing on SPO, publishers have more direct access to gaining insights into the demand for their inventory, potentially improving transparency in the bidding process.  All of this begs the question: why aren’t more publishers dedicating resources to ensuring the exchanges have direct access to their inventory?

Why Aren’t Publishers Concerned about SPO?

Another possible interpretation of the survey results is that SPO means different things for different types of publishers. Discussions of SPO tend to focus on unintended consequences, such as publishers losing access to buyers if an ad exchange opts to eliminate suppliers as part of its SPO initiative. 

But according to Scott Messer, ​​Principal and Founder of Messer Media, legitimate publishers shouldn’t worry about that as supply path optimization is a correction coming first for the most egregious of publishers.

For instance, In early April, Digiday ran a series of articles about declining prices in the open RTB markets due to ad tech vendors reducing the number of auctions they “listen to.”  At issue: low-quality publishers were initiating an excessive number of concurrent auctions for the same impression, hoping to get the best possible price. Wary of competing against themselves, advertisers flocked to the safe havens of private and curated marketplaces.

“Complicating your supply path is a tactic to drive higher yields,” said Messer. Reputable publishers with genuine value propositions have little need for ploys, which is why he believes publishers are moving towards curated marketplaces. “The average publisher on the good side isn’t worried about SPO because, if anything, it will actually drive more dollars into their pockets. Closing cluttered paths make it harder for the less worthy.”

Messer is an advocate of curated marketplaces, and deal creation as a service (DCaaS). In these scenarios, platforms create a custom marketplace for an individual buyer, one that is free of the low-quality publishers that exist for the express purpose of selling ads.  In this respect, curated marketplaces offer buyers a faster and more transparent path into SPO.

The survey data, however, was surprising when considering Messer’s perspective. The survey found, in fact, that large publishers are more than eight times more likely than small publishers to report having at least 10 monetization partners. And high CPM publishers, perhaps the best proxy for what Messner refers to as “reputable”, tend to have more monetization partners than low CPM ones.

Another theory behind why publishers may not be prioritizing SPO: they simply lack the resources to do more than acknowledge its importance. “I believe that Supply Path Optimization is one of those catchphrases like the cookieless Future.  We are all talking about it, but no one has really figured out what to do about it,” explained Terry Guyton-Bradley, a programmatic strategist who co-founded MediaZinc and spent many years working for multiple publishers running their programmatic operations.

“Unfortunately, most publishers don’t have the resources or time to truly analyze their programmatic partners in order to make meaningful changes to their programmatic stacks. As you can see from the survey results, the economy is having a significant impact on our industry and causing drastic cuts to investment in technology and personnel.” 

Guyton-Bradley warns his partners not to make any business decisions without data to support their assumptions. In his view, the benefits of SPO to publishers are still a hypothesis. Things may change once there’s real data to back up the SPO advocates claims. 

SPO is a Hot Topic for Many

Although Emodo’s survey found that only 30% of publishers consider SPO a hot topic, it’s still a top priority for companies like Emodo, which sees it as much more than simply cutting out middlemen to find the shortest path to inventory. “What it really means is eliminating redundancy by offering unique value and providing the most direct route to that value,” Damian McKenna, COO at Emodo, told Street Fight. 

Emodo also aligns with Messer’s point about curated marketplaces as an essential strategy for buyers and publishers and has a team dedicated to actively creating and optimizing Emodo Curated Deals.

The post Why Aren’t Publishers Concerned about Supply Path Optimization (SPO)? appeared first on AdMonsters.

Transparency in the programmatic supply chain is one such challenge prevailing in the industry. With so many parties involved in the supply chain, it has become even more difficult to keep track of ad spend and quality. That is why the industry needs Supply Path Optimization (SPO). 

Supply Chain Optimization is a process of increasing transparency and efficiency in the programmatic supply chain by cutting down the number of intermediaries that are not adding significant value. 

Why Is Transparency Needed?

Transparency in the supply chain involves a lot more than just making information available to all parties. It involves creating an environment of trust where all stakeholders feel confident that they are receiving fair and honest information.

This includes details about ad placements, ad inventory, and pricing. Ensuring transparency is important because it promotes better communication and helps build strong working relationships between publishers and advertisers.

Benefits of SPO

It is often perceived that SPO only benefits advertisers, but that is simply not true. Both the supply side and demand side can greatly benefit by optimizing supply path efficiencies:

• • Increased Transparency: SPO provides better visibility and insights about the ecosystem — the intermediaries involved, exact ad spend on impressions, etc. It enables advertisers to tackle the issue of bid duplication and enables publishers as well as advertisers to identify and eliminate unnecessary or fraudulent players. 
• • Brand Safety for Advertisers: With SPO, advertisers feel more confident about their brand image and safety. They can eliminate the SSPs who do not follow their brand safety guidelines. 
• • Increased Revenue Opportunities: Streamlining SPO can ensure that publishers receive the highest bids possible for their ad inventory ultimately increasing ad revenue.
• • Reduced ad fraud: SPO can help publishers reduce ad fraud by ensuring that their ads are only displayed on legitimate websites.
• • Increased Efficiency: SPO can help publishers and advertisers improve the efficiency of their programmatic advertising inventory and ad campaigns by reducing latency and improving transparency.

How does SPO work?

To make sure that SPO works in the most optimum way, advertisers need to come up with certain strategies to apply. One of the ways advertisers could reclaim control and optimize the path is by limiting the number of SSPs and ad exchanges they work with and work with a select number of partners. They would also need to focus on cutting off resellers from the market and opt for bids that offer them the best chance of winning. It is always important to make sure that every bid must bring a unique value attached to it in an auction-themed environment.

Implementation

One of the best ways to implement SPO is to make sure that multiple routes are being avoided to buy or sell inventory. The lesser the paths, the less the chances of duplication.

According to recent studies more than 60% of buyers currently think that SPO has reduced the chances of fraud while the buying power has also been enhanced for at least 30% of the buyers in the landscape, along with this roughly 20% of them have seen a more transparent Fee structure due to the same.

SPO Implementation steps include:

• Assessment:

Developing a thorough grasp of your programmatic supply chain is the first step in deploying SPO. This includes the process of figuring out all the intermediaries who are buying and selling your ad inventory. 

• Evaluating and consolidating intermediaries: 

Once all the intermediaries have been identified, evaluate the ones which are unnecessary or ‘bad actors’, the ones adding costs and latency to the page load time.

Based on the evaluation, consolidate the significant ones and eliminate the ones not adding value to the supply chain. 

• Monitoring the results: 

SPO is an ongoing process and it needs to be measured regularly. This will help in analyzing the efforts if the goals are being achieved or not. Based on the analysis, those efforts can be streamlined and optimized. 

This can be a complex process at times and can be achieved by having the right resources in place. Also, working with an SSP or DSP partner can be considered to simplify the process. 

What Are the Best Practices for Buyers and Sellers to Facilitate Supply Path Optimization

There are several best practices for buyers and sellers to facilitate supply path optimization. These include the use of ads.txt, sellers.json, a lesser number of SSPs, and adherence to industry standards including brand safety and relevance. 

Ads.txt and sellers.json are text files that are placed on a publisher’s website, which allows buyers to verify the identity of the seller and ensure that they are buying ad inventory from authorized sources. Reducing the number of SSPs can help optimize the supply path by reducing the complexity of the supply chain, which can lead to better efficiency and transparency.

Uses of AI for SPO

The use of AI for SPO is becoming increasingly common in the ad tech industry. AI algorithms can help automate the process of analyzing data, identifying inefficiencies, and optimizing the supply path. This can help buyers and sellers make better decisions, reduce costs, and improve efficiency.

With the growing changes in the current landscape, it is expected that AI tools will also be able to help in the execution of policies to optimize the supply path and can also aid inventory management issues.

Measurement and Enhancement of SPO Efforts

Measurement and enhancement of SPO efforts are essential for ensuring that the supply chain remains transparent and efficient. Regular monitoring and analysis of data can help identify areas for improvement and enable stakeholders to make data-driven decisions. 

By enhancing SPO efforts, buyers and sellers can optimize their supply chain, reduce costs, and improve their ROI.

Recent Industry Developments

Recent industry developments, such as the implementation of the OpenRTB 2.6 draft, Ads.txt 1.1, and Transparency Center, have further advanced the cause of supply chain transparency and optimization. 

The OpenRTB 2.6 draft includes new features that make it easier to detect and prevent fraud. Ads.txt 1.1 includes a new field that allows publishers to specify their direct relationships with advertisers, making it easier for buyers to identify authorized sellers. The Transparency Center provides a centralized location for buyers to view information about ad inventory and verify the identity of sellers.

Next Steps for Buyers and Sellers

Supply chain transparency and optimization are essential for the ad tech industry to thrive. Buyers and sellers must work together to create a transparent and efficient supply chain that benefits all stakeholders. By following best practices, utilizing AI, and embracing recent industry developments, the ad tech industry can continue to evolve and drive growth in the digital advertising space.

The post What Is Supply Path Transparency & Optimization? appeared first on AdMonsters.

Given the push towards refinement in consumer targeting, data clean rooms, the Twitter implosion, the rise of retail media, and legislations set to remap leveraging data, the buying universe is quietly scrambling for alternatives with data integrity at the core.  

Who is better than a long-term industry darling that has coveted the consumer better than anyone in its private digital sanctuary – the Apple ecosystem.

Why Apple?

Since its inception, Apple has operated one of the most respectable “ecosystems” in the modern era of technology.  

Their “experience design” acumen has orchestrated one of the most consumer-friendly operating environments, from hardware to software to peripherals, based on a singular aim of mastering interoperability at the highest threshold.  

While Apple has stayed the course in its core commitment to seamless consumer experiences, blame it on the push for 1st Party Data and the industry backpedaling on the reliance of Walled Gardens, signaling its time to enter the DSP business. Recent big tech data lawsuits and CPRA stipulations have created a slow-burning dumpster fire, only accelerating Apple’s market opportunity.

Apple’s Value Proposition to Ad Tech

Apple’s true value stems from the ownership of mindshare, or what we are now terming the Attention Stack. And if attention is the ultimate real estate, Apple owns most of the prized oceanfront properties with millionaire-style mansions.   

Given that their ecosystem is a user-driven community where product development is core to the “user experience,” the expectation will be that their DSP solution will be less about SAAS. An Apple-operated DSP should be centered around their ability to allow brands to effectively connect with consumers given the intimate knowledge they possess about them – an advantage they have all to themselves now.

The Lost Consumer View Created by Apple

Apple set the digital universe on fire with their iOS update, which introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention and App Tracking Transparency (ATT) changes in 2021.  

The update kneecapped ad tech’s ability to target and measure performance, creating a significant ‘signal loss’ (or data attributed to the amount of web browsing and ecommerce behavior). 

Now, Apple can offer its own solution for that by launching its very own DSP. How convenient of them.  

Furthermore, consider other statistical factors such as 30% of global traffic is unaddressable because of cookieless browsers such as Safari. Or that another 20% are unreachable due to match-rate issues between platforms and users refusing cookies on publisher websites. Apple is also likely to accelerate the data graph conversation (i.e., music graph for Spotify, movie graph for Amazon) and architect one that merges content consumption, app behaviors, software usage, hardware purchase, etc., in a way ad tech has never seen before. They gear their experience design philosophy towards openly acknowledging all the technology gaps in the marketplace and closing them. Checkmate.

Apple Powering the SPO Conversation

Apple’s DSP launch may evolve into a page from the forthcoming Supply Path Optimization conversation, where sellers and buyers are becoming more selective about which ad tech partners they allow to participate in programmatic auctions and setups. 

The SPO movement stems from the need by brands to get closer to 1st party data (and proprietary data) offered through partners. Apple’s DSP could serve as the engine for a larger PMP framework, which would have substantial appeal to buying agency options.

Apple in the Data Clean Room Conversation

While the data clean room conversation is all the rave, much of the results still need to be conclusive.  

Clean rooms are environments where tech platforms mix their first-party data with others to gain insights without violating user privacy – which is paramount at Apple. Even mapping other data signals outside of content consumption patterns (location, social, search) onto my audience profile is something Apple is poised to do fluidly. In contrast, others pontificate and stumble around in similar endeavors. 

Why Apple is Poised to Succeed

Apple long existed as the North Star for industry reasons ranging from profit margins, product efficacy and integrity, Steve Jobs factor, management and leadership, retail experience, product design, and so on.  

The ad tech community will assume the same potential in launching a DSP which will translate into the sector granting them grace (while they make missteps) as they carve out a new chapter in their business model. 

Above all else, Apple is very prudent in studying the mistakes of its frenemies in the business while solving consumer points of friction as an operational mantra.  

The post The Lost Consumer View Created by Apple Solved Through Their Own DSP appeared first on AdMonsters.

A recent study found that the vast majority (95%) of ad buyers are currently implementing or planning to implement SPO technology, with 52% of ad buyers saying half or more of their advertising budget is transacted programmatically.

So, what is SPO and how should advertisers and agencies be thinking about it?

Defining Supply Path Optimization

Supply Path Optimization is the strategy through which buyers look to remove redundant intermediaries and streamline their access to supply. There are many reasons why agencies and advertisers are taking a close look at supply paths, but the main three would be: 1) to reduce infrastructure costs, 2) to increase performance, and 3) to maintain transparency for inventory quality.

SPO in mobile has an additional level of complexity compared to the web because ads on mobile devices are facilitated mostly through software development kits (SDKs) – and understanding the type of SDK connection can have meaningful implications to that path optimization.

Understanding the Key Players in SPO

The main players to consider for SPO analysis are the sellers, the exchanges, and the demand-side platforms (DSPs).

Starting with the seller, or app publisher in mobile, each app needs to evaluate and prioritize many sources of demand to optimize its yield. To do this, they work to integrate SDKs that represent the exchanges. Understanding the type of SDK connection each exchange has with the app publisher can have major implications for how you, as a buyer, can think about prioritizing these partners. To simplify this, there are three types of SDK partners:

Mediation SDK – The platform that acts as the central ad server and ultimate decision-maker on what ad will be shown to the end-user. Those mediation SDKs that enable unified auctions allow buyers to participate in the first and final auction. As a buyer looking to optimize your access, connecting to supply through the mediation partner gives you the most direct and full access to that publisher. 

Advanced Bidder SDK – A demand source directly integrated with the app publisher and participating in the unified auction conducted by the mediator SDK. This type of buyer participates in the real-time auction with their bidder and uses their SDK to render. They rely on the mediator SDK to host the first and final auction for their access.  

Traditional Network SDK – Or waterfall-based network is an integrated partner set up in the mediation SDK with a series of priorities or price floors and does not participate in the unified auction. If the impression is unfilled at the top priority, the same network would be called again to run an auction for the second, third, fourth, and so on until it is filled.

These networks have no way of communicating their true price in the auction, and because of this setup, the waterfall creates a tremendous amount of duplicative bid requests. A DSP buying supply through this type of exchange is likely to see up to 10 times the number of bid requests for each unique impression opportunity compared to the mediated SDK partner. Since the mediator SDK conducts the first and final auction, the waterfall priority established with these networks is translated into a first look or exclusive access, duplicating and obfuscating the actual price and scale. 

Whether mediator, bidder, or traditional, these SDK partners are direct to the publisher and can be seen in sellers.json and app-ads.txt. However, behind these direct SDK partners also exist hidden intermediaries that are not integrated directly and resell the auction to other buyers.

These resellers are exchanges or networks that add another auction to the programmatic chain, include additional tech fees, and provide zero visibility into where that impression opportunity originated from. As a DSP, you can look to identify and limit your buying through reseller channels as an immediate way to reduce inefficiencies in your SPO strategy.

Creating Efficiencies in SPO

Developing an effective SPO strategy on mobile can be a challenging initiative for DSPs and buyers. Now that we’ve outlined the different types of SDK partners above, here are three key ways in which buying through mediated SDK partners directly helps advertisers with SPO:

Infrastructure efficiency: There could be an exponential number of requests for every opportunity to serve an impression. Let’s look at an example where a publisher is working with a mediation SDK like AppLovin’s MAX and five SDK networks. Three of those networks are advanced bidders participating in the unified auction, and the other two are traditional waterfall networks.

If a DSP is integrated with all of those supply partners, they will effectively be hit with one request from the AppLovin Exchange (ALX), three requests from each advanced bidder, and up to 10-20 times the number of requests for each waterfall network. That one impression opportunity has now turned into more than 24 requests to that DSP’s server. This does not include resold or indirect sources of supply, so this duplication stands to increase further, causing a major drag on infrastructure costs as servers are becoming increasingly expensive to maintain. You can minimize these server costs by eliminating connections with traditional network SDKs and reseller connections that inflate requests without providing an added benefit to access. 

Performance efficiency: We can break down performance efficiency by looking at competition and price. As you can imagine, with the above scenario and inflated server costs, you also run the risk of self-competition as you bid into each of these supply paths without knowing they all represent the same impression opportunity.

Direct access eliminates intermediary tech fees that reduce your buying power from a pricing standpoint. It is hard to understand fee transparency with direct access as traditional networks may not disclose their auction pricing. The cleanest way to assess competition and price is to focus on the unified auction that minimizes the risk of self-competition while providing more transparency in fees.  

Premium access and scale: Each supply-side platform (SSP), whether SDK direct or reseller, differs in access, data collection, and support for measurement and verification solutions. In addition to considering infrastructure and performance efficiencies, buyers must ensure they can adequately target and measure their campaigns across the supply. For this, they need to evaluate access and support for OMSDK, key fields like sellers.json and app-ads.txt, and what invalid traffic (IVT) solutions are in place. 

For DSPs and buyers looking to jumpstart their SPO optimization, prioritizing access through the mediator SDK is key. The Applovin Exchange is powered by the largest mediation SDK in mobile and can give this edge to buyers looking for the most direct and efficient way to reach publishers and the end consumer. When buying power increases and programmatic bloat is eliminated, publishers and advertisers both benefit as we grow the advertising market with efficiency and transparency.

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