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Technology Uncategorized

If You’re Not Questioning Assumptions You’re Not Learning

September 12, 2014 — by MediaMath

As a college student starting a summer internship, the goal is typically to learn as much as you can in order to shape your future academic and professional decisions. This summer at MediaMath has done just that.

Interning in Business Operations at MediaMath gave me the opportunity to learn about the quickly evolving ad tech industry, and specifically about MediaMath’s flagship product, the TerminalOne Marketing Operating System™.

Throughout the summer I was able to work on a number of different projects including a presentation on MediaMath’s Private Marketplace offerings. The Private Marketplace offerings include Private Marketplace Direct (PMP-D), Private Marketplace Exchange (PMP-E), and Automated Guaranteed (AG). A PMP-D deal allows buyers to setup tag-based media buys directly with publishers, where as in a PMP-E deal, advertisers receive preferred access to inventory ahead of other buyers, before it goes into the open exchange. Automated Guaranteed, on the other hand, gives marketers access to premium inventory across key portals and sites on a reserved, upfront basis. Each of these modes of buying allows advertisers to find the premium inventory they desire in a programmatic environment. These non-remnant modes of buying also allow the advertiser to specify the exact inventory they want, thereby controlling for brand safety. One particular project consisted of research into each of the offerings, how each is delivered, and their individual use cases. I created a presentation which examined how the client might interact with each of these offerings, while also learning how each affects the MediaMath business. In addition, the presentation was an exercise in the synthesis and organization of information, as well as presentation skills. Finally, the presentation afforded me the opportunity to receive feedback and learn the importance of putting qualitative information in a quantitative context in order to draw deeper, data-driven conclusions.

The underlying notion behind MediaMath’s entire business is an emphasis on information, data, and the activation of data to drive optimal decisioning. In addition to the data-driven philosophy driving the business, the values to which MediaMath employees hold themselves to have truly shaped my experience this summer. I was made to feel welcome because of every employee’s interest in presenting opportunities for growth and their willingness to help.

My internship experience has taught me to be much more analytical and to constantly question underlying assumptions. In an evolving, data-driven environment, each person is continuously learning and growing, which is part of what made this summer so interesting and exciting. This internship has definitely shaped my mindset as well as my professional growth. I personally hope to pursue a more quantitative approach to learning in the academic setting and as I continue with my career.

Technology Uncategorized

The Fine Art of Marketing to Marketers

September 10, 2014 — by MediaMath

Yesterday iMedia published an interview with MediaMath’s SVP of Marketing, Rachel Meranus. The interview, conducted by Drew Neisser, CEO of Renegade, explores MediaMath’s B2B marketing practices and addresses the knowledge gap within the industry as to the value programmatic marketing can deliver to both brands and agencies.

An excerpt from the interview is included below. For the full interview, click here.

Neisser: The big media buying agencies are all over programmatic and have been for a while now. This doesn’t seem to be case with most brands and their CMOs. Why the understanding gap and why do you think it is so important that CMOs understand the power of programmatic?

Meranus: We see quite a range when it comes to a CMO’s understanding and level of sophistication with the technology. Some jump right in and get their hands dirty. Others are treading lightly on unfamiliar territory.

Traditionally, agencies had more exposure to the ins and outs of digital media buying, but for many brands and their CMOs, they haven’t had this much control over or transparency into their digital media buying. There is still a lot of confusion about how the technology works, but it’s critical for CMOs to understand the power of programmatic, especially when more marketing dollars are shifting to digital.

With a central marketing operating system, CMOs gain the visibility into how their money is being spent, the impact of their media buying decisions, and the ability to identify real-time opportunities with their audiences. Furthermore, the more CMOs embrace programmatic – within their own brands or together with their agency partner – the greater opportunity they will have deploying first-party data, integrating with internal systems, and normalizing marketing across disparate media types for greater performance.

Neisser: Can you give an example of a client that is doing amazing things with programmatic?

Meranus: Many of our clients – both agencies and brands – are seeing success with programmatic tactics, leveraging geo-targeting, look-alike modeling, and even building proprietary models to identify new prospects through TerminalOne. One example of a client that is accelerating their programmatic efforts is ShopStyle by PopSugar, the social shopping and fashion website. They were looking to leverage programmatic media to create scalable return on ad spend, with a focus on campaigns in both the middle and lower funnels. Using our TerminalOne Marketing Operating System and working with our OPEN partner AddThis, ShopStyle was able to create more robust and scalable profiles based on user data and implement more granular targeting around behavior and contextual variables. Additionally, utilizing FBX, ShopStyle by PopSugar was also able to expand its retargeting pool and tactics beyond traditional display.

Technology Uncategorized

5 Trends – Rethinking Your Media Model

September 8, 2014 — by MediaMath

Why do certain people choose to engage with one media source over another? This question has been posed by marketers since the advent of modern marketing. However, marketers would – and do – add the follow up question of “And how do I tap into those decisions to effectively deliver the strongest message?”

In this digital world consumers now have more ways to engage with media than ever before – making the task of identifying the best mix of media channels that much more challenging. This iMedia article, written by Edwin Lee, VP Strategic Accounts, MediaMath, outlines five trends in digital media buying that are empowering marketers to deliver targeted, real-time messages to in-market buyers.

The trends include:

Automated guaranteed
Premium programmatic
Private marketplaces
Cross-channel experiences
Doing away with the marketing funnel

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

Technology Uncategorized

A Day in the Life of Dan Rosenberg, SVP, Corporate Development

September 5, 2014 — by MediaMath

Hello world – Lily here. I’m an intern for the CorpDev team at MediaMath. In a nutshell, CorpDev’s job is to help MediaMath grow and scale through mergers and acquisitions (M&A), international expansion strategies, strategic partnerships, investor relations and capital raising. An exciting project the CorpDev team recently worked on was our series C where MediaMath raised $175 million. As an intern, my main role is to research new opportunities domestically and internationally.

One of the most interesting parts about interning at MediaMath is seeing what everyone does on a day-to-day basis. It can be difficult to make sense of what the ad tech industry is, much less what individuals do in the space. I shadowed Dan Rosenberg, SVP of CorpDev for two days and got an awesome insider perspective. Here are some highlights:

9:00 AM CorpDev Strategy Meeting	Meeting with another CorpDev team member, strategy planning for collaboration with MediaMath’s portfolio companies
9:45 Live Demo	The CEO of a startup came in to give a live demo of his platform that could work really well with MediaMath’s existing technology.
12:15 Meeting with Peter Phelan, Chief People Officer and Brian Miller, General Counsel	We met with Peter and Brian to discuss the recent Tactads acquisition. It’s important for the CorpDev to work closely with HR and Legal.
12:40 Catch up on Emails	Dan dribbles a basketball while on the phone, then answers emails at a standing desk. He gives me a great tip for taking advantage of little moments in the hallway, on the road, etc: Write your questions and topics for discussion into an Evernote and shoot a couple at whomever you need to. This is especially useful for Dan because he must interact with busy people at MediaMath on a day to day basis and time by the elevator or near the coffee machine could prove to be valuable. I’ll definitely do this when I head back to school.
1:05 PM Meeting with Joe Zawadzki, the CEO	Meeting with Joe to plan a presentation with a potential corporate partner. MediaMath skis are propped up behind the door in his office. Lots of whiteboard notes here and a pun on whether or not Joe is joking or joe-king.
2:30 PM Walk to 1301	I join Dan and another CorpDev team member, Christina Dittman on a quick walk from the 1440 Broadway office to the 1301 Avenue of Americas Swing Space. Both Dan and Christina work while they walk.
3:00 CorpDev Call	We’re back in 1301. It’s free ice cream day. There is a whole ice cream bar set up in the lobby. I bring some back to the office and dial in to a call with a potential MediaMath collaborator.
4:30 CorpDev Sync	All team meeting. Each member of the team goes through their “top 3s,” which are project updates for the top projects you worked on the most this week. The team goes through current deals, challenges and successes.
5:30 Misc Phone calls, etc	I leave the office before Dan leaves because it gets too dark to have a shadow. MediaMath is pretty flexible about hours and scheduling.

Shadowing Dan gave me more context to the work I’m doing now and has also sparked my interest in Corporate Development as a long term career path. While I still am going to be a Math major, I’ve added a corporate finance class to better understand the financials CorpDev works with and a seminar on tech entrepreneurship because all the different small startups the team works with have piqued my interest in learning about the landscape from an academic standpoint.

I’ve also learned how important work culture is. You can do a lot of work and have fun at MediaMath. It makes a difference to be in a place where everyone is friendly and approachable. Throughout the day, Dan stopped and chatted with quite a few people. If he needs information or any sort of help, there are plenty of people here who are willing and eager to pitch in.

There’s so much more to say, but I’m on my way to MediaMath’s intern laser tag, so I’m going to wrap this up quickly: Being Dan’s shadow was invaluable. Hopefully all you interns out there reading this will get a chance to shadow someone at your work place.

Feel free to comment and share your experiences!

Events Uncategorized

Entering New Dimensions with MediaMath at dmexco

September 4, 2014 — by MediaMath

With only 6 days to go until dmexco – one of the largest media events in the world, the MediaMath team is packed and waiting to jet off for two days of inspiring content, networking and maybe a bottle or two of Kölsch – Cologne’s speciality beer.

The internationally renowned conference held in Cologne on 10th and 11th September, is a great opportunity to engage with peers at the cutting edge of digital marketing and innovation, and with over 30,000 visitors expected this year from across the globe, it promises to be the largest dmexco yet.

This year’s theme is ‘entering new dimensions’, and we aim to share with delegates how they can do just that, by empowering them with the knowledge that programmatic can offer their business.

We recognise that understanding ad tech can be a challenge, which is amplified by the industry’s habit of over-using acronyms – from DSP to DMP to PMP. So as ad tech professionals, we want to better educate, engage, and empower the new generation of digital marketing professionals by promoting a greater understanding of the role of technology in marketing. This, in turn, will fuel greater openness to adoption and enable marketers to better recognise the value that ad tech can bring to their business. And dmexco is the perfect place to do just that.

This year we are delighted to not only be exhibiting (with popcorn we might add), but our very own Dave Reed, MD of EMEA, will be discussing how advertisers can bridge the power of TV and digital advertising on a panel session hosted by Civolution.

MediaMath at dmexco
This year you will find us at Stand D-035 in Hall 7, where our MediaMath experts will be on hand to discuss how your can unlock the power of goal-based marketing and programmatic technology to achieve business goals.

We are currently booking meetings for 10th and 11th September for delegates who want advice and to discuss their current strategy – so if you would like to discover how you can reengineer your marketing request a meeting with us. Or if you prefer, pop over and see us during the event and we will be more than happy to discuss any questions you have.

We will also be serving popcorn in our very own branded popcorn boxes and giving out MediaMath goodies at the stand – so no excuse not to visit.

Dave Reed on TV-Synced Advertising 
Wednesday 10th September, Dave Reed, MD of EMEA, will join Andy Nobbs, CMO of Civolution, along with other panellists, to discuss TV-Synced Advertising.

The panel, which will take place at 5pm in Seminar Room 6 Hall 6, will look at the opportunity advertisers now have to sync TV advertising across search, display, mobile, and social media, as second screening becomes an opportunity for brands rather than a problem due to distracted audiences. Add this session to your schedule so you don’t miss out.

It’s not all work
Don’t worry, it’s not all work and no play. We’ll be hosting a Stand Party from 6.30pm Wednesday 10th September and invite you to join us! We will be serving bubbly and canapés as well as beer and soft drinks for those who don’t fancy fizz.

And if you can’t make it to dmexco
If you aren’t able to make it to Cologne but still want to learn about how you can take advantage of programmatic, why not try our programmatic quiz or book an appointment with your local sales team.

Auf Wiedersehen for now.

Photo credit: © dmexco, Cologne

Data Technology Uncategorized

The Last Time We Talk About Last Touch?

September 3, 2014 — by MediaMath

Today’s sophisticated marketer recognizes that the reigning standard for attribution, the last-touch model, under-values the contribution of earlier touch points in driving a conversion. For example, if a consumer saw an online video ad for a product, which in turn led them to do a search for that product, from which they subsequently clicked on a paid search result and purchased the product, the search ad would receive 100% of the credit and the video ad 0%. As this example demonstrates, a simple last touch model would allocate all the credit to the search, and none to the video ad – incorrectly concluding that the video ad is worthless.

My colleague’s recent post on MediaMath’s Pathway Analysis reporting explains the difference between identifying the full pathway of conversions in comparison to a last-touch view. These reports articulate the actual impact of earlier touch points and provide marketers with an opportunity to buy media even more intelligently. However, the enormity of the data from multi-touch attribution models leaves marketers struggling to find a way to apply it to their media campaign while leveraging the inferences hidden in its granularity.

With TerminalOne’s Closed Loop Attribution (CLA) product, marketers can now fully activate the benefits of advanced attribution models on the programmatic RTB exchange. We’ve partnered with leaders in the attribution modeling category, such as Adometry, Convertro, and VisualIQ, which allows MediaMath clients to plug their custom attribution models directly into our multivariate bid prediction algorithm. The Brain, our proprietary algorithm, factors in the advanced attribution insights to determine the best bid price, adjusting the bid for each of the individual 150+ billion daily impressions opportunities available in TerminalOne. With Closed Loop Attribution, a custom attribution model might assign 50/50 credit to the two touch points, and inform The Brain to recognize a video ad, for example, and bid accordingly.

Whether you’re already working with a custom attribution vendor or not, contact your MediaMath representative to learn more about Closed Loop Attribution to begin activating multi-touch attribution insights.

Events Uncategorized

What Does It Take to be an Award Winning CMO?

August 29, 2014 — by MediaMath

What does it take to be an award winning CMO in today’s hyper-connected and always-on world?

It takes leadership. It takes innovation. It takes the ability to tell compelling stories. It takes the ability to drive revenue and map that success back to marketing. It takes all of these things and more; the short answer to the question is that there is no short answer.

The marketing department is now, more than ever, crucial in generating revenue. It’s time to highlight the CMOs and senior marketers that are making the most progress for their organizations and marketing as a whole, and the CMO Club is doing just that.

The CMO Club recently announced the nominees for its CMO Awards, which are bestowed annually across ten categories. The categories range from “Rising Star” to “Content Engagement” to “Programmatic Marketing” and recognize top senior marketing executives. The range of brands honored across these categories is impressive – from L.L. Bean to Kimberly Clark – innovation is vertical agnostic. They are the only awards of their kind given to CMOs by their peers.

To these CMOs we say “congratulations.” Continue blazing the path to success.

Technology Uncategorized

Why Should Partners in the Stack Collaborate?

August 28, 2014 — by MediaMath

There’s a lot of acquisition and consolidation going on in the ad tech world. LinkedIn recently announced its acquisition of Bizo, an advertising technology company. LinkedIn, and other blue chip companies like Saleforce, IBM, Google and Adobe are consolidating to offer marketers the technology to build the “perfect” stack. Of course, we know there’s no such thing as perfect. What’s best for one digital marketing professional is not likely to be ideal for another. What’s more, as these giants of the digital world set out to offer powerful marketing technology, it would behoove marketers to ask themselves how the technology they may invest in integrates with their existing technologies and how it would compliment other technologies that they may be purchasing simultaneously. Rebecca Lieb of Altimeter Group wisely cautioned in AdAge, “Perhaps the most important criterion when selecting a stack solution is learning whether it’s an open or a closed system. Open is preferable, paramount even, if there’s the slightest chance you’ll want to use other software systems, packages or solutions with the stack. Many of these solutions have APIs that allow integration.”

So while many of the smartest marketers in the world invest millions of dollars at Google for search, display, remarketing and analytics, they still need to ask themselves if any one company really offers the best of everything. While Google is certainly the easy solution since many marketers invest so much in paid search, is it ideal for everything else?

The fact is, marketers can have their cake and eat it, too. The open stack is a real and very viable option, meaning that, for the most part, marketers can choose the partners they believe and know will best meet their results. There are a lot of great marketing operating systems out there (and yes, TerminalOne is one of them) that allow you to customize your technology in order to build the stack as you see fit.

If you’re wondering how you’re going to get your favorite vendors to work nicely together, don’t. Marketplaces like the OPEN Partner Marketplace give the best-in-class data, media and technology providers a single virtual space where buyers can pick and choose who they use as it relates to their digital marketing efforts.

Although Ms. Leib worries that even open technology stacks may eventually choose to close their garden walls, I believe the opposite trend is on the horizon. Scott Brinker recently wrote about the multitude of technology companies and the trend towards embracing openness within the marketplace. Scott Brinker of ChiefMartec rightly says that “an open strategy offers benefits to all stakeholders in the marketing ecosystem – including the platform companies themselves…in an environment of continuous innovation, it arguably gives them room for growth.” Marketing cannot survive on social targeting alone, or personalization alone, or even AdWords alone. To create the perfect stack for any marketer, we all need to put on our team jerseys and play nice.

This post is the eleventh in a series for marketers with an understanding of programmatic technology who are looking to step it up. Keep up with this series by following the Step It Up Series on the blog.

Do you have what it takes to integrate programmatic technology more deeply into your business strategy? Take our quiz to identify your level of programmatic sophistication and get to the next level.

Media Social Media Technology Uncategorized

With API’s Wide Open

August 26, 2014 — by MediaMath

Not unlike Creed’s power ballad “With Arms Wide Open,” MediaMath is excited to announce that we’ve opened up the MediaMath – FBX integration at the API level on the TerminalOne™ platform.

Facebook’s ad exchange, FBX, provides advertisers the powerful opportunity to engage with consumers on the social media behemoth. As Business Insider notes, FBX plays an important role in the digital advertising ecosystem: “Facebook accounts for about half of the retargeted ad clicks on the Web.”

MediaMath, one of the earliest partners of FBX, is on a mission to provide a scalable and open technology platform to our clients. Extensibility is core to MediaMath’s platform offering, and we are working aggressively to expose more platform capabilities, empowering marketers to define their own advertising workflows.

Through the TerminalOne FBX API integration, MediaMath clients can gain access to FBX’s Right Hand Side and Page Post Ads inventory, and build custom tools to traffic creative and execute their media plans.

To learn more about MediaMath’s capabilities visit www.mediamath.com

Technology Uncategorized

One Step Closer – Buying a Marketing Operating System

August 21, 2014 — by MediaMath

The largest digital media agencies in the world are already using programmatic technology and many of the largest brands are currently implementing programmatic strategies into their digital marketing mix. Marketers who aren’t considering programmatic technology run the risk of not being able to compete in the market. As your team(s) work to educate themselves about the DSP space, RFI vendors, and move one-step closer to selecting a strategic partner, they need to ensure that the technology company they partner with provides them the following:

The economics of your advertising spend. Marketers using a marketing operating system have complete insight into the breakout of every dollar spent within the system. The costs of TerminalOne are directly tied to gross media spent through the platform, also known as the working media dollars. Don’t settle for an arbitrage model where the provider takes a cut; demand transparency. Remember this: “glass box, not black box.”

A long-term solution. Technology evolves rapidly. As such, your technology partner needs to provide an extensible solution that allows for customizability, modularity, and flexibility that allows marketers to build solutions tailored to their unique business needs. Additionally, the more time spent on the platform provides marketers with the deep analytical data that can be applied to future campaigns, resulting in improved marketing performance.

Data control and activation. Both yours and ours. A marketing operating system should be able to house 1st-party, 2nd-party, and 3rd-party data, and activate (as well as layer) that data over media buys to produce targeted and effective digital marketing campaigns.

A new marketing outlook. Once fully integrated, programmatic will change the way you execute your digital marketing from a workflow, performance and financial perspective. Be empowered to reimagine marketing performance by using identifiable marketing goals, not guesses; lead with a goal-based marketing approach. A marketing operating system can produce the business results that matter most to you. That’s why it’s important for all departments — marketing, operations and procurement —to be aligned when it comes to buying a marketing operating system.

Support. Implementation of a programmatic technology is not a process that you have to, or should, make on your own. We’re as committed to you as you are to us. As you ramp-up, we’ll work closely with you to help you understand how it works, how to set and reach reasonable goals and how to set up a schedule to progressively transfer more campaigns through TerminalOne.

This blog post is the ninth in a series for marketers that are curious about programmatic technology and would like to educate themselves on the value it can provide.

New to programmatic? Take our quiz to find out where you stand when it comes to your programmatic prowess.

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