With billions flowing through programmatic channels worldwide, the incentive for fraudsters to ply their craft was just too great.

Finally, the industry had enough. In 2014, the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) was established to cultivate confidence and trust in digital advertising by facilitating collaboration among players across the supply chain to uphold quality and brand safety standards.

On June 21, TAG released its fifth consecutive fraud benchmark report for Europe, and for a fifth year in a row, IVT rates in TAG Certified Channels were below 1%.

Some Channels More Problematic Than Others

At least in Europe, some channels are more problematic than others. For instance, desktop display and video have IVT rates of 1.54% and 1.30% respectively. CTV isn’t far behind with 1.28%.

CTV Improved Steadily throughout 2022

Throughout 2022, CTV IVT rates exhibited a downward trend in each quarter, but it is important to note that this pattern may not necessarily reflect future trends as it could be influenced by other factors within the CTV marketplace.

Mobile in-app video and display formats consistently maintained lower IVT rates throughout the quarters, exhibiting stability over time.

The Caveat

It’s not as if all campaigns in the European markets studied show low rates of IVT. The report takes pains to point out that less than 1% fraud is only attainable in campaigns that run through fully TAG Certified Channels. These are channels in which every entity — publisher, ad tech platform, agency — have achieved TAG Certification Against Fraud.

The post What 5 Years of Minimal Fraud Should Tell the Market appeared first on AdMonsters.

The same was true when she first started in the workplace, very different from the era of diversity, equity, and inclusion we proclaim now. Despite some underlying racial tension, she allowed her work to speak for itself and has subsequently touched every side of the ad tech industry.

Eng watched the digital media industry evolve into what it is today, and now she works with the IAB as VP of Measurement, Addressability, and Data Center. Her focus at IAB is setting standards, best practices and guides for various topics such as cross-channel measurement, data clean rooms, attention metrics, terms & conditions, etc. One she considers a challenging but fulfilling position.

“When I started working at IAB, Google had just announced the deprecation of the third-party cookie. The industry was evolving just as I started a new career phase, ” Eng said. “Going in, I knew that there were going to be some complex challenges in terms of what we could tackle and what we couldn’t and that we’re probably not going to satisfy the entire industry. Everyone’s always looking for standards. But at the same time, it’s not an easy process and requires a lot of patience and collaboration.”

Early Childhood: Finding Space and Identity

Andrew Byrd: Can you tell me a little about yourself? Where did you grow up and how did your upbringing influence your character and work ethic today?

Angelina Eng: I grew up in a blue-collar family. My father worked in a jewelry manufacturing company, and my mother was a seamstress. She also tried entrepreneurship with a dry cleaning business and owned a sewing factory and jewelry store for a little bit. I could see my parents working hard to acclimate to the neighborhood, my father more than my mother. That mentality has influenced me to this day.

At home, we were very in tune with our Chinese culture, but on the outside, I was an outlier. Outside of my house, it was tough. I was one of the few Asian people in my community, and it was difficult not to experience some form of racism when that was the case. I was one of the shortest girls in class. I didn’t wear the same kind of clothes that everyone else did. I wore the bottleneck glasses. I always had the sense of being the odd one out.

I remember feeling the same way going into the workforce. I started at Y&R advertising, and the industry was still predominantly white male, but I did have a lot of women role models in the organization. There was no overt racism, but an underlying sense was apparent. I remember the executives would often look to others for new pitch meetings. So I had to learn to have a voice and I took on the philosophy I heard from the animated movie Robots. It said, “You find a need, and you fill a need.” I wanted to let my work speak for itself.

Finding the Right Career Path

AB: How did you start your career in ad tech and digital media? 

AE: It’s a funny story. I started school pursuing a psychology degree, but my classes were at 8 in the morning, and I didn’t do well. I started accounting afterward but could not get past macro and microeconomics, which were too structured. My final major was home economics, now called consumer and life sciences. It was more than just cooking and sewing. We learned nutrition, but there were also some marketing and strategy courses. That’s where my interest in advertising started. 

To get my foot in the door, I started working as an administrative assistant in the U.S. Army account at Y&R, and this was around the time the internet was beginning. One of the VPs at the company was responsible for launching the Army’s first website. I worked with them and the digital team to build the website internally through an up-and-coming company called Brand Dialogue. During that time, I had to decide if I wanted to go the traditional media route or take a risk and join this new digital medium on the rise. They had a position open, and I used my experience from the Army account and joined the digital side of the group.

The Evolution of the Digital Media Industry

AB: You are an ad tech vet with over thirty years of experience. What are your thoughts on how the ad tech ecosystem has changed over the span of your career? Has the evolution been good, bad, or a mixed bag? 

AE: So many things are still the same but have evolved drastically over time. When it comes to measurement, there’s been much sophistication that has happened over time. There was no ad serving, DSP, or social media when I started. There weren’t these dashboards that people could go in, and suddenly their campaigns were running.  

Brands’ general business needs and philosophy regarding targeting audiences and connecting with outcomes have stayed the same. What has changed is the data set and the amount of data we have. We’ve also come to a place where we need to be conscientious about consumer privacy, which we didn’t consider before. It’s only been within the last three years that it started to be concerning. Much of that has to do with a couple of different forces. One is remarketing. We have companies with programmatic and remarketing technology solutions that consumers and government representatives believe that the industry wasn’t being responsible with data privacy, and consumers became aware of that. Cambridge Analytical exposed consumer data was being shared with companies they didn’t even know existed.

There was also the rise of big tech and the walled gardens. They’ve created a marketplace where some publishers and advertisers believe they have very few choices but to go through them. They feel they have little options to scale their business without particular walled gardens.

Working Towards True DEI

AB: Like other industries, the new era of digital media also strongly focuses on DEI standards. How do you think the ad tech industry is handling the move toward diversity for the AAPI community and other marginalized groups? 

AE: When it comes to DEI, we’re starting to have good conversations and some progress. It’s become elevated within the last year and a half to two years. We’ve talked about it for a long time but have not reached the point where we’re all satisfied. I love seeing more diverse commercials and ads that reflect various groups. Although, I do think there is lack of Asian representation. Usually, when people talk about diversity, especially when they decide whom they are marketing and messaging, Asian Americans are not a priority or first to come to mind.

There are also a wide variety of ethnicities and cultures within the Asian community, so it is a challenge to understand how to market toward them. From Chinese to Korean to Bangladesh, we are all so culturally different. That can be difficult when trying to speak to the Asian community.

Here at IAB, we’ve discussed how brands commit to spending X percentage of their spend toward diversity or minority-owned or focused content. There’s a struggle with investing in accredited companies, wanting certain-sized companies, and worries about whether a company is culturally relevant to that community. But how brands invest is not all equal. It’s discouraging that companies are like, let’s invest 3% or 6% of our spend on diversity, but that is not close to reflecting the actual diversity in the country.

AB: Any final words you would like to add? 

AE: I’m most proud that during my career, I got to be a representative and a figure in the industry where you, as an Asian American, can have a voice, thrive in different areas, and don’t have to pigeonhole yourself into a career set. I went from account management, media planning, buying to ad ops to analytics, and now I have a position that encompasses all that. 

People must expand their skill sets, knowledge, and network as much as possible. If you’re Asian or part of a marginalized group, it’s important to represent you front and center.

The post Celebrating AAPI Month: Angelina Eng Reflects on the Evolution of the Digital Media Industry appeared first on AdMonsters.

The daily routine of an ad ops manager, whether they work for a marketing agency or represent a web content publisher, is pretty much like a board game. Stumbling blocks are all around, even when they do not expect them. Not that ad ops managers should “beat the card” in the blink of an eye. Otherwise, the challenge isn’t considered accepted, and the cost of failure is too high, like lost revenue, customer churn, or rising TCO. 

Are there lifehacks for ad ops managers to come out on top even when the cards and fortune seem to be against them? We’ve gathered grandmasters around the table for the Ad Ops Challenge board game.  

Meet Vladimir Lyubarskiy, Oxagile’s Chief Solution Architect, who’s an old hand at this game, continually interacting with ad tech clients, knowing their reasons for frustration inside out, and helping them deal with it.  

We also have a guest, Oxagile’s ad tech expert partner and advisor, to absorb his business advice on how to counteract ad ops issues — whether a supply or demand-side pain — on the go. 

Are you up for the Ad Ops Challenge board game? 

Showing the First Card “DSP Diversity” 

What challenges does it hide? 
Disparate statistics

Scenario Behind 

An advertising operations manager at a marketing agency is sick and tired of accumulating ad statistics from miscellaneous demand-side platforms. Aiming to address all client wishes, the agency picked five DSPs for daily use, including DV360, The Trade Desk, and Samsung DSP, which added to the headache caused by exhausting reporting activities.  

Days are stolen from extracting data from several isolated systems and then aggregating uncoordinated reports into one clear picture to demonstrate ad efficacy. Good old methods like Google Docs do not work, as they’re more about manual operations than process automation. The question is, how to redeem the ad ops manager from professional burnout?

What the Move Should Be 

Vladimir Lyubarskiy: “That’s exactly the story we banged against while liaising with a digital advertising agency operating across the Latin American market. A couple of DSPs were actively utilized – and tons of side effects to overcome, among which was a daily reporting challenge.  

Instead of persuading the client to make do with obsolete would-be reporting tools, our team designed the architecture of a DSP aggregator solution. Its primary benefit for reporting was the ability to gather the advertising statistics from all DSPs to introduce meaningful dashboards to all interested parties.” 

AdTech advisor: “Occasionally, the DSP Diversity card represents a no less serious challenge for ad ops managers serving the supply side’s best interests. They’re permanently watching how their inventory spaces perform, aiming to generate win-win sales packages that are both highly demanded by their clients and profitable for their business.  

An aggregation tool can go far beyond DSP functionality and speed up getting the insights for AdOps specialists responsible for managing multiple supply-side solutions.” 

Image: DSP aggregator solution architecture 

The Next Card Is “Campaign Setup”

 Is any challenge concealed? 
Wasting time and efforts 

Scenario Behind

The more manual movements involved, the higher the risks of errors during the ad campaign setting processes. An AdOps manager, who works for a digital advertising company, relies on a handful of DSPs, which slows down the launch of any advertising activities.  

Despite utmost concentration, he’s not immune to flaws, as each system incorporates a few specific nuances related to ad campaign tunes. Maneuvering between different DSPs commonly crystallizes in accidental processing lapses. What about fixing this human-centered, error-prone paradigm? 

What the Move Should Be 

AdTech advisor: “It’s not rocket science, but automation is key. The right strategy is to seize the opportunity given by ad campaign runner software solutions instead of going on with tiresome hand labor leading AdOps managers to nowhere or too ungrateful processing and poor ad campaign outcomes.  

On top of multiple DSPs, such tools introduce a common UI for ad campaign setup. No need to follow a longer route by switching between DSPs and tracking custom settings for each. You want to make essential changes once, and they’ll be scaled across all DSPs.” 

Vladimir Lyubarskiy: “That’s the scheme that works for our AdOps Challenge board game in case ad operations specialists suffer from the tedious ad campaign creation. From a technical perspective, it’s possible to integrate all DSPs taking part in the ad campaign management under one roof through an API – no cheating, process optimization only. A unified UI marvels when there’s a need to switch between ad campaigns and perform tiny fixes instantly. 

It’s High Time for the “Performance Metrics” Card  

Any hidden threats? 
No unified measurement  

Scenario Behind

The heterogeneity of ad campaign performance metrics, depending on distribution channels (linear, digital, or CTV) and geo, audience, and device type, hinders an AdOps manager from making up an all-embracing picture of an ad campaign’s success. When clients’ expectations are not satisfied due to the absence of measurability standards (they’re frustrated by disputable performance measurements), the AdOps specialist experiences the drawbacks of linear TV measurement and fights against CTV attribution issues.   

Feeling the acute need for a functional measurement solution, he’s querying which would be the best bet here. 

What the Move Should Be  

Vladimir Lyubarskiy: “Some of the ad campaign requirements can be addressed by involving existing platforms and audience measurement products like Samba TV. 

Pay heed to Nielsen, which laid a foundation for linear TV advertising measurement. Despite being considered a bit outdated, it’s moving forward and introducing a new Nielsen ONE Ads product for measuring media. Comscore, VideoAmp, and iSpot.tv also act as advanced solutions for ratings and audience measurement.”

Let’s Move on to the Card “Smart Targeting”

What does it keep from us?
Lack of data 

Scenario Behind  

A marketing agency’s bidding around all media channels is still far from the ultimate bidding strategy. The absence of their data for a more thorough analysis prevents them from enriching DSPs’ significant data selection. Is a shift from an all-around ad presence to smart bidding possible? And if so, what are the ways to target more wisely and access lucrative audience categories? 

What the Move Should Be 

AdTech advisor: “While marketing agencies suffer from the lack of fully owned audience records, even companies with the ability to collect such data also experience targeting issues. Significant data losses are common after the data management platform (or DMP) processing steps in, so it becomes challenging to reap their fruits. 

To recap, brands with data sets can’t avoid a partial leakage after sending data to DMPs when bringing them to a common standard. No in-house data available? This case jeopardizes the efficiency of ad targeting.” 

Vladimir Lyubarskiy: “To be fair, publishers and content owners are not sitting on their hands, continually combating this data lack issue through metadata enhancements. Although metadata management allows for enriching audience data with contextual, some unsatisfied demands on the advertisers’ side remain. The latter needs a more thorough understanding of the environment where their ad assets occur. And there are grounds for hope.  

Time to get out a Joker from the sleeve. Its name is Computer Vision, and this is one of the true ways to improve ad targeting tactics with AI technologies to gather contextual data for better comprehension of the audience’s needs. The prize will be optimized conversions.” 

“Order Management” Card Enters the Game 

What can go wrong here? 
Reconciliation hurdles 

Scenario Behind

An ad ops manager in charge of order management and tracking often finds himself at the crossroads, thinking about how not to get lost in numerous accounts and accurately process both incoming and outcoming payments.

In the meantime, multicurrency accounts and systems should be carefully managed, and this process is not necessarily automated, so the ad ops specialist should watch all transactions closely. 

Profit margin calculations also request careful guidance to gauge the revenue degree. Is this process doomed to chronic manual operations? 

What the Move Should Be 

Vladimir Lyubarskiy: “Not necessarily, if we choose the automation path again. This will provide us with a tool for accumulating all systems and line items to answer the question “Who owes who?” and generate unified reports transparently depicting all payment transactions.” 

“Client Collaboration” Card Comes Into Play 

There’s the snag! 
Processing lags 

Scenario Behind 

A huge TV production studio embracing many digital and linear channels is actively targeted at monetizing advertising across all these platforms. What’s going on now? The truth is that an ad ops manager feels ill at ease trying to wade through the info on the available ad inventory spaces scattered across a range of applications. Selling flow processing is full of pitfalls, which unsettles the advertising operations specialist and results in a few mistakes. Clients seem furious as their requests are kept on ice, and above all, it takes ages to generate competitive ad inventory offerings for advertisers the production studio collaborates with.  

What the Move Should Be

Vladimir Lyubarskiy: “Here I see the demand for converged video ad workflows around a multi-platform content distribution model. So this time, our Joker is likely to be called automation – we’re coming closer to the goal of monetizing advertising on both linear TV and digital (OTT) channels in an efficient fashion, leveraging an established process from direct sales of primary inventory to programmatic to backfill remnant inventory. 

A custom software solution will let the ad inventory seller switch between numerous apps, increasing the overall converged efficiency of an ad selling flow. Regarding the already existing options that help you manage linear and digital ads with relative ease, these are WideOrbit and Landmark. I’m not saying they are a plaster for all sores – they’re still offering different flows for linear and digital, which clamors for further adjustments.” 

Last but Not Least: “Chasing Higher Sales Revenue” Card

What lies beneath? 
Forecasting gaps 

Scenario Behind

Being a part of the TV industry’s leading content provider and distributor, an ad ops manager is becoming increasingly puzzled when brands and marketing agencies request the approximate spend on ad inventory. Making a bad bargain is likely to happen if not to generate different inventory package prices. But how do you determine which inventories should be higher priced so as not to sell too cheap? 

What the Move Should Be 

Vladimir Lyubarskiy: “I’d create a solution powered up with prediction mechanisms, letting AdOps specialists forecast impressions as accurately as possible across linear and digital channels. Why is it advantageous for both parties? The content distributor generates converged ad sales packages and determines premium inventory spaces, thus maximizing revenue, while their clients get a transparent picture of upcoming expenses.” 

Is there an AdOps Challenge card that’s still in the deck, unopened, that you want to beat? Oxagile has more Ad Tech tricks to help you achieve that. Just give them a sign, and you’ll triumph in this game. 

The post How to Win a Board Game Full of Ad Ops Burning Challenges appeared first on AdMonsters.

Being a teacher taught Sturino how to interact with people, deal with situations, and simplify concepts – skills he regularly uses as VP of Data and Analytics at media agency Good Apple.

“I taught a room full of second-graders working in their second language. I was trying to simplify concepts and pay close attention to what the kids had to say – every day, every word, every phrase,” remembered Sturino. “It was similar to being a data analyst. It’s so easy to talk above somebody’s head, but you must ensure you understand your audience and simplify it.”

 Throughout his decade-long tenure at Good Apple, Sturino grew the data science practice into a trusted and integral capability. During his keynote, “How AI is Reshaping Media Buying and Selling,” at the AdMonsters Ops Conference, Sturino will share how media agencies and publishers can best incorporate AI to solve challenges from ad effectiveness and consumer engagement to brand safety and cross-device targeting. 

From Baseball Cards to Mathematical Theorems

From an early age, Sturino was always a numbers person. 

 “I was one of those kids who looked at the stats on the back of my baseball cards. I’d have two different cards, and if one player had a better batting average and the other player had more RBIs, I’d try to figure out who was the better player,” recalled Sturino. 

In college, Sturino enjoyed a mathematical proofs class where he had to make a case to prove the validity of a theorem. Finding joy in the exercise, he also learned patience for thinking through multistep processes and the curiosity to understand them. 

“I think patience is a big part of what makes a good analyst. It is more than being good with numbers. You must also understand where the numbers came from, the conditions under which the data was gathered, or how it joins with other data,” said Sturino. “How everything comes together is a lot like building that proof.”

Sturino says that although the theorem is used in higher math, you must build the theorem first, and he thinks that realization was how he ended up working in data and analytics.  

Every Apple Is an Analyst

At Good Apple, Sturino ideated and led the development of Crisp, the agency’s first proprietary data integration and management platform. Crisp was born out of necessity. It started with noticing how a client report was time-consuming, involving multiple team members, and several data sources. That time and effort were not sustainable.  

“I think where we saw an opportunity was not in solving the problem at hand but looking at the bigger problem overall and building a structure that worked for where we want to be in five years,” said Sturino.

Good Apple’s philosophy is that every Apple is an analyst. The media and analytics teams are heavily integrated, and the development of Crisp has been organically driven by analysts building tools that solve the problems they see in the teams’ everyday work.

Working closely with the agency’s pharmaceutical and retail clients, Sturino uses the Crisp AI capabilities to help pharma clients leverage an automated tool for creating custom content scans. Crisp interprets what is on a page, compares it to what’s allowed within that content space, and alerts Good Apple’s teams when something’s wrong. 

“Crisp is that first line of defense that can work faster and more often than a human could. We’re still doing our checks, but we’re adding an additional layer on so we can be more compliant,” said Sturino. “I think it’s an overabundance of caution that you see in the pharma space, and AI can play a big role in helping to add to that.”  

AI’s Impact Across Media Buying and Selling

Good Apple builds relationships with publishers and focuses on understanding what’s happening within a media interaction. When it comes to AI, Sturino thinks publishers can differentiate themselves by leveraging the tech to provide insights and transparency.

“If you look at where we started with pixel optimizations from programmatic partners, they have a pixel on the site and say they will automate towards this. But you never really learn what changes it’s making or what audiences it’s chosen to bid on. You get some information, but you don’t really know what’s working behind the scenes.”

Sturino says there is some risk for pharma clients having a publisher’s algorithm create a targeted audience using medication for off-label use. 

“That’s obviously a very problematic situation, and I think it’s limited the rollout of AI and ML on the pharma side of things,” stated Sturino. “An algorithm doesn’t care if it’s causation or correlation.”

From a media landscape perspective, Sturino says that when using publisher scorecards for RFIs and building media plans, AI is being weighted heavier and heavier. Agencies are no longer simply looking to check the AI box, but want to know how publishers are optimizing AI, such as tying in offline data or if they have their own data sources.

 “AI is playing more of a role from a publisher selection perspective. At least at Good Apple, it is less and less about flash, and it’s more about what are the actual results you’re giving us because, at the end of the day, everybody will be judged based on performance,” concluded Sturino.

And if all this talk about Good Apple’s ‘core’ value of measurement driving media decisions has you wondering about Sturino’s favorite fruit, it is, of course, a Granny Smith apple.

The post AdMonsters Ops Keynote Mark Sturino: Leveraging AI for Media Buying and Selling appeared first on AdMonsters.

TransUnion recently announced a partnership with Datavant, the industry’s most trusted health data connectivity solution. Datavant’s irreversible, encrypted “tokens” will help TransUnion match de-identified patient demographic data with healthcare clients’ first-party and licensed third-party data. 

We spoke with Michael Schoen, EVP of Marketing Solutions, TransUnion, about what the health ecosystem can expect and how this collaboration will affect healthcare publishers. 

Yakira Young: Can you go into more detail about TransUnion’s new partnership with Datavant?

Michael Schoen: In partnering with Datavant, TransUnion can now enable healthcare, pharma, and other brands to evaluate and optimize the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. The partnership will also allow Datavant’s ecosystem of partners to connect to demographic data available in TruAudience®, TransUnion’s comprehensive suite of solutions. For example, we see companies leveraging this partnership to measure the impact of marketing on prescription volumes in a HIPAA-compliant way and adjust their campaigns’ targeting and media channel mix to improve results.

YY: How does Datavant help organizations securely connect health data?

MS: Datavant works to reduce the friction of data sharing across the healthcare industry with technology that protects patients’ privacy while supporting the linkage of patient health records across datasets. 

As mentioned, the company’s industry-leading software generates irreversible, encrypted tokens to enable TransUnion to match de-identified patient demographic data with healthcare clients’ first-party and licensed third-party data. This enables organizations to understand better, reach, and measure the effectiveness of campaigns to specific audiences.

The top 30 pharma brands use Datavant’s privacy-first data connectivity solutions, more than 2,000 hospitals and 15,000 clinics.

YY: What are de-identified patient insights and measurement solutions, and how are they useful for healthcare brands?

MS: TransUnion connects its demographic and lifestyle data to healthcare data, while Datavant software enables de-identification tools, which do not leverage personally identifiable information, to help customers protect patient privacy. 

This integration will allow healthcare and pharmaceutical companies to improve outcomes across the full lifecycle of patient engagement, especially measurement of outreach effectiveness. 

YY: How will TransUnion’s TruAudience marketing solutions benefit healthcare brands in this partnership?

MS: The U.S. healthcare and pharma industries are expected to spend nearly $18 billion dollars on digital advertising in 2023 alone. We’re enabling them to spend these dollars in the most effective way possible. 

We can connect the dots between those consumers and physicians who may be exposed to campaign activity and those who are then writing prescriptions. It unlocks a much more granular view of marketing effectiveness in a privacy-safe way.

Beyond offering a measure of the ROI of outreach, the tool also allows for optimization. 

 Marketers can use it to fine-tune the channels used and personalize creative across audiences. TransUnion can leverage more granular-level data sets to fine-tune the optimization of marketing campaigns.

YY: Will patient privacy be protected while accessing health data?

MS: By working with Datavant and leveraging their tokenization technology, we can connect TransUnion’s consumer data in a de-identified and HIPAA-compliant way.

YY: How will this partnership impact health publishers such as Everyday Health and WebMD?

MS: TransUnion can now bring real-world data and its end-to-end marketing solutions to publishers. With TransUnion’s measurement solutions, healthcare and pharma companies will also gain more insight into which health publishers impact their campaigns most.

YY: Will health publishers have access to the de-identified patient insights and measurement solutions?

MS: Yes, Datavant’s healthcare data tokenization software can be utilized to implement TransUnion’s TruAudience marketing solutions across companies in the healthcare ecosystem.

YY: How can health publishers use this partnership to improve their content and services?

MS: Health publishers can now leverage this partnership to combine real-world data with TransUnion’s consumer insights, allowing publishers to tailor content and services around the most up-to-date demands and interests of consumers.

YY: What are the potential benefits for patients in this partnership?

MS: This partnership enables patient data to be used responsibly, as the tokens used are encrypted and irreversible, thus minimizing the risk of re-identification. In addition, this data will be used to improve aggregate patient outcomes.

The post Here’s How TransUnion Is Decoding Health Data With Datavant appeared first on AdMonsters.

This is the kind of data that attracts advertisers, especially during a recession when their budgets are smaller and all focus is on performance and business outcomes. But are publishers taking full advantage of these amazing resources?

AdMonsters AdOps are Rock Stars Playbook survey indicates they are not. There’s not enough collaboration between AdOps and the sales, product, and business intelligence teams. This is caused by a combination of tech limitations and interdepartmental inefficiencies.

AdOps Is an Underutilized Strategic Resource

More worrisome, only 22% of AdOps teams say they have access to a wealth of data and insights, which means the remaining 78% can’t help their colleagues succeed in their jobs to the fullest possible extent.

Now that advertisers are cutting back on campaigns, publishers need to work harder to attract brands to their sites. Detailed performance data distributed to all the teams that need it can help publishers win more business and revenue. As it stands, they’re leaving money on the table.

We understand that if AdOps had more tools and workflows to share those insights, client-facing teams could have more data-driven conversations with advertisers about campaign performance. This in turn will lead to repeat sales, as well as provide the data needed to recruit other advertisers in their sector.

To dive into the results of this survey and learn more about publishers’ challenges, as well as access our pro tips, download AdMonsters AdOps Are Rock Stars. Are Sales Teams Taking Advantage of Their Stardom? playbook, created in partnership with DV Publisher Suite. 

Download your copy of the AdOps Are Rock Stars. Are Sales Teams Taking Advantage of Their Stardom? Playbook now!

The post Only 22% of Adops Teams Say They Have Access to a Wealth of Data and Insights appeared first on AdMonsters.

Contextual ads typically appear alongside thematically similar content, targeting consumers via the context of their consumption. For example, an ad for swimwear might appear at the end of an article about swimming, or an ad for enterprise healthcare software could run in a healthcare trade publication.

The return to contextual technology has led many to question whether it can be as effective as ads tailored to specific users. Research has shown contextual advertising is not just as effective but possibly even more effective than audience data-driven advertising at a similar cost.

Still, contextual advertising has yet to reach its peak potential. Cutting-edge advertisers are not merely matching ads to content based on topics. They contextually target ads based on emotion and a granular understanding of the moods of the audiences they want to reach. The technology bringing about this reinvention of contextual targeting is called neuroprogrammatic, and it represents the future of contextual advertising.

Understanding Neuroprogrammatic Advertising

Behavioral and demographic targeting based on customer data has dominated digital advertising for years. These forms of targeting rest on the assumption that the most effective way to convert audiences into customers is to target users who have engaged with a brand before or fit the profile of someone interested in a product. But they do not account for the environment in which the advertiser and audience meet.

Neuroprogrammatic advertising attempts to address this shortcoming by matching the emotional content of the ad to the content with which the consumer is engaging, and thereby the emotions of the consumer.

For example, a celebratory and optimistic ad that seeks to find a consumer in a hopeful mood to trigger an inspirational, discretionary purchase should not appear next to content likely to elicit anger or sadness. Neuroprogrammatic targeting accounts for this X factor.

How? By using natural language processing, neuroprogrammatic can categorize the feelings at work in an ad and the sentiments of the content the audience consumes. Then, it can pair ads to emotional contexts that make emotional and topical sense.

All the better, this can happen without any user data, so neuroprogrammatic targeting positions brands and publishers to comply with privacy regulations.

Building on Contextual Targeting’s Promise

Advertisers are understandably concerned that contextual targeting will not be as effective as serving ads for a pair of shoes to someone who has browsed those shoes. The latter is a deterministic connection, whereas contextual targeting relies on inference: Contextual advertisers assume that someone engaging with ads about LeBron James, a Nike representative, and athlete, may be likelier than average to purchase a Nike product.

But neuroprogrammatic goes beyond topical content matching to target the subconscious feelings that lead consumers to make purchasing decisions. It does not just target that basketball fan; it targets them when they are most likely to purchase a new pair of shoes based on the emotional profile of the content with which they are engaging in a given moment.

In other words, neuroprogrammatic targeting cuts to the core of what makes topics relevant to a consumer in the first place—how consumers are feeling and thinking, what actions they may or may not be in the mood to take, and therefore how likely they are to respond to an ad. Neuroprogrammatic targeting uses AI to cater to precisely what makes us human.

Fostering a Human-centric Future of Digital Advertising 

When planning for a more privacy-oriented future, which has driven so many advertisers to take another look at contextual targeting, we often miss the core point of the data privacy movement. It is not about developing alternative tracking methods to replace the cookie or Apple’s IDFA. It’s about developing ways to better understand consumers on their own, noninvasive terms and serving them content they want to see alongside the regular programming they enjoy. 

So where do you begin? There are a few ways to go about this. Many agencies have already defined their cohorts to drive better experiences and outcomes. If this is your situation, you must partner with a company that can map your segments to the correct feelings and emotions. At RESET, we map your target segments to 65 core emotions and desired ontological states. 

If you are a smaller agency and still need a system that has defined ideal groups of people for a brand, begin by working with a consultant or team who can help you create the personas that fit and match the brands you represent. Or, you can do what early adapters like MilkPep (Gale) and Troy-Bilt (Marcus Thomas) did in their early days… leverage the emotions and feelings as pure contextual signals that drive results.

By understanding consumers’ emotions, leveraging only consensual user data to enhance contextual targeting, and serving audiences’ messages consistent with their media environments, advertisers can put the human back at the center of their campaigns. More substantial results and a more sustainable media ecosystem will follow.

The post Neuroprogrammatic Is the Future of Contextual Advertising appeared first on AdMonsters.

“The CCPA was the first comprehensive consumer privacy law passed in the United States, and even though it’s a California state law, there was nothing like it on the books that generally applied to consumer personal information,” said Tony Ficarrotta, Assistant General Counsel, IAB. “The CCPA was the first one that said we don’t care what industry you’re in. If you’re processing consumer personal information, then you have certain requirements. In digital media and advertising, there are many questions about how that law applies to the data often processed to select and deliver digital ads.” 

The initial white paper, released in 2020, detailed which companies were involved in the CTV process, explained how to define and use personal information in the CTV space, and how companies can comply with privacy laws. Project Crosswalk 2.0 builds on that study. 

How Is CTV Unique? The Remote Control and the Identity Conundrum 

The Remote Control: With several state-wide privacy laws in place and on the way, CTV providers must offer consumers residing in those states the option to opt out of selling or sharing their personal information for ad targeting. Platforms have years of experience implementing these regulations on mobile and desktop devices, but these regulations have caused user experience issues for CTV providers. 

Remote controls are the primary interface used to navigate connected TVs, and they generally have limited functionality compared to mobile and desktop devices. When consumers hope to enact their privacy rights on CTV devices, they spend longer durations using the remote to enter the necessary information to complete the request. Thus, hindering the UX. 

In response, CTV providers created a pathway for consumers to review privacy notices and exercise their rights to privacy outside of the CTV space. They provide a URL or QR code that leads to a website, and consumers can exercise their right to privacy on a desktop or mobile device. Although regulators are urging platforms to move away from this practice:

According to the FTC report, Bringing Dark Patterns to Light, “Consumers should not have to navigate through multiple screens to find privacy settings … [privacy settings] should be presented at a time and in a context where the consumer is deciding their data.” 

The Identity Conundrum: Identifying consumers with regard to privacy compliance is difficult, especially in a space that is so fragmented. Many ID solutions have worked in desktop and mobile devices, even with third-party cookie deprecation, but that has not always translated to CTV platforms. 

The most common identifier in the CTV space is a user’s internet protocol (IP) address. It allows CTV platforms to bridge identity signals to activate advertising audiences and measure the effectiveness of advertising in CTV. Although, IP addresses are generally network-level IDs instead of user or device-level IDs, which causes some issues in the identification process. For example: 

• Very few ad-tech providers have built IP-based opt-out mechanisms. In the past, it was not necessary because of the reliability of cookie-based opt-outs.  
• Even if IP-based opt-outs became commonplace, the reliability of their opt-out signals would be uncertain because internet service providers (ISPs) periodically rotate IP addresses, and users often engage with the same businesses using multiple IP addresses.

The IAB Project Crosswalk whitepaper suggests using internal development resources and first parties that can store user privacy choices made on a CTV user interface directly on the CTV or on their servers, using the GPP. First parties can subsequently make those choices available in bid requests that third parties can apply to identifiers they leverage for advertising. 

CTV Privacy Compliance Considerations

In CTV advertising, processing and transferring consumer information is essential for ad selection and delivery, measurement, and audience creation. Due to the complexity of processing personal information in the connected TV space, platforms must understand their obligations under state privacy laws. Here is what IAB suggests companies consider. 

1st Consideration: Leverage partnerships between cross-functional privacy teams to understand compliance regulations. 

Privacy lawyers, product experts, and privacy operations and governance professionals should work together to tackle the complexities of the data flow process in CTV advertising balanced with compliance regulations. They can each help identify when personal information is processed, when consumers request opt-outs activity, and how to apply rules to these processes. 

2nd Consideration: Clearly define your role in the CTV advertising process.

Every entity in the CTV advertising process should define clear roles for participating, whether they are a business and controller, third party, or service provider and processor. Companies may need to be flexible in their roles in different circumstances, depending on how consumers interact with the company and whether they have opted out. 

The IAB’s Multi-State Privacy Agreement (MSPA) provides an efficient way to define each party’s role in a transaction for privacy compliance while giving the flexibility to play different roles in different circumstances. CTV platforms are often a first-party business or controller, but they may be a third-party or service provider and processor, depending on the circumstances. The MSPA can help companies enter into the required contractual privity with all parties to the transaction. 

3rd Consideration: Create opt-out signals that communicate consumers’ choices in CTV platforms

Businesses and controllers must provide consumers with ways to opt out of certain activities. This responsibility also applies to CTV platforms, app publishers, and advertisers in the CTV environment. Privacy technology vendors offer a way to block information transfer if a user opts out, but using a privacy signaling framework like the GPP is better. Downstream vendors receiving an opt-out signal can comply with appropriate signaling, MSPA, or other contractual mechanisms to prevent sales that the consumer opted out of while allowing limited data processing for advertising.

4th Consideration: Evaluate use cases involving ACR data

When using ACR data, CTV platforms should consider specific compliance steps to ensure the user’s privacy and data protection rights are respected. One of the most important steps is to obtain the user’s opt-in consent before collecting, using, or sharing their ACR data. This is in line with FTC precedent and industry self-regulatory guidelines

The post Project Crosswalk: IAB’s Guidelines for CTV Privacy Compliance appeared first on AdMonsters.

“I always jokingly attribute my easy going personality to my island upbringing. It’s a bit of a stereotype, but I feel it rings true,” says Boodram. “The calm through the storm approach is helpful in many capacities when your  work is centered around managing partners and their success.” 

Alongside her role at FatTail, Boodram is a mentor and coach. She has always intentionally created time and space to coach others in and outside the workplace. Two years ago, Boodram was honored in the mentorship category at AdMonsters’ Top Women in Ad Tech and Digital Media Awards. 

Recently hired as CRO at FatTail, she has entered a new era in her career. An era where she redefines the role of CRO as more than just a sales leadership role. But more as a role equally focused and driven around understanding how successful marketing and sales work together to affect revenue outcomes. 

In honor of Women’s History Month, we spoke with Laura Boodram, CRO, FatTail, about how she started in ad tech, her experience being a women executive, and how her new role as CRO has allowed her to grow. 

The Start of a Promising Career in Ad Tech

Andrew Byrd: How did you start your career in ad tech, and how did it develop to where you are now?

Laura Boodram: The core of my professional expertise is all about helping companies grow and scale. Think people (roles, user experience), process (org capability), and platforms (cost and speed) – I bring all of that together. And I’ve done so across multiple industries over the past 25 years; startups in hyper-growth mode to established companies going through digital transformation. Before FatTail, I led publisher and technology operations for ten years, tackling complex platform development, integration, and automation projects. When the opportunity presented itself, I jumped at the chance to move to the Ad Tech side. It’s exciting and rewarding to solve publisher revenue challenges at scale.

AB: FatTail recently promoted you to CRO. Can you walk me through the experience of your recent promotion? What did this mean for your career and the goals you set for yourself? 

LB: It’s an interesting point of reflection for me. I previously targeted a COO or GM-type role when I think about my core skills, background, and comfort zone. My experience so far at FatTail has pushed me into new territory. I started out focused on Client Success and Operations, grew my focus to include Marketing, and now as CRO, Sales. I’m exactly where I aspire to be at any given time – learning and developing new skills and experiences.

AB: It must be challenging to be the Chief Revenue Officer during the ad spend slowdown or the “ad recession.” What has been your strategy, and what advice would you give to the ad tech ecosystem to thrive during this time? 

LB: FatTail grew revenue by 47% in 2022 while maintaining a negative churn rate. As a company scales, it needs to ensure that it’s not just adding new business but helping existing customers get the most out of its solutions. As the head of sales, customer success, and marketing, I’ll have a complete view of the FatTail customer experience. I can work toward our customers’ vision of getting the maximum possible value from FatTail’s various products. For example, we’ve offered OMS solutions for decades, but we’ve also recently rolled out new creative management capabilities via AdBookPORTAL and an automated direct deals marketplace called Deals Marketplace. I will focus on helping customers benefit from the total components of the FatTail platform rather than relying on one individual element of it as a point solution. 

While we have been impacted by softening in revenues and reduced spend on ad tech, our new products were directly informed and influenced through our Publisher and other tech partnerships. There is an incredible level of community and collaboration in our industry. I suggest leveraging that and developing partnerships that directly support publishing.

Navigating the Industry as a Woman

AB: You have held many executive positions in your career. Can you walk me through your experience as a woman executive in the ad tech industry? What has been your experience as a woman in the workplace? Do you see a more positive workplace environment for women than at the start of your career? Is there any room for improvement? 

LB: Most of my life, I’ve been the ‘only’ in the room as a person of color, a woman, a female executive, and now a female CRO. My executive experiences in ad tech versus other industries have not necessarily felt different. I’m encouraged by the growing awareness and focus on the importance of diversity in the workplace and the boardroom, but there’s a lot of work still to be done as an industry and as a society. The most scalable thing we can all do is to continue to build more understanding and awareness of all the existing inequities and biases and challenge each other to do better. Align your values with the actions you take, and you’ll be surprised at the type of influence you can achieve.

AB: What is your hope for the next generation of women in ad tech? What advice would you give them? 

I hope to see more women founders, owners, and executives in the space. My top pieces of advice are:

1. Grow your network in every possible way. Find opportunities to connect with others like you and mentors who can help provide feedback and perspectives. This is a critical way to help discover your strengths and how to use them to overcome your weaknesses. Networking also equips you to advocate for your goals and needs.
2. Never stop learning. Read intentionally. Approach every situation with a growth mindset, and learn to listen!
3. Exercise humility. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t claim and own your victories, but sustain focus on solving problems and supporting others. Life is not a competition, and there’s little we can achieve independently. It’s uplifting to uplift, and I’ve always felt most rewarded when others succeed — no matter how small or large the victory. 
4. Do what you say you will do; and where possible, do more than you’re asked. Work with integrity and hustle, and worry about the reward later.

Carving Out Time for Growth

AB: Anything exciting you are working on or coming up in your career that you want to share? 

LB: Not sure how exciting it is for anyone else, but I’m jazzed about the progress I’m making this year against a personal goal I set to grow my technical and leadership skills and the benefit I’m seeing to my overall focus and productivity. I’ve devoted 5 hours a week to intentional learning – it could be reading, taking a class, striking up a conversation with someone in a coffee shop – really anything that helps me develop a new skill or idea. When I set that target, it felt unattainable while navigating an action-packed set of family and professional commitments. By creating the headspace for learning, I’m better at applying myself to everything else and (so far) not losing ground in other areas. Hopefully, that inspires someone to take the necessary brain breaks to grow productivity and creativity.

The post A Calm Through the Storm: Women’s History Month Q&A With Laura Boodram, CRO, FatTail appeared first on AdMonsters.

Intuitively, we understand that if AdOps had more tools and workflows to share those insights, client-facing teams could have more data-driven conversations with advertisers about campaign performance. This in turn will lead to repeat sales, as well as provide the data needed to recruit other advertisers in their sector.

Additionally, this data would help product teams design premium ad units and ad packages by sector, as well as the right price to charge for them. Once this data is made actionable, there are even more possibilities that we can outline here.

But how widely is contextualized AdOps data shared with sales and ad product teams? Have publishing organizations succeeded in digital transformations, or are they still struggling with silos that ultimately inhibit a more robust monetization strategy?

To answer these questions, we surveyed 136 people who work in digital publishing in an AdOps, sales, revenue, or product function.

Enter your email to download your free copy of AdOps Are Rock Stars. Are Sales Teams Taking Advantage of Their Stardom? below! 

This playbook, created in partnership with DV Publisher Suite, dives into the results of our survey while highlighting publishers’ challenges and providing tips to overcome them.

[download-link]Download your copy of the AdOps Are Rock Stars. Are Sales Teams Taking Advantage of Their Stardom? Playbook now![/download-link]

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