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When it Rains it Pours: Engage Consumers with Weather Targeting on Social Media

October 21, 2015 — by MediaMath

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Advertisers today have the ability to reach consumers with targeted, personalized messaging based on a number of targeting options. One such option is geo-targeting, which allows advertisers to target consumers based on location (e.g. people within 1 mile of a brick and mortar retail store). Under the “umbrella” of geo-targeting is weather targeting – which enables advertisers to engage consumers based on a combination of location and weather data.

Weather targeting on social media channels like Facebook is effective, especially because we know that Facebook users tend to use the social platform while on the go--why not serve them ads for rain boots when it’s raining, or a frozen drink in the heat of summer?

With MediaMath T1 Social, marketers can activate Facebook campaigns based on weather conditions in the cities of their choice. This feature can be used to create messaging or offers specific to certain weather conditions (advertise rain jackets for “light rain,” and crampons for “freezing rain,” for example). The workflow of this feature is designed for advertisers looking for new ways to target people on Facebook and increase the relevancy of their ads. Interested in running social media advertising campaigns though MediaMath’s TerminalOne? Click here for more information.

CareersPeopleUncategorized

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

October 20, 2015 — by MediaMath

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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!).

TechnologyUncategorized

5 Retail Trends to Watch as Holiday 2015 Approaches

October 19, 2015 — by MediaMath

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Last year, mobile was the big news in holiday shopping. Will the trend continue this year? With autumn’s chill in the air and Black Friday practically around corner, what are some of the retail trends we can expect to see in 2015?

  1. Retailers will take better advantage of programmatic’s real-time opportunity. Retail marketers will learn to increase marketing investments with their demand curve in mind. The real-time nature of programmatic advertising makes it easy to adjust exposure either daily or even throughout the day. That means marketers can amplify the demand curve when it begins to rise and decrease their investment as demand goes down, whether that means during lower-volume hours each day, free ship cutoff day, or on the 26th of December.  This tactic has been routinely used in search engine marketing for over a decade, but it can—and should—be applied to all programmatically bought channels.
  2. Cyber Monday is still the biggest day for online sales: Cyber Monday online sales were 30.5 percent higher than Black Friday sales in 2014. However, it’s important to recognize that Black Friday shoppers spent an average of $129.37 per order, compared to $124.11 per order on Cyber Monday, a difference of 4.2 percent. So don’t discount the significance of Black Friday for online purchases and make sure you adjust your advertising spend accordingly.
  3. Just like last year, shoppers will be split into two distinct camps—the early birds and the last-minute shoppers. According to the National Retail Federation’s latest Holiday Consumer Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, the average holiday shopper has completed 52.9 percent of their shopping as of December 10, up from 49.9 percent last year. Per Google, for many, the holiday shopping season begins before Halloween, although many of those sales may not be directly attributed to seasonal purchases.
  4. Cyber Monday will become Mobile Monday. On Cyber Monday 2014, 41.2 percent of all online traffic came from mobile devices. Expect that to exceed 50 percent this holiday season. As the new digital shopping companion for many consumers, smartphones drove 28.5 percent of all Cyber Monday online traffic—more than double that of tablets, which still accounted for 12.5 percent of all traffic.
  5. Yet, when it comes to mobile sales, tablets continue to win the shopping war, driving 12.9 percent of online sales compared to 9.1 percent for smartphones—a difference of 41.5 percent. This is a trend we saw last year and expect to see repeated: While consumers research products on their mobile phones, they complete those purchases on tablets or desktops. (We’ll continue to watch this trend and monitor to see if that gap between purchases on mobile versus larger devices decreases this season. We suspect that, with more mobile-optimized sites and checkouts, it will decrease.)

With an eye to these trends, retailers should already be preparing digital marketing campaigns that engage their customers and prospects throughout the shopping season. With consumers more connected than ever, it’s important for retailers to create a consistent experience across screens—and into the store. The path to purchase crosses digital, mobile and real-life channels now, and every touchpoint matters. Making sure your customers have the best, easiest and most convenient shopping experience—no matter how they choose to shop—is the surest route to a successful holiday season.

Learn more about MediaMath Retail here.

EventsTechnologyUncategorized

M&M Global TV interview: Programmatic as a Consumer-Centric View of the World

October 15, 2015 — by MediaMath

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In a recent interview with M&M Global TV at dmexco, Dave Reed, Managing Director of MediaMath EMEA, shares his thoughts on the key event trends and themes, and discusses how clients are increasingly grasping the idea that programmatic is not just a line item on the media plan, but actually a technology that can give them a consumer-centric view of the world.

Read the original article and watch the interview

TechnologyUncategorized

2015 Retail Trends Every Marketer Needs to Know

October 14, 2015 — by MediaMath

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The all-important holiday season is around the corner, and retailers are looking for new ideas to maximize revenue this year. With that in mind, we wanted to share five programmatic trends that are improving retailer outcomes in 2015. We’ve visualized these in an infographic, which we encourage you to download. Consider it an early holiday gift from MediaMath!

Let’s run down the list, starting with those trends that are the most significant today:

  1. Digital now influences the majority of in-store sales. The lines are blurring between online and offline. Digital marketing impacts so much more than eCommerce sales alone. In fact, Deloitte estimates that 64% of all in-store sales will be influenced by digital in 2015. If that number sounds high, consider that 78% of digital shoppers in an Accenture study confessed to “webrooming,” meaning they shop online but purchase in-store. With CRM onboarding and multi-touch attribution in place, marketers can measure this online-to-offline impact.
  2. More than half of digital advertising in retail is now mobile. Mobile advertising is about more than reaching shoppers on phones and tablets. It is a powerful way to drive consumers down the purchase path with a cross-device and cross-channel strategy. Retailers often argue that while half their traffic is mobile, mobile does not drive half of their sales. This is not entirely true. If these retailers utilized cross-device, cross-channel attribution, they could see the impact mobile is having on their bottom line.
  3. Direct publisher deals are moving to programmatic. Fifty-nine percent of digital display spend in retail is still publisher direct. And three-quarters of these buys are not programmatic. They are done the old-fashioned way. But these relationships are migrating rapidly to programmatic. In 2015 alone, there will be almost 400% growth in Private Marketplace (PMP) deals. Why so dramatic? One key reason is the ability to layer first- and third-party data on publisher direct inventory. This results in better audience targeting and, therefore, better performance.
  4. Programmatic video is becoming a material part of digital ad spend in 2015. In fact, it will grow 204% this year. Once again, targeting is the main growth driver for this trend: 56% of ad execs cited targeting as the “most valuable digital video advertising feature for their clients.” As with TV, a large percentage of programmatic video spend is dedicated to branding. With multi-touch attribution in place, marketers can also measure the business impact of these upper-funnel tactics.
  5. Closed-Loop Attribution (CLA) is a logical next step for campaign optimization. With multi-touch attribution reporting, retailers can gain a solid understanding of how each media channel contributes to a purchase. But retailers typically want to go one step further. They want to use those results to inform media buying. With 15-20% of retailers now employing multi-channel attribution partners, and another 20-25% in the evaluation phase, CLA is becoming a hot topic. One client who recently implemented CLA saw a 21% improvement in ROAS on their campaigns.

Marketers have a lot to think about as the holiday shopping season barrels toward us. But every retailer should have a plan for at least one of the above trends. Make a list, and check it twice based on your financial goals and resources.

It is worth noting that multi-touch attribution is a key theme here. As retailers build out omnichannel strategies, the impact of every online and offline touchpoint should be measured if possible. To learn more, see MediaMath’s point of view on attribution analytics, and connect with us on your retail needs here.

DataTechnologyUncategorized

Best Practices for Viewable Programmatic Campaigns by 33Across

October 13, 2015 — by MediaMath

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Programmatic has evolved immensely in the last two years.  Today’s programmatic media buying has transformed from a vast and wild frontier to a more controlled, mature environment. According to AdExchanger’s recent State of Programmatic Media report, overall spend has greatly increased and marketers are strategizing more about  how to efficiently spend their media dollars in channels like video, mobile, and even television. While programmatic has shifted how advertising budgets are spent, one question remains the same: how can we help clients successfully navigate “self-serve” media?

With a larger share of wallet going to digital, brands are also demanding a higher viewability metric and expect – believe it or not – an actual human to see their ads. In fact, some advertisers and agencies won’t stand for anything less than 100% viewability, and are increasingly using the buzzword as a currency when shopping vendors.

The issue of fraud is also igniting conversations; groups like the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) are forming to combat the controversial and critical issue that is fraud. One of the simplest ways to support  clients is to give them the peace of mind that the inventory they’re purchasing is both free of fraud and delivered in-view.

How are we expected to guarantee these metrics?  Prior to developing the 33Across high-impact ad units, we noticed a growing KPI trend from our direct clients; they wanted more insight into campaign viewability, not to mention how we controlled fraud from our end. We took a step back and identified what needed to be done to create an efficient form of advertising.  The first was to create high impact units that cured banner blindness. We created units that slide in from the left and remain in view for as long as the page is open. The second was to communicate to our network of publishers and put several checkpoints in place to police fraudulent activity before allowing sites to run our ads at all.

When high-impact ads, viewability, and low fraud variables are in play, performance increases and it’s a win-win situation for every side of the business: better CPMs for publishers, higher conversion rates for buyers, and happier customers across the board. When we ran A/B tests with our high-impact units and standard IAB units, the results were quite impressive. A major auto company, for instance, saw CTRs up to 8X higher, while CPCs were 13% lower. We saw the same trend occur across telecom, retail, and CPG companies. After running programmatically, and continuing to see high viewability results, we decided to go all in by offering a 100% viewability guarantee.

Quick Campaigns, Big results

High-impact, viewable campaigns work incredibly well for campaigns that have a short window of run-time but demand high performance. Seasonal campaigns, such as back-to-school and holiday; product launches, like those for new cars; and entertainment campaigns, such as movie premieres and Broadway shows, are all examples of campaigns that rely on high viewability, low fraud, quality inventory. When creating a plan for these types of campaigns, we strongly recommend using  supply that has high viewability but also has the publisher relationships in place to reach the right audience. You only have a short amount of time to get the needed results so all variables must align.

We value working with partners such as MediaMath who strive to deliver quality, control, and transparency to the market. As an OPEN ecosystem partner, marketers actively looking for pools of trusted high performance inventory can easily connect with us to both access our inventory and address any questions they may have. The OPEN portal is an easy tool for marketers and reflects MediaMath’s confidence in both their supply and their buyers.

Our new partnership with MediaMath is an exciting one because we both take the issues of viewability and fraud very seriously. Not only do we design our products to exceed industry viewability standards, but we have built a framework with our publisher network to run ads free of fraud.  Working with partners such as MediaMath allows us to raise the bar for both advertisers and publishers. 33Across’ supply of quality inventory integrates seamlessly via MediaMath’s PMP technology. When a buyer wants to purchase our inventory, it’s reassuring to know that the ease of initiating a deal helps eliminate unnecessary back and forth. Clear communication, ease of technology, and striving for programmatic quality help pave the way for success.

Uncategorized

Why I Joined MediaMath

October 12, 2015 — by MediaMath — 2

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Today marks my first official day as the new Chief Marketing Officer at MediaMath. And boy did I pick a good time to join. The company moved into 4 World Trade Center last week, giving me sweeping views of New York Harbor every time I walk into the kitchen (which is often). How can you not be inspired in a space like this?

But, more seriously, why did I make this huge career change, from an analyst role in which I assessed the ad tech landscape from afar, to CMO of a 750-person ad tech company that’s deep in the programmatic landscape day in and day out?

There are a few reasons, but the first has its genesis in my agency days. I’ve been in the space for 15 years, but back in 2007, when I was Media Supervisor at Razorfish, I met Joe Zawadzki and Erich Wasserman. MediaMath was the first DSP I’d ever encountered. The concept of buying media in the way Joe and Erich described (think impression-level buying, de-averaged pricing, tech-driven, real-time decisioning) struck me as revolutionary—in a REALLY BIG AND AMAZING WAY—and it totally changed the course of my career (I built one of the first trading desks, ATOM Systems, based on that vision). Today, when I look at MediaMath, I’m thrilled to say that both Joe and Erich have stayed true to that original mission and passion I experienced in those early days, and have grown MediaMath to be a market leader.

Second, I’ve been a research analyst for five years, first with Forrester Research, then as the founding member of AdExchanger Research. When you’re a research analyst for that long, it can start to feel a little theoretical, removed from the realities of the market. In a space that’s changing so quickly, I started feeling that it was a problem to be that far away. I wanted to get my hands back into what was really happening. I wanted to immerse myself in it.

Third, I like change. My life is one of constant change. I’m used to change. And as a career move, this is a big one. To that end, it strikes me as a great time to be at MediaMath because it feels like everyone is ready to think about things in a new way. I’m coming in at a time where things are changing in a useful direction—and I want to harness that energy of change.

What do I hope to bring to MediaMath? I want to tell our story. I want to hear from all of the different folks internally what you believe MediaMath is, help frame what I learn— and what I believe myself—around a unified vision, and shout it to the world. In the beginning, it’s just going to mean talking to everyone, listening and learning. I’m going to rely on all of the people here who are experts at what they do. I believe my job is to work with the entire organization to make their jobs easier for them to do while being an internal and external voice for marketing at MediaMath.

I remember when I was at Razorfish, I felt like I was changing the world. I want to help the entire team at MediaMath feel the same way. It’s only inning three of a nine-inning game. There’s so much room to grow in this space and as a company. I am excited about the energy that I’ve felt since before I even said “Yes” to the CMO role. The energy I’ve felt in the company and about my joining—it’s infectious. I am going to work with excited, enthusiastic people who are super smart, and I can’t wait to learn from them everyday.

EventsUncategorized

Recap of Shop.org 2015

October 9, 2015 — by MediaMath

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This post originally appeared on the Adroit Digital blog. 

It was another great year at Shop.org as thousands took to the City of Brotherly Love to soak up the facts, figures, trends, insights and new technologies that are influencing retail advertising. The biggest retail show of the year didn’t disappoint—in swag or in content. In addition to a great BIG !deas Session on driving the right marketing outcomes moderated by our President Jacob Ross and including iProspect and Blue Moon Digital, we liked that many sessions had actionable takeaways for retail marketers. Here are a few themes we picked up from the National Retail Federation’s signature event.

Get married to your customers

Is it love at first site? A big theme at the show this year was about cultivating not just customer loyalty but customer lifetime value. As Sandi Michels, AVP CRM & Ecommerce of Dress Barn, put it during the session The Power of Customer Lifetime Value, “We tend to count customers and not take into account the future value of the segment.” Especially in Q4, many retail marketers are trying to drive as many customers to their sites and stores as possible. Customer lifetime value is not about numbers. Rather, it enables brands to assess the overall health of the customer database, not just how many are on file. In another session, a speaker mentioned that 80 percent of future profits come from 20 percent of existing customers. Take better stock of who your most valuable customers are and focus your efforts there.

Key quote:

Mobile gone micro This year, $970 billion in sales will be influenced by mobile, representing 2x of all ecommerce sales. But the experience consumers are having on mobile is not fluid. Rather, 59 percent of time spent on mobile is split into hundreds of micro-sessions lasting an average 70.8 seconds. As an individual retailer or advertiser, you are only going to capture a fragment of your target customers’ time. So make the content count. Create relevant, digestible advertising that makes a quick impression to get the conversion. Key quote:  

Gifting is ginormous

In the session 10+ Things You Can Do to Make More Money Next Week – Holiday 2015 Edition, CEO of Loop Commerce Roy Erez of said gifting is a $200 billion market in which people buy more than 20 gifts a year. But most gifts are not bought during the December holidays. Birthdays are actually the most popular occasion for gift-giving. Millennials are the most likely of any consumer age group to give gifts “just because,” and many consumers, regardless of age or gender, like to buy others what they buy themselves. What does this mean for retailers? Erez thinks they must make gift buying as simple as possible by taking out the guesswork and offering fewer product attributes. Also, 45 percent of e-gift recipients will virtually return a product, so rethink your return policies.

Key quote:

We hope you can use these insights to shape a strong Q4 advertising strategy. See you next year in Dallas!

TechnologyUncategorized

Two to Tango: A Powerful Programmatic Partnership

October 7, 2015 — by MediaMath

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As programmatic continues its growth trajectory, forward-thinking ad agencies are recognising the benefits of combining their talents with technology. To remain competitive, many are considering or already working directly with technology platforms to incorporate programmatic media buying into their service offerings.

Cheil & MediaMath

MediaMath’s partnership with Cheil Worldwide, a global Korean marketing agency, began more than three years ago when we were chosen to drive Cheil’s expansion into the programmatic space. While Cheil provided the exacting requirements for its programmatic trading needs, we used our APIs to build a customised and white-labelled TerminalOne (comes with a Korean user interface) on top of our existing technology infrastructure. Together, we built MediaCube, Korea’s first agency trading desk.

This collaboration of strengths that transpired between Cheil and MediaMath enabled Cheil and its clients to capitalise on the ever-evolving world of digital marketing via innovative programmatic technologies.

Determining how to bring programmatic technology in-house can be a complex decision. For a start, agencies will most likely benefit from selecting a vendor solution that offers immediate ‘out-of-the-box’ execution. Eventually, as their buying expertise progresses, agencies would certainly want to tailor and customise their buying platform to meet evolving needs.

Therefore, it is crucial for agencies to partner with a scalable and flexible vendor solution from the outset. The tech partner must permit for tech development atop its existing platform, including access to full-featured APIs; this allows agencies to customise their ad technology stack, build their own applications or to simply integrate other technology vendors seamlessly and, in the process, fully meet their client’s expectations and advertising needs.

So what key benefits can agencies expect from partnering with a programmatic technology platform that offers long-term flexibility and scalability?

Control over data

It is crucial for organisations to own and control their data. Building MediaCube gave Cheil the flexibility to onboard, segment, action and report on all of the data that a client has to offer within a single platform. Close ownership of data means that Cheil and its clients can fully derive and leverage valuable consumer insights from its data sets with a high degree of confidence and familiarity.

Customised solutions

A one-size-fits-all programmatic platform may not reflect your unique business needs. Open APIs enabled Cheil to localise MediaMath’s TerminalOne in a language and currency familiar to its users, making it simple for its advertiser clients to use.

Expertise and support

MediaMath and Cheil’s close partnership enabled a valuable exchange of knowledge and expertise. MediaMath was able to mentor Cheil in fully understanding and utilising MediaCube as well as train its users to deliver performance and ROI goals via the platform for their advertising clients. In return, Cheil helped MediaMath navigate cultural nuances and regional challenges, as well as share a great deal of insight about employing local programmatic strategies.

Increased company value

Adding programmatic to an agency’s offering increases its overall company value, even for the smallest agencies. Furthermore, by building an in-house ad technology stack, agencies are able to unlock increased transparency in its value chain. Consequently, the ability to accurately calculate the exact cost of each media purchase will allow agencies to make beneficial business decisions favourable to its bottom line, benefiting both agency and its clients.

The changing landscape of the advertising ecosystem means we are very likely to see even more ad agencies working directly with technology partners to develop in-house programmatic technology. For MediaMath, we look forward to many more years of partnership with Cheil as we work together to push the boundaries of programmatic, both locally and globally.

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