Sean B.’s Post

The industry is re-discovering the importance of “attention” 🙄 (it has always been one of the most basic concepts of marketing and advertising, if you asked me, but we know how the conversation in an ad tech driven digital advertising sector is shaped). And by the way, all my respect for those that are pushing for the concept to resurface! Are media owners taking the opportunity to lead in the debate and shape the narrative? And why is it important? Media owners have two customers in the first-party web: the audience and the advertiser. It is their responsibility to make sure that their audience is engaging with the content they create in the environment they own and manage. And advertising is part of that environment. Serving advertising on own environments also requires being responsible for the quality of the products and services advertised but also for the formats and their features. As well, it is media companies’ responsibility to prove the effectiveness of that engagement to their other customer, the advertiser. Nearly four years ago I was writing on Adexchanger that “The next 10 years of digital advertising are being decided right now, by browser engineers, the W3C and the IAB. And media owners are almost completely absent from the debate.” I was referring to innovation in media and advertising, in formats and features, and I still believe that a quote I used resonates very much in today’s landscape: “Executives read the same trade magazines, go to the same conferences, and talk to the same consultants. After a while, they all think alike. Innovators, by contrast, are contrarians. In their quest to upend industry rules, they learn how to distinguish ‘immutable laws’ from ‘ingrained beliefs.’” Link to the article on the comment below. It is frustrating to often close my posts on years-old articles by saying “it’s never too late”. But let's look at the half-full glass: imagine what a shame and a missed opportunity if it wasn’t the case! #media #advertising #strategy

In the age of AI-generated content, increased misinformation and brand safety concerns in digital advertising, it can be challenging to know where to place your media investment. One way to maximize and protect your budget is to invest in audited and certified media and technology partners. Here are four steps marketers can take to maximize their media buys and encourage greater transparency in the marketplace: 1. Know the difference between audited and unaudited media 2. Share why audits are important to you 3. Invest in audited media 4. Get access to AAM’s data To learn more at: https://hubs.li/Q02lGcKz0 #mediabuying #mediadata #auditedmedia

This is a troubling trend, in my view. Agencies acting as both buyer and seller of media is a conflict of interest for their clients -- unless it is done with full transparency and approval. But I question if that really happens for all clients. This started years ago and was positioned by the agency as a way to get lower costs for their clients as they use their size and clout to get rock bottom rates which they pass along (with a small markup, of course). But as Nick Manning points out here -- these are rock bottom rates for bottom of the barrel inventory that likely improve the efficiency on paper, but have no real impact on brand sales. If you are a large global advertiser, logistically it makes sense to work with these holding company agencies, but you'll need airtight contracts and strong oversight of your agency partner(s) to ensure you know exactly what you're paying for. For other advertisers, you may be working with smaller independent agencies and this may be less of an issue. The practice of reselling media is a risk to any agency, but likely too big of a risk (or not feasible) for these smaller shops. But this practice should be on your radar. Airtight contracts and strong oversight is always a good practice for all advertisers. Trust, but verify.

📖 “We don’t value things; we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.” A quote ascribed to Ogilvy vice chairman Rory Sutherland, and it's one worth consideration in any advertising context, not least of all for publishers when carving out the next five years of more progressively sustainable and self-governed revenue models. Curated marketplaces, first-party data offerings, sustainability-centric packages: the primary opportunities in all of these and many other initiatives lie not just in the capabilities themselves but in how we arrange and then frame them for our clients. In other words, how we give them meaning. When you onboard a DMP, you don’t “sell a DMP” to a client (or certainly shouldn’t). You sell the idea and its meaning in the wider context for your advertisers. The same goes for anything else from clean rooms to contextual to content partnerships and innovative measurement metrics. The capabilities, the integrations, the services—these will only get you so far. How you then package these and imbue meaning in them is what separates you from the rest. If we started more often with questions like “what should this mean to an advertiser?” it would often dramatically change the way in which we frame things. What you can do and how this is communicated (the meaning you give them internally and externally) are equally important. Additionally, if you’re one of those publishers who’s regularly remarking “Yeah, but we’ve technically been doing that for over a year already” in response to your boss who’s just seen the latest trade press article on a competitor’s product release, then you need to revisit the importance you’re placing on the meaning of your “things.” Don’t focus solely on the integrations and capabilities. There is a bigger picture, which presents a vista of opportunity built on the subjective aspects of advertising, not the objective.

Ahead of this week’s IAB Tech Lab Summit, CEO Anthony Katsur spoke with Digiday to discuss key themes for the event. Learn how the summit will address where the industry is and where it’s headed as we face a critical turning point in the digital advertising ecosystem: #Marketing #DigitalAdvertising #IABTechLab

TripleLift Releases New Report on How Global Advertisers Are Adapting to The Addressability Shift https://ow.ly/4W3650TA0B7 #marketing #martech #technology #TripleLift

💻 Dive into the complexities of digital advertising! 🌟 Explore the $225 billion ecosystem and learn how advertisers are navigating challenges while embracing innovation. Get insights in our latest blog: https://lnkd.in/eYYFUJpT #digitalmarketing #adtech

Now might be a good time for #publishers to start reassessing their #adtech stack. With layered #technology presenting a #sustainability issue for #publishers, Hannah Mirza, in an exclusive comment for Campaign Asia-Pacific, shares her thoughts on the pressure on publishers to streamline their #technology and warns publishers to be careful in the process, whether they are creating the next monopoly or oligopoly ecosystem of #suppliers. 🤔 "As clients streamline, their SSP solutions and publishers strip back their supply to fewer touchpoints; it's a certainty. As an industry, we need to project the three-year outcome of these consolidations and not just the short-termism of the challenge presented," says Hannah Mirza. To hear more from Hannah and other leading industry experts on tackling this issue. Read the full article below. 👇 https://lnkd.in/e_tn66iR #responsiblemedia #responsiblemarketing #adtech

𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 - 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 2024 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 🚀:https://lnkd.in/eKetQfgD Publishers are actively refining their AdStacks by adjusting ads.txt lines, with over 80,000 new lines getting added and 64,000 existing lines eliminated in the last 1 month alone. Are you witnessing a similar trend in your stack? This report digs deep into the data, highlighting SSPs acquiring domains and their dynamic rank shifts!📈 Additionally, this report also introduces a new theme titled "Auction Duplication," allowing you to identify your category and effectively utilize the data provided. Ready for the full scoop? Dive into the insights here🎢: https://lnkd.in/eKetQfgD All the information is exclusively derived from our CI Tool. To access it, check out this link: https://lnkd.in/g2pr38jF Stay tuned for monthly updates! 🔄 to see the latest trends in digital advertising! Adman Media, Minute Media, Aniview, Vidazoo by Perion, Zeta Global, Next Millennium Media, Bold Collective gained a good number of new connections, suggesting that publishers are actively seeking strong partners to enhance their AdStacks. #SSP #Publishers #AdTech

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