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Tags containing: "programmatic"

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

Holistic ad serving will keep native inventory premium

Today, one of the biggest opportunities for publishers are native advertising formats–provided they roll out a native ad stack with caution. Publishers might fail to realize the true potential of native formats if they follow the path of fragmenting their monetization stack between the core ad serving platforms and real time bidding systems like they did for banners.

Centralizing the decision on which campaign/creative to be served will generate the highest revenue for publishers. However, in today’s banner ad-stack, the decision is broken into two systems: DFP/first-party ad server and network optimizers. For premium formats like native inventory, publishers should not break the above decision in the way that they did for banners because this will fail to achieve the full revenue potential offered by native advertising.

Let’s take a look at why with a little bit of history and math:

How did banner ad technology evolve for publishers?
First there were ad-servers for managing campaigns directly sold to advertisers. Publishers quickly realized they couldn’t sell 100% of their inventory so they started building relationships with networks.

Running a network isn’t rocket science (after all, it’s just media arbitrage) and, consequently, hundreds of networks popped up. It became one hell of a job to manage multiple networks until SSPs (network optimizers) came along to rescue publishers.

While publishers were optimizing their inventory, advertisers started to buy publisher’s inventory through Real Time Bidding (RTB) exchanges in addition to the old school process of cutting manual IOs and RFPs. In the process, publishers fragmented the final decision of which ad creative should be served into two completely separate silos.

Publishers would first use their own ad server to fill inventory with direct campaigns and then let the exchanges try to fill the remnant inventory. They assumed that the yield from exchanges would never exceed the yield from their direct business. If that’s always true, it makes sense to serve direct sold campaigns over indirect campaigns. Unfortunately, it’s not always true.

Where do native formats fit in?
Native inventory is premium. Assuming direct campaigns are always more lucrative could be costly and require a new ad serving model. Native formats need a modern ad stack that lays the foundation to ensure publishers make premium eCPMs irrespective whether they are selling it direct or indirect.

The ad stack should allow publishers to run direct campaigns but also auction every impression (to multiple demand sources) to compete with direct campaigns. This holistic ad serving approach optimizes a publisher’s yield by serving the right creative for every impression.

Here’s an example:

Let us assume a Publisher A has 100,000 impressions for her native formats and she can directly sell 25% of them. She wants to backfill the rest from networks & exchanges with a backfill CPM floor of $2.

1. Silo Ad-Server

The first ad-server runs through 25,000 impressions with an eCPM of $10.50 and the indirect backfill is given an opportunity to fill 75,000 impressions. The backfill exchanges monetizes at a $3.40 eCPM with 80% fill-rate.

See the revenue and breakdown below:

AdsNativeFig1

2. Holistic Ad-Server

But if both direct & indirect were served from the same system — a “holistic ad serving” approach — they could realize that the fill at any given price level is a direct function of how much inventory is made available, rather than the absolute impressions.

Let’s imagine the indirect backfill could monetize the publisher’s inventory at $6 CPMs. That could end up being 15% of the overall inventory they can make available. In other words, the publisher would fill more impressions at this price from indirect campaigns than direct campaigns.

Now that the system knows the eCPM from every source for every impression, it can prioritize to serve $6CPM in-direct demand than $5 direct demand.

AdsNativeFig2

Note: Indirect demand still has a $3.40 eCPM as in the previous case, but the publisher could realize an overall lift of 10% in this example.

Conclusion
The ecosystem around native formats is evolving very fast. It is a wonderful time to be a publisher: Advertisers want to buy direct from publishers and the number of native networks (backfill partners) are growing.  Publishers should maximize revenue by executing strategies to roll out an ad stack which helps them integrate the first party ad serving with programmatic for these premium ad experiences. And it’s going to be big!

Satish Polisetti is cofounder of AdsNative. He previously worked at mobile advertising startups Amobee and MdotM and received a Mayfield Fund fellowship in 2010.

 

Perspectives | Revenue

How Programmatic Can Help Publishers Unlock New Revenue

Effective advertising is based on reaching the right audience. This was true in the 1950s. This was true in 1990s. Today, it is true more than ever.

At the advent of digital publishing, publisher content helped advertisers reach a particular audience. For example, a cooking website would be an appropriate site for a kitchenware maker to buy advertising; inventory on a financial website would suit a luxury watch brand. From an advertiser’s perspective, buying inventory this way was a slow, painstaking process. Orders had to be placed one-by-one, and performance metrics and audience insights were limited.

In the last few years, technology has evolved, changing how ads are purchased and how audiences are targeted.  Programmatic media buying, which broadly describes ad buying with a computer interface, when combined with data lets advertisers reach their intended audience anywhere online, on any device.

With data science, ad technology companies can transform information on individual web behavior into a massive pool of audience profiles. Predictive technology and audience modeling allow for extremely accurate inferences about what users want to buy, where they consume media, and even what they are most likely to watch on TV.

For publishers, does the shift away from reaching audiences via relevant content threaten ad revenue? Does it lessen the value of sites that appeal to specific audiences? The answer to both questions is an emphatic “no.”

Publishers now have more options for ad revenue. By combining programmatic technology with their unique audience data, publishers can now sell audience relevant advertising beyond the constraints of the websites they own and operate. Publishers can monetize their audience profiles anywhere on the Internet, even on TV. This new capability is commonly referred to as audience extension.

Audience extension not only provides a new revenue stream, it can help solve business problems such as insufficient or excess ad inventory. By allowing for increased ad reach, audience extension also helps publishers better cater to their advertisers.

For example, a website dedicated to fitness is perfect for a new age healthy beverage ad. However, advertisers find that full coverage of a target market can’t happen through one web buy. A publisher that uses audience extension can help advertisers reach that audience wherever they consume media. The advertiser’s mission is more effectively and easily completed and the publisher has a new revenue stream, at little cost or risk.

One of the most significant challenges for top publishers is inventory scarcity. To meet demand, publishers are pushing editorial teams—writers, videographers and designers—to rapidly create great content. Typical solutions include: more ads on a page and increased refreshes, which often compromise user experience. Publishers that offer audience extension can sell inventory beyond the limitations of their own sites, increasing ad revenue, without reducing the quality of content and design.

Demand for audiences can even help publishers divest excess inventory. Brands want to reach their target, wherever they are. Thus ad-tech firms will chase that premium inventory, and include it in their ad network.

Regional publishers, whose advantage is coverage over a geographic market, also benefit. Nowadays, regional news publishers often have less local coverage digitally than they did in the days of print dominance.  Audience extension not only solves that problem, it offers a better alternative. For example, through an ad buy with a local publisher, an automobile brand can blanket a geographic zone while targeting users currently shopping for cars. The business goals of both publishers and advertisers are improved.

Economic growth is based on innovations that increase efficiency and open new markets. Programmatic audience extension is this type of advance. It streamlines ad buying, minimizes costs and generates new revenue. It can help publishers prosper, but most importantly, it allows them to better serve their advertising clients.

Joe-Gallagher-2778811-220As SVP of Channel Sales, Joe Gallagher spearheads Collective’s indirect business with an emphasis on developing new channel partners for the company’s full suite of digital solutions. His audience includes digital publishers and media companies that desire to expand their digital offerings with Collective’s audience reach and multi-screen solutions. Gallagher brings 15 years of digital sales and management experience, with senior executive positions at Firefly Video, Exponential, BBE, The Wall Street Journal and Real Media, under his belt. He is also a founding member of 212, New York’s Interactive Advertising Association.

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Perspectives

Q&A: Wade Rifkin, VP, Programmatic, DigitasLBi on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Wade Rifkin, VP, Programmatic, DigitasLBi on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces.

Wade Rifkin HeadshotQ: Are you shifting budget to programmatic?

A: There’s still a good amount of variance in programmatic investment based on client, category and objective. The first wave of brands to embrace the programmatic transactional means and toolkit fell more in the direct response space, and some of those clients are now spending up to 50% of their budgets in programmatic. Following in line, brand advertisers have started to embrace it and are spending more around 20-25%, with ambitions to grow that to a good degree over the next 6-12 months.

By shifting more money into programmatic transactions, we’ll be able to establish more control of our buys – frequency management, media decisioning – through the demand side platform, and centralize knowledge in our data management platform.  With these tools, every impression is now an opportunity for us to extract greater media value for our clients and to derive intelligence in a new way about individuals.

Q: Do you use programmatic for upper funnel programs? Do you think you could/would in a private marketplace?

A: Yes, the misconception that programmatic is only for DR is just that, a misconception. As the world goes programmatic, there are clear places for brand advertisers to play there, even in the biddable environment – video, social, mobile, out of home and eventually TV. Dynamic creative will become a huge transformative capability for brand advertisers, tailoring messaging to audiences in an incredibly specific and powerful way, made possible by programmatic technology.

Private Deals do, however, represent the singularly largest opportunity to shift share into programmatic for brand advertisers, but it requires a reimagining – and more due diligence – around negotiations, supply chain management and ad tech infrastructure.

Q: Who sets up private marketplace relationships? What are important considerations when selecting partners for private marketplaces and what have you learned through the process?

A: There are three levels at which you can set up a private marketplace: at an account level, at an agency level and at a holding company level. As you move from the first to last, clout increases, but site diversification, terms and targeting can get a little more diluted. There are pros and cons at each level, but in the long term, I think there’ll be many agency-level private marketplaces that each account can take and customize, with master rates / volume discounts that can apply at a holding company level.

As you go to set up a private marketplace, you need to evaluate two levels of partner relationships:

  1. The marketplace enabler, or gateway: this generally sits within a DSP or supply side platform (or, in some cases, both)
  2. The end publisher set you’re actually procuring inventory from

The biggest potential pitfall is from not scrutinizing the deal structure enough. You need to evaluate which flavor of private marketplaces / deals you’re looking at: automated guaranteed (in many cases, not truly programmatic media decisioning), unreserved fixed rate or private auctions, then decide on the right tech partners that can execute against these with the right placement in your target publishers’ inventory queues. Not thinking this through and vetting upfront with the right lens will result in watered down inventory and a net result that’s only marginally better than ad network and open exchange inventory. If that happens, it’s a huge missed opportunity.

Wade Rifkin is VP, Programmatic at DigitasLBi, a leading full service advertising agency with digital at its core. Wade works across the agency’s client base to help them understand and embrace the growing real time programmatic marketing space. With a background in cross-platform media planning & buying, Wade is specialized in emerging channels like mobile, social media and data-driven audience buying.  Prior to joining DigitasLBi, he worked across clients in the CPG, telecom, auto and entertainment spaces at other Publicis agencies, as well as Wieden+Kennedy.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A: Bruce Kiernan Partner, Senior Director Digital, MEC on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces

Q&A: Christopher Murphy, VP Media Investment, Accuen on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces

Accuen Header
Perspectives

Q&A: Christopher Murphy, VP Media Investment, Accuen on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with  Christopher Murphy, VP Media Investment at Accuen, on Premium Programmatic.

Chris Murphy HeadshotQ: Are you shifting budget to programmatic?

A: Clients shift budgets to programmatic when there is a clear opportunity for media efficiency, efficacy and savings. Bigger shifts come from clients leaning in to audience data and analytics on both direct and programmatic campaigns, identifying key differences between partners and tactics. Ultimately, we see programmatic adoption as the path to drive results for clients and to limit the amount of guessing in media buying.

Q: Do you use programmatic for upper funnel programs? Do you think you could/would in a private marketplace?

A: Programmatic is simply a path, not a strategy in itself. It’s only limited by the creativity and strategy of those using it. All successful upper funnel programs, whether programmatic or not, are driven by great planning and execution based on core marketing fundamentals. Our clients definitely use programmatic for upper funnel programs, and sometimes it’s through private marketplaces. Early adopters to private marketplaces included retail and CPG brands had broad audience requirements and were open to testing around their KPIs. They were interested in leveraging efficiencies of programmatic, but wanted to guarantee certain contexts. Now seeing interest from clients in a broad range of verticals, including financial services, B2B and travel and hospitality brands.

Q: Who sets up private marketplace relationships? What are important considerations when selecting partners for private marketplaces and what have you learned through the process?

A: OMD and PHD media teams negotiate private marketplace relationships, often in conjunction with Accuen team members to help facilitate the technical aspects of the deal. In general, private marketplaces aren’t viewed as a separate tactic or channel, but are seen as a way to integrate more deeply with publishers and deliver greater results from those programs. For publishers without an Omnicom Media Group contact, we recommend going through an ad exchange or SSP for an introduction.

When we partner with publishers, there are a couple of key standards we look for: first, excellent customer service is table stakes; second, publishers need to ensure that what’s promised is delivered as expected; and last, flexibility across sales channel management, deal economics, and inventory packaging. We want to partner with publishers who offer up ideas rather than a standard sales deck or an ad package in a UI. Highlight site engagement, audience composition, and their unique assets using a mix of qualitative and quantitative factors. For instance, don’t just repeat traditional volume and scale rankings.

Christopher is the VP of Marketing & Media Investment for Accuen, overseeing brand positioning, product marketing, PR and communications as well as exploring programmatic partnerships with leading ad technology, data, and media companies. Prior to Accuen, Christopher was Sr. Director of Platform Products at Glam Media and spent 5 years at Right Media/Yahoo! At Glam Media, he led the marketplace channel, working with advertisers and partners to pioneer RTB and private exchange relationships. While at Right Media/Yahoo!, Christopher covered numerous roles including publisher business development, professional services, and network operations.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A: Bruce Kiernan Partner, Senior Director Digital, MEC on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces

Q&A: Wade Rifkin, VP, Programmatic, DigitasLBi on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces

MEC Header
Perspectives

Q&A: Bruce Kiernan Partner, Senior Director Digital, MEC on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Bruce Kiernan Partner, Senior Director Digital, MEC on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces.

Bruce Kiernan HeadshotQ: Are you shifting budget to programmatic, what percentage of budget is being spent in programmatic?

A: Programmatic is a crucial component of our digital strategy for AT&T. We have seen positive growth in both investment and learnings YOY since programmatic became part of our digital planning architecture. With projections indicating continued growth in programmatic we expect further insights and enhancements on the value we are able to capture for our client. We also anticipate the introduction of programmatic capabilities to a broader view of our planning objectives. Leveraging programmatic to drive brand, direct response and retention across all our key KPI’s is a priority to fulfill our primary objective in growing AT&T’s ROI.

Q: Do you use programmatic for upper funnel programs? Do you think you could/would in a private marketplace?

A: While we actively pursue and evaluate the full funnel capabilities of our programmatic partners, the largest portion of AT&T’s programmatic budget remains grounded in driving lower funnel response. The most common roadblocks we have experienced in pushing programmatic up the planning funnel are inventory quality, lack of real-time brand measurement capabilities and customization. Although we have seen tremendous improvement in the inventory quality of key exchanges there is still a sense of the unknown when investing in this model.

Private Marketplaces offer a solution to many of these unknown elements. Many of the private marketplace packages we have evaluated include more customized and measureable media opportunities. We expect these opportunities will lead to a wider adoption of private marketplace activity and, thus more focus on brand metrics and solutions within the programmatic space.

Q: Who sets up private marketplace relationships?  What are important considerations when selecting partners for private marketplaces and what have you learned through the process?

A: Our agency planning team meets directly with publishers to evaluate private marketplace opportunities for AT&T. We find that many of the components discussed in this type of dialogue are closely aligned with some of our direct publisher relationships. Having a more strategic, holistic conversation that could potentially tie in ways to leverage private marketplaces as a complement to our media strategy with each individual publisher is a productive way to craft an integrated relationship that works for both parties.

One of the key objectives we task ourselves and media partners with is identifying tangible value from building a private programmatic channel.  Our open market programmatic buying strategy has yielded positive results and is made up, in part, of the many publishers who are currently promoting private marketplaces as part of their product offering. To justify potential fragmentation of this open model we need to secure considerable benefits in a private marketplace package.

In some cases value is pitched solely as the premium nature of publisher content. However, with growing usage of pre-bid technology filters we are able to identify open market display opportunities in-view and aligned with relevant brand safe content. With these verification capabilities the gap between premium digital publishers and long tail remnant properties appears to be closing.

Additionally, as these pre bid technologies are relatively new we have yet to see the impact it will have on the market value of some of our premium publishers who operate in any open exchange. Should pre-bid verification filters used in the open market begin to form a divide between premium digital publishers and long tail remnant properties the idea of a private marketplace to concentrate programmatic impressions in a more premium environment becomes less valid. As an advertiser it may be more effective for me to use the best pre-bid technology available and let the open market determine where the most efficient brand experiences will be.

When a publisher is able to go beyond or better define the “premium” label by offering unique inventory, data or creative not available in the open market we begin to really see the value in investing within private marketplaces.

Bruce Kiernan is a Senior Director at MEC leading all programmatic strategy for AT&T, focusing on the growth of ROI through the use of data and real-time buying.  In keeping abreast of the evolving media landscape, Bruce’s work has become concentrated on providing guidance and helping clients navigate the complexities of the data and programmatic space. In Bruce’s ten years within the digital media community he has worked across a wide range of well-known brands including IBM, Intel, Sprint Nextel, Reckitt Benckiser, and Farmers Insurance.  Before coming to MEC, he spent five years helping to build digital media strategy for Sprint Nextel as a buyer/strategist for Mindshare’s New York office.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A: Christopher Murphy, VP Media Investment, Accuen on Programmatic & Private Marketplaces

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Perspectives

AOL Aims to Improve Programmatic Performance with Convertro Acquisition

Yesterday, in its Q1 earnings call, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was “pleased to report another quarter of growth at AOL.” Along with growth in AOL’s platform area, video and global expansion Armstrong specifically pointed to growth in programmatic advertising as a factor in the company’s performance. His statements followed just a day after AOL purchased Convertro, a maker of attribution modeling technology, to power its Adap.tv, AdLearn Open Platform and ONE by AOL.

Seth Demsey, CTO of AOL Platforms, says that programmatic addresses many of the digital advertising industry’s inefficiencies by helping to automate buying and selling. “It is also a great revealer of waste.” According to Demsey—and AOL’s proprietary data—as much as 70% of an advertiser’s digital investment (or publisher’s revenue) “gets lost in the digital ad ecosystem to niche ad tech features masked as media.  We call this the ‘Technology Tax’ and by our estimates, it’s one of the biggest factors affecting the growth of digital investment.”

AOL’s programmatic strategy involves not only efficiency, says Demsey, but also “modeling go-forward insights. This may sound neat and tidy, but it’s actually an extremely complex problem to solve on just one screen, much less multiple screens including TV.” With the Convertro acquisition, AOL adds a new intelligence layer to its existing “proprietary optimization ‘brain’ in AdLearn to measure, attribute and optimize media across all screens programmatically.”

Starting immediately, all of AOL’s programmatic offerings will be able to leverage Convertro, so that customers “will have a 360-degree view of marketing performance across online and offline channels—with engagement, CPA and ROI of every ad unit automatically calculated.” It will also provide them with the ability to manage budgets between channels and within channels. Converto, says Demsey, “will help us make our advertiser customers smarter about how they allocate their budget, and our publisher partners smarter about what their advertiser customers deem most valuable.”

AOL agreed to acquire Convertro for a closing purchase price of approximately $101 million. This investment is certainly evidence that, as Demsey says, AOL has “doubled down on the platforms side of our business and we are not turning back.  We expect to be a long-term leading player here.”

Revenue

Q&A with Chip Schenck, VP/Programmatic Sales & Strategy, Meredith on Premium Programmatic

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Chip Schenck, VP/Programmatic Sales & Strategy, Meredith on the subject of “Premium Programmatic” advertising.

Chip Schenck HeadshotQ: How would you define Premium Programmatic as it compares to what we’ve come to know as “Programmatic Advertising”?

A:Premium Programmatic is a combination of both a change in sales process/dialogue and packaging of inventory, vs what we have seen previously as standard programmatic. Standard programmatic can be defined as machine to machine buying/selling automation. Where previously, standard programmatic inventory had various shades of transparency with little differentiation in available inventory and no real human interaction—what we call “dials only”—as part of the selling and transaction process, programmatic premium is typically direct sold, human negotiated, uniquely packaged and made up of limited availability inventory, with much greater levels of transparency between buyer and seller.

The simple answer? Programmatic premium is directly sold/personally negotiated but programmatically executed. For buyers, the opportunity is higher value inventory, depending on how you define “higher value.” This might mean earlier look, higher in the frequency curve, specific inventory, audience enriched, etc. It could mean a better environment versus the open exchange, better brand performance, etc.

Q: Describe the way in which your organization handles programmatic?

A: We are approaching the market with a unified sales vision, and a focus on leveraging data in all of our sales channels: Ideally, programmatic and sponsorship dollars working together to support a creative idea will drive better consumer engagement for a client’s campaign, and so we want our sales efforts to be unified where possible. However, not everyone is buying that way, and so will also be able to service parallel paths—sponsorship only and programmatic only—until such time as planning/buying is more holistic.

When more than half of the Advertising Trading Desks s in the market have built a ‘transition’ or ‘liaison’ team between the traditional digital agency and the programmatic agency/ATD to bet better aligned, that is a signal that buying methodologies will change. We look at this as a positive trend for the industry because it moves the conversation towards total value for the client and the publisher, and understanding how each channel can benefit a client’s plan, rather than a focus on price sensitivity or efficiency alone.

Q: What types of marketing initiatives lend themselves best to leveraging programmatic and how can the premium approach better deliver?

A:Programmatic has been used to deliver a lot of direct response campaigns in the past because it was so price driven. However, leveraging the incredible targeting capabilities, the transparency of placement, contextual adjacency when desired, the halo effect from a strong consumer media brand, and the benefits of efficient media, any form of communication can work programmatically. It can successfully drive KPI’s including awareness and reach for the upper funnel; inspiration and intention for the mid funnel; and trial and transaction for the lower funnel. Premium programmatic offers the best mix of pricing efficiency, targeting, reach and scale, while still getting the safety and engagement of trusted contextual environments.

Charles “Chip” Schenck is the VP of Programmatic Sales and Strategy at Meredith Corporation and responsible for helping clients leverage data and insights across Meredith’s Digital Network, for execution across all platforms and channels. Schenck joined Meredith Digital from PubMatic where he served as VP/Publisher Development. In addition, Schenck has held senior leadership positions with a diverse range of media companies including serving as VP/Integrated Sales & Development for American Express Publishing; Associate Publisher for In Touch Weekly; and Managing Director of Sales and Marketing for Hearst-Stratosfera.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Neil Johnston, Cox’s EVP of Strategy & Digital Innovation on Premium Programmatic

Perspectives | Revenue

Q&A with Neil Johnston, Cox’s EVP of Strategy & Digital Innovation on Premium Programmatic

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three is with Neil Johnston, Cox Media Group’s Executive VP of Strategy & Digital Innovation on Premium Programmatic.

Neil Johnston HeadshotQ: How would you define Premium Programmatic as it compares to what we’ve come to know as “Programmatic Advertising”?

A: The value proposition of programmatic advertising is the efficiency and scale that automated buying confers. Premium programmatic retains these values, while adding in the safety and fidelity of guaranteed site-direct buying. Technologically speaking, this means bypassing an RTB exchange in favor of exposing and booking a subset of inventory directly against a publisher’s primary ad server.

This has advantages for both demand side buyers and supply side publishers. Buyers are able to selectively access quality, site-specific, high impact inventory in a highly efficient way, while publishers are able to increase yield by accessing the high demand programmatic sales channel in a transparent and optimized way.

Despite the moniker, “Premium” does not necessarily mean better – it’s simply another buying tool that suits certain campaigns more than others. The name is more a reflection of the relative scarcity of this guaranteed inventory compared to the rest of programmatic space, as well as the higher prices that come with that. Premium may be better suited to certain branding campaigns, for example, while RTB might be better leveraged by performance campaigns run through DSPs that can optimize against its scale in real-time.

Q: Describe the way in which your organization handles programmatic?

A: Our CMG properties leverage the technology of our subsidiary, Cox Digital Solutions (CDS), on the programmatic supply-side to excellent results. Some of our sites seek to maximize yield, others maximize fill, and still others are most concerned about protecting CPMs and direct sales channels. CDS’ proprietary dynamic floor optimization technology lets us optimize demand tailored to our properties specific needs.
On the sell-side, our inventory has been included in private exchange deals facilitated by CDS through our partners at Casale Media to buyers such as MediaMath. We are currently exploring our options to expose guaranteed inventory programmatically.

Q: What types of marketing initiatives lend themselves best to leveraging programmatic and how can the premium approach better deliver?

A: Practically any campaign, shy of a truly integrated/native one, can benefit from the advantages of programmatic. While there is currently a bias towards premium for branding and RTB for performance, the lines are blurring, as scale and measurement improve optimization in the premium space, and transparency and viewability improve brand safety in the RTB space.

My advice here is simply that while programmatic will evolve, it’s here to stay. So get educated. And, more than anything, get started.

Neil Johnston is Cox Media Group’s (CMG) Executive Vice President, Strategy and Digital Innovation at the company’s headquarters in Atlanta where he oversees Strategic Development, CMG Digital and the company’s growing portfolio of digital investments. Johnston previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Cox Media Group. He also was Cox Radio’s Chief Financial Officer from September 2000 until it was made private in 2009.

For premium access to Cox Media Group inventory, please contact Andy Levi at Cox Digital Solution ([email protected]).

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

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