Month: May 2021

Even some of the largest mobile measurement firms can’t seem to come to a consensus. Most agree fingerprinting won’t fly with Apple. The company’s main issue being it is normally used to track is customers without their permission. But there are some mobile measurement firms that think it’s ok to cherry-pick certain techniques linked to fingerprinting as a way to smooth over the cracks caused by Apple’s App Tracking Transparency safeguard. Often, those techniques revolved around a process called “probabilistic attribution”. 

Where things get really confusing is that fingerprinting is regularly used interchangeably with probabilistic attribution. Usually, it’s done to avoid some of the negative connotations associated with the practice. The reason: probabilistic attribution isn’t matching data from a device in order to uniquely identify it. Instead, it’s matching data from a device to estimate with some degree of certainty whether an ad made someone download an app.  

It’s an important distinction for some of the largest mobile measurement firms. They feel probabilistic matching is in line with how Apple helps marketers measure ad campaigns sans personal data, and so aren’t doing anything wrong. But even if they were, it’s not like Apple’s around to tell them anyway. In fact, these efforts are like test cases to establish what it takes to be fully compliant with Apple’s privacy rules. 

“Apple will have to keep a close eye on these approaches and enforce ATT against any implementations that are in violation, or risk the policy being completely toothless and consumer privacy commitments not being honored,” said eMarketer analyst Nicole Perrin. “And if that were to happen, I expect the industry will wise up to the ongoing lack of enforcement, encouraging everyone to take these steps to maintain a level playing field.”

Welcome to the unofficial grace period for Apple’s crackdown on in-app tracking where every risk is one worth taking until it’s not.

Mobile measurement firm Adjust recently sent an email to clients that said it would rename “fingerprinting” to “probabilistic matching” on May 20.  But it has been at pains to stress that the two terms are not interchangeable. In a blog post, CEO Paul Müller tried to allay any concerns. To paraphrase Müller’s explanation, probabilistic matching isn’t fingerprinting because it doesn’t produce a persistent identifier. So Adjust can only measure what ad a user came from for clients who won’t be able to retarget them without the identifier. 

This should be fine with Apple, according to Müller. And yet the company has still advised clients to read Apple’s policy when it comes to determining whether probabilistic attribution is compliant in their eyes. 

In other words, it’s a grey area. 

Yes, Adjust isn’t sharing the persistent ID with clients. And no it’s not tracking or targeting users across sites or apps. But the company is promoting that it can provide probabilistic attribution when Apple’s mobile identifier isn’t available. Doing so means taking data collected about the device an ad was seen on (think impressions or clicks) and blending it to data taken from the app the ad promoted (like installs and events) to make probabilistic matches. They’re just not sharing it. 

Apple could have problems with this if and when it does decide to enforce ATT. That’s because of its broad view on when it’s wrong for marketers to track iOS users. In a nutshell, Apple’s stance boils down to this: if the owner of one app pays the owner of another app for an ad placement then that is tracking because data from both are being merged to facilitate tracking and measurement. 

Should this happen without someone’s consent then it’s the advertiser and the publisher on the line even though the data processing was done by the mobile measurement firm. There’s no caveat from Apple to say tracking is fine if one of those firms does the matching. Apple makes it clear that any activity as defined as tracking must have ATT consent. 

“Ultimately these solutions will not work,” said Liam Brennan, ‎global director of innovation, ‎MediaCom. “When it comes to the conversation around user privacy and changes in the ID space, stopgaps are just weaker solutions or ways to try to avoid the ‘privacy police’ until they get caught.”

That’s not to say all probabilistic attribution is wrong in Apple’s eyes. After all, there are solutions out there capable of doing attribution this way without resorting to fingerprinting. But Apple needs to be a lot clearer about where it draws the line. 

“This lack of certainty is causing major issues for the ecosystem because anyone who truly wants to follow the spirit of the ATT policy is at a major competitive disadvantage right now,” said Alex Bauer, head of product marketing and market strategy at mobile ad tech startup Branch. “Even the most sincere companies can’t sustain that forever if Apple doesn’t follow through with what they’ve promised.”

Both AppsFlyer and Singular take the stance that Apple won’t be cool with probabilistic attribution without consent in the main. There are, however, exceptions based on their own take on Apple’s rules — specifically when it comes to instances when the same company owns both the media the ad appears in and the app it’s promoting. The rationale is that it’s just one company promoting its products, so data isn’t being shared without someone’s consent.

In the case of Singular, there’s a configuration option that a client must use to turn probabilistic attribution on when they want to track the performance of ads across media they own.

AppsFlyer has a similar switch built into their dashboard. If turned on it provides aggregated data i.e. marketers only can see aggregated data about the campaign, not the user. The theory seems to be that so long as the data AppsFlyer lets out of their system is no more granular than the data provided by SKAdNetwork, they can use whatever methods they want (including fingerprinting). 

In a statement, Barak Witkowski, vp of product at AppsFlyer said: “Unlike fingerprinting, which seeks to maximize captured data points and create a unique identifier that can be used to track users over an extended period and across websites, AppsFlyer’s privacy-centric solutions seek to do the exact opposite — to minimize the captured data points and prevent the ability to create a unique and persistent identifier.

But there’s nothing to stop clients of these companies from using these options whenever they see fit. If a marketer wanted to track people without getting their consent in order to get a sharper view of how ads performed they could do so at the flip of a switch. In fact, Digiday has seen an email from a mobile ad tech vendor advising clients to do just that.

“It allows these vendors to be ‘publicly compliant’, but while still providing an option that allows publishers and advertisers to maintain the status quo by violating Apple’s policy,” said the ad tech who shared the email but declined to be named as a result.

Until Apple starts enforcing its own ATT rules it’s hard to see how this situation changes. Not when it’s so easy to misuse the tools available to them to get around the tracking safeguards.

“We appear to be the only measurement and attribution provider that is complying with Apple rules. Apple does not say — it’s okay to match data from two separate companies provided that the data isn’t shared — or provided that it’s only exposed with a config switch,” said Charles Mannin, CEO of Kochava. “Several ad networks are encouraging non-compliance by suggesting that brands should work with an MMP that doesn’t comply in order to get access to more inventory. This creates incentives for non-compliance, and it’s incumbent upon Apple to enforce their own rules.”  

Indeed, all this confusion raises questions over whether Apple is able to enforce ATT or if it has any real interest in enforcing it at all. Either way, the inaction could cause some unintended consequences down the line. 

Namely, undermine Apple’s privacy stance. Spurred by ATT, the company is telling customers that it can be their security blanket when it comes to protecting their privacy online. That there are marketers who are currently using this confusion to knowingly track people without consent is something that could contradict this stance. 

“It’s in the genetic makeup of anyone who is in ad tech to push the line as far as they possibly can until they’re slapped because rules only matter if they’re enforced,” said a mobile ad tech executive.  

BIPOC media employees assess industry’s DE&I efforts

On the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, some media companies sent companywide emails reminding employees to be empathetic and supportive of one another. Some abstained from running any sponsored content for advertisers on their properties, including their social accounts. These actions were ostensibly meant to be shows of respect for a tragedy that led to a worldwide reckoning on racial injustice. But to some Black, Indigenous and people of color working at the media companies, the moves were seen as empty gestures.

“These are all performative actions,” said one BIPOC person who works at a media company that refrained from running sponsored content on May 25.

What may sound like cynicism is instead hard-earned skepticism. Given how systemic the problem of underrepresentation is in the media industry, the solution needs to be similarly systemic. However, media employees are unsure whether media companies have the stamina to see that change through.

“There was a wave of energy in the industry, where people thought they had to perform how not racist they are. What that turned into was companies saying, ‘We’ll hire this person over here to assess our DE&I initiatives.’ The people who were hired as DE&I managers or presidents have no authority,” said a second BIPOC person who works in the media industry.

Meanwhile, as media businesses recover from the past year, BIPOC employees worry that the people in positions of power — from c-level executives to editors and department heads — will fixate on the typical business concerns and lose sight of their DE&I efforts. “It feels like a company really has to tank to fix this. Right now we’re doing well, hitting our numbers, deals are getting sold. If I’m a white dude or in the c-suite, do I focus on DE&I or do I focus on keeping the momentum to hit my numbers?” said the first employee.

“Things are kind of returning to normal in a bad way,” said a third BIPOC person who works in the media industry.

The key hits:

• BIPOC media employees feel like companies still aren’t sufficiently following through on DE&I pledges made last year.
• Some divisions inside companies continue to lack BIPOC employees.
• Companies have not provided the promised transparency into hiring processes.
• BIPOC employees are quitting out of frustration.

A year after many media companies pledged to improve the level of diversity, equity and inclusion inside their organizations, their actions have not resulted in widespread impact, according to BIPOC people working at media companies. One media company appointed multiple BIPOC individuals to high-ranking editorial roles, but it still lacks a BIPOC employee in its sales department, said a fourth BIPOC person who works in the media industry. Another media company’s sales department had no Black employees a year ago; now it has two, one of whom started within the past month, according to an employee at that company.

However, even instances of companies hiring BIPOC employees are raising some red flags. One media company had promised to be transparent in its process of hiring more people from underrepresented groups, but when the company hired a person of color for a role, no information was shared about the hiring process, such as how many people were considered for the role, with breakdowns by race/ethnicity and gender. “Even if you end up with a person of color, I would still like to hear how that process went. Or do you feel like you do not need to justify those things when you hire a person of color?” said the third employee.

That lack of transparency into the hiring process set off a couple of concerns. First, if the company was already failing to follow through on that transparency when a BIPOC person was hired, that can set a precedent for the company to not share that information when it hires a white person. Second, it leaves open the question of whether the company hired the person of color based on merit. For as much as BIPOC employees want more members of underrepresented groups working at their companies, and especially in high-ranking roles, they worry about whether the BIPOC people being hired amid the industry’s DE&I push are being put in positions to succeed and fear how those failings could curtail opportunities for other BIPOC employees to rise into those roles.

That fear is “super real,” said the second employee. “The idea that you, as an Asian woman or a Latino man, represent your entire demo. If you get in the door and don’t succeed, you’re just confirming that they don’t think people like you can do this job.”

Meanwhile, BIPOC employees are walking out the door, frustrated with the perceived lack of meaningful change. Within the past month, two BIPOC people left a single division inside one media company, according to an employee at the company. The departures have resulted in the level of diversity inside some media companies worsening. “We’re actually in a worse position at the director-level or above [compared to a year ago],” said a fifth BIPOC person who works in the media industry.

The situation may only become exacerbated over the summer. As the pandemic’s impact on the media industry has begun to subside, companies’ hiring freezes are likely to further thaw, resulting in more open positions and opportunities for BIPOC people to move from companies that have fallen short on DE&I to others that have actually put their words into action, such as Vice Media Group, which last September rolled out a DE&I dashboard for employees to track its progress. “That is impressive. That’s the type of thing [more companies need to do],” said a BIPOC person who is not a VMG employee. 

However, VMG may be in the minority, or at least, that is the perception among BIPOC people wary of changing companies only to find that the DE&I situation at their new employer isn’t all that much improved. As a result, if media companies don’t step up their efforts to follow through on last summer’s promises, the issue may not only lead to more BIPOC people leaving companies but exiting the industry entirely. 

“I don’t want to be in media anymore,” said the first employee. They added, “It’s got to a point where I feel defeated. Do I want to voice how I feel or divert that energy to go somewhere else? I raised the white flag.” — Tim Peterson

What we’ve heard

“I don’t really care, if that makes sense. I feel like this happens every couple years. Media companies merge, and it’s so high up and it’s hard to focus on that when there are more important things in the world going on.”

— Media employee on the prospect of their company merging with another

News outlets’ social media policies are due for updates

The AP’s firing of Emily Wilder for violating its social media policy has drawn outrage and renewed attention on how outdated news outlets’ social media policies may be. By midday on May 26, more than 160 AP employees had signed an open letter denouncing Wilder’s termination and requesting management provide clarity on how she violated AP’s social media policy.

Digiday reached out to media organizations to see where their current social media policies stand, especially given the spotlight on journalists’ outspokenness on issues like the Black Lives Matter protests last year. Most of the companies’ guidelines are publicly available (such as BuzzFeed’s Standards and Ethics guide), while others are only shared internally (like CNN’s).

Some of the organizations’ social media policies were updated recently, or are undergoing changes. Others haven’t been updated in a while (like CNN’s).

NPR is finalizing “significant” updates to its guidelines, a process that began last summer, according to a spokesperson. The changes, which will likely roll out in the next few weeks, address how NPR employees “can express their opinions and support for causes they believe in” on social media, as well as provide more clarity on the “traditional notions of objectivity,” the spokesperson said.

Mizell Stewart, vp of news performance, talent and partnerships for Gannett and the USA Today Network, said updates to the company’s social media policies were made last year to “address staff questions around public support for the social justice movement and political parties.”

It’s “rare” for an employee to be fired “on a first offense” of Gannett’s guidelines, “unless the behavior or language is so egregious and blatantly unprofessional that termination is warranted,” said Michael McCarter, Gannett’s head of standards, ethics and inclusion. — Sara Guaglione

Numbers to know

$400 million: How much money Axel Springer is reportedly considering paying to acquire Axios.

2 million: How many paying subscribers Time has, a fifth of the way to its goal of 10 million subscribers by 2030.

14: Number of Canadian publishers that Facebook will pay to link to news articles that people haven’t otherwise shared on its platform.

$633 million: Price tag for Alden Global Capital’s recently closed acquisition of Tribune Publishing.

Cheat Sheet: Amazon is buying MGM

The streaming wars have largely centered on Netflix and Disney, with the recent WarnerMedia-Discovery merger announcement adding that potential conglomerate to the mix. But anyone sleeping on Amazon was likely woken up by the e-commerce giant’s plan to purchase the movie studio behind the James Bond franchise.

The key details:

• Amazon has agreed to acquired MGM for $8.45 billion, the company announced on May 26.
• MGM will provide Amazon with a library of more than 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows.
• MGM’s upcoming movie slate includes the next Bond film “No Time to Die” and Ridley Scott’s potential Oscar contender “House of Gucci.”

Amazon’s premium programming push

The acquisition of MGM not only will pad Amazon’s streaming programming library, but it also indicates that Amazon’s streaming strategy is coming into clearer focus. Historically, the company has played on the ends of the content spectrum. It has produced critical darlings like Oscar winner “Manchester by the Sea” and Emmy winner “Transparent,” and it has put out middle-of-the-road, broad-appeal shows that would otherwise belong on broadcast and cable TV, like “Bosch” and “Jack Ryan.”

But between buying MGM and securing the rights to the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games, Amazon is signaling that streaming is not simply a side business but another market that the company is investing in with an aim to overtake.

Streaming’s sleeping giant

Given the massive scope of Amazon’s overall business ± stretching from e-commerce to cloud computing to entertainment to voice assistance — its streaming operation can be easy to overlook. But it’s big. In a way, Amazon may be the biggest company in the streaming market.

In the past year, 175 million Amazon Prime members have streamed a show or movie on the company’s Netflix-rivaling Amazon Prime video.

But Amazon isn’t only contending in the subscription-based streaming wars. The company also has its own free, ad-supported streaming TV service IMDb TV that competes with the likes of Roku’s The Roku Channel and ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV. And it owns livestreaming video platform Twitch. In fact, across Amazon’s various streaming properties, it attracts 120 million unique viewers each month.

Oh, Amazon also operates its own connected TV platform, Fire TV, that jockeys with Roku as well as smart TV makers like Samsung and Vizio and that enables the company to sell ads across the various ad-supported apps distributed on the platform. 

Regulatory red flag

Having laid out the scope of Amazon’s streaming operation and considering the breadth of Amazon’s overall business, one word may come to mind: monopoly. The day before the MGM deal was announced, District of Columbia’s attorney general Karl Racine filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon. Meanwhile, members of Congress, like Senator Amy Klobuchar, are looking to rein in tech platforms’ power. So while Amazon has announced its plan to acquire MGM, the acquisition is not a done deal.  — Tim Peterson

What we’ve covered

CNN is turning its 5 Things newsletter into a franchise that spans podcasting and TV:

• The 5 Things podcast now accounts for 43% of CNN’s total podcast downloads.
• The newsletter has also spawned a regular segment on CNN’s morning show “New Day.”

Read more about CNN here.

Meredith will use the sale of its local media group to grow national publications:

• Selling off its local TV stations is supposed to double the media company’s profits.
• That money will be used to fund the growth of Meredith’s national publications.

Read more about Meredith here.

Twitter’s revved-up product focus piques publisher, advertiser interest:

• Twitter has added new pre-roll and sponsorship options to its video ad program Amplify.
• The company has also updated its app install and website click programs.

Read more about Twitter here.

Incoming Washington Post editor Sally Buzbee eyes international expansion, reaching younger readers:

• Buzbee’s tenure managing numerous news bureaus around the world aligns with the Post’s global plans.
• She will need to manage a newsroom that has employees looking for a more communicative, collaborative leader.

Read more about Buzbee here.

What we’re reading

Bleacher Report’s future:
WarnerMedia may be merging with Discovery, but WarnerMedia-owned Bleacher Report may end up going to another company, according to The Information. DraftKings, Group Nine Media and former Turner executive David Levy have all kicked the tires on picking up the sports-and-culture publication. For its part, WarnerMedia says B/R is staying put, though Discovery will ultimately have the final say.

WNYC’s workplace problems:
Public radio station WNYC is dealing with a range of issues that create a mosaic of various problems inside many media companies, according to The New York Times. Despite employees asking for a person of color to oversee its newsroom, the company hired a white editor-in-chief, who also happened to be an outsider now tasked with overseeing the local news organization. The process of turning the radio station into a digital outlet rubbed the traditional radio journalists the wrong way. Meanwhile, accusations of bullying have begotten accusations of counter-bullying.

MSNBC’s millennial whisperer:
To get more young people to tune into the news, MSNBC’s new president Rashida Jones is prioritizing the cable news network’s streaming distribution, according to The Washington Post. That involves producing more shows for parent company NBCUniversal’s Peacock streamer that star its TV talent as well as taking hosts from its streaming shows and putting them on its linear network. It also means increasing the level of diversity in its programming to more broadly appeal to the mainstream population.

The New York Times might be courting The Athletic:
After reports were made this month that Axios is no longer in talks to merge with the subscription sports publisher, The New York Times has emerged as a front runner for The Athletic’s new owner, Axios reports. The company’s latest valuation was $500 million, however it was not profitable last year with 2020 revenues totaling $80 million. With 1.2 million subscribers, this acquisition would primarily help to strengthen The Times’ subscription business.

Contextual targeting for cross-device video faces a lot of the same problems that contextual faces in other digital markets, including the lack of an agreed-upon taxonomy for content. And any push into contextual is likely to be slower and less noticeable in these markets because they aren’t facing the same pressure that digital advertisers are elsewhere; both rely on IP addresses rather than cookies for most of their targeting. 

But the IP address’s long-term viability as an identifier is far from certain, and as marketers’ desire for precision continues to grow, some see contextual targeting options as an opportunity to solve one of the IP address’s biggest problems. 

“If you look at it through the lens of programming, we believe context is truly king,” said Jeff Imberman, head of sales and ad strategy at Tastemade. “In the absence of cookies, the only way to get closer is through context. We’re moving very quickly toward building that ecosystem.” 

Historically, contextual targeting has played an implicit role in video ad buying: An advertiser that wanted to advertise beside food content could just cut a deal with Food Network, for example, and many advertisers can buy a kind of context by targeting their ads by using genre.

“The key is that it’s not either-or, it’s yes-and,” said Dan Robbins, vp of advertiser marketing at Roku. “[Marketers] look for audience and context together.”

But as money continues to come out of linear television, the advertisers moving those budgets are now looking for more granular audiences. “People are coming to us with a very specific mandate,” Imberman said. “What they want is more specificity, going forward.

“Instead of just buying run of network, or demo,” Imberman explained, “they want 18-34 year olds who are just watching X type of content.” 

Getting that level of granularity in cross-device video, especially while buying programmatically, had until recently been impossible. Contextual targeting on the open web is possible at scale because it is relatively easy to crawl a web page and analyze its written contents. Even though the methodologies used by the different contextual targeting firms vary, the basic foundation is the same: Find a sufficient number of words to determine that a page is about a topic, while also making sure the page doesn’t have any words that might suggest the page’s contents are inappropriate. 

The OTT and CTV environments are very different. In addition to the differences between analyzing video and text, the libraries of content offered in CTV or OTT apps are not stored in places where contextual targeting services can access them. They are stored on apps or publishers’ content management systems, sometimes hidden away in closed platforms, such as Roku or Fire TV, which makes it harder to figure out what is available. The only information available is what the publishers are willing to share, the reverse of the dynamic that exists in digital display, for example.

As such, a lot of the contextual questions buyers ask about video right now focus more on tactics than content. “They’re more concerned with player aspects,” said Nicole Lesko, svp of data, ad platforms and monetization at Meredith. “Is it viewable, in front of safe content, [does it have a good] completion rate?”

The early adopters are hoping that growing scale and availability help change that. The DSPs that offer contextual targeting automatically ingest and tag the contents of publishers’ libraries and append information such as a video’s topic, genre and other characteristics either directly tied or related to a contextual targeting taxonomy developed by the IAB Tech Lab; different publishers and DSPs offer different taxonomies.

“By the end of the year, I don’t think scale will be a problem anymore,” said Lynn Chealander, a director of product management at Xandr. “You’ve got to walk first, before you can run. And we’re just getting to walking now.”  

But buyers will need to see that it works, too. And some are hoping that strong contextual strategy will help overcome one of the IP address’s greatest flaws.

“Even the most well-targeted ad at the household level might reach audiences they aren’t necessarily meant to within that household,” said Jesse Math, vp of advanced tv and video solutions at Tinuiti. “Contextual is a solve to get closer to the individual, and that individual in the right mindset.”

At the other end of the spectrum are the diminutive bonsai. These trees are flawless, pruned with precision, but tiny. As a result, they are beautiful, but grow very little.The difference between sequoias and bonsai provide a useful analogy for the world of advertising.

Some advertisers treat their advertising campaigns like bonsai. They seek perfection, investing their time looking for things to trim. These campaigns perform well when measured with efficiency metrics like return on investment (ROI), but they are small.

Other advertisers think of their campaigns as sequoias. They want to go big and drive maximum profitable growth. It’s OK if some of the elements are not perfectly optimized — they can put up with some dying branches and a split trunk as long as they are growing profitably. To determine which strategy is right for a given marketing team, there are three operative questions.

• Is the marketing team’s KPI based on growth (e.g., maximize profits) or efficiency (e.g., increase ROI)?
• Is the performance advertising budget flexible or fixed?
• Are shoppers’ searches for the brand growing faster or slower than for competitors?

For marketers that answered the latter to two or more of these questions, odds are they’re growing a bonsai. Here’s how those teams can shift to a plan primed for growth.

Successful advertising plans start with a controlled environment

For the bonsai artist, it may feel daunting to start growing a sequoia. but there are steps marketers can take to do it safely.

Firstly, teams must identify a small region in which to base the experiment. It’s a lot easier to measure the variables and results within a confined area, and it’s a lot less expensive to start with a lone sequoia rather than an entire forest.

Secondly, marketers should commit to a fixed period of time. New plans need time to take root and change will not happen overnight. Six months should be long enough to provide a clear set of results that will allow them to judge success.

Now comes the hard part. Most advertisers are conditioned to always look for ways to cut and save.  But what if, for once, in a controlled environment and for a limited time, they decided to dial everything up? This means: Try to make as much money as possible from advertising in the one region; don’t try to save money, just try to make it. 

Achieving that requires investing in a full-funnel strategy with the objective of significantly increasing conversions at the current ROI. This should include all main performance advertising products (e.g. search, shopping, display, etc.), as well as products that increase brand consideration and brand awareness. Don’t underestimate the elements of the plan that may be throttling growth — for example, Google recently worked with a sophisticated search advertiser that, according to our internal data, increased profits by 50% simply by switching their search strategy from Exact Match to Broad Match.

Finally, some tactics may not be profitable when evaluated on their own, so it’s best to measure success holistically, based on overall profitability, rather than based on the profitability of each tactic.

How to use bonsai skills to trim a sequoia

Growing a sequoia does not mean endless spending. Once the marketing team has maximized the profits of its investments in a region, the next step is to trim the investment and remove the ugly branches.

First steps are to sort the results of performance campaigns by ROI, and then sort brand activations by cost per brand search lift. The candidates for removal will be the performance campaigns with the lowest ROI and the brand activations with the highest cost per brand search lift.

However, before reaching for the axe, marketers should consider testing the impact that chopping away will have on the overall health of the sequoia. A/B holdout tests are a good solution here — e.g., removing a video campaign for some customers in the region and assessing the impact on overall profits. This will help the team to identify and remove the campaigns that are clearly unprofitable.

Scaling the sequoia approach

Once advertisers have grown and trimmed a sequoia, they can start scaling the strategy, but there are a few considerations to bear in mind.

For example, what is the appropriate pace of expansion for the plan? If the goal is to minimize risk, marketers should scale slowly by seeding and optimizing one region at a time. Alternatively, if they want to drive maximum profits as quickly as possible, they should plant sequoias everywhere and optimize more widely later.

Another tip: Don’t starve the sequoia by enforcing a fixed marketing budget. Budgeting should be flexible to respond to real-time customer demand and maximize profits. Leveraging tools like automation, which provide the easiest way to scale an online advertising strategy while also maintaining the flexibility to adapt to local demand, is another sequoia-strategy move.

Efficiency is a noble ambition, but in an unpredictable market advertisers must compete for any and all available profitable growth. By following these steps marketing teams will be able to develop a better picture of the addressable market for their brand’s products and services, and from there they can make an informed decision about which branches to chop, and which to hang their hats on.