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How to Up-level the Quality of Your Supply in 2019

June 26, 2019 — by MediaMath

Programmatic is central to nearly 40% of overall planning and execution of media buying by Asia-Pacific (APAC) marketers[1]. India specifically is the fastest-growing country for digital ad spend across the globe in 2019, with a 28% boost compared to last year[2].

It is this very rapid growth that has also created challenges in the ecosystem, including a supply chain riddled with fraud, intermediaries that add little value and uncertainty of the exact path to the impression. The internet as constructed was never intended to sensibly connect the diverse and complex technologies brought to bear by the myriad or adtech and martech constituents in our industry. In fact, most of the longstanding problems we’ve seen over the last few years – such as fraud and lack of transparency—have been caused by this complexity. From the core technology service providers to third-party data providers, advertisers are often unaware of how much spend is going to intermediary fees versus publishers.

However, the future is looking brighter. Select industry players are hard at work creating a more accountable, effective, trustworthy media supply chain from which all parties—marketers, publishers and consumers—can benefit. One of the ways that starts is through access to trusted, high-quality supply that is not blocked by partners that don’t add value.

How can marketers build the best supply strategy?

All of this means that the single most important thing a marketer can do when it comes to determining the best media strategy is ‘never assume’. With high levels of complexity across the supply chain, it is vital that marketers analyse their supply strategy and avoid making the wrong call. Marketers should build or buy specialist insights required for their brand-specific marketing campaign.

For many major brands, this means building a supply team to integrate their technology into the bidding stack. However, the expense and expertise required for this remains to be a challenge for many brands, which is why choosing the right media agency is so critical. The right agency can add real value as they can pool the demand of multiple advertisers in negotiating deals, provide deep industry expertise and negotiate vertical specific deals.

But it also means partnering with the right technology vendor. There are key things to look for:

Adoption of the IAB’s ads.txt initiative, which increases transparency by allowing publishers to publicly declare the companies they authorize to sell their digital inventory
Supply-path optimization to find the most direct path to the impression by removing intermediaries
A supply code of conduct that specifies behaviors that your vendor will and will not tolerate from its supply partners

In the end, the aim is to use the most optimal path to reach your user rather than hoping to find the user on specific supply sources. It is pertinent to have a holistic approach to a media supply strategy which can help everyone in the ecosystem—marketers, publishers and consumers alike —get the quality they deserve.

Media

MediaMath Partners with Rubicon Project to Enhance Supply Chain Solution

June 19, 2019 — by MediaMath

This article was originally published in MarTech Advisor. You can read the full article here.

MediaMath partnered with Rubicon Project to create an accountable and addressable supply chain through an alliance of agencies, brands, technology companies and publishers.

New York: MediaMath, acclaimed independent programmatic company for marketers, announced today that it is launching an effort to create a reimagined supply chain that works better for the entire industry. The company has partnered with Rubicon Project, the global exchange for advertising, to architect a direct and transparent programmatic delivery infrastructure. Havas is the first agency to join the effort. The collaboration is the first in a series of initiatives that MediaMath will be pursuing.

“The current media supply chain is failing advertisers, publishers and consumers,” said Joe Zawadzki, Founder & CEO, MediaMath. “We’re taking the first step to create necessary change by partnering with Rubicon Project and Havas. A more accountable and addressable ecosystem, with the right values and purpose, will only come if a motivated and united alliance of leading marketers and agencies, with the right tech companies and publishers, working together.”

MediaMath partnered with Rubicon Project to create an accountable and addressable supply chain through an alliance of agencies, brands, technology companies and publishers. This clean digital media supply provides long-term sustainable solutions featuring end-to-end fee transparency, direct connections between buyers and sellers and focuses on the availability of brand-safe, fraud-free, viewable inventory.

To drive improved buyer outcomes and publisher yield, MediaMath is developing advanced supply valuation algorithms along with ingesting Rubicon Project’s machine-learned bid guidance models. Rubicon Project will also receive MediaMath signal inputs to feed guidance models with advertiser and campaign specificity. This closed-loop system builds upon the complementary bid guidance algorithms that MediaMath and Rubicon Project have each been operating for more than a year.

“We are pleased to partner with MediaMath to create a direct and transparent programmatic delivery infrastructure,” said Michael Barrett, CEO, Rubicon Project. “Havas continues to pioneer the next generation ecosystem that is both clean and open as the first agency partner for this effort. In working together, we hope to lead the industry in removing the bad actors and negative headlines with SPO and addressable supply chain. Modernizing how the supply chain operates will impact and benefit the entire ecosystem.”

By building on existing granular transparency to MediaMath supply chain costs and insight into take rates, agencies like Havas are now able to empower clients with log-level transparency for end-to-end supply chain costs. Enriched by MediaMath’s audience product, advertisers can now understand the true cost of media for each impression and evaluate eCPM ranges across a diverse portfolio of publishers who have opted into publisher fee transparency with Rubicon Project. All of these transactions will take place over highly-efficient dedicated connections to publishers for MediaMath demand.

As a result of this new supply chain, advertisers and agencies can use market intelligence to bid appropriately on publisher inventory in auctions and understand true performance to their KPIs, where cost of media is used to calculate their metrics. This level of data enables advertisers to reach publishers directly and create a feedback loop that empowers publishers with the type of media performance metrics that work best for advertisers so they can manage, optimize and price their content appropriately.

“MediaMath is creating a supply chain that will enable the delivery of digital advertising that’s better for the consumer, better for clients, and better for the ecosystem that connects them,” said Andrew Goode, Executive Vice President, Head of Programmatic, Havas Media Group. “Havas is thrilled to be part of the movement to pave the way for a path to clean, high-quality supply and create solutions that will benefit all constituents within the ecosystem.”

Media

MediaMath Aims to Fix Media Supply Chain Issues

June 18, 2019 — by MediaMath

This article was originally published in Campaign US. You can read the full article here.

The programmatic company is teaming up with Rubicon Project and Havas.

The media supply chain has long been riddled with transparency issues, and MediaMath is looking to fix that in a new joint effort with Rubicon Project.

Together, the duo plans to build a strong programmatic delivery infrastructure, with Havas jumping onboard as the first to beta test the solution.

MediaMath wants to partner with agencies, brands, tech companies and publishers as part of an industry-wide effort to develop an accountable and addressable supply chain.

On a panel during the Cannes Lions Festival, MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki said: “In order to build trust in the supply chain, you need to know every entity involved in transactions, the value they are adding and be assured that every single one of the members share common goals. Only then can we make the necessary connections between brands and consumers across all touchpoints to drive advertiser outcomes.”

Kevin Freemore, Global COO of Dentsu Aegis Network’s Amnet Group, who was also on the panel, said that KPIs need to change and the industry has to be willing to “take a leap of faith.”

The revamped supply chain should be able to provide solutions, including end-to-end fee transparency, direct connections between buyers and sellers and focuses on the availability of brand-safe, fraud-free, viewable inventory.

“We are pleased to partner with MediaMath to create a direct and transparent programmatic delivery infrastructure,” said Michael Barrett, CEO of Rubicon Project,” in a statement.

He added: “Havas continues to pioneer the next generation ecosystem that is both clean and open as the first agency partner for this effort. In working together, we hope to lead the industry in removing the bad actors and negative headlines with SPO and addressable supply chain. Modernizing how the supply chain operates will impact and benefit the entire ecosystem.”

Media

MediaMath and White Ops Build Transparency and Trust into the Programmatic Supply Chain

June 17, 2019 — by MediaMath

This article was originally published in Ad Tech Daily. You can read the full article here.

MediaMath, acclaimed independent programmatic company for marketers, and White Ops, the global leader in bot fraud protection, today announced a new partnership that will protect some of the world’s largest advertisers, agencies and publishers from sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) before it can be purchased. Partnering identity and detection solutions from both companies, MediaMath and White Ops together aim to provide transparency and build trust and accountability in the advertising ecosystem.

“MEDIAMATH IS A PIONEER IN PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING AND THIS PARTNERSHIP WILL HELP ENSURE THAT A FRAUD-FREE DIGITAL ADVERTISING ECOSYSTEM IS NOT ONLY NECESSARY, BUT ATTAINABLE FOR ADVERTISERS, PUBLISHERS AND CONSUMERS”

Higher rates of SIVT, such as bots acting as legitimate users, require advanced analytics, significant human intervention and other measures to detect and mitigate. Leveraging White Ops’ Human Verification technology, impressions served on the MediaMath platform will be guarded against malicious and sophisticated attempts to pocket advertising revenues in a fraudulent manner, providing a comprehensive, timely and actionable view of the supply chain.

“The advertising supply chain must take innovative steps to prevent fraud and increase advertising efficacy,” said Joe Zawadzki, chief executive officer, MediaMath. “By combining our own proprietary tools and processes with those of White Ops, and focusing on measurably superior outcomes, we can identify and avoid fraud and other undesirable activity, allowing our customers to focus on bettering the overall programmatic journey for the end user. We look forward to collaborating with White Ops even further to enable marketers to see the maximum potential of their advertising investment and ensure we add true value with better access to fraud-free supply.”

MediaMath is leading an industry-wide effort to create an accountable and addressable supply chain through an alliance of agencies, brands, tech companies and publishers designed to provide long-term, sustainable solutions for a clean digital media supply chain with brand-safe, fraud-free and viewable inventory. The partnership with White Ops is one of several being developed in support of this initiative.

As part of this initiative, White Ops and MediaMath will co-locate servers globally that cover the entirety of MediaMath’s footprint. The intent is this technology will evaluate every impression MediaMath bids on, on a global basis.

“MediaMath is a pioneer in programmatic advertising and this partnership will help ensure that a fraud-free digital advertising ecosystem is not only necessary, but attainable for advertisers, publishers and consumers,” said Tamer Hassan, co-founder and chief executive officer, White Ops. “White Ops has taken tremendous measures to differentiate sources of data that constitute real human behavior in order to detect fraudulent activity. Fraud is a cybersecurity issue, not a measurement challenge – and as the threat evolves, we are innovating at a faster pace by offering dynamic and more sophisticated solutions to guard against it head-on.”

The partnership will provide added protection for MediaMath customers and the broader buying community to enjoy a fraud-free environment, providing more transparency in programmatic buying.

Media People

MediaMath All Fronts Event Shows What the Future of TV Can Look Like

April 4, 2019 — by MediaMath

Last week, MediaMath hosted a successful event focused on the future of TV with clients and publishers at its 4 World Trade headquarters. Premium TV publishers spoke about their connected TV and OTT offerings, highlighting the differentiators in their content, viewership and app environment, and learned more about MediaMath’s TV offering.

“The role that we’ve taken in the TV space is really to be the connection point between buyers and sellers, to take premium TV content, surface it, make it available to the buy-side in a way that the sell-side wants it to be made available,” said Mike Fisher, our head of advanced TV and video. “So we’re never going to be arbing or re-selling or black-boxing anybody’s inventory.”

DISH Media EVP Kevin Arrix, who spoke at the All Fronts event, highlighted the ability for advertisers to use its Sling TV data to deliver unique targeting and reporting that ties into ROI and attribution. For the industry to truly see the benefit of that type of application of data, the supply side needs to “get connected and get integrated” to what the demand side is doing.

“The demand side is saying ‘I like this company, I like MediaMath I like their UI, I like their platform and I am going to run my marketing dollars through to this platform,'” he said.

Being that connection means being as transparent as possible, according to Fisher.

“We do believe that transparency is the most important thing for TV because we want to make sure that the networks and the publishers in OTT are giving us access to the best of the best content. What we’re doing is further enhancing it with audience targeting, enhanced measurement, attribution reporting…basically tying back everything that a client is already doing in the online environment to TV.”

But it’s about consumers, too, and the ability to deliver engaging, entertaining content across screens in a privacy-compliant way.

“We know the goals of our clients. They’re looking to reach the people they that care about, they need to do it in a way that the people at the other end of the screens appreciate,” MediaMath Founder & CEO Joe Zawadzki says in this Beet.TV. interview.

Media People

Beet.TV Interviews Mike Fisher on TV and Video Trends at IAB Annual Leadership Meeting

February 27, 2019 — by MediaMath

This article originally appears on Beet.TV.

When it comes to advertising, screen size matters and it all starts with the big TV. The first exposure to a brand message begins the storytelling, which then leads to finding “that same user, same household, same viewer on other screens either for down-funnel messaging in web video, mobile video or even display,” says MediaMath’s Mike Fisher.

This is particularly appealing to so-called direct-to-consumer brands with traditional digital video assets they can now extend to TV, the company’s VP and Head of Advanced TV and Video says in this interview with Beet.TV at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting.

What those newer brands have in common is that they probably haven’t had a relationship with a traditional agency while growing their businesses on the Internet with one-to-one, measurable marketing. They’re attracted to things like programming and tent-pole events they’ve never been able to access. “Programmatic really fits well into that pipe especially for TV, which is why direct to consumer is so big for us,” Fisher adds.

As video SSP’s continue to evolve, MediaMath’s model is “to focus on running on the rails that the publisher wants us to run on. A lot of our partners build leverage, Telaria and other video SSP’s, as their connection point for us into their inventory.”

This, in turn, “allows us to connect to multiple supply sources. It allows them to connect to multiple demand sources without having to do one-to-one integrations with networks.”

Media

Debunking Programmatic Supply Strategy Myths

February 8, 2019 — by MediaMath

There are no excuses to base your supply and media strategy on assumptions about what works best. In the spirit of giving marketers and advertisers greater transparency into how the different modes of programmatic buying actually work, MediaMath has released a whitepaper based on research into our own data that sheds light on how PMPs and Open Auction actually perform according to some of the key metrics about which marketers care. We also approached some of our partners to help us confirm that what we were seeing is true across other aspects of the industry.

It is our hope that marketers can use some of the insights that we’ve gleaned to build better data-driven strategies that will help them accomplish their marketing goals more effectively. Here are a few surprising findings from our research.

The time spent troubleshooting deals impacts advertiser and publisher revenue

Only a third of deals begin spending on the first date they get set up—and more than a third of deals will not start spending before the end of the first business week.

Each day spent troubleshooting PMP deals is a lost opportunity to spend their investment and see a return on advertising. For clients with a fixed period in which to run their campaign and who see a direct ROI from their digital spend, this delay translates to substantial missed revenue opportunities.

PMPs do not always have higher priority than the open auctions

Fully 17.9% of all PMPs had a lower win rate than the open auction, meaning that advertisers are adding workflow difficulty, narrowing their optimization capabilities and taking on the sole accountability for supply chain cleanliness for no discernable benefit and a significant amount of the time.

Advertisers assume the risk (and the cost!) of fraud in PMPs

MediaMath consistently sees higher rates of sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT)—instances of fraud, such as bots acting as legitimate users, that require advanced analytics, significant human intervention and other measures to detect and mitigate—on media purchased via PMPs than on our Curated Market offering, which carries a fraud-free guarantee that perpetuates through the supply chain and incentivizes the publisher to keep fraud low. The rates of fraud that we report across PMPs are consistent across the same PMPs on other DSPs.

Download the full paper Supply Chain Excellence: How to Get Results, Avoid Fraud and Boost Your Total Buying to get a deeper dive into these trends and our guidance on how to use them to improve your data strategy.

Media Trends

2019 Will NOT Be the “Year of DOOH”—But You Can Still Use it in Your Marketing Now. Here’s How.

January 29, 2019 — by MediaMath

We’re almost one full month into the new year, and I’m here to share my thoughts on something: This will NOT be the “Year of DOOH” (like the Years of Mobile, AI and Attribution before it). Yes, the global DOOH market is expected to be worth more than $5 billion by 2022. Yes, DOOH is increasingly going programmatic. As OAAA Chief Marketing Officer Stephen Freitas points out, “In many ways, a screen is a screen, so DOOH fits into the programmatic ecosystem very well. This is an advantage for brands, because linking DOOH with online provides complete exposure within the consideration funnel.”

Yes, brands that start testing DOOH programmatically on a multichannel platform see all their campaigns across all channels in one centralized location, and can leverage the insights from each channel to inform the other. Marketers using DOOH for brand awareness can enlist mobile location partners to pass back mobile device IDs to inform which user to then retarget after seeing their OOH ad.

So, while programmatic DOOH is building scale and functionality, and the industry as a whole is pushing for standards and technical specs, the “new” medium is still very young. But just like a toddling infant, DOOH is finding its footing as the best alternative to reaching audiences without infringing on customer privacy. And while I don’t think DOOH will be the big trend of 2019, there should be nothing stopping marketers from testing and incorporating this medium into their multichannel campaigns.

How to get started

There are three things to consider when getting started with DOOH.

Understand what can be done today: DOOH is different than other digital media in three ways. First, it’s a one-to-many medium, so one DOOH ad will most likely be shown to many people. Second, there’s lack of attribution tied to users who saw the DOOH ad because DOOH runs on non-personal devices—and, therefore, is not linked to a cookie or device ID. Third, as mentioned above, while the IAB, DPAA, OAAA and other trade groups are working on standards for DOOH, the current state of the medium lacks standardization in creative size and length, operational setup, reliance on real-time bidding or caching and more. This should not be a deterrent from trying DOOH—but you need to know what you’re getting (and getting into) upfront with the medium.
Confirm you’re not already using it: Seems crazy you wouldn’t know if you’re running DOOH, right? But some supply partners and demand-side platforms will run DOOH as connected TV because the former runs through a TV or connected device. That’s not CTV because, remember, DOOH is not tied to a personal device or household. So, don’t be fooled!
Check yourself (your creatives and deal types, that is): To really start using DOOH in your campaigns, you’ll need to confirm if you have DOOH creative or if you need to build custom creative. Because of the lack of standardization in the marketplace, each media owner runs DOOH differently and accepts different creative formats. Some media owners will run DOOH as static display banners, while some might need those static images formatted as a non-moving video VAST tag. Some media owners will help in reformatting existing creative for their screens.

It’s important to note that most DOOH campaigns run via private marketplace (PMP) deals instead of on the open auction to ensure approved creative is used and that not just any advertiser can run on a publisher’s screen. Creative must be vetted by each media owner to show adherence to municipal and government signage laws if in public places that not only vary by region and country, but also by specific towns and private venues and landlord regulations. Setup of DOOH campaigns varies by each media owner and SSP as well, so make sure to follow the correct process.

DOOH shouldn’t be daunting to execute with the right expectations, creatives and supply strategy. The right partners will also help you achieve success with the medium across your multichannel campaigns. Clients that partner with MediaMath can rest assured that we will meet their goals for reach and brand awareness while continuing to drive innovation and standards across the DOOH space in addition to other channels and technologies.

Media People

MediaMath’s Floriana Nicastro on Being a Woman in Tech and Where Mobile is Headed in 2019

January 17, 2019 — by MediaMath

The interview originally appears on MarTechSeries.

Tell us about your role and how you got here. What inspired you to be part of the programmatic industry?

I started in a mobile ad network to drive their first programmatic offering. I was fascinated by the technological exploits around data and measurement, and the early promise of reaching the right audience, at the right time, in the right place. I quickly moved to MediaMath — already pioneering the way — and I have never left! As the mobile channel lead for MediaMath, I’m working with both our product and sales teams to build a strong mobile offering that is aligned with client expectations and market evolution, as well as helping advertisers reach their business outcomes.

As a woman in tech-heavy ecosystem, what message would you give to other women, especially in the Marketing and Sales functions?

Ask for what you need to do your job — from coworkers, from teams, or from your boss. Stand up for yourself and for your team. Don’t let anyone cut you off — your voice is as important as anyone else’s. Don’t underestimate your ability ever. Be bold. Align yourself with strong women who will mentor and guide you. I have had a few mentors at MediaMath who have been instrumental to my growth.

How is your role at MediaMath different from the one you had when you joined the company? How did you prepare for the disruptive tech industry?

Mobile has been evolving so drastically, and MediaMath itself so fast, that my role has changed tremendously. From sales to product, from marketing to partnerships, it is like owning a little business within the business.

You can’t really prepare for disruption; you must learn to embrace and manage chaos. You have to be really agile in the way you operate and simply move forward, assembling every piece of the puzzle one by one — keeping in mind the big picture you have for driving the business forward.

What trends are you seeing in mobile programmatic right now?

Mobile is not a channel anymore, but it is the channel of the other channels. Mobile is becoming the centerpiece of overall advertising spend, not only to reach where consumers are, but to build the bridge between online and offline (DOOH, TV, audio, desktop, mobile).

Read the rest of the interview here.

Media

Supply Chain Excellence: How to Get Results, Avoid Fraud and Boost Your Total Buying Power

January 15, 2019 — by MediaMath

Right now, marketing isn’t working for a lot of people.

It definitely is not working for marketers who, even now, more than two decades into digital and more than a decade into programmatic, are still left to wonder which half of their ads will work. Not publishers, who are getting squeezed from every direction. Not consumers, who recognize that they are the product.

Legacy infrastructure and legacy processes are part of the problem—the Internet as constructed was never intended to sensibly connect the diverse and complex technologies brought to bear by the myriad, diverse constituents in our industry. Many of the longstanding problems we’ve confronted—fraud, lack of transparency—are a direct result. And consumers have gotten the worst end of the deal, with clunky, irrelevant experiences and mystery surrounding the use of their data.

But there is a way forward that lets marketers maximize their investments without sacrifice and without compromising their values, lets publishers create the content that consumers want and the independent journalism that the world needs and lets consumers defend their right to a free and open Internet. It all starts with recognizing, understanding and respecting the consumer, and then reaching high-value audiences through access to high-quality supply. We’ve focused on the second part of the equation in our whitepaper, in which we share how marketers can make better decisions about their supply strategy, taking a holistic approach to get the outcomes they want and deserve. Our analysis is supported by research from our own demand-side platform.

Supply Chain Excellence: How to Get Results, Avoid Fraud and Boost Your Total Buying Power

Download this report to learn:

How a misaligned supply strategy can lead to wasted time and budget, a lack of quality and a higher risk of fraud
The ideal scenarios in which to use private marketplaces, preferred deals or programmatic guaranteed
Three approaches for effective deal management that maintain the benefits of privilege and keep the true costs of media management low

Today’s media buyers want—and deserve—results. They want promises, and they want to be recognized for their total buying power over time, not just the fleeting auction-of-the moment. We can work together to make that a reality.

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