Author: rssmasher

If you ask any marketer the big advantages that digital advertising has over traditional, analog channels, “more measurable” has been toward the top of the list for years. Even now, digital earns nicknames like “the nirvana of quantifiable marketing” from industry leaders. But your digital advertising metrics aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Don’t…

At a time when more and more brands are embracing a minimalist, millennial pink-covered approach, Il Makiage is betting on the opposite route. The beauty brand, which relaunched in the U.S. last month, has an ideology that is all about maximalism and embracing your high-maintenance tendencies. And with a robust and modern product arsenal (Il…

It turns out those too-good-to-be-true deals offered by several live TV streaming video platforms were indeed too good to be true. AT&T’s DirecTV Now, Dish’s Sling TV, Sony’s PlayStation Vue and Google’s YouTube TV have each recently raised their monthly package prices by $5 a month, a move that media experts say can be expected…

Programmatic audio has been in desperate need of scale. Pandora hopes its March acquisition of digital audio platform AdsWizz will bring that scale to a growing marketplace. Pandora’s inventory won’t be available programmatically until later this year (there’s no official date yet). When it does, AdsWizz will become the largest programmatic audio exchange on the… Continue reading »

The post AdsWizz Aims To Make Programmatic Audio Easy To Buy appeared first on AdExchanger.

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Duncan Arthur, managing director at illuma. You’d be forgiven for thinking we’re reliving the Y2K bug all over again. Though there were reports of drops in bidding for inventory lacking… Continue reading »

The post Post-GDPR, How Many Will Really Opt Out Of Personal Targeting? appeared first on AdExchanger.

Key takeaways:

• More than 20 percent of European marketers purchase half of their programmatic ads from a PMP.
• Ninety-three percent of U.S. marketers purchase programmatic inventory from a PMP.
• Eighty-eight percent of European marketers purchase programmatic inventory from a PMP.

Deals through private marketplaces or “PMPs” were once a niche part of marketers’ media budgets, but are becoming increasingly critical to marketers’ media strategies. With rises in programmatic spending in both the U.S. and Europe, we asked 98 brand and agency marketers at the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit in New Orleans and in Estoril, Portugal what percentage of the digital ad inventory they purchase now comes from a PMP.

According to the results of the Digiday survey, more marketers in the U.S. purchased inventory through a PMP than their European counterparts. Ninety-three percent of U.S. marketers did so compared to 88 percent of European marketers. However, European marketers buy a higher proportion of their inventory from PMP’s than their U.S. counterparts. Twenty-three percent of European marketers said at least 50 percent of their programmatic inventory comes from PMPs, whereas just two percent of U.S. could say the same.

The post Digiday Research: European marketers buy more inventory from PMP’s than U.S. marketers appeared first on Digiday.

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Erik Requidan, vice president of programmatic strategy at Intermarkets. Instead of taking a well-deserved (and much-needed) break after the 2016 presidential election, digital teams went right back to work. That’s partly because presidential elections… Continue reading »

The post Getting In On The 2020 Election Campaigns: What Publishers Need To Know appeared first on AdExchanger.

Now Hiring The overarching trend of brands in-housing marketing technology operations isn’t great for agencies and tech vendors. But one thing working in their favor is the challenge many brands now face securing top programmatic and data-driven talent. The pharmaceutical giant Bayer would like to more than double its 10-person programmatic and analytics team, but… Continue reading »

The post The In-House Hiring Challenge; NYT Covers TV Ad Tracking appeared first on AdExchanger.

There are numerous factors behind clients’ desire to move marketing in-house. In the latest installment of our Confessions series, where we exchange anonymity for honesty, a senior executive at a global advertiser says the amount of extra work hours its agency always seems to tally up is one of the top reasons behind the company’s decision to move strategy and media in-house.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

What is one of the main reasons why your company plans on leaving your agency and move marketing in-house?
There’s always overbilling when it comes to the hours our agency puts in and we’re not sure why. The agency says they’re going to spend 1,000 hours a month on our business, and after the month is over, I see where all of the hours are allocated and they’re actually spending 2,000 hours.

Does your agency tell you these hours are accruing?
No, there’s no check-in from the account leadership where they might say we’re mid-month and we’re already at our month’s cap. All of a sudden, I just get a report that shows they are double the hours over our spend.

Are they charging you right away for these extra hours?
No, they’re not charging me for those extra hours, but I guarantee you that next year they will come back to us and say, “You know what guys, we need more money because we are doing 2,000 hours a month,” or they will say they have to add more staff to complete all the hours they’re spending on our company.

Do you believe these extra hours are justified?
While I don’t nitpick, I’ve looked at some of the roles and I can’t point to any deliverables I’ve gotten that would’ve needed these extra hours. There’s all these internal status meetings people are being asked to be a part of. I’ve had some people on the agency side come to me confidentially and say, “We’re in too many meetings.”

Why does this lack of transparency lead to your company bringing marketing in-house?
It makes me feel powerless. I don’t have a high level of confidence that my agency is giving everything I need both strategically and tactically. As a client, you really have no way of auditing [agency hours] unless you hire a third party to audit your agency. If you tell me you spend 80 hours on my account, I can’t tell you that you didn’t; all I can say is that feels high.

Is the fear that the agency would drop you if you say no to more hours?
No, they would never drop us. The fear is that we would always be stuck working with them. They use a fear tactic. They’ll say, “You’re never going to be able to do this yourself. Look at how many hours we spend. We have 50 people working on your account; you’re not going to hire 50 people.”

The post Confessions of a marketer: Agency overbilling is spurring the move in-house appeared first on Digiday.