Home Marketer's Note Programmatic Is Table Stakes

Programmatic Is Table Stakes

SHARE:

joannaoconnelrevised“Marketer’s Note” is a weekly column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. It is written by Joanna O’Connell, Director of Research, AdExchanger Research.  

As I was interviewing a senior level marketer in the beverage industry the other day for my customer lifecycle management research (which I’ll be presenting at the Industry Preview conference in January), our conversation turned to programmatic. His perspective on the subject seemed timely and well worth sharing as we race to the finish line of Q4, say goodbye to 2013, and turn our thoughts to the coming year:

“It’s silly that “programmatic” is this special thing. [More efficient targeting] is the most useful thing for us. We won’t spend less money. We’ll spend more in digital. We’ll get a better ROI. It’s a virtuous cycle.”

“There’s a little bit of laziness and a little bit of fear on [the big media agencies’] side and on the sites’ side that programmatic will ruin them – I don’t think that at all.   Not understanding it is what will really ruin them.”

The meaning is pretty clear, and he is saying something that I am hearing more and more marketers say (witness the now infamous CMO study on programmatic): I want to spend my money this way, so you’d better get on this train – agencies, publishers, technology partners – because it’s leaving the station with or without you.  I imagine there are many of you, particularly in the agency and publisher worlds, who have a million (great and not so great) reasons for, a) continuing to resist investing in building out a programmatic strategy, or b) continuing to avoid talking about what you are doing to current and prospective clients. The question is, at what point does that approach become more harmful than good?

Certainly, it’s an extremely complex issue. But, the simple message is critical to focus on – marketers increasingly believe in programmatic, and are increasingly frustrated when they’re not getting it, or not getting enough of it. So, go figure it out.

Now toss some of the complexity my way via comments and stories and we’ll keep the conversation going!

Joanna

Follow Joanna O’Connell (@joannaoconnell ) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter. 

Must Read

Google Rolls Out Chatbot Agents For Marketers

Google on Wednesday announced the full availability of its new agentic AI tools, called Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor.

Amazon Ads Is All In On Simplicity

“We just constantly hear how complex it is right now,” Kelly MacLean, Amazon Ads VP of engineering, science and product, tells AdExchanger. “So that’s really where we we’ve anchored a lot on hearing their feedback, [and] figuring out how we can drive even more simplicity.”

Betrayal, business, deal, greeting, competition concept. Lie deception and corporate dishonesty illustration. Businessmen leaders entrepreneurs making agreement holding concealing knives behind backs.

How PubMatic Countered A Big DSP’s Spending Dip In Q3 (And Our Theory On Who It Was)

In July, PubMatic saw a temporary drop in ad spend from a “large” unnamed DSP partner, which contributed to Q3 revenue of $68 million, a 5% YOY decline.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Paramount Skydance Merged Its Business – Now It’s Ready To Merge Its Tech Stack

Paramount Skydance, which officially turns 100 days old this week, released its first post-merger quarterly earnings report on Monday.

Hand Wipes Glasses illustration

EssilorLuxottica Leans Into AI To Avoid Ad Waste

AI is bringing accountability to ad tech’s murky middle, helping brands like EssilorLuxottica cut out bots, bad bids and wasted spend before a single impression runs.

The Arena Group's Stephanie Mazzamaro (left) chats with ad tech consultant Addy Atienza at AdMonsters' Sell Side Summit Austin.

For Publishers, AI Gives Monetizable Data Insight But Takes Away Traffic

Traffic-starved publishers are hopeful that their long-undervalued audience data will fuel advertising’s automated future – if only they can finally wrest control of the industry narrative away from ad tech middlemen.