Telstra on digital dollars – 80% goes via programmatic

Pippa Chambers
By Pippa Chambers | 20 November 2014
 

Telstra has grown its investment in programmatic by 56% and the amount of digital spend going through its programmatic client trading desk is now at 80%.

Presenting this morning at AIMIA's next Generation of Intelligent Marketing event, Telstra's GM of digital marketing, Harry Lowes, spoke on how programmatic buying has revolutionised its digital marketing ecosystem.

Lowes said the programmatic landscape is only getting “bigger, faster, and more dynamic”, which, in turn, puts more pressure on Telstra to respond to that – something he sees as a “very competitive, challenging and exciting opportunity”.

“People are seeing now that campaigns are less about the spike, and are more about the customer experience,” Lowes said.

“You are expected to know how your customers feel about your brand.”

Lowes said content, data and performance were the core metrics to focus on in the programmatic world. He said Telstra was faced with the challenges of satisfying the consumer with more content, so, as a result, it had to lift its video inventory from 40-50 videos back in 2012/13, to 2000 videos in 2014.

He also said viewability was becoming a major area of focus, and having not simply big data, but “quick and actionable data”, was also key.

Lowes said the company's internal systems rebuild was necessary to future-proof the business and ensure it becomes a market leader in the programmatic sphere. 

OMD specifically built a hybrid trading desk model for Telstra. While Telstra has full transparency over this it is housed within OMD - thus taking advantage of the Omnicom Group.

“We grew our programmatic investment by 56% - we want to be a leader in this space,” Lowes said.

“We wanted to grow our digital investment in order to future proof Telstra. This meant really looking at ourselves, carrying out reviews and looking at our partners before rebuilding our whole ecosystem.”

Lowes said making the programmatic shift was not easy, given the size of the business and that it was vital for the company to drive incremental results to raise the capital to fund the programmatic shift.

For more news:

Foxtel programmatic deal helps boost TubeMogul revenue

Australia is leading the world in mobile programmatic growth

Foxtel takes programmatic video advertising in-house

Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop me a line at pippachambers@yaffa.com.au

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