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Ad Tech, Communication and You

February 4, 2016 — by MediaMath

Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try to communicate, somehow your message just doesn’t come across the way you want it to? Communicating face to face, or, in the now more common way, through electronic media, is super challenging. Selecting the right words and delivering your message in an engaging way takes work. At MediaMath, we understand the power of communicating effectively with your audience across channels. Different channels require different messages, while the multi-faceted make-up of global audiences further complicates matters.

We let our marketing experts communicate our company’s mission to the world. But keep in mind there are many micro-communications that must happen on various levels within the walls of MediaMath every day and in every department in order to deliver on that mission. The same challenges of word choice and tone find their way into these daily interactions, and also require work and practice (and a dash of patience) to yield productive results and foster sound relationships. Marketing is communication of brand and product. Done right, it establishes and builds a connection from company to consumer. At the individual level, professional communication deepens understanding, enables collaboration and builds trust – when executed skillfully.

How achievable is good communication?

We know what we want to say (sometimes) and we imagine that our message will be clear and interpreted correctly by our listeners. But when it comes out, sometimes our message gets lost or we may start to become self-conscious and lose our grove. Relax, it happens to us all. Take a deep breath and resume. If it happens most of the time or more than you are comfortable with, it’s time to turn more of your attention to what’s going on. There are many factors affecting our ability to communicate such as differences in culture, our communication style, how we perceive ourselves and how we think others perceive us all collaborate

With all of these factors, how can we ever hope to improve our communication abilities? What does it matter if we are an expert in our field? As long as your work product is good, do you actually need to worry about effective communication? You know the answer or you wouldn’t be reading this blog post on communicating. To highlight the importance of communicating, consider these work-related areas requiring verbal skills:

Announcing an innovation
Negotiating deals
Motivating your team
Collaborating
Describing ideas or findings
Networking
Coaching
Brainstorming
Resolving conflict or confusion
Giving praise or encouragement
Constructive feedback
Sharing your accomplishments with your manager
Speaking in public talks and presentations

If you are a professional in any field, you are communicating. This could be overwhelming to think about. To make it manageable, let’s distill the focus of our exploration down to styles, contexts and essential tips for improvement, which can be applied to every type of communication you will find yourself involved in.

Styles

There are a variety of approaches to classifying communication style. Popular ones include levels of aggressiveness, assertiveness and passivity. Another approach looks at whether you’re a Doer/Thinker, Influencer/Connector. You could be an Analytical, Intuitive, Functional or Personal communicator. Communication can be informal or formal, and I encourage you to find a style of execution that is somewhere in the middle between formal and informal no matter how else you are classified. Embrace a style that you can shift easily depending on the context you’re in and who you are communicating with. Make sure it feels natural. Levels of formality in how we communicate are shaped by our culture and upbringing, but you can modify this if you focus some attention on the environment you are in and how you are generally received. Adaptability will enable you to know when and how to modify your communication style if you increase your awareness. Take a communication quiz to see where you fall.

Contexts

Do you find it easier to communicate 1-1 or in small groups? Prefer live, face-to-face meetings or virtual contact? We need to be effective in all kinds of environments– live/virtual–including meetings and, at times, in front of larger groups. Many people fear public speaking, yet the same style you apply to your more intimate communication scenarios can apply there, too, just amplified a bit. If you have the opportunity to do public speaking, stand up and say yes. If you have already tried it and found it daunting or challenging, re-examine the experience to find out why. When delivering a talk or speech, you are basically having a conversation with 20, 50 or 100 or more people—yes, en masse they are still just people. Treat them that way and it is a lot less scary. Build your confidence—watch this TED Talk for a primer.

Getting Started

To begin your path to better communication, consider these tips and resources:

Listen to those speakers and conversationalists who seem to have great ease with communicating—you will find some things to borrow and incorporate into your own communication style.
Being able to make information meaningful and engaging requires adding some human elements like passion for the subject or emphasis on important aspects using tone variations.
Ask questions and listen to your audience.
Be authentic: be yourself; know your topic.
Open up and risk being vulnerable to be great!
Learn to tell a story: make it short, lively and include an element of surprise.

Careers People Uncategorized

Always Do This When Making a Tough Decision

January 26, 2016 — by MediaMath

This byline originally appeared yesterday on Fortune.com

Every leader makes tough decisions differently, depending on their leadership style, which is often the result of prior experiences and personality type.Additionally, according to several studies gender also plays a role in how you lead and make decisions, particularly the tough ones. But there are several ways to make the process of making tough decisions easier regardless of these factors:

Collaborate

Even if the decision is ultimately yours to make, it helps to bring others into the process. However, women tend to be more comfortable with this approach of collaboration than men. Based on a March 2013 survey of 600 corporate board directors published in theInternational Journal of Business Governance and Ethics,women are more likely to focus on cooperation to make a fair decision that considers all parties impacted, whereas men use a rules-based approach and more traditional ways of engaging in business. So when applicable, solicit input from others with the right expertise who can provide more insight and perspective for the challenge you’re trying to solve.

Be transparent

Transparency is a buzzword in corporate America, and even more pervasive in my world of ad tech. But don’t discount the idea just because the word is oversaturated. Create a transparent working environment that opens up the lines of communication and eliminates the element of surprise for others when a specific outcome is finally unveiled. According to the third annual Ketchum Leadership Communication Monitor more individuals in business are prioritizing areas like communication and transparency than ever before. Of the 6,000 individuals surveyed, 74% said effective communication is “very important” to being a great leader, yet only 29% felt leaders actually communicate effectively.

Additionally, according to leadership consultant Robert Staub, better transparency happens when the decision-making process is linked to a “criteria screen” that considers the company’s mission and values when arriving at conclusions. When this is not done, there can be a sense in the organization that decisions are made without an overarching set of principles, which can lead to a lack of trust. Communication regarding important decisions should always trickle top-down to the rest of the business.

Opt for a “buy in” approach

Once you’ve come to a decision and communicated effectively, post-decision aftermath is also crucial. If you’re going to be transparent about the fact that you’re making a tough business decision, you’ll want to get critical support from others in your organization once your choice is finalized. Again, women focus on consensus-building but men are more likely to find executive sponsors for their initiatives, according to research published in a 2010 issue of Harvard Business Review. The executive team is helpful, but broad-based consensus is key to ensuring a decision resonates with your entire team.

Careers People Uncategorized

Designing a New Career as a Digital Marketer

January 25, 2016 — by MediaMath

Two years ago I was a fashion designer, and four months ago I was writing logic for an app that helps teach programmatic marketing. If there are uncharted parts of your brain that you are dying to explore, continue reading this post.

For seven years, I spent my time designing fabric, jackets, furniture, bicycles and more. It was a small fashion company, so when there was a new need, I took on responsibility outside of my job description: I rebuilt two eCommerce sites, I designed an archival system for thousands of garments and I developed methodologies for graphic design that turned the jobs of three people into one. Over time, I realized that I got more excitement from a successful business decision than from designing a great sport coat. I wanted more opportunities to innovate and to be a part of something groundbreaking, so I decided to look for a career change.

It took me about five minutes to find MediaMath. I searched Glassdoor for “top companies to work for in NYC,” and found “MediaMath” towards the top of the list. I was immediately drawn to the name, and after a few clicks, I was on the Marketing Engineering Program (MEP) website. I read that in the Marketing Engineering Program, I would rotate onto different teams at MediaMath, learning the ways of the industry. Full-time training? Getting paid to learn and become an expert in trailblazing technology? I was sold.

For the first four weeks of the Marketing Engineering Program, my calendar was jam-packed with introductions to various MediaMath teams, training sessions on TerminalOne and learning all aspects of the ad tech industry. I shared the journey with nine other MEPs, each from a different walk of life. There was a chef, an executive-level administrative assistant and a recent graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering, just to name a few. We were all so different, but it was obvious that we had something in common: we were excited to learn, we wanted to work in a collaborative environment and we all loved the fast-paced culture.

At the one-month-mark, the MEPs headed to Adroit Digital to learn how to manage TerminalOne campaigns. We were dying to get hands-on experience, but we were still at arm’s length, literally looking over the shoulders of Adroit campaign managers as they made optimizations. When we were assigned a research project, I felt a little deflated. Finally, after a few weeks, I began managing my first campaign. I knew exactly what settings to start with because I had seen campaigns set up several times by Adroit managers. I also knew how to structure my campaign strategy, through researching the market and positioning myself against competitors. It occurred to me that all the MEP training and assignments were designed to culminate perfectly in the moment I started my first campaign. I felt like Daniel-san in the Karate Kid being told by Mr. Miyagi to “paint the fence” and “wax the car,” unknowingly transforming into a karate master.

On our final rotation, I was placed on Platform Solutions (PS). The PS charter is simple: make sure TerminalOne clients are happy and educated on how new technologies can help improve marketing performance. In my first week on PS, I was already advising a large client on best practices in TerminalOne. It was a rush to be trusted with client-facing discussions while I was still training as a MEP. The best advice I can give future MEPs is to identify the most exciting part of MediaMath and work as hard as possible to contribute to that part of the company. I ended up loving my Platform Solutions role, and the team that I had rotated onto.

The MEP gave me several other career opportunities, but instead of hedging my bets, early on I was completely focused on Platform Solutions–learning how to interact with clients, sharpening my mastery of TerminalOne, and understanding all of the upcoming tech in the industry. The MEP gave me the time to discover what excited me in the industry, and then the opportunity to immerse myself in focused training. My hard work paid off, and the MEP helped catapult me into a manager role on the team with which I fell in love.

The Marketing Engineering Program became my alma mater, a badge of honor, and I try to contribute to its ongoing success. I have given TerminalOne trainings to the second and third MEP cohorts, I actively mentor new MEPs and I work with the MEP managers to help brainstorm new trainings and assignments. The Marketing Engineering Program helps me stay in touch with the principles of MediaMath, through innovation, collaboration and hard work, all while having fun. It is refreshing to be part of a culture where your brain is more important than your resume–and where all walks of life are welcome!

Careers Culture People Technology Uncategorized

4 Steps for Acquiring Sophisticated Users through Education

November 17, 2015 — by MediaMath

One million.

That’s the number of technology jobs that will go unfilled by 2020. Back in 2012, we recognized this skills gap and created the New Marketing Institute to educate the new generation of marketing professionals through a deep understanding of clients’ business needs and customized, timely content that is in alignment with those needs and overall business strategy.

Earlier this month at the NYC Uncubed event, I presented on “Acquiring Sophisticated Users through Education.” I outlined four steps that are crucial for achieving success in learning and development.

Educate

Education cannot be conducted in a vacuum. Each aspiring marketing professional is going to come from a different background, education and base of knowledge. That’s why at NMI we focus on “meeting the learner where there are”—both in a figurative and literal sense. To properly educate, you have to both know your audience and work to localize and globalize training materials to address cultural, language and regional differences. Additionally, you must ensure the content is relevant and timely, both in the context of your learners’ individual needs and the digital marketing landscape.

Engage

While the Educate step largely addresses the design of learning materials for users, Engage gets into the nitty-gritty of how you facilitate learning—whether that is in a classroom, online or on-demand. Here, it’s even more important to know your audience. For instance, different global markets have different approaches. For all audiences, approaching learning in bite-sized chunks can help learners digest highly technical information in a way that lets them continue to build upon their knowledge. Attendees of NMI’s classes in the past have pointed out that we have best-in-class facilitators who are engaged, enthusiastic and experts at their subject matter.

Empower

NMI’s courses are purposely not designed to be conducted in long lecture format. The idea is not to dump a lot of highly technical information on students and talk “at” them. Rather, best practice is to marry the engagement style described above with student encouragement and enrichment. Listen, solicit feedback and provide additional relevant materials in the form of infographics, blogs and white papers. Also, let learners know that they can become the teacher. Individuals who have a natural inclination and eagerness to train on digital marketing and the technology that underpins it might want to consider NMI’s Train the Trainer program, which sets up individuals to be facilitators of our courses.

Connect

We said above education shouldn’t happen in a vacuum. It goes for both the students and the teachers. Learning happens outside of the classroom on an ongoing basis, and a team approach should always be valued over a siloed one. It takes a village—no one can educate the next generation of digital marketers on their own, and we believe strongly that building rapport with both industry and non-industry influencers is the key to success.

Careers People Uncategorized

The Drum’s 50 under 30 2015: MediaMath EMEA’s Frith Fraser making her mark on digital

October 26, 2015 — by MediaMath

Judged by four industry executives, it’s the third year in a row that The Drum has featured their “50 under 30” competition which champions talented, driven and innovative young women disrupting the digital space. In their commitment to celebrate women in the sector, the nominations poured in.

Amongst the young women profiled and highlighted, was none other than Frith Fraser, Senior Director, Global Account Strategy, MediaMath, whose remarkable career has already seen her develop MediaMath’s headquarters in APAC, speak at major industry events, and lead a reputable training programme to educate the next generation of digital marketing professionals.

With strategic vision and a flair for business development far beyond her years, Frith seized the opportunity to move to Singapore and establish MediaMath’s APAC headquarters. But Frith didn’t remain MediaMath’s first and only APAC employee for long. After just 14 months, Frith had expertly built and managed teams across Singapore and Japan.

In her current London-based role as Senior Director of Global Accounts Strategy at MediaMath, Frith leads key strategic projects for a key MediaMath client. She is central in helping companies to develop their programmatic strategies and achieve their marketing goals. With her innate ability to identify trends and keep one step ahead, Frith is leading the way towards a future where programmatic strategies are applied across all marketing efforts.

Read the original article and the interview below.

Tell us about your biggest career highlight to date:

In your twenties, opportunities to develop a business and experience different markets don’t come around very often. But just under two years ago I moved from London to Singapore to build MediaMath’s APAC headquarters. As the first employee in the region, I recruited and managed teams across Singapore and Tokyo, educated clients on the programmatic industry and presented at major industry events including ATS and ad:tech Tokyo. From managing MediaMath’s first projects in South Korea, to teaching the basics of programmatic in Indonesia, I loved the variation. Today MediaMath has three offices and 35 employees across the APAC region.

What does your average day look like?

Based from the London office, I now lead strategic projects for a major MediaMath client, advising and developing programmatic strategies to help them achieve their marketing goals. With the marketing industry continuously evolving, my goal is to bring fresh and exciting initiatives to my client every day.

How would your colleagues describe you?

Passionate, opportunist, energetic, and friendly!

Who inspires you most, either professionally or personally?

My family inspires me with their creative, get-up-and-go attitude.

If you weren’t in digital, what would you be doing?

A farmer!

Careers People Uncategorized

Bridging the Impossible Contradictions of the Modern Marketer

October 22, 2015 — by MediaMath

In an Econsultancy report from last year, 63 percent of respondents agreed that “a good understanding of technology is critical” for modern marketing leaders. Nearly the same percentage of the same group, however, also listed soft skills as important tools marketers should have in their arsenal. This is not an anomaly—companies increasingly expect modern marketers to be both analytical savants and skilled communicators. The catch? The majority of potential employees have no formal training.

How then does one become a “Modern Marketer?” Like most questions in our industry, you will likely get a different answer depending on whom you ask. However, what you’ll find in common is the notion that the Modern Marketer must know more today than ever before: varied technology platforms (DMPs, DSPs, SSPs), multiple marketing channels (social, mobile, video) and competing goal types (ROI, CPC, reach). Additionally, they need to be comfortable working across internal teams, managing relationships with clients and vendors and learning on-the-go. It’s a unique balance of experience, knowledge and skills.

At the New Marketing Institute, we are creating such a unique and balanced skill-set amongst participants with our Marketing Engineer Program (MEP). In my last article, I talked about the inception of this immersive training program and how it is equipping the next generation of digital marketers with the requisite technical and leadership skills. In many ways, Marketing Engineers are Modern Marketers. After only a few months of intensive training, participants successfully transition into highly technical positions usually reserved for candidates with years of experience.

This success is a result of our approach to MEP, which, unlike most traditional training programs, treats participants as a team rather than as individuals. As individuals, participants learn without a unified purpose and, as a result, each one views the learning process as a competition—can I learn more than the next person? Such a process breaks people apart instead of bringing them together and minimizes learning by discouraging knowledge sharing—which, as every educator will tell you, is essential to learning.

That is why we treat each cohort of Marketing Engineers as a team, with specific roles, responsibilities and a shared purpose: to become experts in digital marketing and programmatic. In this type of environment, learning (and learners) will flourish. Our focus is on developing a high-performing team, not high-performing individuals (although they become those as well). That means focusing on the people and the process, not just the outcome.

In practice, this approach is no different from how we traditionally manage teams. Marketing Engineers have weekly team meetings (which they lead), weekly one-on-one meetings with the Program Team to discuss goals, roadblocks and successes and regular team outings to learn more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses. As a result, they view their peers as collaborators, not competition. And as a team, they can consume and share information more quickly than any one individual would ever be able to digest. We see this in action every day: an engineering major teaching someone how to code; a former financial analyst teaching the group how to create a pivot table; a teacher sharing best practices for effective group facilitation. Each Marketing Engineer brings a unique skillset that they can share with the others. Moreover, as they become more immersed in their training, this culture of sharing becomes pervasive. As a team, their greatest asset is one another.

If we’re striving to create the Modern Marketer—an unconventional marketer by yesteryear’s standards—a conventional approach to training won’t get us there. Rather, we have to leverage the knowledge of others and foster an environment of social learning, one where expertise is a shared commodity. With this approach to learning, marketers can keep pace with the increasing demands of the ad tech industry and become the “next generation” of digital marketers.

Careers People Uncategorized

From Deepwater Drilling to Deep Data Insights: How I Became a Sales Engineer

October 20, 2015 — by MediaMath

I wasn’t always a sales engineer at an ad tech company. Just over two years ago, I was sitting in a very different kind of engineering office—an outfitted shipping container on a drillship in the Gulf of Mexico—running the measurement and logging operations for Chevron’s Deepwater project. I’d started work as a field engineer at Chevron after a few post-college jobs and internships, led by a desire to build awesome things and work on challenges that required technical prowess, creativity and the ability to think quickly. My ability to monitor and manage our drilling operation could make the difference between a dull day on the job and a catastrophic accident. After a year and a half in the field, I had earned the autonomy to lead a team to support tools and operations critical to the drilling process, but I was beginning to realize that I might have reached the ceiling for engineering challenges in this field.

Could I have foreseen that I would end up applying those same skills to client needs in advertising? Absolutely not. Could I have imagined, in my wildest dreams, that I would find “sales engineering” more engaging and exciting than working with enormous machines and processes? Turns out I had a lot to learn.

At the point in my previous career that I was most seriously considering changing course, serendipity (or fate) stepped in. An old partner-in-crime, from my performing arts days at Penn, was looking for a Jr. Solutions Engineer for his team at an ad tech company, according to his most recent Facebook post. Though I’d never heard of ad tech, I was at least some kind of engineer. I figured I had nothing to lose and reached out. This conversation with Prasanna Swaminathan was the first of many that convinced me that ad tech at MediaMath would be the place where I could take on fascinating and challenging technical problems, and have the kind of career growth potential that had seemed inconceivable when I spent most of my time on an isolated oil rig at sea.

Each conversation I had during the application process was more engaging than the last, sort of like a great date. Sometimes they would challenge me with something like a computational data efficiency problem. On another occasion, we got entirely sidetracked and I spent 10 minutes explaining and diagramming how sonic logging works (for the curious, sonic logging is a way to detect lithology and rock formations while drilling). When I was invited to the office to meet the team, I immediately felt energized and inspired, and the cultural dynamic that surrounded me felt like an organic fit.

You could imagine my disappointment when the recruiter called me a week later and told me that they weren’t considering me for the Jr. Solutions Engineer position, but instead wanted to hire me as a “Sales Engineer.” (“How could my two Java credits and high school C++ course not qualify me to play with the technology myself?!”) Nevertheless, I discussed the proposal with my soon-to-be manager, Michael Hauptman. To my surprise, he seemed to have given such careful consideration to not only my strengths, but also my goals and potential. He seemed genuinely interested in putting me in a position where I could advance quickly while learning new skills and trying my hand at some intriguing technical problems.

I’ve got to hand it to him—Sales Engineering has really suited me. My role essentially reconciles the needs of our clients with the capabilities and services we can provide, with more of a focus on advanced or highly technical use cases. On a day-to-day basis, I generally split my time between solving technical problems with the dedicated integrations engineers, and working with Platform Solutions and Sales to support clients strategically and tactically. As I had hoped, the technical and client-facing responsibilities from my previous role translated across industries surprisingly well. Two years and two roles later, I still often think about how so much of what I’ve learned and accomplished can be attributed to seeing the right post at the right time (meta!).

Careers Culture People Uncategorized

Infographic: Closing the Digital Marketing Talent Gap

September 23, 2015 — by MediaMath — 1

The adtech industry faces a huge education and talent gap. We hear this daily, but what are we doing to solve for this? Certification and blended learning approaches to meet the needs of all learners in this industry have become increasingly sought after for people trying to advance in their career or get their foot in the door. However, navigating the industry and landscape can be difficult, especially if you don’t know where to start. The New Marketing Institute (NMI) has made education accessible through an array of certification courses, immersion programs, and talent development. By meeting the learner where they are, NMI is not only addressing the talent gap but is also serving as the trusted educational resource in the industry.

Here’s a full view on how you can engage with NMI to help solve for this problem:

Careers People Uncategorized

From Clothing to Coding

September 8, 2015 — by MediaMath

In 2012, I left college with a sociology degree and a resume almost exclusively focused on field hockey. Thanks to good timing and previous connections, I found what I thought would be a strong career starting point in an entry level position at Tommy Hilfiger. “Do what you love and a career will follow,” I’d always been told. What could go wrong?

It took two years for me to realize exactly what would go wrong. While my love for fashion continued, the feeling did not transcend into my work. I wasn’t the glamorous Meryl Streep from The Devil Wears Prada hand selecting runway styles. My merchandising role confined me to a cubicle where I analyzed sales, planned promotions, and placed buys. The reports needed to complete my duties didn’t evolve with the style seasons. The illustrious world of fashion quickly became worn, redundant, and frustrating. I realized I wanted a job that provided constant growth, difficult challenges, and unpredictability. It was time to look elsewhere.

After some investigation, I concluded that I loved the variety and technological-focus of marketing, but needed to find a place that was open to innovation. I started looking online for new jobs but was hit hard by the seemingly impossible catch 22 every career changer knows. How do you gain experience in a new field when entry-level positions require experience? My first thought was to go back to school. Fortunately, I only got as far as buying the GMAT books before I stumbled across the MediaMath website. As soon as I found the Marketing Engineer Program, and I knew that I’d found my answer. This program was the entire package – I would receive the necessary ad-tech training and exposure needed to get my foot in the door. And the icing on the cake was they encouraged applicants with unrelated backgrounds!

The six months I spent in the the program allowed me to build connections, learn without judgment, and create my desired career path. Our ten-person cohort rotated through over eight departments, where we developed our soft skills and technical knowledge. While the program was heavily focused on campaign management and optimization, it also provided us with the ability to explore other fields. This is how I connected with Jon Pollack, a Vice President on Product and my unexpected guide through the technical terrain.

The Marketing Engineer Program strives to place every participant in a full-time role at MediaMath or one of our partner companies, but Product was not a traditional endpoint. When initially weighing the possibility of this unique path, it seemed like a suicide jump to go from clothing designers to software engineers. I wouldn’t be able to add value to the engineers by telling them their code would look better in a certain color. I was honest (maybe to a fault) about my interest in Product but my fear of lacking the technical background possessed by so many of my peers. However, Jon was extremely encouraging. He stressed that if you start off with the right materials (communication skills, an eagerness to learn, and the ability to comprehend technical concepts), you can rework them to create what you want. He agreed to do a trial run where he’d give me lessons if I committed to doing extra work outside the program.

Straight away, he threw me headfirst into coding, reasoning that it would be beneficial down the road. Starting off, I was intimidated and it was a struggle, to say the least. I didn’t know the difference between interactive and script mode, which forced me to retype every command in my terminal whenever I forgot a colon or an indentation. Eventually, after a lot of trial and error, textbook lessons, and sessions with Jon, I gained a basic understanding of loops, conditionals, and functions. As the lessons continued, I also learned about the inner workings of the ad-tech world (a much more complicated place than what I found in fashion) and I gained a deeper appreciation for the complex problems the backend teams are consistently solving.

While I’m far from being a hardcore coder, I have worked with Jon to write Python scripts that analyze global deals and parse through bid requests thus saving me from the time-consuming redundancy a manual process would have caused. Looking back a year, I wouldn’t even have put this in the realm of possibilities. Thanks to the Marketing Engineer Program, I was able to drastically and successfully change careers. Through this program I found an incredible mentor who continues to teach and challenge me everyday. In the end, I was able to swap buying clothes with buying media and I couldn’t be happier!

Careers People Technology Uncategorized

Tackling the Programmatic Skills Gap in France and Abroad

August 27, 2015 — by MediaMath

Damien Alzonne, Director, Platform Solutions for MediaMath France, was recently interviewed by French publication Viuz about the significance of programmatic skills in an increasingly fast-paced digital industry, which continues to innovate. In the interview, Damien discusses how to combat the programmatic skills gap for marketers, MediaMath is not only launching programmatic training in France, but rolling it out across the globe.

Below is a translated summary of this interview – you can also view the original interview in French here.   

Viuz: Why has MediaMath launched this programmatic training project?   

Damien: MediaMath noticed that in France in early 2011 – with the growth of programmatic – it was proving difficult for the company as well as our own clients to recruit the right talent. We believe that learning should be at the heart of corporate strategy and arming your employees with the skills necessary for not only personal development but ultimately business success and ROI, in a demanding and constantly evolving industry, is essential.

So, we decided to implement training through the “New Marketing Institute” (NMI), a MediaMath company – with the aim of evangelising the sector and programmatic advertising practices. The idea was to develop a strong educational centre that goes beyond the inner circle of specialists and thereby extends to the broader public – with the value of upholding best practices and keeping in line with the level of service and support that MediaMath offers its customers.

Simply put, we are launching this training because there are not enough marketers with programmatic trading skills, which impacts recruitment and development of the industry. Our goal is to prepare the new generation of programmatic marketers.

Viuz: Describe what sort of training is offered?

  Damien: The training programs can be completed online or in person with a view to become certified, enabling MediaMath employees, customers and anyone else who is interested in learning about programmatic. To date, over 5500 certifications have been issued, so more than 1500 in 2015!

NMI offers three modules and certification levels:

The first module is an Introduction to Digital Marketing and focuses on the evolution of digital advertising to programmatic, a general explanation of the sector, stakeholders and procurement models and also provides an introduction to the most basic aspects of online advertising, starting with the vocabulary.

The second module is divided into two stages, ‘TerminalOne for Beginners’ looks at MediaMath’s Marketing Operating System TerminalOne ™ and offers an introduction to the platform that covers campaign setup, strategy setup, pixels, targeting, and the basics of reporting, while ‘TerminalOne Advanced’ is a deeper dive that explores yield optimisation, insights, campaign strategies, “The Brain” and advanced reporting tactics.

The third certification module, ‘Omni-Channel Certification’ is a multi-module certification course on the technologies that marketers need to know in order to be truly literate in the programmatic space. We provide three separate tracks on tactics that go beyond regular display: video, social, and mobile. We recommend mastering each omni-channel offering to gain full-funnel knowledge of the digital ecosystem.  Another NMI offering is the “Marketing Engineer Program”, which aims to train young graduates by immersing them in a department rotation for six months, many of which result in employment at MediaMath or with our customers.

Viuz: Tell me about future projects.  

Damien: We are launching an initiative to bring us closer to colleges and universities to incorporate programmatic marketing in higher education.  The idea is to offer access to our tools in TerminalOne to allow media students and future traders to manage their first budgets (such as marketing activity in their school).

Aligned with this, we are developing bridges between the New Marketing Institute and professional training institutions to offer relevant training in programmatic – and as such we are building a “Train The Trainer” program to also prepare future trainers as programmatic experts.

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