digital

Trading Desks are in for the long haul, not the sale.

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I cant decide where to start on this post, there has been so much going on in the hectic world of ad exchanges in the last few weeks. Top of the bill was an excitable debate between an Audience on Demand employee and a disgruntled DSP. The key issues raised around conflict of interest included agencies being forced to put spend through their trading desks, lack of impartiality etc etc.

Interwoven with this debate was the fact that so many companies are approaching us at the moment, DSPs, Data targeting companies etc all with interesting premises I suppose but all with one thing in common, they all need to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible. Lets talk about conflict of interest..I use the DSP marketplace including Triggit which was involved in the above debate. How many shall we say there are, that are currently aiming for Trading Desk revenues – 4? 5?. Everyone is coming to town, everyone wants a piece of the action, but when they get into town they realise that a couple of those 4/5 have been busy for a few months / years and pretty much wrapped up the business. Its not to say thatagency groups will not test and learn, we do in the US and there is definatley room for more than one or two but for some, the market’s not big enough. What happens then? They need to fight for revenues, they need to say why they are better than each other and especially better than Invite to try and find the big ticket, except I am not sure there is a big ticket at the moment. So then they resort to the last option which is to try and undermine the credibility of a trading desk to try and open up some cracks of opportunity.

The conflict of interest for those guys is they have to make money to keep the VCs happy. The agency group trading desk model is not in the same boat. Audience on Demand’s sole purpose in life is to navigate on behalf of its clients a very complex market place and deliver great results. They are in it for the long haul, they have much more to lose. AOD messes up on a client it can jeopardise the whole business. Yes there is pressure to deliver..but its to deliver results not revenue first and foremost. In a competitive marketplace as the agency landscape is, the more things you do well and right, the more chance you have of retaining the client.

So whats better then? An organisation like Audience on Demand that has a remit to make sure it is working with the best, understanding strengths and weaknesses – and believe me all these tech companies have them – or a heavily invested tech company struggling to make ends meet. Who is actually going to have the interests of the client? I can tell you, it’s us. Anyone who thinks that agencies and clients are naive enough to accept sub standard strategy and results just because its in house is a) clearly lacking in understanding of how an agency works and b) underestimating the clients and Account people. If a client asks about our impartiality we can show them the full vetting we do of all DSPs, I can show them the data compliance methods we have in detail for every supplier, I can show them the results in detail where an acceptable flat cpa or cpc is not acceptable as it encourages the supplier to focus on growing their margin rather than delivering the lowest metric. I will show you 100’s of people who live and breath this space and understand it better than any individual tech company thats trying to undermine it.

Conflict of interest is doing what you have to do to stay afloat in one of the most competitive eras of all digital times vs doing what’s best for our clients. Finally it is always worth analysing who is throwing the mud, its often one of those people who came in to town too late and cant find anywhere to hang their hat.

Data: The new Wild West

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I have invited Paul Silver – Head of Product, AOD UK to comment on the world of data – here is his first post and the first guest post on my blog. Enjoy.

By the one and only: @thepaulsilver

The 3rd party data space right now reminds me to some degree of The Wild West. As a result of that mad gold rush era, the legacies created were: hastily erected housing, mob rule, vigilante justice, hyper inflated prices….sound famililar?

There has for sometime now been a lot of discussion around 3rd party data for audience targeting. ExchangeWire hosted the first EMEA Data Economy Event in March 2011. The hype seems to be lessening, but the appetite is as strong as ever.

The recent announcement of Xaxis developing a global audience profiling database reaffirms my belief about the synergy between the current data space and The Wild West. Agency Groups, Ad Networks, Data Exchanges, Aggregators – everyone is trying to get a piece of audience data, acquire it if you will (directly or indirectly) to fuel more precisely targeted audience based campaigns. And like the Wild West, I fear this rush for data is creating more confusion, execution of some bad practices whilst fundamentally the core foundations remain sub standard at best.

The upside of this ‘demand rush’ means publishers have more distribution points than ever, that can only be a good thing right? Or does it mean in fact that the more points that data is sold to, the more commoditized it becomes? Is that inevitable?

Some publishers that I have spoken to do not know where to begin when it comes to data monetisation. There is also so much data kicking around that advertisers do not know what to do with it, what to buy in terms of un-deduplicated reach and access, or even begin to understand the complexity around different taxonomies for what could essentially be the same user in the same type of segment. There is also the case of advertisers (and publishers for that matter) not knowing the difference between the types of data: inferred or explicit, lifestyle, interest, intent, social graphs(?), lookalike. The lack of standards and transparency exasperates the problem.

Like the mob rule affect created by the Gold Rush, publishers are increasingly becoming vulnerable too. Large agency groups are starting to wield certain influence in trying to bake data into trading deals. On one hand, publishing groups with limited scale are never really going to make a fortune from selling their data, but its the principle of how that proprietary data exits their businesses that should raise concerns. There is also the case of publishing groups still unaware of what data is being collected on their users from third parties. It is still very common practice for ad networks and certain agency groups to cookie from a creative. It might be pretty high level data in some cases but it’s still data being used to build out data repositories, leveraged for campaign targeting elsewhere.

Co-mingling of client data is an old argument; some of which believe to be mythical (one network told me it was not technically possible) whilst some believe it’s still an operational practice today. Either way it’s a practice that carries many sensitivities. An example is outlined below. I recently applied for an AMEX BA Card. I have since been served ads for BT following some recent site visitation. Nothing wrong with that. However what I found odd was the cookie information, that is being directly or indirectly leveraged, includes details of the Amex transaction. I may be wide of the mark of here and as the technology is based on exclusion and inclusion pixelling, maybe it ‘needs’ to know I am an AMEX customer so the rules can be defined to say “dont serve AMEX to this user, serve another ad from the pool”. Or it could be simply using the data they have on me to enrich the targeting parameters of the BT campaign?

As far as the publishers are concerned, yes there are companies such as Krux who exist to protect the publisher’s data, but there’s a cost to everything. The cost to protect your data could outweigh the amount it will sell on in an open market – a difficult business case to make.

But how are advertisers being remunerated? More importantly, being protected? Data networks are built by certain businesses off the back of advertiser funded campaigns / creatives. Publishers may well be remunerated for this, but are the actual advertisers? Their ads are running across ad networks and are the principle facilitator of data collection. Surely they deserve some of this rev share?

Lastly, but by no means least, why is there not more discussion and focus on how to better measure and evaluate the use of audience data? Without this, the rush for data is simply a race to the bottom – either data becomes less qualified (to make it more scalable) and therefore less expensive to deliver against a CPA or the data investment remains minimal because a scaled use of it does not cost in against a KPI.* We should be nailing this first and foremost.

All in all, there are some murky practices still happening with regards to 3rd party data. I think industry needs to clean up the data space somewhat before anyone starts cashing in on the latest Gold Rush…

*(Fortunately for our partners, we are developing a solution within VivaKi that aims to address this challenge, identify the real value of data and reward partners appropriately. We believe there is certainly value to delivering against your target audience and we hope to be able to scientifically measure this value).

Follow Paul @thepaulsilver

The Trouble with Trading Desks is that..

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They threaten a nice and cosy Ad network world where the networks manage to co exist by all buying the same inventory in exchanges, using client data and passing it back to agencies at a nice margin. Let me ask a few questions:

1. Does the average client / buyer realise the Ad networks that all have nice individual sounding names are all down shopping at the same auction, forcing up the prices for our clients and making delectable margins.
2. Why is it so bad that the agencies are bringing transparency back out of the black boxes of the performance networks, so we all learn?
3.. When did an Ad network last tell you how they achieved their results? They wont as they have to expose their exchange buying techniques. Agencies can now show the workings not just the answer.
4. Why would a client be happy to spray their data around like its going out of fashion – it’s a valuable commodity that is being used by networks to power the individual client results as well as who knows what else?
5. Is the client absolutely sure that their data is not being used by an ad network to power one of the clients competitors?
6. Why are the publishers fighting tooth and nail to protect their data whilst advertisers are giving it away?

Lets balance off this debate a little and ask who the main protagonists are in the debate, perhaps there are people out to protect their business models. I will say that our clients are getting better results, more transparency and better control of their data. Does not sound too bad to me.

Finally can we stop building cases on the back of a couple of media buyers who we don’t know the identity of, who have probably not got a pay rise this year. If this was a court of law it would all be thrown out. If I were a client, I would trust the agency as we have a lot more to lose, the networks win some lose some.

In case this annoys anyone, these are my views, not the views of my organisation.

Four days on the West coast

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I was genuinely excited about my visit to the West Coast to visit all the HQs of the major Internet companies. When you have worked in digital for so long these places take on real significance. Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redmond etc. The Spanish VivaKi took 12 clients out there and I was there to represent the broader VivaKi organisation and make a presentation on how it all worked. It was perfect timing actually as I felt very ‘Groupe’ after the four days I spent on publicis training last week.

The first day was at Microsoft. Honestly I was disappointed with the offices, very dull and heavy and old. I always imagined, white and bright for these big spaces but this had more of the 70s about them. The opening couple of hours were spent in the home of the future. A seriously impressive vision of the house of the future, Microsoft have a couple of these but nothing like this, properly mind boggling and left you amazed, a great start.

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Microsoft does have so much to offer but really does struggle to join up the dots, demonstrate the power of 4 screens. They are almost unique in the position but it seems they struggle to capitalise on the opportunity. Nevertheless a demonstration in scale, scope and innovation is what Microsoft does best and I know the clients took a lot away from it.

Google and Facebook followed the next day and the scale of the companies and their impact on the world is staggering. In both cases you have to remind yourself of what they have achieved in such a short period of time and as we wandered the offices how on earth they kept on top of the growth. The offices both had a dishevelled feeling about them, but both gave up space for thought and distraction, something we could all learn from I think. Everywhere there were break out areas in all shapes and sizes as well as canteens and small kitchens.

The average age of the staff was young! The Google canteen was like a high school dining area not one of the worlds largest companies. It also seemed open to the world. There was our trip that felt like a school tour, the were also school tours and other things, it feels like a company keen to be part of the community – I don’t know if that’s true or not but that’s what I was left with.

Google was not a company but a town, complete with their own Google company bicycles everywhere so you could get around, it was vast 8-9 thousand people..you feel like you are inside a legend of a business, a great feeling.

And after all that, what stood out for our clients? Akamai. The unheard of company that basically makes the web work and transfers the internets content. With their screens showing the load on servers across the world, beautifully brought to life with futuristic graphics, the power of this company is stunning and yet so understated. You can understand why a potential leader of Publicis Groupe in the form of David Kenny was attracted to the organisation. I suspect in the coming years we will all hear a lot more about Akamai.

So it’s been a week in Paris being trained on how to collaborate in our Groupe and now four days in the heart of the web world, a crazy couple of weeks but fascinating and week 1 seems all the more obvious having lived through week 2. This world is going mad with complexity and no one company can handle all of it, as agencies we want to be all things to all men, but those days are done. We are now in the age of truly collaborating to survive, rather than just saying we do, those who don’t use the power of our various agency brands and VivaKi will not succeed. Clients want solutions and together we can deliver.

Did someone at the ICO get pissed at lunch? Privacy lunacy

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So the story so far..after many years of neglect the governments of US and UK decide we need to manage better the laws around privacy. The US agrees that we don’t need a law but the relevant bodies should show clear guidance and management of the issue, proving that the industry will be responsible. The US have done that, it’s still a little disorganised but it’s getting there.

At the same time in the UK we were doing the same. Everyone working together and moving towards an acceptable solution. It was loosely agreed that cookies required by a company to deliver a service, think about how intuitive Amazon is or how your bank remembers you etc etc. Everyone was happy with that approach. At the same time the advertising and targeting industry was looking, similar to the US at another self regulation approach. There was a number of options but it was going in the right direction.

As I had mentioned before, based on information from Evidon, consumers had shown not a fear of being tracked but rather a desire to be represented appropriately and therefore receive the most relevant advertising and or slick process through ecommerce websites. This to me is crucial, absolutely crucial and the government needs to understand this point further.

So all was going smoothly. Then someone went to lunch and got pissed at the ICO because when they got back they decided to throw all that out and do a number of things:

1. You need agreement from the user to cookie them, before you start to do it
2. They tightened up the rules for advertisers as to what is a crucial cookie and therefore exempt vs one that just makes your life easier.
3. They then left all that hanging with no actual solutions.

It is absolute lunacy, we are left with chaos, are we really suggesting pop up boxes and drop downs and virtual signatures before being able to drop a cookie? Perhaps we should just go the whole hog and ask for permission in writing as one European country is discussing.

This approach is a major departure from where the Government was only weeks ago and has caught everyone off guard, ecommerce is at risk as is most of the digital advertising business and hence why it is lunacy. The point in this blog however is simple, the only reason they could have had this short term turnaround is because they went to lunch and got pissed because frankly there can be no other explanation.

This needs of be sorted out, I am sure it will be and I know everyone is working closely together as agency groups, advertisers and industry bodies, so nobody panic. If all else fails get down the pub with the ICO boys and try and persuade them otherwise.

Exchangewire coverage of the expansion of Audience on Demand

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Last week Performics announced the launch of its ATS in France. Here Marco Bertozzi, Managing Director, EMEA at VivaKi Nerve Center, gives some overview on the announcement and how Performics’ clients in France will benefit from the new buying strategy.

Can you give some details on the launch of the Performics trading desk in France?

MB: Vivaki Nerve Center has a consistent approach to Audience on Demand in every market. We adjust in terms of data partners and inventory but the approach is the same and we are excited that we are now live in France. Performics is a central performance team in France and will be a centre of excellence for Audience on Demand in that country. It is still a nascent market, although growing very rapidly. Its a sign of the team over there that they have created the proposition and have started to grow the client base aggressively.

Will we see significant budget being passed through the platform. What benefits will it have for Performic’s clients?

MB: Already we are excited by the number of clients who want to go live in the market and how many are getting involved in Audience on Demand. Assuming we continue to see the excellent results in France that we have seen elsewhere, I would expect a consistent increase in spend away from the network proposition to the exchange space. I would imagine this is ahead of the market place for the agency groups.

Can you give some details on the partnership with Weborama? How will the new trading desk use Weborama’s data to trade across dynamic supply?

MB: Weborama is a good example of Audience on Demand reacting to the local market needs. Although we have a consistent approach in terms of strategy and technology we acknowledge there will always be important partners in every country and Weborama is one of those in France. It was therefore vital that they were an integral part of getting AOD off the ground in that country and we are working on some exciting audience segments and custom solutions for our clients.

You are the first ATS to market in France – but how evolved is the exchange eco-system there? Is there enough supply available in the market?

MB: I think people underestimate supply in some of the main countries. If you add up the inventry from Adex, Orange, Admeld and others there is a good volume to be able to supply our campaigns. This space is only going in one direction. Better to be in now and learning than follow the crowds. I think very quickly the supposed lack of audience will disappear and I hope the team at Performics will have a clear view of how to make the most of the new inventory as it comes online.

Are we likely to see more roll-outs across Europe? What country is next on the road map?

MB: Yes, yes, yes. Spain is already live and we are hopeful the Netherlands will be shortly after that. Of course Germany and Italy will help complete a Western European approach – but as fast as possible I would like to get a Nordics and CEE offering up and running. That comes with more technical and infrastructure issues but its already well underway. Its vital for our clients that we have an International offering in EMEA. The US is flying with China live and Australia being fully scoped, its exciting times for Audience on Demand.

Data accuracy, not data privacy

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OK it is a little black and white and overly simplistic but there is something in this phrase. After working with Evidon, formerly Better Advertising, I realised that we are spending so much time talking about data privacy when in reality part of the game is data accuracy.

Evidon are one of the first companies in the US and soon to be EMEA that overlay a logo on each and every banner, allowing a consumer to learn a number of things about who is tracking them and what these databases hold on an individual user. Once you click through you are told about the company whose page you are on and anyone else who may be tracking you across over 300 data partners. Now it gets interesting, not only can you see this data but you can change it in real time to reflect you and your life more accurately OR you can opt out altogether.

The first and interesting learning was only a tiny, tiny percentage of the users clicked on the logo, we can forgive that as there has not been much coverage and education, that said against billions of impressions the actual number was high enough to learn lots about what they did next..they did not opt out, no they updated their profiles on the databases. They were happy to be tracked but only on their terms, they wanted to make sure they were rightly represented so they got the best advertising.

I dont think enough people talk about this, we are constantly assuming consumers / users want out, no they want accuracy and they want to see who and what is looking at them, after that in the main it appears they are happy to work with us nasty, media and data companies, they may even want to receive an advertising message!

So I think we should talk as much about data accuracy as we do data privacy..

Exchangewire Data Trading Summit

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Yesterday saw Ciaran of Exchangewire fame organise his second major event. The focus of the event was the wonderful world of data trading, particularly within the exchange space. As is the way with Ciaran’s events they are less stuffy and formal and I always find the social and networking element to them very productive, as with the last trading summit the great and the good were there and it’s the quickest way to catch up with all your contacts.

The event was opened with a suitably non data introduction from Collective’s Steven Filler. Might have just been me but it felt like he realised that he had a room full of so called experts and the usual presentation would not quite wash and so swapped to more of an opening introduction to the whole event. Interestingly his opening chart was one of the most revealing of the day. Attendance was 45% ad networks, 10% agency and NO clients. A strange set of numbers when you think most people in the room were colluding on how to get rid of the ad networks. The agency figure looked low but actually there are a relatively few people in agencies fueling the exchange machines so that does not surprise, although you could argue that more people beyond that should show interest.

The Data panel was a demonstration on theory. We have one huge White elephant in the room, true attribution. Most sophisticated strategies seem to fail without this analysis and yet it was generally acknowledged that we don’t do it well enough.  So we end up asking whether data works in a performance world, again the answer was more a no than a yes. The panel worked hard to try and give some texture and real examples but let’s face it, if you have the answer you ain’t telling, if you don’t you will pretend and in fact most people are doing something more simple than they are discussing.

Andy Mitchell from AN&Y then gave a far more realistic view on how publishers could use the exchange space and a little data understanding. It was a refreshingly open presentation and was quite a juxtaposition to the slightly vapour driven data panel. It’s clear from Andy’s presentation though that if you have large inventory you can get in quicker and test more. I have some sympathy with the Tim Gentry’s of this world with a smaller more precious audience to protect.

I really enjoyed talking with a number of people at lunch, especially around European expansion, with Audience on Demand live in France and Spain with other countries close behind establishing the right data, tech and inventory partnerships is important, it’s clear everyone is marching into Europe which is great as far as I am concerned. That was the best bit about lunch, the sandwiches that Ciaran’s mum made were average.

Next up Audience Science. Stuart set out to stir debate, always an admirable approach but I think in places misguided. It was the first time in the day I was glad no clients were there, too many of his inconvenient truths were in fact convenient non-truths for Audience Science new business machine. Stuart has told me this was not his intention but I am not so sure. Worse than that was on a couple of the points I believe that he did believe what he was saying, especially around our debate on RTB but he was just not right as myself and Andy Cocker could not resist telling him. I am all for debate but you have to be careful not to leave people with the wrong impression.

The buyside panel was handled quietly but eloquently by Paul Silver. Some big revelations were that data was one big bubble and that Alain from Excelate was a regular buyer of women 18-34, both created quite stir. Ciaran got into his stride and managed to pull out some quality Specific Media gags, for them it feels like gallows humour, still all good fun of course!

I have to apologise to Nick from the IAB I had to leave but I know this is a serious topic and one VivaKi are taking very seriously and being as proactive as possible. In the US we have started to work with Evidon on using user initiated icons that allow consumers to opt in or out and to change their data footprint with the data collectors. It’s one of those areas where you can keep talking or start doing. As Andy says better to be at the game than watch on telly.

Overall it was a good day, as someone commented it is a state of the nation that there were no clients and that no case studies or examples could be demonstrated. I think for the next event Ciaran should create an incentive pricing scheme for clients, let’s get them involved. I would like to see less paid for performances ( we have been guilty in the past) and more genuine speakers which may end up being one in the same but I guess that’s what we will find out.

A big thanks Ciaran for making us all feel like we have friends and getting us in one room, I look forward to the Autumn summit and what I am sure will be an even bigger turn out.

Apple iAds need to deliver with a punch

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I can’t remember the last time a new launch created so much discussion, and not all positive! It’s like Apple have used the same marketing people for their hardware on their advertising solutions. I can hear them now..it’s Apple, people pay for that name they always pay a premium for our glossy products..those conversations are likely to be happening in the US as well.

Well hello Apple, meet the UK trading Director, he is less interested in the gloss, or meet the average client, they want results as well as gloss. There are some lucky advertiser who may pay the huge rates but on the whole they want some results, some proof before they hand over £1m or no £500K or no £325K and on and on…I have read a lot of headlines in this area and none of them discuss how well they work, what they deliver, how they can help a client on its objectives. The headlines are all about the price which is not a great start for Apple.

I have met some of the team and I can say from personal experience the approach was one full of ‘self confidence’ shall we say, this needs to be mixed with some real world understanding and some great metrics to deliver against the price tag. I shall watch the debate with interest as I find it amusing to see the reality hit the marketing / sales people at Apple.

Good luck

What is the definition of a tablet?

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It’s not the Samsung. When the iPad was being launched and everyone was discussing whether or not there was a place in the world for such a device (I think we have the answer to that!) the most common phrase in reviews was..’if I have an iPhone and a Mac, why do I need one?’ At the time people were not sure of the answer, in the Apple way, the iPad created the need rather than answering one.

Since then the competition has fired its responses and some of them I think have missed the point. Lets take the Samsung example:

The fact is the Samsung is just too small, it’s as close to a phone as an iPad and that is the issue for me, that is where I am left asking – where does this fit? I have seen them in the flesh, they are oversized phones, the screens neither big enough to enjoy gaming, reading, web pages or apps but too big to be convenient like a phone.

The iPad has succeeded because it is big enough to have an experience, it did not set out to be a phone with a slightly larger screen, its build quality and slickness all add to this experience, something else that the competition seem incapable of replicating. I suspect the Blackberry offering will be nice, they are quickly realising that quality of finish both technically and physically is important and I have no doubt it will be a market winning execution, next to the iPad. Here is an example of some people’s interpretation of it