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Careers Education People Uncategorized

Talking ‘Ed-Tech’ at Boston University’s TechConnect

February 8, 2016 — by MediaMath

To many of us, going to school and getting a great education is usually the preliminary part of life, leading to a specific destination as the end result. The true key to success, however, is the inherent desire to continue to want to learn, innovate and integrate education into any stage of life. This holds true to many of the students Vanessa DiSpena and I interacted with at Boston University over the last weekend in January—a profound group of curious lifelong learners. As part of a partnership with Boston University, New Marketing Institute (NMI) sponsors the MS-MBA Association through the Questrom School of Business.

This was an eye-opening day, bringing together an intelligent group of 75 graduate students and working business professionals curious about the future of technology and its visible impact on an ever-changing consumer world. The roster of corporate attendees, including Disney, Priceline and Lyft, touched on the subject of transformation in platform technology and the rise of entrepreneurship from varying business models. With a strong insight into TerminalOne, Vanessa was the perfect spokesperson for NMI, representing MediaMath’s core offering as a part of the Product panel.

After an afternoon filled with questions on platform models, client interactions and cyber security, Vanessa and I had a chance to wind down and reflect on the experience. What struck us both was a quote from an up-and-coming entrepreneur who said, “If you are completely happy with your product when you release it, you’ve released it too late.” Think about it.

What intrigues me the most about that statement is how it applies to more than just technology. As MediaMath’s product is taking on a rapidly changing and competitive market, so too is every individual within the organization. We, as a growing company, and as individuals are never 100 percent ready to face the challenges of the industry and what the real world brings. It was really a turning point in the conversation at TechConnect as the topic of preparedness stood out the most among students and panelists alike. How ready will you ever be to meet the demands of a class, a job, or the market? The value of NMI and what its training content provides was truly felt in that ‘ah-ha’ moment. The willingness to dive in to the unknown, be it new technology or an unpredictable external world will always seem challenging at first, but the value of experience remains immeasurable.

Careers People Uncategorized

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!

Culture DIGITAL MARKETING Media People Uncategorized

Looking Back, Looking Forward

December 31, 2015 — by Joe Zawadzki

In some ways, 2015 was the year of adolescence for MediaMath. We’ve matured, coming into our own and defining what we are as a company. We grew up, in geography, size and scale. And, at the risk of overplaying the metaphor, we’re starting to think about what being an adult means in terms of both ambitions and responsibilities.

Let’s start with what we know.

Today, MediaMath has the foundational technology, processes and people in place to achieve the marketing outcomes for thousands of clients. We’ve wrangled the fragmented pieces of our industry into a semblance of order. Due in large part to the hard work of our teams, this year we solidified our position as the largest independent demand-side platform. You’ve heard me say it before, but we are reaching escape velocity, with the resources, long-term vision and orientation to make 2016 a defining year for the industry and our place in it.

Starting with our clients, we have become increasingly focused even as we scale. One of the rewards of success is to be even more selective in terms of who we work with and how. As leaders in the industry, our clients are smart, sophisticated change agents who envision a powerful new future for their company’s marketing efforts and the very marketing profession. They are willing to both push and be pushed to see that vision manifest. Together we are challenging the status quo on measurement and metrics, creating brand new connections to media and data partners through private and privileged marketplaces—dissolving artificial internal and external barriers to create structural long-term success.

Advertisers don’t want more noise. They want the human and technical connection to a complicated marketplace. They’re asking: Who do I trust—from media partners, to data sources, to cloud, point and emerging technologies, to marketing services firms and agency partners—to achieve my most pressing business goals?

This year, we saw new adherents to ProgrammaticFirst—a focus on addressable media, data-and audience-driven marketing strategies, all optimized to true business goals—across most or all of their digital investments. New clients across the globe like Jet.com, Grainger and Dell have embraced this with great results and even more transformative ones to come. Our account model will help identify and cultivate clients toward this end, with our programmatic playbook effort led by Jocelyn Hayashi and our vertical strategy led by Abhijit Shome—both designed to accelerate outcomes.

To push the boundaries of where programmatic is relevant, we evolved how we work with our partners. This means shifting the mix of digital, mobile, video and social. We made real strides with our video solution throughout the year, closing it out with video spend breaking 10% in Q4, and mobile close to 40%. The combination of scale and willingness to innovate (scalable innovation!) had us first on most partners’ lists to create new and differentiated offerings, from Apple iAds to Time Inc.’s programmatic print, to unique relationships with global publishers like Globo, Daily Motion, Yahoo! and eBay.

In 2016, expect MediaMath to explore new frontiers like addressable TV, thinking about how to fundamentally improve the advertising infrastructure for consumers, brands, and the entire ecosystem that supports them with initiatives with Akamai, in member cooperatives and through direct investments in disruptive categories and companies. You’ll see “walled gardens” feel more like “gated communities” to our clients as a result of our focus on true incremental marketing outcomes for clients and willingness to share it with partners.

Our product and engineering teams were busy this year. A significant investment of time and capital went into stability and scalability, upgrading software, hardware and architecture to create capacity for the future. We have also committed to doubling down on our strengths in machine learning and data-driven insights with the hiring of Prasad Chalasani as our Senior Vice President of Data Sciences with a mandate to maintain and extend our lead in these areas.

A number of market-first products went into open beta. You’ll hear more about these in early 2016, but our focus on identity management and data management are unique offerings for our industry and will be married to strong commercialization efforts in the new year.

We’ve become increasingly involved in helping shape policy related to consumer privacy, helping define and promote best practices globally through our work on the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Direct Marketing Association, Network Advertising Initiative, Digital Advertising Alliance and other industry groups in which we hold leadership positions. We’ve also started the process of becoming SOC 2-compliant, a standard for regulating organizational controls related to security, privacy, confidentiality, availability and processing integrity.

We continued to educate the industry through the New Marketing Institute (NMI) and usher new talent into the digital marketing landscape via its Marketing Engineer Program (MEP). As of year-end, NMI has trained more than 4,000 marketers on certification content and graduated 36 participants from MEP with 100% placement rate, including our first six from our EMEA expansion of the program this year.

We made a number of key hires in 2015 to support our aggressive growth plans. Media industry veteran Peter Piazza joined as General Counsel in June. Rich Schmaeling came on board as CFO in September. Advertising industry pioneer Joanna O’Connell became our new CMO in October, joining from AdExchanger’s research practice. We plan to hire aggressively in 2016 as we continue to grow our footprint. And to support this growth, we rolled out a new 360-degree review process, visible by all individuals in the company and introduced an equity program for employees normally contemplated by companies substantially later in their lifecycles.

The move to our new global headquarters at Four World Trade Center in October marked a milestone in our growth. We have enough space to properly house half of our global employee base and host our clients and partners. As we prepare for 2016, we’re at the epicenter of the digital marketing ecosystem.

This is key, not just for our New York City contingent, but also for our EMEA, LATAM and APAC colleagues. It’s the right place to be at the right time, because I believe there’s a transformation happening in the industry. Huge new swaths of inventory will become addressable, while dynamic creative and media decisioning begin to converge. Leading marketers will start to implement custom attribution models and use them to take action, while true omni-channel executions will be seen at some scale.

There’s a lot to be done and I can’t imagine doing it with a smarter or more driven group of people. I’m incredibly excited about this coming year and hope you are too—see you in 2016!

Culture DIGITAL MARKETING Media People Technology Uncategorized

NMI’s 2015 Highlights

December 28, 2015 — by MediaMath

NMI (New Marketing Institute) has officially trained more than 4,000 marketers on certification content, ending the year strong for 2015!

As we look ahead to 2016, here’s what NMI accomplished in the past year:

Exam Automation

Our subject matter revolves around an industry that demands automatic and real-time results, so why should our certification process be any different? In Q1 2015, NMI automated the exams for its certification courses. Through Classmarker, a professional online exam platform, questions can be answered digitally and results are given in real-time.

Certification Revamp

We completely revamped our certification offering to fall under a set of three tracks:

Our Introduction to Digital Marketing course has been a great way for those who are new to the space to get an overview of the industry at large. However, the feedback we received told us that people wanted more in-depth instruction specific to the programmatic space. We listened, so started providing Programmatic 101 in addition to Introduction to Digital Marketing.

We rebranded our T1 Platform courses under new names to clarify the intended audiences for both T1 Beginner and T1 Advanced, along with Upcast Social Beginner and Advanced. The T1 Beginner course instructs users in the basics of uploading creatives and adding pixels, putting together campaigns and strategies, as well as FBX, video creatives, and an introduction to “The Brain.” T1 Advanced covers optimization scenarios, a deeper dive into “The Brain,” and ongoing campaign maintenance.

Our Omnichannel certification offering is a three-session set to ensure marketers are current on initiatives aside from regular display – delving into the worlds of mobile, social, and video advertising online.

Language Translation Prioritization

As MediaMath continues to expand globally, it’s important for us to scale our certification offerings, so NMI has made it a priority to translate content for learners across the globe. We have translated our Grovo videos into 8 languages, and, through partnerships with translation services we have begun to translate all certification content into Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and will continue to do so in 2016!

NMI in LatAm

MediaMath clients from the Latin American market had the chance to attend TerminalOne Platform training in November by dialing-in and getting live Spanish-language trainings. These trainings will be facilitated on a regular basis starting Q1 2016.

Marketing Engineer Program

This year marked the launch of our UK Marketing Engineer Program. Since June, we’ve run two programs and graduated six Marketing Engineers in London. In addition, we completed our third program in NYC. To date, 36 participants have graduated MEP, all of which have found full-time positions immediately after completing the program. They have found roles at MediaMath, as well as with partners and clients, working on teams such as Product, Programmatic Strategy, Analytics, Campaign Management, Publisher Solutions, and AdOps.

With the new year comes new changes to MEP. Our NYC program will be condensed to 13 weeks, aligning with our London program. And there will be even more opportunities for partners and clients to get involved. Recruitment for our 2016 programs are already underway, so if you’re interested in learning more, check out our MEP webpage.

Boot Camp / Masterclass Launch

NMI facilitated three customized Masterclass sessions this quarter in New York and London. All three were facilitated by Michelle Said and Vanessa DiSpena, with participants ranging from undergraduate students to industry professionals. The first Masterclass took place at MediaMath’s HQ at 4 WTC in New York City. The other two took place in London at Loughborough University and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK, with the latter drawing an impressive crowd – including Mail Online, Marriott International, and Teads.TV, to name a few. The overwhelmingly positive feedback from these Masterclass sessions has led to a slew of exciting partnership opportunities for NMI in 2016…stay tuned!

IAB UK

Since July, MediaMath and NMI joined the board for the IAB UK, joining the ranks of other Industry leaders including, Google, Facebook and Twitter. As part of the board, we can now help guide the IAB’s strategic focus and collaborate on key industry and IAB initiatives. In addition, our Introduction to Digital Marketing Certification, Programmatic 101 and Omnichannel Certifications have been IAB endorsed – further strengthening our brand in the UK and beyond.

IAB Digital Leadership Program

Furthermore, we’re pleased to announce another partnership program with the IAB — the Digital Leadership Program. This curriculum is the first of its kind, created specifically for digital media professionals who are developing their skill set to become leaders in the space. Elise has been placed on the Advisory Board alongside other leaders in the digital marketing industry. The preliminary sessions will take place this October in New York City.

Step Up

NMI and Step Up are now official partners! Step Up is a non-profit group which works with high school girls, empowering them to become confidents, college bound and career focused women. Working on three programs with Step Up, NMI will be contributing content for them and hosting the girls on a monthly basis at WTC from October to June.

Start Up Institute

Our partnership with Start Up Institute has been a great success so far and more recently we have become involved in their partner projects. To date we have partnered with their students on multiple partner projects such as creating an NMI Social Strategy along with an NMI App – very exciting!

ATD Forum

NMI is proud to announce that Elise James-Decruise will be joining as a member of the Association for Talent Development (ATD) Forum Advisory Group, helping to shape forum activities through thought leadership and collaboration. The ATD Forum provides a unique opportunity to network, share and learn from colleagues in the learning and development space. In October, she got the opportunity to share NMI’s best practices and wins to senior talent development professionals at this years Fall Lab and looks forward to sharing her expertise in 2016.

Penn State Keynote

Elise James-Decruise presented a keynote speech at Penn State’s “Digital Week” in September to 100 Advertising/PR students to mark the university’s introduction of a new minor in digital advertising. During her presentation, Elise walked the audience through the history of digital advertising, simplified the complex acronyms and introduced them to the key players of the industry. This was an exciting event that kicked off the NMI/Penn State partnership that will officially commence spring 2016.

Award Wins!

Topping it all off, NMI being recognized by two prestigious learning and development leaders was the icing on the cake! We were acknowledged for the following:

Brandon Hall – Excellence in Education

BEST CERTIFICATION PROGRAM – New Marketing Institute Certification Programs
BEST UNIQUE & INNOVATIVE LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM – Marketing Engineer Program, NMI

Chief Learning Officer – Learning In Practice

Elise James-Decruise received:
THE STRATEGY AWARD – Gold
THE INNOVATION AWARD – Silver

Congratulations to all nominees and finalists! View the full list of winners and photos of the Awards Ceremony here!

With so many new ventures set in stone, we at NMI are excited to play an influential role within the programmatic marketing industry in 2016.

Culture Events People PROGRAMMATIC Technology Trends Uncategorized

#TBMM2015 – EMEA’s 2015 Highlights

December 21, 2015 — by MediaMath

It’s been a big year at MediaMath across our global locations with EMEA as no exception.

We ran full steam ahead in 2015—and we know there’s much more in store for 2016.

To celebrate the finer points of the year, we are currently hosting a Twitter countdown to 2016 featuring a daily 2015 highlight throughout the month of December, which can be followed at @MediaMathEMEA or via the hashtag #TBMM2015.

Our year kicked off with a new office opening in Madrid where we hired Gonzalo Garcia as Country Manager for Spain and later Ishaq Platero as Commercial Director, Spain to help drive programmatic growth in the region.

Another significant appointment was that of Richard Beattie, Senior Vice President, Commercial, EMEA who brought with him a wealth of ad tech experience in sales and marketing from two tech giants – Oracle and Adobe.

The momentum snowballed with some great industry recognition and it was exciting to see not only NMI (New Marketing Institute) pick up two silver awards for Best Certification and Best Unique/Innovative Learning and Development Program but MediaMath EMEA picking up gold for Programmatic Company of the Year at the M&M Global Awards. The former reflects NMI’s endeavour to educate and empower marketing professionals while the latter acknowledges our deep commitment to our clients.

These awards could not have been achieved without the great people behind it and we in turn value our employees’ feedback highly. Having our employees vote us at number 3 in Glassdoor’s top 25 UK companies for pay and benefits as well as work/life balance was a real testament to our wonderful workforce and our support to them.

While we’re on the subject of our esteemed colleagues, Frith Fraser achieved industry recognition in The Drum’s 50 under 30 2015 and was featured as one of the young disruptors making their mark on digital.

No year is complete without key calendar events and so we returned to the French Riviera to Cannes where our CEO Joe Zawadzki presented at the new tech festival “Lions Innovation” – and then flew to Cologne for dmexco, both of which were even bigger and better than the year before.

Only recently we celebrated our one-year anniversary in France and acquired German programmatic company Spree7 to meet the growing demand for providing local programmatic solutions in Austria, Switzerland as well as Germany.

To top it all off, a proud moment was being welcomed onto the IAB UK Leadership Board which reached full capacity this year.

Who knows what 2016 will bring for MediaMath and the programmatic marketing industry as we go from strength to strength? What we do know is that 2015 has been a celebration for us and we would like to personally thank everyone – colleagues, clients, partners – for being a part of our journey this year.

Culture People Uncategorized

MediaMath Makes Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work List for its Third Year

December 9, 2015 — by MediaMath

MediaMath is pleased to announce that, for the third year in a row, we are among the winners of Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Awards. In 2014 and 2015, we were placed #6 and #12 on the list, respectively. We are thrilled that our employees continue to recognize us as one of the best workplaces in the US.

Now in its eighth year, the Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Awards are based entirely on feedback that our employees have voluntarily shared on Glassdoor. To determine the winners, Glassdoor evaluates all company reviews shared by employees over the past year. We are proud to be recognized among elite companies that have fewer than 1,000 employees, ranking alongside companies such as Motley Fool, Hubspot and NPR from last year.

A huge thank you to MediaMath-ers who took the time to share their perspective on what it’s like to work here. We appreciate your valuable feedback, as it only helps us to get better. Below are just a few words from MediaMath team members as shared on Glassdoor.

“This is one of the very few companies nowadays where you can see an immediate impact of your contributions. Everyone and everything moves very quickly and things actually get done. The company is growing every week and it’s exciting to be part of that.”

“The people are fabulous. They care about the work they produce and still find time to be kind and have fun together.”

“Amazing company with really talented and AWESOME people. Leadership is very accessible, open, honest, and incredibly smart. The product is very strong and there is a real sense of people working hard and working together.”

“There is a “no a-hole” policy when it comes to hiring, and it’s pretty effective.”

“The collaboration between teams and coworkers is truly extraordinary. Management really puts their trust in employees to spearhead projects and initiatives, which makes my work that much more rewarding.”

“Perks are great and the work life balance provides employees with the time off and flexibility we need to work hard and play hard at the same time.”

“A place where good ideas are supported through to implementation, professional development is supported (there is an entire department dedicated to this!), and people are rewarded and recognized for their good work!”

Culture People Uncategorized

Join our Countdown to 2016 with our 2015 Highlights

November 30, 2015 — by MediaMath

It’s been a big year at MediaMath across our global locations.

From new offices to new hires, from new education offerings to new partner launches, from acquisitions to accolades, we ran full steam ahead in 2015—and we know there’s much more in store for 2016.

To celebrate the finer points of the year, we are hosting a Twitter countdown to 2016 featuring a daily 2015 highlight throughout the month of December. Follow along at @MediaMath, @MediaMathEMEA and @MediaMathAPAC to see this year in review, and feel free to respond with your own favorite moments of 2015. Also stay tuned for year-in-review and 2016 predictions content from our executive team and partners.

Thanks for being a part of our journey this year.

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.

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