Tag: DSP

Programmatic Media Buying 101: Why DSPs & DMPs work better together

Posted on by Karen Moked

Data-driven advertising has been proven to deliver the most effective way of managing an advertiser’s spend as well as the most efficient way to monetize a seller’s digital assets.
The effectiveness of data-driven decisions –planning, selling, buying– make it necessary for both sellers and buyers to take as much control of their data as possible, and for this reason Data Management Platforms (DMPs) are a key technology for media buyers, publishers and marketers. A good DMP should not only be able to collect data from different sources, but also allow for the creation of audiences/ segmentation, consolidated reporting and campaign optimization – the place where people, platforms, partners and processes are brought together to apply audience data that is actionable. For all those marketers, media buyers and advertisers running programmatic advertising the DMP should be the source of truth for activation and analysis purposes.

What Can A DMP Offer?


Web and mobile experiences, speed of ad delivery, relevant ads and smooth and uncluttered paths to purchase have all contributed to the expectation of today’s consumers.  A good versus bad experience will make or break a retailer. The DMP enables advertisers and brands to craft and deliver personalized communications and offers to existing customers, while simultaneously reaching new customers (identified and informed by existing customer data) through digital advertising making sure the experience is seamless and relevant.

So what do advertisers look for when purchasing a DMP? According to John Lockmer, Director of Programmatic and Ad Operations for DuMont Project there are two main factors he considers when shopping for a DMP:

  1. How the platform will connect to his firm’s ad tech stack?
  2. How much it will cost to use?

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With costs ranging from a minimum of $15,000 per month for basic usage to up to $500,000 for a license to manage up to 50 million users, advertisers are looking for alternatives which includes an integrated DSP (Demand Side Platform) and DMP solution.

“It makes it easier for us to work with them, as it does not require a yearly contract and commitment like [standalone] DMPs,” Lockmer said.

 

Tight integrations between a DMP and DSP hold a number of advantages for programmatic media buyers:

  • More efficient media activations – which means you can message your known audiences and address them with the right message
  • Advertising Efficiency – when there are clear signs that a user is no longer interested or have already bought your product, you can stop advertising to them
  • You can diversify your data to include first, second and third party sources for maximum advertising impact
  • Better understanding of the impact of your media buys across all online channels with more accurate and robust analytics
  • NO data leakage
  • If you work with Digilant, there is little or no added cost to activating the DMP

In order to execute a data driven programmatic media buy on a DMP, it’s also important to understand the different types of data available to today’s digital advertisers.

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First Party Data

Advertisers have numerous potential first party data assets that they already own: CRM, Point of sale (POs), website, search, digital marketing and offline (point of sale, shopper visits, etc) marketing data. This data is frequently referred to as first party
data. The most important evolution for media buyers in first party data is the ability to activate it for programmatic campaigns, in addition to using the data only for email marketing or direct mail campaigns.  An necessary part of using first party data for programmatic is taking out any Personally Identifiable Information, know as PII, by using on-boarding service providers like LiveRamp – used to translate offline or email data signals to a digital user ID, so that DSPs can now translate different kinds of data for programmatic media campaigns.

Second Party Data

Second party data is acquired through exclusive relationships with data providers who do not sell their data in the open market. A DSP platform can help strike a deal with a data provider to enrich an advertiser’s first party data or directly activate second party data. DSPs are in a unique position to provide data intelligence to help advertisers make that data actionable. The DSP data intelligence comes from developing data science models from previous advertising campaigns that can be applied to enrich advertiser data and their campaigns.

Third Party Data

Data Management Platforms (DMPs), collect audience content consumption anonymously through access to publisher sites and sell the information as 3rd party data to advertisers. For sellers, the data that DMPs help collect is leveraged by sell side platforms (SSPs) to understand the value of their content and properties to increase monetization. For buyers, DMPs provide paid access to audience data from many publishers to which they otherwise not have access. DMP platforms that perform this data collection and distribution (“data exchange”) pay a small fee to sellers to be able to collect data and make it available for media buying platforms.
For example, BlueKai, acquired by Oracle, is one such DMP platform, the idea was to be able to monetize the data collected on both sides (sellers and Buyers), making it necessary for it to be anonymous, impartial and independent. This type of data is frequently termed third party data (3P). All DSPs have access to the same third party data for a price. But, additional layers in the media technology stack have implications. One, there is an additional fee to advertisers; and two, there is data loss as the audience universe do not exactly match between platforms. Since these different types of data are housed in different areas, a gap between first party data and third party data has been created for marketers and media buying platforms. these two data sets live in two different companies, in different technology solutions, and in different formats.

DSPs and DMPs Work Better Together

How can we bridge this gap? Digilant’s solution lies in its integrated DMP and DSP that bridges data management and media activation.  With all the effort, platforms, people and cost involved in executing data driven programmatic advertising, advertisers need to understand that the recipe for success is not pre-packaged, the right combined DMP and DSP will can help them achieve the right ingredients to create the right programmatic buying strategy that leads to campaigns that scale and perform.

Programmatic Media Buying 101: Why You Should Add Programmatic Audio To Your Media Plan

Posted on by Karen Moked

Programmatic advertising refers to the buying and selling of digital ad space using special software like DSPs or Ad Networks, built for specifically for digital marketing transactions. It avoids traditional human negotiation and is more efficient, because ad buying in the real world between buyers and sellers can be expensive and unreliable. Programmatic allows for automation in real time satisfying both buyers and sellers.

Today’s marketers need to be savvy in using every resource around them to effectively reach their target audience and as radio becomes mostly digital, it is one of the more important and cost effective media channels that media buyers are paying attention to.


Programmatic radio inventory is beginning to rival TV advertising in terms of reach. According to research by RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) 3.7 million adults listen to podcasts, which is around 6.5% of the adult population. In the today’s world radio seems to be more and more obsolete when trying to reach consumers. However, according to Nielsen, in the U.S. radio surpasses all other platforms when it comes to weekly reach, connecting with 93% of the American population aged between 12 and 54.
Programmatic radio is more than just pure reach. Radio, or audio advertising have opportunities that come from streaming services such as Spotify, SoundCloud, and Pandora. Spotify has over 100 million active users, with over 60% of users opting to use their free service which exposes them to ads. RAJAR Midas Audio Survey states that 51% of time spent with on-demand music services is also a service that features advertising.

“There is a more advanced way to think about advertising budgets. It’s about data and efficiency. As they get better at using data to be more efficient in their advertising spend, they are pushing every media type to be bought that way.”
– Mike Dougherty, Jelli CEO

An important thing to note is that programmatic audio ads are unique because you can only hear one ad at a time. In today’s digital atmosphere consumers are bombarded with constant ads almost everywhere they look and usually multiple ads on a page. Consumers have become self-trained to detecting ads and tend to immediately dismiss them. With audio, there is only one ad for the listener to consume and it is not competing with all the other ads the listener would see on a webpage. They can’t listen to anything else other than the ad playing, so engagement becomes a bigger factor when placing audio ads.

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Programmatic radio performs best on mobile. In the US, 75.8% of U.S. digital audio listening occurs on mobile vs. 24.2%on desktop. Mobile advertising continues to grow in popularity and effectiveness each day, with programmatic audio advertising you can get in on the action.

There’s no denying that radio – the original broadcast medium – hasn’t lost its appeal. And whether consumers are streaming music, listening to podcasts, or tuning in for the news, they  are going to be all ears.
By adding programmatic audio advertising to your media buying plan you’ll be tapping into new target audiences as well are reaching users in new places.
Contact us to learn more about adding programmatic audio to your digital media buying plan.

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Programmatic Media Buying 101: What’s The Difference Between DSPs & Ad Networks

Posted on by Karen Moked

The current programmatic media buying landscape is really just an extension of the traditional two-party system between advertisers and publishers. If you keep in mind what is being sold, who is selling it and who is buying, it should become a little clearer.

So What is the Difference Between DSPs and Ad Networks? 

The acronym DSP stands for demand-side platform. It is a buyer’s side platform for advertisers, it allows advertising buyers to manage multiple ad exchange and data exchange accounts using one interface. An ad network works for the publisher side of the two-party system, connecting advertisers to publishers that have web pages with advertising -matching ad space supply from publishers with advertiser demand.

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Let’s Define This Further

Demand-Side Platforms (DSP):   These are used by media buyers at agencies and brands to manage and purchase digital advertising inventory from multiple ad networks through one interface. DSPs allow advertisers to buy ad impressions across a range of publisher sites, but targeted to specific users based on data such as gender, age, location and browsing behavior.
Using a single interface allows marketers to target a very narrowly defined audience segment at scale, without having to manage multiple ad networks or exchanges. The DSPs use the behavioral targeting data which is collected from cookies and data exchanges, to identify the audience segments.  DSPs let the marketers choose audience characteristics and then publishes the ads depending on the target audience.  The main advantage here is that marketers do not have to worry about picking the right websites to advertise on, as the DSPs can do the work for them.

Benefits:

  • Access to multiple inventory sources — they connect to several ad exchanges and SSPs and offer several channels
  • Media buyer can choose which sites to buy on
  • You can set the price at you think each individual impression is worth
  • Added Data segments — use third-party or first-party audience data to enhance buy

Challenges:

  • There are many different DSPs in the marketplace and you need to set up a contract with each one to have access to their platforms
  • Steep learning curve — it takes time to master the nuances of buying on each platform, unless you work with a partner like Digilant

Ad Networks: An advertising network aggregates, categorizes and sells a range of publisher inventory in a way that can be easily understood and purchased by advertisers on a fixed CPM basis, connecting advertisers to web sites that want to host advertisements. . By aggregating inventory, Ad Networks offer advertisers the ability to better reach their target audience while allowing publishers to sell their inventory more effectively. There are many types of Ad Networks and they focus on delivering different objectives.  Some focus on delivering reach and price while others focus on audience demographics and quality.

There are three main types of ad networks:

  • Platform for buying audience segments and data
  • Platform for buying media
  • Platform for creative optimization

Ad networks are often used by media companies to sell out their online display inventory. However, unlike DSPs, not all ad networks support real-time bidding. They will have to incorporate a DSP, in order to facilitate real-time bidding.

Benefits

  • Centralized source for inventory for media buyers and advertisers
  • No need to buy from individual publisher sites

Limitations:

  • Lack of transparency — site reporting often masked
  • Fixed CPM — all impressions cost the same regardless of value
  • No automation — you need to contract each buy with a separate IO

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What’s the Takeaway?

Technology creates efficiencies between advertisers and publishers. A DSP enables media buyers to incorporate automation using machine learning into the media buying process, giving advertisers access to more sophisticated targeting tools, data and analytics to improve their advertising performance.  DSPs consolidate purchasing needs in one platform.  But in today’s world of data privacy regulations and walled garden most advertisers can’t afford to use only one DSP.   Each DSP like Google, Facebook, Amazon, MediaMath and others all offer their own unique audiences, data and targeting capabilities.  Not only that but if there are buys or a platform goes down you don’t have options.  You can’t be overly reliant on the infrastructure of one partner because if they decide to change something that has implications for your business you can’t afford the lag time that might cause.
That’s why Digilant partners with all of the best platforms, giving media buyers a holistic view of their ad buys across multiple DSPs so that advertisers can measure results and get value from their ad spend.

Programmatic Media Buying 101: What is a Data Lake?

Posted on by Karen Moked

A data lake is a centralized place, like a lake, that allows you to hold a lot of raw data in its native format, structured and unstructured, at any scale. You can store your data as-is, without having to first structure the data or define it until its needed.  It can then be used for creating reporting dashboards and visualizations, real-time analytics, and machine learning to guide better programmatic advertising decisions.

As data grows and diversifies, many marketing and especially digital strategy teams are finding that traditional methods of collecting data are becoming outdated and are pushing for something more centralized like a data lake.  According to Aberdeen research done in September 2017, the average company is seeing the volume of their data grow at a rate that exceeds 50% per year. Additionally, these companies are managing an average of 33 unique data sources, according to the research study. With data split into silos by team, like search, social or direct marketing, CMOs are being challenged with how to efficiently manage the analysis for their media campaigns.  If they don’t consolidate their data, they risk targeting the same consumer more than once or even exposing them to the wrong message.

Why Do You Need a Data Lake?

Most data platforms will only store data if it’s been formatted to fit a particular structure, like rows and columns.  So unstructured data like log files, data from click-streams, social media, and internet connected devices typically can’t be uploaded into a data platform until the data has been defined.  A Data Lake allows you to import all marketing data in real-time, from multiple sources and in its original format. It also allows you to scale data of any size.  Then you can figure out how to use it in an automatic yet personalized way to attract and retain customers through digital advertising.  Companies like Digilant can help you set up a Data Lake and use it for media activation.

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What is the difference between a data lake and a Demand Management Platform (DMP)?

If you are a digital marketer, a Data Lake allows companies to collect PII data (Personally Identifiable Information), which DMPs do not.  A DMP’s is main function is the collection of cookie data for media audience activation where a Data Lake is often the first step used by data scientists to expand the knowledge of the DMP.  The DMP often connects directly to the media activation tool which for programmatic is most likely a DSP (Demand Side Platform).  A DMP will establish connections between several external data providers, and the data lake then supplements it with new internal data like social media feeds or connected device data.

Four Main Advantages to Having a Data Lake

1. DATA INDEXING
Data Lakes allow you to store relational data (a collection of data items organized as a set of formally-described tables from which data can be accessed or reassembled in many different ways without having to reorganize the database tables.) —operational databases (data collected in real-time), and data from line of business applications, and non-relational data like mobile apps, connected devices, and social media. They also give you the ability to understand what data is in the lake through crawling, cataloging, and indexing of data.

2. ANALYTICS

Data Lakes allow data scientists, data developers, and operations analysts to access data with their choice of analytic tools and frameworks. This also includes open source data frameworks such as Apache Hadoop, Presto, and Apache Spark, and commercial offerings from data warehouse and business intelligence vendors. Data Lakes allow you to run Analytics without the need to move your data from one system to another.
3. MACHINE LEARNING

Data Lakes will allow organizations to generate different types of marketing and operational insights including reporting on historical data, and doing machine learning where financial models are built to forecast likely outcomes, and suggest a range of actions, if taken, have the ability to achieve optimal results.

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4. IMPROVED CUSTOMER INTERACTIONS

A Data Lake can combine customer data from a CRM platform with social media data analytics, as well as a marketing platform that includes buying history to empower the business to understand the most profitable audiences, the root of customer churn, and what promotions or rewards could increase loyalty.

In Summary

Marketers and Media Buyers would want to implement a data lake for three main reasons. First, they want to take advantage of more advanced and sophisticated analytical tools and dashboards, using a more complex and diverse foundation of information. Secondly, they also want to make traditional activities — like data access and speed of retrieval — more efficient and easier to accomplish. The third reason is they want to bring all the data from the different parts of the organization into one place creating efficiencies of time as well as cost savings.  While not every company succeeds at achieving all three objectives simultaneously, the most effective ones will able to see positive results on their ability to make better programmatic media buying decisions.

Programmatic Media Buying 101: Programmatic Creative is the Future for Display Advertising

Posted on by Karen Moked

Digital advertising that includes both high quality creative and relevant messaging is increasingly a high priority for media buyers and marketers.  Advertisers see no reason why creative, rich media, and programmatic should be mutually exclusive –­ it’s the combination that achieves engagement and results with consumers. The combination of programmatic and engaging creative offers a wide range of new opportunities – using data to precisely tailor messages.

Marketing teams are moving away from click-centric strategies as the only way to measure engagement. With all the new high-touch, high-impact ad formats and the growing popularity of native ad placements, there is a whole new world opening up to advertisers in display ads, to provide a more robust user experience while still reaping the benefits of programmatic buying.

Creative has never been more crucial to display ads as it is today and agencies and marketing teams are paying attention because they realize that a display ad’s message or creative is just as important as the channel or medium through which it’s served.

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What is Programmatic Creative?

Programmatic creative has the ability to use the data collected from a programmatic display campaign to create a more personalized experiences for consumers. Rather than displaying one generic creative, new technologies, like Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), mean that the ad creative can be tailored to the viewer in real-time, across multiple devices, according to their location, what they are doing, and the time of day – improving the overall user experience.
Where programmatic advertising matches users to ads on a one-to-one basis in real-time, DCO supports the matching of the best creative for that user during the programmatic advertising process.

Instead of marketers and advertisers having to figure out a one-size-fits-all, mass-market approach to their creative for a campaign, now they can create hyper-relevant ads that are relevant to individual users, while reaching a larger audience.  Using the sizable amount of data that is collected from each campaign, programmatic creative can enable automatically generated ads relevant to products or services that customers are viewing, helping to move customers towards the conversion path, and returning customers into repeat purchasers – building long-term loyalty and increasing returns for those campaigns.

Programmatic Advertising has Changed the Role of Display Ads


With programmatic taking the largest share of digital marketing budgets, the role of display advertising has been reborn and redefined.  More than four in five US digital display ad dollars, or $45.72 billion, will flow via programmatic means by 2019.
It’s no secret that different formats accomplish vastly different goals for marketers and media buyers. As the role of display advertising is redefined, and programmatic has dramatically changed the landscape, marketers need their display options to emphasize relevance for each consumer and define their experience as unique rather than obtrusive.
If campaigns are to remain relevant, marketers should be considering themselves not solely as advertisers, but as storytellers.  Marketers and publishers alike are turning to programmatic creative to enhance user experience and keep the customer at the center.

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Amazon Advertising Platform (AAP) Uses Attribution to Win Over Programmatic Media Buyers

Posted on by Karen Moked

Amazon’s theme of go big or go home remains consistent when it comes to it’s most recent moves in the programmatic advertising space.  Their DSP is already the 3rd most popular for media buyers and is seeing a 50% growth in adoption.  The popularity of Amazon’s DSP isn’t because of the platform itself and they are certainly not winning any awards for service, according to media buyers, but it’s because of the data that lives inside the platform.  According to Digiday, Amazon is running a series of attribution tests with at least two agencies, with the goal to prove its long-running pitch to marketers that Amazon offers, unlike Facebook and Google, what it calls a “total wallet perspective.”

Amazon DSP

Amazon is promising its programmatic ad buyers that if you buy ads on their DSP platform, you’ll know that they work and they will show you data to prove it. Because marketers not only want to be able to place ads in the right place and at the right time, but they also want the right relevance.  Amazon has a gigantic pool of real-time data, not just likes and habits, but actual purchases – what people are buying and how they are doing it -, you will know what ads work in actually driving people to make purchases — and then be best positioned to target those ads.

What programmatic buyers really want from Amazon and other DSPs is data they can’t get anywhere else.  This need has caused a shift in media buyer’s attention from a one DSP relationship strategy to having multiple contracts to satisfy their inventory and data challenges. So while buying remains fragmented, according to Forrester’s report titled “Marketers Must Demand More from Their Ad-tech”, marketers are searching for their single source of truth.
The word on the street is that Amazon is launching a new attribution tool designed to demonstrate the value in its’ advertising platform to skeptical media buyers and show how their advertising stacks up against other advertising platforms like Facebook and Google.

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Why is Attribution Important for Amazon?

Media buyers use attribution models to track the behavior of users across platforms and devices. Individual purchase paths across the customer journey can be observed and used to continuously improve the programmatic media buying algorithm. Using an attribution model marketers can collect more customer data and then they can show relevant ads in ever better places at ever better times. When attribution models are used to inform programmatic algorithms, marketers gain a more realistic view of ad effectiveness.  If you’re not measuring the impact of your marketing efforts—especially in today’s world of fragmented devices and touch points—you are likely missing out on ROI opportunities and wasting spend on channels, strategies and audiences that aren’t performing well. Plus, getting attribution right helps you maximize your learnings to make better business decisions over time.

Amazon Attracts Media Buyers With Their Unique Data

Showing insights into where leads are coming from and which ad campaigns are resonating with advertisers is half the battle, but Amazon also has to find a way to relay that information in a clear, actionable way, or media buyers won’t know how to make use of the raw data. Brands now, more than ever before, want to be able to understand which advertising methods and platforms are gaining results, and also how to use that attribution to shift and improve their strategies moving forward.  As budgets get tighter and more marketers become sophisticated with programmatic buying platforms, the need to understand what ads and buying methods are performing is increasing – and it has to be scientific.  CMOs want to know how many people clicked on ads, where the ad was placed and if it lead to a purchase. The one thing marketers hate is spending media budget to buy ads and then having to prove that they are really converting.

All this is meant to upset the Facebook-Google Duopoly.  Amazon is not only increasing their brand recognition with media buyers with tools that they need to make their jobs easier, but they are also heavily investing in programmatic talent, as one of their biggest complaints from marketers has been lack of support.  The media buying business is still heavily centered around people, and managed service isn’t going away anytime soon according to Joanna O’Connell in her recent Forrester’s report on omnichannel marketing.

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Digilant is partnered with Amazon’s Advertising Platform (AAP).  If you want to learn more about Amazon as a DSP and how you can get started go here.  Otherwise you can contact us now to get started: [email protected].

Digilant Bolsters Digital Advertising Veteran Team With New US CEO Raquel Rosenthal

Posted on by Karen Moked

Expands executive team focused on bringing Omni-Channel Programmatic Solutions to brands and agencies

BOSTON, March 28, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Today, Digilant, a global provider of programmatic ad buying solutions and services, announced it has hired Raquel Rosenthal as Chief Executive Officer of US Operations. Rosenthal will lead client and agency strategy, as well as expand the company’s capabilities and service offerings.

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“The addition of Raquel to the Digilant executive team is an important step for our company, and a signal of our ongoing commitment to recruit the best and brightest professionals to the organization,” said David Rodes, CEO of ispDigital, the parent company of Digilant. “Her wealth of experience will help us to continue to deliver world-class digital media services and solutions to our clients, and she will also play vital roles in providing mentorship to staff, and growing product and data portfolio.”
An accomplished digital marketing industry executive, Rosenthal rejoins Digilant following a two-year stint at DataXu, a leading software provider for marketing professionals, where she served as Enterprise Sales Director. Between 2011 and 2016, Rosenthal held a variety of business development roles at Digilant, culminating in the Chief Revenue Office position.

Previously, she held senior jobs at AudienceScience, Belo Interactive Media, VNU Business Media, and DoubleClick. Rosenthal is a graduate of Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY, where she earned a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) in Communications and Media Studies.

“I’m thrilled to be back at Digilant, and couldn’t be more enthusiastic about the opportunities that the company is poised to capitalize upon,” says Rosenthal. “The company’s current client roster and programmatic solutions are among the best in the business, and it’s a rock-solid foundation from which to build the next phase of development of the company.”

Digilant is a full-service digital media agency built for the modern marketing era.

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About Digilant

Digilant offers programmatic buying solutions and services designed for independent agencies and brands that are increasing their programmatic spending. Using data science to unlock ‘new’ automated buying strategies, Digilant enables brands to uncover proprietary and complex audience data that gives them the actionable intelligence they need to compete across every important media channel.

Digilant is an ispDigital Group Company.  For more information, visit us at www.digilant.com, read our blog or follow us on Twitter @Digilant_US.
SOURCE Digilant

Related Links

https://www.digilant.com
https://www.digilant.com/about-us/#aboutus_leadershipteam
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquelmrosenthal/

Programmatic Media Buying 101: Amazon Invests in Ad Tech with its DSP AAP (Amazon Advertising Platform)

Posted on by Karen Moked

Interested in learning about Amazon’s DSP capabilities and how it can add value to your media plan? Reach out to us here and learn about Digilant’s unique partnership with Amazon’s AAP (proprietary ad platform).

Amazon is now everywhere, seemingly moving into every industry and recently making great strides in ad tech with its growing DSP business, opening up self-service programmatic ad products, and offering training programs to make direct connections with ad buyers. Its Transparent Ad Marketplace is the most popular server-to-server wrapper in the ad industry.

According to eMarketer‘s latest report, Amazon’s advertising revenues will total $1.65 billion in 2017 —far below that of Google or Facebook, but above brands like Twitter and Snapchat.
By investing in it’s demand-side platform (DSP), which is now one of the largest in the US, Amazon has a larger share of the US digital display ad market. With 3.0% of net US digital display ad revenues, Amazon takes 4th place for display ad buying in 2017 and is keeping it’s eyes on 3rd place. By offering Headline search ads, Amazon can compete with Google and Facebook for ad dollars.  Amazon is the most popular site for customers to search for consumer products online and by offering headline search ads, they are now dipping into Google’s search engine market share.

Amazon is Changing Digital Advertising as we Know it!

The one thing marketers hate is spending media budget to buy ads and then having to prove that they are converting with attribution methods.  Amazon is promising its programmatic ad buyers that if you buy ads on their DSP platform, you’ll know that they work and they will show you data to prove it. Because marketers not only want to be able to place ads in the right place and at right time, but they also want the right relevance.  Amazon offers measurement metrics from impressions and clicks to deeper data on sales information, full shopping journeys and things like a customer’s worth over a lifetime, giving media buyers what they need to prove their ads are contributing to conversions.  Amazon has a gigantic pool of real-time data, not just likes and habits, but actual purchases – what people are buying and how they are doing it -, you will know what ads work in actually driving people to make purchases — and then be best positioned to target those ads.

Their timing couldn’t be better, as Amazon’s DSP is growing in popularity, ad buyers are cutting back the number of DSPs they use. Media buyers and CMOs are choosing to use less DSPs and self-service platforms are on the rise in the ad tech industry, specifically for brands who are bringing all of their digital media buying in-house, with the goal to trim fees and have more control over their overall go-to-market strategy.  Amazon has greatly benefited from the programmatic in-housing trend. It offers agencies and brands a programmatic self-service model, and its DSP fees are among the lowest in the market.

If you want to know more about Amazon’s DSP capabilities and how it can add value to your media plan, or ask questions about Amazon’s AAP (proprietary ad platform) Digilant can help.  Reach out to us here.

Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH): Bringing Back Billboards Using Ad-Technology

Posted on by Karen Moked

By 2019 it is projected that $4.5 billion will be spent on Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising in the United States. This old but new again marketing tactic has the ability to reach mass numbers of people, at the right time, in the right place. It’s no wonder companies and agencies are investing their budgets in placing their ads on these banners, billboards and screens.  We’ve put together everything you need to know about how DOOH works and why you should incorporating it into your programmatic advertising plan.

Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Defined

Historically categorized as ‘traditional media,’ requiring media buyers to book months in advance, today DOOH builds on the the programmatic promise.  These ads are no longer static and limited but are strategically placed LCD and LED screens that display digital content to consumers in places like bus stops, airports or on busy highways and are growing in number. Many also incorporate interactive features that allows consumers to involve themselves in the advertisement.

What are the Advantages for Digital Media Buyers?

The platforms for these advertisements are not unlimited like other digital ad channels, however, they are 100% viewable. No one can run ad-blocking software on a billboard or at a bus stop. This is a key advantage for marketers. DOOH advertisements have all the same features as online media, reaching the right target, at the right time, with the right message but with an advantage: you can guarantee people are going to see your ad.

Areas in which these ads are displayed use tracking to determine the demographics of the audience. Audience profiles are made up of information such as age, gender, income, spending habits, etc. When looking to purchase ad space, buyers choose where to place their campaign based on these profiles and set parameters based on target audience, budget and KPIs just like any other programmatic buying channel. As the campaign runs, marketers are given unlimited creative executions and can change the ad, in real-time, as different audience segments enter the area. Throughout the campaign, marketers are given reports on the success of their advertisement.

This new form of advertising shifts back to the early years of advertising: placing ads that demand attention in public spaces with high-foot traffic. DOOH ads  reach high volumes  of consumers but do a better job of engaging viewers through the unlimited creativity that can be incorporated. These ads can change in the space of a second, in order to ensure the right message is being showcased, at the right time, to the right people. DOOH unlocks countless advantages when added to your media plan.

How is it Being Used?

Major cities have been quick to jump into the DOOH market. New York, Paris and London are rapidly expanding their involvement while ensuring the content is engaging. Screens are being placed at bus stops, taxis, airport baggage claims, billboards, malls and other pedestrian epi-centers.
 

What’s Next for DOOH?

Interaction with consumers is improving as motion-censored screens are becoming more common in major cities. Technology is now able to recognize gestures as small as finger movements. Thee screens for DOOH ads are advancing and tracking capabilities are improving, leaving no room to skimp on the creative. Research into emotional recognition is in the works which will incorporate a new and even more targeted aspect into these already audience-specific ads.

9 Tips for Media Buyers to Minimize Ad Fraud in Programmatic Campaigns

Posted on by Mitchell Carey

eMarketer estimates that U.S. programmatic investment will surpass 83 billion dollars in 2017, representing 73% of all digital ad spend this year.  To ensure that this increase in spend is sustained, the industry needs to continue to improve the programmatic purchasing experience and eliminate problems such as fraud. According toad verification company Adloox, the numbers suggest that ad fraud will cost brands $16.4 billion globally this year, and that nearly 20 percent of total digital ad spend was wasted in 2016.

Companies that participate in the programmatic advertising ecosystem are most interested in banishing fraud and exposing bad practices.  That is why companies like Digilant are bringing more and more transparency to the whole process, promoting regulatory improvements against cybercrime, trying to ensure that content appears in the appropriate spaces and the advertisers get the greatest return on their investments. It is the only way for ad-tech to continue to be a marketing lever in the digital economy.

The good news is that because of efforts from programmatic vendors fraud is now in retreat. The National Association of Advertisers of the United States calculates that the losses will be over a million dollars less than last year.

In order to help marketers minimize fraud we have come up with 10 tips that help them make safer programmatic investments.

9 Tips for Minimizing Ad Fraud

There are different measures that advertisers can take to make their investments more secure:

  1.  Search for personalized strategies. Each proposal must be adjusted to reflect your brand values and overall marketing KPIs.
  2. Examine the context on the publisher pages. The analysis of the data of a web page can confirm that the content is relevant and suitable for your brand’s advertisements. Implement whitelists and blacklists, analyze user traffic and strengthen visibility criteria.
  3. Use machine learning to implement audience targeting and then to safely expand the audience of campaigns by finding people that look like them.
  4. Ask if they are willing to use only Ads.txt. This buying method confirms that each webpage uploads a file to its root domain detailing which SSP (Sell Side Platform – a tool that manages the programmatic advertising of a website) offers its inventory, its Placement ID and its relationship with that SSP. In this way, it is ensured that the information passed from SSP and the publisher ID is accurate. The publishers publicly indicate who is actually authorized to market their advertising space eliminating inventory fraud.
  5. Prioritize programmatic buying in private marketplaces, which ensures a direct relationship with publishers.
  6. Avoid non-certified apps. The environment of the applications can be more risky than desktop or mobile web.
  7. Ask if the DSP has a pre-bid solution. Ads are only bid on and served if the inventory meets certain conditions and pre-bid filtering can be used to ensure contextual relevancy or to prevent ads from appearing in environments are not brand safe.
  8. Identify programmatic companies that have or work with the best fraud technology solutions and application of best practices.
  9. Run away from opacity. The most advanced programmatic buying companies are offering an increasingly transparent relationships.

Types of Ad Fraud

Fraud affects all digital marketing, generating false traffic. The fraud started with clicks (generated by people who have no real interest in the ad) and impressions (when requesting an impression in an Ad-Exchange knowing that it will not be seen by any real user). It was technically sophisticated with bots (software programs that simulate the action of a person visiting websites and clicking on advertisements).

Four other ad fraud practices that digital marketers are faced with include pixel stuffing, ad-stacking, ghost sites and masked URLs. Pixel Stuffing occurs when the visitor of the web page does not see the advertisement because it is so small, but for the advertiser it counts as an impression. Ad-Stacking is when several banners or videos are placed on top of each other in a single advertising space. Because the user can not see that they are stacked, the advertiser is charged for false impressions. Ghost sites are false websites and impersonations of domains, as the Financial Times recently experienced. Masked URLs occur when an ad is said to be shown on one website but is actually placed on another one.

There is also the reputational risk that brands can face if their ads appear next to inappropriate or illegal content. This was discovered last spring with Youtube and Google. The brands unknowingly placed advertisements for brands next to violent political content, religious extremists and other negative environments. The analyst firm Nomura calculated that the search engine could lose more than 7% of its revenue in 2017, totaling close to 750 million dollars.

In August, it became known that Google was refunding money to hundreds of brands affected by advertising fraud. Brands’ ads purchased through the DoubleClick Bid Manager-Google were being placed on pages with false traffic generated through automated programs.

At the end of last year, the computer security firm White Ops revealed the biggest and most sophisticated scam to date in this area, named Methbots. A group of Russian cyber criminals created an “army” of bots, pretending to be real people, that generated more than 300 million fake video views a day. More than 170 million dollars were spent by advertisers who believed they were generation impressions of real consumers.

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