When I was in school I was never allowed to grade my own homework. And no one would have thought to change that part of my education. So, why are we allowing companies to grade their own homework in the world of ad tech?
As the digital advertising industry matures, we are starting to move away from the initial questions defining what it is and what we do – and we are beginning to focus on the matter of programmatic independence. But, what does it actually mean?
At TubeMogul, we believe programmatic independence means that a media- buying platform must be completely divorced from any other interest except for the objectives of the advertiser.
Independence means separating the platform from the publisher, ensuring that you don't bundle data with media, or media with technology.
Above all, you don't rate or grade your own media.
Neutrality is important for a host of reasons, including the ability to integrate with all media and data sources across the digital advertising landscape. Brands are increasingly concerned that some of their technology vendors are recommending that they weight buying decisions to their own inventory.
Heineken’s senior media director, Ron Amram, put it best in a recent interview when he discussed why he didn’t want to use a company’s ad tech platform when purchasing the same company’s inventory, stating: “It’s a conflict of interest even if there’s no malice or manipulation, and I don’t want to put (a company) in a situation where I don’t trust (it).”
The real promise of programmatic is the ability to get the best branding outcome, or the highest purchase intent and brand re-call possible. The inventory source should be any marketplace, private or public exchange, or via the open RTB market.
The crucial element is that the agency trading desk or the platform provider properly scrutinizes the video inventory and that the ad buy is open for analysis in granular detail. They should be asking what screen, what demographic, and what audience is the best to target, and when. That decision can take in numerous sources, including premium or long-tail audiences.
Measurement tools exist to acutely report on campaign results, and fine-tune in real-time to increase performance. We call this this a test-and-learn environment, where experimentation and the willingness to learn quickly and apply new lessons can deliver outstanding campaign results.
So why would you invest in a solution that potentially contains inventory bias? As the programmatic advertising market matures, brands are wising up and adopting a self-service model in order to make independent media decisions. I predict that we will see more brands make direct deals with buying platforms and some may even bring media buying in-house as they attempt to address this issue.
Alternatively, they will demand third-party reporting and verification of campaign success, including independent numbers for viewability and suspicious traffic.
In the not too distant future, brands will focus more on the bottom line rather than clicks, completions and other engagement metrics. Viewability rates, message recall and linking of digital ads to offline sales will become the norm.
Consumers love the sight, sound and motion qualities of video, and advertising has its place in that mix. There is a huge opportunity for brands that get their programmatic trading strategies right to raise brand awareness and purchase intent for their products.
They can only achieve those goals if they work with independent programmatic platforms that have the sole focus on boosting the profits of their clients. The days of having your cake and eating it too will hopefully be a thing of yesteryear as our industry matures and develops.