With 2017 around the corner, programmatic continues to grow with digital ad spending reaching record highs yet again. We take a look at what’s trending next year in the programmatic scene across North America, EMEA, LATAM and APAC. The LATAM region is expected to see triple-digit growth in programmatic digital display ad spending through 2017.
Join us for another installment of “Cup of Joe with Joe” where our CEO Joe Zawadzki talks about what makes for great advertising, how programmatic has evolved and where it’s going.
Machine learning describes the practice of a computer adapting without having to be programmed. The more data that’s fed into the computer program, the smarter it gets. It can make better predictions and continuously evolve without the computer engineer having to make adjustments to the code based on the outputs. Machine learning influences lots of things in our world today, from internet search to voice recognition software.
Machine learning also plays a critical role in marketing!
How does ML learn to improve its performance through practice? As the program gains “practice” with the task, it gets better over time, much like how we humans learn to get better at tasks with experience. For example, an ML program can learn to recognize pictures of cats when shown a sufficiently large number of examples of pictures of “cat” and “not cat.” Or a real-time bidding (RTB) system can learn to predict users’ propensity to convert (i.e. make a purchase) when exposed to an ad, after observing a large number of historical examples of situations where users converted or not.
Why can’t humans do the job? Some things are just outside of our human capabilities, like trying to predict which types of users in what contexts will convert when exposed to ads. Marketing folks might have intuition about what conditions lead to more conversions. But the problem is these intuition-guided rules can be wrong and incomplete. The only way to come up with the right rules is to comb through millions of examples of users converting or not and extract patterns from these, which is precisely what an ML system can do. Such pattern extraction is beyond the capabilities of humans.
So does this mean ML will take our jobs? No. In fact, machine learning is increasing the number of job opportunities in the field of Data Science. Plus, humans will always be needed to understand the goals and motivations of their clients and the nuances between them.
What’s an example of how an ML program works? Say you’re an ad campaign for a new shoe on the New York Times website. Every time a user visits the website, an ad-serving opportunity arises, and given the features of the ad opportunity (such as time, user demographics, location, browser type, etc.). You want to be able to predict the chance of the user clicking on the ad based on previous data about the anonymous user. A ML program can improve its performance at some task after being trained on a sufficiently large amount of data, without explicit instructions given by a human. And with 500 billion ad opportunities every day, the machines are getting really smart, really fast!
With 2017 around the corner, programmatic continues to grow with digital ad spending reaching record highs yet again. We take a look at what’s trending next year in the programmatic scene across North America, EMEA, LATAM and APAC. In EMEA, mobile will continue to dominate accounting for £3.2 billion in total programmatic display ad spending.
From a philosophy and religion major, to touring the country following the Grateful Dead and even becoming a professional canoe guide, Michael Weaver, VP, Product Strategy, Growth Media at MediaMath, never thought he’d end up in the advertising field or digital economy while in college.
“In my dorm, there was one person who had a computer that we all tried to share to write papers on,” said Weaver. “But most of my papers were written on a typewriter!”
Now, Weaver is at the forefront of mobile.
He got his first taste of digital through a friend. “In 1993, a friend of mine who was very involved in the new age of computers was talking about the World Wide Web which we were just coming into familiarity with. So we started a little company out of our apartment where we would go to stores and restaurants offering to build a website for them.”
After his first exposure to the digital landscape, Weaver’s college roommate started his own company called BlueStreak. Here, Weaver was able to go to ad agencies and explain that there’s this thing called the internet.
“I’d have to explain to people that they’re going to need a website and, when that happens, they’re going to want to advertise. And when they advertise, they’re going to need to measure and deliver ads,” said Weaver. “So it was a lot of explaining the future to a lot of ad agencies in that role.”
After BlueStreak, Weaver started his own company Third Screen Media because, he says, “I saw mobile coming.” This was pre-iPhone days, pre-apps, pre-universal SMS, but he saw it coming because it was the future and advertisers were interested. Thereafter, it was sold to AOL, which was known as America Online at the time and after a stint at Microsoft, Weaver landed a job at MediaMath.
“Mobile is necessary. It’s 60 percent of the supply right now coming in to the bid stream, so six out of 10 hits on the internet are basically mobile-first. And if you start to skew towards millennials, its even higher,” said Weaver. “So it’s new and it’s exciting, but it’s not new because people are there. And its funny, I think back on talks and how positioning mobile has changed and it used to be messaging. Now it’s just ubiquitous, and it’s there and it’s the primary way people consume media, and that’s only going to increase.”
As 2016 is a coming to a close, the MediaMath team is looking back at the terrific year we’ve had. We’ve had the pleasure of making senior appointments in APAC, attending both Cannes Lions Festival and Dmexco and celebrating our 1 year anniversary at 4 World Trade Center!
We’ll be hosting a Twitter countdown to 2017 by highlighting our favorite moments and milestones of 2016 throughout the month of December, so follow along at @MediaMath, @MediaMathEMEA and @MediaMathAPAC or follow our hashtag, #MMLooksBack2016. You’ll be able to see our year in review and see predictions from our executive team and partners for 2017.
Thank you for continuing to support us in our journey and stay tuned for more to come in 2017!
From utilizing full-funnel programmatic to looking at how data is increasingly playing a role in the world of marketing, check out our top 5 performing blogs for the month of November.
• #1 Full-Funnel Programmatic: An Untapped Opportunity for Marketers
• #2 Infographic: Programmatic Expansion
• #3 The Future of Data in Programmatic
• #4 5 Questions About Programmatic Creative
• #5 Why Millennials Are More Likely to Block Ads — and What You Can Do About It
With 2017 around the corner, programmatic continues to grow with digital ad spending reaching record highs yet again. We take a look at what’s trending next year in the programmatic scene across North America, EMEA, LATAM and APAC. First, we take a look at North America where programmatic mobile video ad spending is expected to represent over half of total programmatic ad spending in the US alone.
Andrea Bonezzi joined New York University Stern School of Business as an Assistant Professor of Marketing in July 2012. Professor Bonezzi studies consumer judgment and decision-making. His research investigates fundamental behavioral phenomena that can inform marketing practice. Professor Bonezzi’s research has been published in leading marketing journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, and many more.
He firmly believes in providing students an opportunity to understand technology’s role in modern day marketing and its impact on consumer behavior. Professor Bonezzi is an advocate for applied learning methodologies and moves the needle in university curricula by embedding programmatic technology education into his teaching. His synergy with educational partners, like New Marketing Institute, is highlighted below.
Please provide a brief background into your role at the university and curriculum typically covered in your classroom.
I am an Assistant Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business. I have been teaching the core marketing course to undergraduate students for the past four years. The course aims to give students a solid understanding of the entire marketing process, from market analysis, to strategy identification and tactical execution.
How did you come to hear about New Marketing Institute (NMI) and how long have you been working with NMI?
I first heard about Mediamath three years ago from a student of mine who had just completed a summer internship there. He was absolutely thrilled about his internship and spoke very highly of people at Mediamath. At the time, I was looking for an expert on digital advertising who could come to class to explain to the students the very complex and very poorly understood digital advertising ecosystem. I contacted MediaMath, learned about NMI, and immediately realized that was the perfect partner. And now I’ve had the pleasure of working with NMI for the past two years.
What was your vision for working with an external company and its integration into your undergraduate curriculum?
My goal was to bring to class experts from the industry who could explain the intricacies of the digital advertising ecosystem. When I started my collaboration with NMI, and to a certain extent still today, there was a lot of confusion about the digital marketing ecosystem. Terms like programmatic buying, DSP and SSP were poorly understood and rarely covered in marketing courses. At the same time, many companies were shifting large portions of their advertising budgets towards digital. Thus, I thought it would be crucial to bring to class experts from the industry who could clearly explain to students how digital advertising works.
Why did you choose to receive training from NMI and how did you work together to customize content?
Since the very first time I talked to the team at NMI I have been impressed, not only by their expertise, but also by their genuine interest in fostering education about the digital advertising industry. I met both in person and via Skype with the NMI team to create a customized module that would fit with the content of the course and would be appropriate for undergraduate students.
Briefly describe your experience during training. Did you receive any feedback from students?
The experience was great, and in fact I invited NMI to come to my course again in the future. The content was terrific and the delivery even better. Students were engaged, and asked questions on the topic not only during the presentation itself, but also during the following class meeting. I had the opportunity to invite a professor from NYU Spain to one of the lectures, who was also introduced to the team which ultimately led to trainings in Madrid just this past year. Students’ feedback was extremely positive. They felt they left with a solid understanding of how digital advertising works.
“MediaMath’s presentation definitely encouraged me to consider digital advertising as a field with so much potential for value and synergy to be created in new ways as this industry is so young. I would definitely be interested in starting a company that combines multiple aspects of the industry or connects different aspects of the industry in newfound ways.” Samuel Kaufman – NYU Stern, Class of 2019 | Business Administration – Concentrated in Finance and Marketing
We profile our New Marketing Institute facilitators, who are responsible for leading trainings for clients, partners and colleagues around the globe. Trevor Miranda, Manager, Training & Certification for EMEA, is interviewed by Ohi Oni-Eseleh, Business Analyst for NMI.
1. Tell us about your previous work experience prior to starting at MediaMath.
I’ve worked in a few different industries before starting in advertising, starting out supporting journalists on a massive news application and even moving into public service at my local council. Most recently I worked at an ad tech company called Mediaocean, which focused on facilitating the direct media buying process across all media channels. This was hugely beneficial for starting at a company like MediaMath because I truly understand the efficiencies programmatic marketing brings to the buying process.
2. How did you first get involved in adtech?
I’d always had an interest in technology and had no idea about the ad tech world, which is predominantly hidden from the consumer. My last role was my first introduction to this world and I was immediately captivated by the amount of work involved in actually delivering an ad. I saw budgets start moving towards digital and the next step for me seemed to be clear, programmatic.
3. When did you realize that you wanted to go into training?
Pretty much as soon as I started my first job. I really enjoyed training new hires when I worked at the Associated Press and got more and more focused on training as I changed roles. I realized I enjoyed helping people get the most of out a system and understand complex ideas. I love helping clients learn how to do new things with systems that make their jobs easier.
4. Why do you feel education is important in the adtech space?
Education in a lot of organizations can sometimes be an afterthought. In this industry especially, it’s hugely important to ensure that everyone can be brought up to speed as quickly as possible. Just look at the Display Lumascape and you can see how confusing this industry looks, not only to a newcomer but to someone who has been working in one of these areas for a while. Programmatic has become one of these words that’s thrown around and a lot of people don’t understand what it actually means. This misunderstanding causes resistance to change and potential opposition to something that could be a real value add to everyday business. It’s important to break down those barriers and create a space where people feel comfortable enough to learn.
5. What courses do you currently facilitate?
I currently teach pretty much every course NMI offers. The majority of my time is focused on training clients on our platform, TerminalOne, and I love helping clients learn how to optimize their campaigns in particular. I also run our functional marketing courses and I recently created a new ‘workshop’ format for our Programmatic 101 course.
6. What is a new topic you hope to learn about? (industry related or not)
The technology around attribution is something I feel I could spend a lot of time on. We have just launched a session called Understanding Attribution which gives a good introduction to the topic, but I could definitely take a deeper dive into this topic and learn more. Online to offline attribution in particular is like the holy grail right now and I’d love to know more about how we’re getting there as an industry.
7. How do you stay up to date/current on what’s going on in the industry
I read a lot. I follow various industry blogs and sites and LinkedIn is also a great source of information. I also try and attend IAB and DMA events wherever possible. It’s also important to talk to colleagues and clients too because knowing what they’re dealing with is hugely beneficial.
8. Do you have an industry leader you look up to?
There are a few, but Karen Blackett (Chairperson, MediaCom UK) is one person that always comes to mind. She was once named the most influential black person in Britain and has achieved a huge amount of success in her career. Despite this, she would always socialize around the MediaCom London office and seemed like a great leader.
9. Tell us your secret talent.
I guess this isn’t really a secret if you’ve hung out with me, but I love singing. Karaoke is one of my favorite things, so if you can duet ‘Easy Lover’ with me, we’ll be friends.
