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MediaTrends

Purpose as a MediaMath Differentiator

October 27, 2020 — by MediaMath

Advertising is the WD-40 of the economy. It greases the gears, connecting the creators of goods and services to the people that want and need them. In the process, jobs are created, families are provided for, and communities are sustained. That is a purpose worth fulfilling. But just as important, though less obvious, is the fact that advertising finances the vast majority of our media ecosystem—everything from social media to connected television to gaming and mobile applications. As a result, the health of that ecosystem—the stories that get told, the investment possible for journalism, the content our kids are exposed to, the facts on which we base our democratic deliberation—are all dependent on what our industry chooses to finance and how. We must all ask ourselves if we are rising to the challenge of financing the right things.

Ensuring that advertising spend continues to make the critical connection between producer and consumer while also financing a healthy ecosystem—one healthy for our democracy, our kids, and our mental health—is the challenge for the next wave of programmatic advertising. To succeed, it will take brands that care about purpose, technology built for purpose, and authentic messaging and efforts that align brand values with advertising spend.

The importance of brand purpose

Brands recognize the need to make their purpose, their reason for being, the core of their message to consumers. The Association of National Advertisers surveyed their members on the importance of purpose and the response was overwhelming. In their report, the quotes from leading marketers made the case plain. “My job as a marketer is to express our purpose and share it with the world, and to realize that it may not be for everyone, but it will be meaningful and important to those who find resonance with its mission,” said Geoff Seeley, global marketing director at Airbnb. “That’s how you remain a brand people embrace and want to be involved with.”

The report also cites a Kantar Consulting survey of consumers that found that 72% said more companies should take a stand on social issues and 85% said that they appreciate it when a brand makes its values clear. The desires of CMOs and consumers are aligned. Our tools help connect them.

Curated multicultural and news marketplaces for brands that value diversity and journalism

The Purpose-Driven Advertising initiative we have created at MediaMath starts with the idea that brands want to reach diverse audiences, support minority publishers, preserve the open Internet, and reward quality content with journalistic standards. We have created two curated markets as the foundation of the effort to enable that investment: a multicultural marketplace and a news marketplace.

In the wake of the rising awareness of the need for reform in policing after the George Floyd incident, multiple major brands came out in solidarity with the Black Lives Matters movement. Major brands have committed to investing in minority employees, communities, and businesses. This is meant to be a movement, not a moment.

That got us thinking about how their marketing spend could help. Our multicultural marketplace is composed of close to 1,000 minority-owned publishers. Investing in that media finances the telling of stories we all need to hear, makes authentic the commitment to economic development in minority communities, and connects brands to an audience that needs and wants to hear their message. Using additional tools to expand reach, brands can also use audiences of consumers who have self-identified as supporting BLM and communicate their solidarity there as well. If we really care about ensuring that the needs and lives of minorities in America are heard and met, then we can’t let those stories drown in a sea of lowest common denominator content intended simply to reach as many eyeballs as possible.

Tools enabling brands to help make the Internet safe and suitable for commerce and discourse

Beyond elevating minority voices, we need to make sure that those who would abuse the Internet understand that the right to free speech is not a right to free amplification of division and hate. The #StopHateforProfit boycott of Facebook this summer highlighted the need for our industry to elevate and use tools to protect brands from financing hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation. Too many marketers are doing so unwittingly today.

We have partnered with NewsGuard and are working with the Global Disinformation Index to put in place some baseline protections to ensure that our clients are not financing misinformation and disinformation. And we make those organizations’ more advanced tools available for more intensive protection as well.

NewsGuard rates the nearly 6,000 websites responsible for approximately 95% of all the news and information consumed and shared online in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and Italy.  Their ratings icon provides useful information to educate both readers and advertisers on the quality of the journalism on the Internet and makes it possible to disinvest from questionable news content.

Making it all easy to execute

We get that many advertisers will remain social-first in their digital strategies and that we must make running that same creative on the open Internet easy. Our partnerships with Spaceback and TripleLift enable an efficient shift in marketer spend from user-generated content to trusted publishers running the same creative brands are running on social. Brands can take that creative to our multicultural or news marketplaces or out to the open Internet and change the incentives and dynamics of our ecosystem while encouraging the development of safe, independent content and services across the Internet.

It’s time to put our money where our mouths are

The proclamations of commitment to purpose and progress are many and vocal across the world’s leading brands. As a demand-side provider of advertising technology, where we sit in the supply chain enables us to help our clients manage their media spend to meet their marketing goals. Through our Purpose-Driven Advertising initiative and with our tech and media partners and clients, we want to differentiate ourselves by helping put advertising to more intentional use. Our suite of purpose-driven advertising products and solutions are designed to help our clients communicate authentic messages, form genuine connections with consumers, and ensure that their campaigns further the beliefs and causes for which they stand. Let’s turn words into action and make advertising spend a force for good.

EventsTrends

Targeting and Measurement in CTV

October 23, 2020 — by MediaMath

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IAB Europe recently held a virtual CTV event in which our VP of Client Success, Noemi McKee, moderated a panel on the challenges and solutions around targeting and measurement. t’s not possible to just copy digital tactics and apply them to CTV, so the panel of measurement experts from Integral Ad Science, Oracle, DoubleVerify, Comscore and Kantar Insights Division shared their guidance and best practices on CTV measurement and campaign performance.

“It’s really terrific that connected TV really does merge perfectly television and digital capabilities together,” said Carol Hinnant, CRO, Comscore. “You get the reach and frequency with the addressability of digital.

“But the challenge for connected TV in the current state is really from a representativeness to the marketplace, a standardization of the various CTV manufacturers. It’s one thing to have TVs shipped, but it’s another thing to have the data harvested and then standardized in a method that is consistent across the various groups.”

Of course, knowing what your goals are as an advertiser running a CTV campaign is critical.

“The key thing is really to evaluate at the start of that campaign what are you trying to achieve from the CTV activity,” said Kristanne Roberts, Global Development Director, Kantar Insights Division. “Are you looking to get incremental reach on your campaign? Are you looking to really drive home some messaging with specific audiences? And from that, you can start to work through what is the appropriate method for that measurement.”

Watch the full 30-minute panel below.

DataMediaTrends

Download our 2020 Holiday Guide for Retail

October 19, 2020 — by MediaMath

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For eCommerce retailers and those with robust digital capabilities, Holiday 2020 can be a success. Holiday sales are expected to increase 3-4% and retail e-commerce sales 44.5% year-over-year. eCommerce also accounted for 16.1% of total retail sales in Q2, up from 11.8% in the first quarter of 2020.

While COVID-19 quarantine measures abated over the summer, cautions of a second wave as students and teachers return to school and the flu season looms will prompt 71% of US adults to do more than half of their holiday shopping digitally this year. Consumers will also take advantage of options like click and collect, which eMarketer expects to grow 60.4% this year, with sales reaching $58.52 billion.

It is more important than ever for retailers to build a strong digital presence as consumers start their holiday browsing, carting and purchasing, likely even earlier than they did last year. In 2019, half of the season’s revenue was complete by Dec. 3. Encouraging earlier gift shopping this year will help reduce the
risk of losing share of wallet.

We’re here to help retailers plan for Q4 even as the world continues to change. Download our 2020 MediaMath Holiday Guide for tips on how to make this holiday season a success for your brand. You’ll get access to:

  • Holiday audience packages
  • Recommendations for reaching across device
  • Measurement approaches for both online and in-store
  • How to leverage native, creative and social display

Happy holiday advertising!

EventsTrends

Vodafone Talks Bringing Transparency to the Programmatic Supply Chain

October 14, 2020 — by MediaMath

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Back in May, the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) released findings of its two-year-long research on the underpinnings and value of the current programmatic supply chain. The group interviewed 15 DSPs, including Vodafone, Unilever and Nestle, on the challenges they have encountered in fully understanding where their dollars are going. ISBA identified a need to work across industry to fix issues such as unattributable costs, money not getting back to the publisher and a lack of data-sharing between the buy and sell sides.

As part of the Programmatic Pioneers virtual event in Europe, Jens Bargmann, GM DACH, Nordics, Southern, Central & Eastern Europe at MediaMath, recently spoke virtually with Richard Kanolik, Head of Programmatic at Vodafone, to talk about how the industry has been working to solve some of these challenges since the ISBA report came out. Watch the below chat to see how a major EMEA brand is tackling topics such as transparency, in-housing and the future of advertising on the open Web.

DataEventsTrends

MediaMath Becomes First DSP to Natively Bid, Buy & Attribute on LiveRamp IDL Thanks to Massive Identity Re-Architecture

October 5, 2020 — by MediaMath

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We are proud to be the first DSP to natively bid, buy and attribute on LiveRamp IdentityLink (IDL) globally thanks to our massive identity re-architecture that gives advertisers flexibility in how they reach their audiences across devices. Hear more about how this integration provides marketers a best-in-class experience for targeting and measurement in order to power premium consumer experiences from Travis Clinger, Senior Vice President, Addressability and Ecosystem at LiveRamp, in this Beet.TV interview below.

DataMediaTechnologyTrends

Programmatic Buying: Accountability & Transparency in Focus

September 9, 2020 — by MediaMath

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We are excited to announce our series with Beet.TV “Programmatic Buying: Accountability & Transparency in Focus,” which explores how we can build an accountable, addressable and aligned digital media supply chain to solve for the interconnection of brand-safe advertising, funding of quality publishers and consumer respect. Check out the first videos from Jeremy Steinberg, our Global Head of Ecosystem, and Tom Kershaw, CTO at our partner Magnite, below, and check back for more to come from IBM, LiveRamp, PubMatic, Tru Optik, Oracle, TRUSTX and MMA.

DataMediaTechnologyTrends

Accountability is a Top Priority for Marketers Who Seek Greater Transparency into the Supply Chain

August 19, 2020 — by MediaMath

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“There’s so much good that’s associated with programmatic in being able to make much more intelligent, real-time, data-driven decisions, but the supply chain is complicated and messy and hard to penetrate and confusing for a lot of brands and their agencies.”

Those words were spoken by Joanna O’Connell, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, in her interview with Beet.TV on the issues around transparency and trust in our current digital media supply chain.

In July 2020, MediaMath commissioned a custom study executed by Forrester Consulting called “Confident Media Spending Requires A More Transparent And Addressable Supply Chain” which shows that of 220 advertisers surveyed, 55% cite challenges working across partner ecosystems and 48% say having less visibility into costs and fees is contributing to less transparency in the digital media supply chain today.

Watch more in the video with O’Connell below and download “Confident Media Spending Requires A More Transparent And Addressable Supply Chain” here.

DataTrends

Independent Research by Forrester Finds Advertisers’ Need for a Transparent, Trustworthy Supply Chain to Prove ROI

August 13, 2020 — by MediaMath

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Whether it’s zero-based budgeting or a focus on profitability, most advertisers are feeling the pressure to get the most value from their marketing investments—especially amidst current global events. But many advertisers have been unable to quantify the ROI of their digital ad spend. It’s an issue that has been independently validated in recent reports like ISBA’s “Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency Study,” which showed that 15% of advertising costs are unaccounted for. In July 2020, MediaMath commissioned a custom study executed by Forrester Consulting called “Confident Media Spending Requires A More Transparent And Addressable Supply Chain” which shows that only 33% of more than 220 advertisers surveyed say they can demonstrate and report the financial return on their programmatic media spend completely and accurately.

The reason many advertisers can’t tie their ad spend back to their business’s bottom line comes down to a murky digital media supply chain. A more well-lit ecosystem is critical to informing advertisers’ buying decisions. According to the Forrester Consulting study:

  • 94 percent of marketers face executive scrutiny over how digital media spend is performing yet only 33 percent of marketers say they can demonstrate and report the financial return on their programmatic media spend completely and accurately.
  • Over 70% of respondents find media accountability, transparency, addressability, and alignment across the media ecosystem partner interests important to their programmatic buying decisions.
  • Marketers were most likely to say they lacked a fundamental understanding of the role intermediaries play in media buying today, which 39% cited as a top challenge.
  • When it comes down to what is contributing to less transparency in the digital media supply chain today, 48% note having less visibility into costs and fees.

Download the full study here.

We created the SOURCE supply chain with 15 key industry partners to combat these very challenges. With better alignment of brand and publisher interests in MediaMath’s SOURCE supply chain, advertisers get more accurate ROI calculations and improved return on ad spend overall relative to legacy programmatic—127% increased ROAS for one B2C RETAILER—and 15%+ more efficiency over legacy programmatic execution. Our supply chain has modernized commercial terms that hold each partner contractually accountable for providing incremental value within the ad tech supply chain. And exclusive data-sharing with our SOURCE supply chain helps put more of every dollar to work.

Consumer behavior is shifting rapidly toward an all-digital expression. Many brands will seek to take advantage of this opportunity, but with so many changes happening in the world, what’s the best way to proceed in 2020? We think digital advertising on the open Web executed through more trustworthy, transparent pipes is the answer.

Trends

Majority of Consumers Say Brands Share Responsibility if Their Ads Appear Next to Hateful Content, Misinformation

August 5, 2020 — by MediaMath

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Understanding consumers has never been more critical for marketers. They have major concerns about ethical violations by social media platforms, and believe brands have a responsibility to ensure that both the content of their ads and the content adjacent to their ads are in line with their values. MediaMath commissioned a survey of 1,000 individuals through Dynata, and the results reinforce that it’s time for advertisers to revisit their spend and think about the kind of discourse and content they want to support with their ad dollars. See some of the key insights in our infographic below.

Trends

CTV: From COVID-19 to the Post-Cookie World

July 1, 2020 — by MediaMath

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This post originally went live on our SOURCE partner LiveRamp’s blog here and has been adapted for our blog .

A dramatic increase in time spent consuming media at home at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a shift to OTT content on CTV devices. A few fast facts from Advertiser Perceptions:

  • Streaming services went up 40%
  • Smartphone use went up 34%
  • Content consumption on the Web went up 34%

Q2 research from the IAB shows that when it comes to changes in how marketers are targeting consumersOTT/CTV device targeting experienced the second biggest jump next to audience targeting.

CTV supply and viewership on the rise

There’s less inventory demand than there’s ever been with brands pulling back spend yet more supply, which has caused prices to drop. We saw within our platform inventory supply for CTV grow 20% from February. We’ve also seen an increasing portion of buys shift towards mobile in-app CTV, further highlighting COVID-19 influencing industry trends.

We can’t be completely certain, but preliminary studies predict how consumption behaviors may evolve or accelerate long-term due to COVID-19-prompted adaptations and disruptions. As an example, cord-cutting was already a trend before COVID-19 and will continue to be one as we enter the next phases of reopening. But even more pressing to call out is that consumers are no longer pursuing just one or two ways of consuming TV content. Instead, they are using a combination of different platforms across different devices, at different points in time. With new platforms and content emerging, TV content has become truly on-demand, not just in terms of time viewed but also across both devices and platforms used to view this content.

CTV: A critical channel for driving addressability

CTV will also be an important channel in the post-third-party cookie world as advertisers look to achieve greater addressability across devices. First-party identity is based on user-authentication and respect for privacy preferences—this is the path forward. Pseudonymous identifiers such as LiveRamp’s IdentityLink® are based in this type of user authentication. They will offer addressability in browsers and channels where third-party cookies are or become restricted.

The key to making the most of the CTV opportunity, both now and in the future, is to treat CTV holistically and create a strategy including all screens and formats. To do that, an identity graph that includes an idea of how CTVs associate with users and their other devices is critical. These connections power true omnichannel marketing and measurement while enabing the following capabilities:

  • Extension of first-party data to CTV
  • Reach and frequency management across devices
  • CTV audience targeting, including behavioral and demographic targeting
  • Driving ROI on CTV brand awareness spend through retargeting users on other devices
  • Omnichannel sequential messaging
  • Capturing OTT viewership—CTV content consumed not just on TV, but across other digital devices

Identity graphs can also add a household-level association to users and devices—this enables more powerful attribution and features for linear buyers:

  • Increased incremental reach on TV buys, critical due to audience fragmentation on linear
  • Ability to reach cord-cutters and cord-nevers or light TV viewers who may not have been exposed to linear TV commercials
  • More holistic measurement across devices that tells a true story of cross-screen customer engagement

Managing identity is vital to CTV

Managing identity is a crucial step in making the most of CTV both during COVID-19 and once the third-party cookie goes away. Look at this example of a full-funnel, omnichannel campaign that converts CTV spend into ROI:

  1. Awareness: A customer who is part of a loyalty program sees an ad on their CTV about a new product.
  2. Interest: The customer gets sequential ads about a holiday promotion on their phone.
  3. Consideration: This piques the customer’s interest—they check out the website, but don’t make a purchase.
  4. Purchase: ID #1234 gets ads on their laptop reminding them of the holiday sale and makes a purchase!

There is much work to do and much change ahead as we continue to navigate both the next phases of COVID-19 and the phaseout of third-party cookies. CTV will continue to be an increasingly critical channel for a marketer’s mix as they aim to reach consumers with both relevance and respect.