There’s no doubt that this move, which follows in the footsteps of other browsers, including Apple’s Safari, is greatly challenging for the digital media industry. In fact, we should have been waving goodbye to cookies over the next few months, but the complexity of the project last year led Google to delay the phase-out until late 2023.

The battle for attention

At the same time as this technological challenge, brands are facing a new battle for attention. The growth of digital media has been a double-edged sword for brands, with ever greater numbers of small and medium businesses advertising for the first time. While that’s happening, consumers are enjoying more ways than ever to spend their time. From virtual reality to unlimited streaming services, the media industry continues to offer ever greater choices for consumers to spend their time – both commercial and ad-free.

It seems like a perfect storm. But while the end of cookies marks the death of the old world of digital advertising, marketers shouldn’t panic. Advances in alternative ad technologies – often making use of artificial intelligence – will enable advertisers in the post-cookie age to make their campaigns more effective, without the privacy headache of cookies.

An alternative solution

A number of new approaches to allow programmatic advertising to continue without cookies are in the works. But it is contextual signals, based on anonymous interest cohorts, that are quickly becoming the best data point to maximise metrics like attention. 

Contextual signals don’t make use of personal data, or track users between websites. That means they avoid not just the privacy concerns of cookies, but also the issue of being shown the same ad repeatedly. This is a major aspect of “bombardment”, identified as a key threat to public trust in advertising in a 2019 report by the UK’s Advertising Association.

Instead, contextual signals use non-user-specific metadata from bid requests. As a campaign runs, this data sheds light on which ad buys are most likely to lead to conversions. But to manually analyse this data and make budget allocation adjustments as circumstances change is a Herculean task for anyone. The complexities of digital media buying also result in campaigns that are challenging to scale, due to the need to monitor increased numbers of interdependent items. 

AI in action

This is where AI comes in. With AI, advertisers can build a bespoke learning data set for any given campaign, which then evolves as it learns. As a result, it can make choices that get the best results from a series of variables, therefore delivering the strongest performance. The AI can automatically reallocate budgets in real time, making it much more achievable to scale a campaign. 

This approach means that rather than over-targeting a predetermined set of users (remarketing, for example), a campaign can continually move towards buys that are most effective in capturing the attention of users – leading to greater conversion rates and boosting return on ad spend. 

AI can also make use of other sources of data, such as a brand’s opted-in customer relationship management data or measurement and attribution data, and incorporate custom metrics beyond ROAS (Return On Ad Spend). This gives advertisers greater control of their advertising and allows them to plan campaigns to meet specific business objectives.

A stronger digital media ecosystem

For example, luxury beauty brand Charlotte Tilbury recently utilised an AI designed to be customisable to the digital marketing needs of the brand. They faced problems common in the luxury market, where the relatively small number of (high-spending) consumers means ad campaigns often generate fewer higher value conversions than in other sectors. That then leads to a lack of data that can inform and improve campaign performance and scale. 

Because of this, the AI solution took into account data that is generated in abundance but which legacy approaches to optimisation are unable to utilise: upper funnel signals such as clicks, site visits and ad viewability. The results were significant: a 60% growth in the conversion rate of the brand’s acquisition campaigns, and a 29% drop in average cost per acquisition.

Marketers don’t need to shed a tear for the demise of cookies: the capabilities of AI, when used with contextual signals and first-party data, will let them measure and optimise the performance of their campaigns more effectively than ever before. Along with positive developments in areas such as optimising digital creative, this means a digital media ecosystem that offers better results for advertisers and a better experience for consumers.

The post From Contextual to Attention – How AI is Changing Success Measurement appeared first on PerformanceIN.

This is where the opportunity to optimise publisher yield with an auction framework like Header Bidding comes in. Through its ability to streamline media trading for publishers and provide transparent access to premium inventory for advertisers, the solution has become a mainstay of online programmatic. Indeed, more than half (55%) of publishers have adopted Header Bidding to sell video inventory and 22% leverage it for Connected TV (CTV).

So precisely what is Header Bidding, how does it work and how is the opportunity for yield optimisation being used in other advertising channels such as programmatic digital out of home (DOOH)? 

What is Header Bidding?

Before the emergence of Header Bidding, publishers would typically use a waterfall auction to trade their inventory. In this model, inventory is offered to one ad network at a time and then moved onto the next if the floor price isn’t met until all impressions are (hopefully) sold. Although this process works in practice, publishers risk missing out on revenue because of the lack of competition for ad impressions. 

Header Bidding is an advanced method of programmatic trading that allows publishers to offer their inventory to multiple SSPs using a unified auction framework. As a result, publishers can invite various demand sources to simultaneously bid on available inventory.

What are the key advantages for publishers?

Firstly, Header Bidding delivers an increase in yield optimisation versus the waterfall model. Studies have found that publishers can significantly grow revenue, with one example showcasing that it increased revenue by 70%. It does this by enabling more competitive auctions where inventory is made available to a larger number of ad buyers who must then outbid one another to secure impressions, leading to higher CPMs. 

In comparison, waterfall auctions accept the first bid that meets the publisher’s floor price and don’t offer visibility on ad buyers that are willing to pay more. By unifying the auction across multiple SSPs, Header Bidding provides this visibility, accepts the highest bid, and maximises ad revenue for the publisher.    

Secondly, Header Bidding allows publishers to be selective over which demand partners they include in their auctions. This gives them more control of their operations, enabling them to manage their resources more efficiently in the bidding process, and ensuring they serve quality promotions to their users. With an improved user experience comes better retention and loyalty, further heightening the value of inventory.

Finally, Header Bidding solutions are easy to manage. There are a number of experienced players in the market that can handle all elements of advertising operations, so publishers do not need to invest the time and resources in building, running, and updating their solutions in house. 

What does Header Bidding bring to advertisers?

With Header bidding, each advertiser has an equal opportunity to secure inventory if their bid wins. This method of programmatic trading gives ad buyers more transparency and greater access to premium ad placements, which can boost the reach and impact of their ad campaigns. 

How is Header Bidding changing programmatic trading across the advertising landscape?

Programmatic trading allows advertisers to boost efficiency, increase precision, and optimise their bidding strategies. In the programmatic DOOH landscape, for instance, this type of trading makes inventory more accessible because they are changed more frequently. Ad buyers can purchase space for an hour and ensure they reach target audiences at the optimal time. 

Solutions for programmatic DOOH inform bidding strategies using location data and patterns in audience behaviours. With this, advertisers can pinpoint the inventory that is best placed to capture the attention of their target audiences. Automated trading solutions based on this type of yield optimisation improve this system by giving advertisers access to a broader selection of premium inventory.

For media owners, a yield optimisation solution enables the integration and management of any number of SSPs without the need for additional development work. As a result, publishers can see an overview of programmatic DOOH activity on a single dashboard, streamlining advertising operations. Moreover, working with one unified auction enables publishers to optimise yield with competitive pricing while minimising reporting discrepancies. 

With programmatic yield optimisation use cases spanning across advertising channels, from digital video to programmatic DOOH, many publishers have begun to embrace it for the promises of increased revenue. Combined with the growing awareness and adoption of programmatic trading, it’s only a matter of time before this solution becomes widely understood and recognised across all sides of the ecosystem.

The post WTF is Header Bidding? appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Programmatic was created to simplify advertising and turn it from a costly and time-consuming procedure into a transparent and automated experience. It’s time to find out whether programmatic can be useful for SMEs and what strategies should apply to effectively distribute costs and set campaigns for success.

Addressing unique needs and struggles of SMEs

SMEs are the drivers of world economies as they comprise at least 90% of all businesses globally – small businesses keep the emerging markets afloat. This sector is the most susceptible to changing consumer behavior and tastes, and that’s why small companies are always the first to innovate and deliver ground-breaking products and services to the market.

SMEs are very adaptable and flexible compared to big companies, which are not prone to quick changes and transformations. However, SMEs have their own struggles that mostly revolve around limited budgets and the inability to amplify their brand voice amidst tough competition.

Since small and medium enterprises work in ever-changing realities, and with quickly changing objectives, they also require an agile approach to branding and performance marketing strategies. Simply, entrepreneurs need to be able to make changes to their ad campaigns as soon as they arise – communication with vendors and agencies, meanwhile, can significantly slow this process.

The automation, measurability and simplicity of programmatic promises to democratise advertising for SMEs and solve major problems companies may encounter. The stats, below, prove that – today – programmatic is the most popular route for media-buying, and there are a couple of solid reasons for that.

Five reasons why SMEs benefit from programmatic

According to the stats delivered by Statista, programmatic ad spending reached $129.1 billion U.S. in 2020; in 2021, it is expected to hit $155 billion. Today, programmatic ad spending makes up almost 70% of total display spending altogether in some countries, like the UK, it accounts for 93.6%.

The programmatic advertising ecosystem includes several advertising platforms, each of which takes part in the ad serving process. This ecosystem may seem complex; however, its ultimate aim is to simplify the advertising process, making it easy to handle – even for non-professionals.

Using a convenient dashboard of the programmatic buying platform (typically demand-side platform), SME marketers can adjust necessary conditions for the campaign (targeting, budget distribution, channel, etc.). The platform automatically selects the appropriate placement for the ad and bids for the impression (if it corresponds to the chosen campaign criteria). This way, programmatic helps SMEs to serve ads only to the right audiences at the right times and channels. The benefits that programmatic delivers help to address the majority of struggles small companies typically face:

●  Saving ad budget. With targeting (geo, age, OS, language, etc.), ads are only shown to the appropriate audience, which increases the chances of conversions. It prevents brands from spending money on impressions to people who will unlikely find the offer relevant to their needs. Additionally, demand-side platforms are self-served, which means that no additional cost for campaign management is charged.

●  Reaching the right audiences. Competing for user attention is much easier when the offer is relevant. With programmatic, small companies can target audiences worldwide or show ads only to people who stay near their physical stores (applying geo-targeting).

●  Changing campaign course quickly. In the dashboard, programmatic campaigns can be continually monitored, changed and adjusted at any given moment. Real-time campaign analytics will help small companies understand if their campaigns perform well; if not, it is easy to make timely optimisation.

●  Saving time. Programmatic advertising minimizes human interaction and thus the time required to arrange ad placement. The system automatically bids on the right impression and places the ad at the suitable digital inventory.

●  Connecting to global publishers. For SMEs that sell their goods and services internationally, programmatic is very beneficial, as it ensures global reach across multiple ad networks and myriads of programmatically connected publishers.

How can SMEs start with programmatic?

The fact that programmatic doesn’t require companies to invest large budgets in purchasing bulk inventory is what makes it very convenient, especially for SMEs with limited budgets. Basically, all that company needs to do is register an account at the demand-side platform, fill in the budget and configure campaign settings. The minimal campaign deposit is also flexible so that advertisers could deposit sufficient sums according to their objectives.

Starting off with programmatic is a fairly easy task; however, there are several tactics that we advise following to achieve better performance. The following ones will be especially relevant to SMEs:

Five principles of programmatic advertising for SMEs

Choose the right type of deal – RTB/PMP. We suggest companies learn about real-time bidding and alternative programmatic deals to choose the one that suits their purposes best. At private marketplace deals, for example, publishers sell exclusive inventory unavailable at RTB auctions. At the same time, RTB offers more affordable inventory pricing and easy auction joining for advertisers. Oftentimes, one DSP offers access to all kinds of deals, so it’s important to choose a suitable one.

Choose the pricing model. CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) and CPC (cost per click) are the most popular pricing models in programmatic advertising, and it’s important to consider all pros and cons of each before making a final choice. CPC is very convenient since you pay for the results – clicks on your ads.

At the same time, the CPM model is more affordable and used more often for branding campaigns. For a brief comparison: (e.g.) 50 clicks cost $10 (CPC) and 1000 impressions cost $10 (CPM). It means that you get strictly 50 ad clicks for $10 (CPC).

Still, theoretically, you can get up to 1000 ad clicks for this same price with CPM. For this reason, don’t neglect ad creatives – the more engaging it (and the offer) is, the more clicks it will generate with CPM pricing.

Use your data. Self-serve DSPs already have in place effective targeting mechanisms and access to user data. However, there is third-party data available to all participants in the ecosystem. If you can bring first-party CRM data to the table, it opens a gateway to more sophisticated granular and precise targeting. SMEs that use their own data and connect them to programmatic platforms gain an ultimate competitive advantage when it comes to targeting.

Configure the budget. No one wants to spend their ad budget in one day, so setting a limit can be very important, especially for SMEs. On DSP, you can typically set a daily limit and total limit (counted in impressions or dollars). This way, for example, you can instruct the system to stop bidding when daily spending hits $100 or stop bidding entirely after total spending hits the $4,000 mark. In the same way, you should also use frequency capping to limit the number of impressions (shown to one user per day). This will prevent ad irritation along with overspending.

Apply retargeting. If your company has a small budget, a good tactic would be retargeting your audiences. When you notice that conversions increase, it’s also a good practice to use “combination campaigns” – addressing existing audiences with retargeting and reaching new ones with branding campaigns. This way, you will draw in new audiences while also retargeting those who didn’t convert in the first place.

Additionally, attracting the attention of local residents is, as a rule, very important for small businesses. Coffee shops, beauty salons, flower stores – all of these need promotion but cannot afford outdoor advertising, especially during a lockdown, when it is no longer effective. In this case, SME advertisers can launch geomarketing campaigns and configure geotargeting on programmatic platforms to show ads only to the users who stay or live nearby their physical stores.

Wrapping it up

The role of SMEs in economics can’t be underestimated but, most often, the marketing budgets of these companies are trapped in the gap of insufficient funding. Apart from that, small companies need a more flexible approach to advertising and need to directly manage their ad campaigns and align them with ever-changing business objectives. Programmatic platforms don’t require companies to have strict budget sizes. They automate the ad serving, making it more affordable and helping SME advertisers to directly impact and magnify the outcomes of their campaigns.

The post Five Ways for SMEs to Make the Most of Programmatic Campaigns appeared first on PerformanceIN.

It enables buyers to identify the publishers in the auction and base the decision of the inventories they purchase on pre-negotiated terms. Simply put, it is a great way for advertisers to ensure that they’re buying the correct inventories from publishers.

So essentially, Deal ID is something that has become important for both publishers and advertisers who are selling and buying media programmatically. 

How does Deal ID work?

In a private auction, a limited number of premium ad inventories are made available by publishers for selected advertisers. The publisher negotiates terms by sending a proposal to the buyer, and both must be satisfied.

When this is finalised, the publisher’s server creates a Deal ID. This ID is passed along with the bid request, which helps demand-side platforms to recognise the bid and deal.

When the auction begins, the publisher sends a bid request with the same Deal ID to the demand partners. As soon as this is received by the buyers’ side it is matched with the ID provided to them and then they can participate in the auction.

A preferred deal is a one-to-one selling and buying advertising model in which the publisher sells a fixed amount of ad inventories at a fixed CMP rate to one advertiser. As in a private auction, the publisher sends a Deal ID to the advertiser via the first-party platform, for instance the ad server. When the buyer’s side receives the bid request with Deal ID, they return the bid response with the same ID.

What are the benefits of Deal ID?

• Deal ID is a good way for matching buyers and sellers according to pre-negotiated criteria. An example of the terms in the criteria could be the minimum amount a buyer can bid, section of the site and many more.

• Deal ID can be used by publishers to differentiate deals to a buyer’s objectives.

• Using Deal ID also offers greater control and flexibility over premium ad inventories to both publishers and advertisers.

• Not all advertisers are allowed to buy inventories, and only buyers with the Deal ID can ultimately bid and win the impressions, meaning there is better ad campaign quality.

• It allows increased transparency since the publisher and advertisers are already aware of who will be buying their inventories and who will be targeted by an ad.

We’d love to hear from you for our WTF series. Don’t forget to submit your article ideas and get in touch if you would like to share your expertise on a particular subject within performance marketing.

The post WTF is Deal ID? appeared first on PerformanceIN.

For many, marketing seemed to be an area of business that could be immediately reduced, or slashed altogether, when the pandemic hit, particularly those businesses working with external agencies. According to the IPA Bellwether report, the net balance of companies cutting their marketing budget fell to -50.7% in the second quarter in 2020, down from -6.1%. That’s despite the resulting lower cost to gaining market share with sensible investment in advertising – amidst this greater consumption of digitally promoted products and services. So, what are brands really looking for?

Migrating to in-house

With ‘middleman’ businesses shut, direct-to-consumer brands, such as Birchbox, SimplyCook and Made.com, are becoming increasingly popular amongst consumers. There is now an increase in demand for digital services, as more traditional businesses realise their future is tied to getting their digital storefronts up, running and delivering. In today’s ultra-competitive, fast-paced digital landscape, efficiency and accuracy are imperative, not the nice-to-have they were until recently. Brands and businesses are realising how mission-critical it is to be able to cut costs but still keep up with the competition and even grow.

One way of meeting these pressures is to bring everything back in-house. It’s one small step for a marketer, but one giant leap for marketers. Yet this ‘new normal’ has shone a light on the benefits. In-housing is something that has been talked about widely over the last decade and has partly been propelled by tech, AI, and programmatic. Programmatic is only getting more efficient (and therefore complex) amid the coronavirus outbreak which is putting greater stress and demand on digital properties and media assets. As digital media becomes increasingly reliant on programmatic, brands that are now focussed on every penny of their budget are looking to areas where their own spend might be wasted on undeserved external margins. Even long-established brands that have always been agency reliant are looking in-house – Marks and Spencer recently announced that it has launched its own in-house creative team.

Being able to own, analyse, and harness your own data and resulting brand messaging, see quicker campaign optimisation and keep greater creative control are some of the many reasons why brands are taking things in-house. And it can be done without needing significant investment in internal talent, thanks to the latest developments in tech.

But why in-housing?

92% of CMO’s and senior marketers are planning to maintain or increase in-house capabilities for programmatic and digital advertising. One of the other main reasons for gravitating towards in-housing is transparency. Agencies are often torn between reporting actual data and polishing the numbers to make them look better. One of the biggest advantages of in-housing and using self-service tools is that you get to own your data. Teams will get the full picture of what’s going on – and can react accordingly.

Tracking marketing spend and ROI doesn’t come without challenges, but once you lose control of who is doing that and where your money is going – think someone else test driving the car you might buy – how can you be convinced of performance? Gaining insight into the actual cost of media and becoming fully aware as to why an ad was served on a particular page is something brands want and need.

Moving ad/media campaigns in-house also comes with huge challenges for even big brands. Fortunately, the onus is no longer on brands to recruit a full digital marketing team – it could be as simple as replacing an out-sourced agency with an in-house platform. A digital marketing adage of the last five years has been to ‘outsource all but the core competencies’, and for many departments of a business, this is still the case. But in a world where marketing is now multi-disciplinary and requires copy skills, tech skills, graphic design skills and (often forgotten) actual marketing skills, there now exist programmatic ad platforms that can become as essential to you as Salesforce is to your sales teams, but with full control.

SaaS is winning

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is an area that is likely to explode as we exit lockdown and return to normal. A SaaS-based model makes sense for the advertiser, the programmatic partner (DSP) and the publisher. By charging a simple subscription fee for the programmatic buying platform, cost- efficient buying and scale spending efficiencies develop.

With fixed subscription pricing, savings become a businesses’ own savings when running campaigns at scale. There is also consistency, transparency and control over how much the advertiser is spending on media spend and a trackable overview of ROI. Ultimately, SaaS media and ad platforms are helping brands to adopt a new type of business model focusing on creating a more cost-effective and transparent programmatic media supply chain. With this type of technology, new and emerging DTC brands may never need support from a traditional media agency. Spending less and getting more – it’s not a pipedream in a world of digital disruption as many consumer-facing businesses have found.

Brand future

Spurred on by Covid and the race to succeed in this second wave of digital disruption, businesses are radically changing. With technology like SaaS and teams now encompassing a wider variety of digital and data skills, many start-ups will keep their media in-house, only partnering with an external agency when they need help with one particular skill or project. In five, ten, fifteen years the media agency as it currently exists may be a relic of the past, as technology and teams develop and adapt in our fast-paced world.

The post Why DTC Brands Born Today Might Never Use a Media Agency appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Havas Media Group (HMG) announced that it has formed a partnership Spaceback, the social display platform, to bring the creativity of social advertising to programmatic on a global scale.

This partnership will allow marketers to distribute social experiences using programmatic infrastructure, adapting any posts from across the major platforms in just a few seconds. This will benefit clients as the agency begins to integrate social and programmatic.

By capitalising on the effort and investment put into messaging and creativity for social and translating it across programmatic, this partnership changes that. Programmatic activation increases the scale of paid social investment, benefitting from real-time engagement insights and amplifying high-impact units at speed across display and video. 

Casey Saran, CEO and co-founder of Spaceback said: “In the future, meaningful media will power all media plans, not just social plans. Our new partnership with Havas unlocks the true potential of programmatic and will inspire brands around the world to revisit their siloed approach to media channels.”

Havas Media Group has also completed the organisational transition of its digital expertise into biddable teams. Now, experts across programmatic and social operate hand in hand to deliver more meaningful media experiences within and beyond social walled gardens.  

James Gyngell, Global Managing Director of Partnerships at Havas Media Group said: “Spaceback awakens the programmatic experience with highly engaging social content, a long-awaited innovation for an industry running the same types of ads for over 15 years,” said “Spaceback provides the technology, and our re-organization provides the structure and talent needed to forge a new frontier for brands.” 

What about the negatives?

If a company does not have as much experience with social as it does other types of programmatic, it may struggle to create effective campaigns. However, in 2019, eMarketer predicted that by 2021, 57.6% of money spent on programmatic ads would go to social media. Keeping up with competitors is hugely important in this case.

Due to coronavirus, the pre-pandemic estimates were incorrect, with the programmatic digital display ad spending growth estimate for 2020 (17.5%) being revised downward in October to 9.4%. However, social media is unlikely to lose popularity at any point in the near future, so it seems programmatic social ads will continue to be a success.

In our siloed industry it is truly a positive to see the forging of relationships between the different areas. Hopefully we continue to see an increase in partnerships similar to this, as I’m sure they will be a driving force to undo the silos and result in positive, useful relationships.

The post Bridging the Gap Between Social and Programmatic appeared first on PerformanceIN.

This does not mean, however, that audio has become as much of a platform for advertisers. In 2020, media company Xavis reported that only 10% of advertisers are confident in their knowledge of programmatic audio advertising. In the same report, 50% of publishers and media owners admitted to making zero revenue from digital audio advertising.

A look back at programmatic advertising

In 2018, Ofcom reported that the number of weekly podcast listeners had almost doubled in five years – from 3.2 million in 2013 to 5.9m in 2018.

This was a hugely positive sign in terms of audio programmatic marketing, as marketers could now consider implementing it into their strategies in order to reach their audiences at the best times.

“Programmatic started off as a way of using up remnant inventory,” said IAB UK senior programmer manager, Dee Frew. “It was a way of increasing the efficiency on leftovers, but as it has evolved it’s become more sophisticated.”

In the past, some marketers may have been slightly reluctant to embrace programmatic, due to issues such as click fraud. However, with AI coming into force, this can easily be detected, and hopefully enable more marketers to implement programmatic into their plans.

What does the future hold for audio advertising?

It seems an increasing number of platforms are considering programmatic as a solution. Most recently, in a move that will hopefully bring audio programmatic into increased usage, Centro has announced that it will be integrating its Basis platform with Adswizz digital audio advertising solution. The aim of the integration is to give programmatic buyers access to assets which will allow them to connect with more publishers.

Alexis van de Wyer, CEO of AdsWizz, said: “The AdsWizz and Centro integration enables marketers and publishers to capitalise on the increasing engagement of audio.

“We’re seeing that the growth of listening audiences is translating to a similar growth in programmatic audio advertising.”

It’s positive to see this integration coming into force; last year, we reported that research into programmatic advertising spend showed revenues had grown by 23% in 2019 to top €23 billion in 2020, according to the IAB Europe Attitudes to Programmatic Study.

The importance of programmatic as a marketing tool may be a result of, to use the popular phrase, ‘the current climate’.

Although the Centro and Adswizz integration is a positive sign in terms of programmatic audio advertising becoming increasingly popular, it seems most marketers are adopting the ‘wait and see approach’, to get a real grasp of the effects of COVID-19, according to the IAB Study, as nobody has a clear idea of what the future will look like.

However, things seem to be heading in the correct direction for programmatic, specifically audio marketing, with more and more people engaging with audio content. It will be interesting to see the growth of the channel within the near future and following the ‘end’ of the pandemic.

The post The Future For Audio Programmatic Advertising appeared first on PerformanceIN.

According to the report, there were a number of key drivers resulting in the rise of programmatic ad spend in 2019. Use of data was the biggest driver, which saw an increase of 69% to 80% over the last 12 months.

Furthermore, targeting efficiencies was another key driver among agencies in pushing more investment within programmatic advertising.

With advertisers spending more in programmatic, there’s been a rise in ads.txt inventory with 52% publishers stating they were selling more than 81% of their ads.txt inventory

Transparent business model

The study also indicated a shift from buy-side toward hybrid models with the proportion of advertisers embracing the latter, doubling to 30% in 2020.

Supply chain transparency remains the single biggest hindrance, with advertisers urging greater control of inventory as well as improved transparency and clarity of fees from partners. This move has promoted two-thirds of ad tech vendors to invest in a more robust and transparent business model, according to IAB Europe.

Connected TV on the rise

Meanwhile, 77% of display and over 50% of video are now being traded via programmatic methods according to the report. However, it was Connected Television (CTV) which impressed across all categories in terms of growth with the sector expected to grow significantly by 2021 — with 70% of advertisers and 61% of agencies regarding CTV as one of their programmatic growth areas for the next 12 months.

Elsewhere, publishers have been looking into audio with equal attention (46%) between the channel and CTV. Advertisers stated that audio will drive further growth in the coming months while a third of agencies said they’re prioritising ads budget to Digital Out-Of-Home.

“Each year the survey draws out the key concerns and opportunities that impact all of digital marketing. It enables the committee and the wider industry to devise new and amend current strategies to tackle key issues or take advantage of opportunities for the next year,” said David Goddard, senior business development business solutions EMEA, DoubleVerify and chair of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee.

The post Programmatic Ad Spend Reached €23 Billion Last Year, IAB Europe Finds appeared first on PerformanceIN.

C-Suites have attracted a lot of criticism over the issue, but is it their job to fix it? The lack of transparency has not happened by accident, it has been there to disguise economies of scale and make the discounts indecipherable from network to network and agency to agency.

C-Suites are so far removed from the day-to-day that asking them to step up simply won’t do. It’s the murky world of kickbacks and backhanders that fund the lavish trips, dinners and international meetings that Chiefs enjoy.

Agencies themselves are largely responsible for creating it, and should themselves sort it out, however, businesses and networks that have scaled massively over the past few decades have done so on the foundations of these deals and hidden margins, so for them to fix it will mean them changing the fundamental ways in which they work (and most likely significant job losses).

The issue is not what or how much people charge, it’s the way in which it’s charged. Whether it’s clever invoicing, hiding margins between agency brands under the same umbrella, or simply adding fat to the media cost in the ad platforms themselves – it’s far from transparent and this has been going on for years. All of these methods are exacerbated further by annual kickbacks and agreements made between agencies and key media partners. All of these things are fine, if they are communicated to those affected – after all, people deserve to be rewarded fairly for their work, fair being the operative word..

When looking at a solution, the onus also needs to be on client-side marketing managers, procurement professionals and those who make the decisions on who and what they spend their money on. Procurement will judge people based on £ or %, but what they don’t know is what’s going on in the background.  An example: If someone charges 5% but makes 30% in the background, in the eyes of a procurement professional, they are more favourable than someone else who offers the exact same service but charges 15%. The lack of transparency is perpetuating the issue and forcing people to become opaque in their practices purely to compete.

So how do we actually fix this? 

The workers on the ground, facilitating the largest part of this issue are very often fresh out of university or school and have no idea what they are doing and the consequences of those actions. From day one they are being taught how to extract value from clients and media owners whilst doing it at the lowest possible cost.

Senior client service or planning directors are put in place as gatekeepers to keep worried clients at bay and stem the flow of communication so younger staff can be overworked and run multiple clients. This is what needs to change. A shift in the way the whole system works and education is needed to move away from the need to make ridiculous margins. There’s no reason why advertisers shouldn’t get access to ad platforms and have complete transparency on where their budgets are being spent.

By training individuals to think strategically and develop their business acumen, agencies should be able to provide real value to clients and in turn, develop their strategies and grow the investment (and therefore their fee). The crisis has in part been driven by those who lose out most, the brands who have hammered agencies down on their commercial terms have forced the agency’s hand and made them seek new ways of making money. This also needs to stop if agencies are to realistically change their behaviour too.

The final change is leadership. Some of the most successful agencies (and brands) in recent times have come from start-ups, individuals who have done the dirty work and have risen quickly with clear values in mind. So is it now time for C-suite to take the lead in pushing for concrete action to address and resolve the problem, or risk wasting millions? The answer is yes.

C-Suite individuals working at agencies, not brands, need to understand what it’s like on the ground, admit and address the issue and provide a solution. We are already seeing huge agencies shake up their entire model to suit a more transparent way of working but that will have a huge impact on the workforce with widespread redundancies and some job roles no longer being needed anywhere. 

There are multiple processes that need to change which include (but are not limited to) the pitch, commercial agreements, reporting and invoicing. When it comes to commercials, it is perfectly fair to charge 2x, 3x, even 4x a competitor agency if you’re going to provide more value for the client but very often commercial agreements are created based on a % of spend. Does spend correlate with hours, work and the value you drive for a client? No, not always. Does spending more allow you to generate more results for a client? Yes. Therefore a shift to a more mutually beneficial commercial model for agencies and brands could be adopted to rid the world of taking cuts and this is where brand-side C-Suite individuals can play their part. 

A world without mark-ups and hidden fees is possible and many agencies have thrived as a result of taking this refreshing approach, to the point where everyone is claiming to be transparent, open, honest and all the other buzzwords that mean the same thing and look pretty on an intro slide in a PowerPoint presentation. We need to be careful not to go so far the other way that the value of an agency is based on how transparent they are rather than how efficient they are. You can be fantastically transparent whilst being awful at your job. 

Finally, it’s important to stress that the platform owners themselves need to take a long hard look in the mirror. After all, they are the ones facilitating the margin making, creating an opportunity that is often too tempting for many agencies to turn down. 

The post Transparency in Media Buying isn’t a Crisis, it’s Been an Issue for a Long Time appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Changes in consumer behaviour during the lockdown period accelerated the popularity of podcasts, however, with a record 11.2 million listens during the week of 20^th April on the Acast network alone. The most popular podcast topics were news and politics, food and drink, and comedy with listeners seeking the latest updates, inspiration for home cooking and a little light relief from the situation.

But despite the continual increase in podcast popularity, there are perceptions it’s yet to be tried and tested. Now the COVID-19 crisis is driving more listeners to podcasts and functioning as a stress test for the format, advertisers should take the opportunity to invest in this relatively nascent channel and drive business outcomes.

Here are three key benefits of utilising programmatic advertising within podcasts.   

Access to valuable audiences 

Digital audio advertising has one major advantage over other forms of media in that it doesn’t require a screen, so it allows advertisers to reach consumers when they are engaged in other activities. Pre-lockdown, many assumed podcast audiences were most likely to listen when driving or travelling by public transport, but recent experience has shown podcast audiences also listen when exercising or doing household chores – activities which make them hard to reach through visual channels. Also, podcast listeners in particular can be difficult to access through other digital audio channels, with over half of listeners saying they don’t stream music, for instance.   

Podcast listeners are a particularly valuable audience for brands, with a 2019 MIDAS study showing over two-thirds fall within the ABC1 demographic, and 4DC research revealing podcast listeners significantly outspend non-listeners in multiple consumer areas, including health, in-home, and food and drink. Podcast listeners are more active on social media than the general public and are also more likely to recall ads and engage with advertisers. The channel’s audiences are growing across all age groups and are split relatively evenly by gender, enabling a wide reach. 

Exposure in engaging environments 

Podcast listeners are highly engaged with content, and therefore more responsive to associated advertising. Unlike passive music consumption, they are actively listening to shows they have often specifically sought out, with almost three-quarters of podcast listeners reporting they tune in to learn something new. This can be seen in the high listen-through rates (LTR) and listener loyalty to their favourite shows.   

As 90% of podcast listening is done alone, the content commands a strong one-to-one advantage. After travelling, the second most likely activity for a listener to be doing while consuming a podcast is relaxing, which indicates a willingness to give their full concentration to the subject. Without visuals, listeners need to use their imaginations to enhance the podcast narrative and – in a digital world of visual overload and rapid interactions – podcasts provide a respite from the commotion as well as the opportunity to connect deeply with a topic in a calm and sedate way. 

Meeting business outcomes 

With advances in programmatic audio, podcast advertising can now be more easily integrated into omnichannel, multiplatform media buys. Programmatically insertable audio messaging gives advertisers creative control and keeps production costs low as creative can be produced once and delivered at scale, which is not the case with other forms of podcast advertising such as host reads and content partnerships. 

Ads can be created and targeted according to categories, which makes the medium efficient. Brands can have a consistent presence across multiple podcasts within the same genre, offering extended reach. The strategies can also be more complex and personalised to the end user based on the situational circumstances such as weather, daypart and location, device used, or to target by mood and inferred interests by ensuring creative is relevant to the podcast content when the ad is requested. Ads can be customisable through dynamic creative optimisation (DCO), which uses artificial intelligence to personalise creative to listeners and their circumstances.

The IAB and NPR have released measurement standards for podcasts, allowing advertisers to verify the spot is played as intended across any and every platform and device. Metrics such as LTR provide a better understanding of audience engagement and allow billing based on the rate of completed listens. While the measurement of digital audio may not yet be as sophisticated as other digital counterparts, it is continuing to improve, and programmatic audio ads can be planned to closely align to an advertiser’s overall objective. 

While COVID-19 lockdowns gave podcasting a boost, it was already an increasingly popular channel with valuable audiences. The continual developments in targeting, measurement, attribution, and customisation, mean podcasts should form a key component of programmatic campaigns, and an essential one for any advertisers after tangible business outcomes. 

The post Why Podcasts are a New Promise for Programmatic Advertising appeared first on PerformanceIN.