Do you work mainly with self serve networks? Which ones?
When I bought media, I worked with a split of managed and self serve networks. These days we have close relationships with most of the self serve RTB platforms such as Engage:BDR First Impression, Lean.com and SiteScout (These are performance heavy ones), as well as retargeting platforms like ReTargeter.com. I love the concept and feel it's a great step for new media buyers to take.
LOL, been waiting for this, so I got a few questions
What do you think the biggest challenge in enabling class A inventory to be sold programatically is? In your opinion when can we start seeing more of it and when the majority of it will be available that way?
When that happens, how do you think it will affect affiliates with the flood of brand advertisers on RTBs?
Do you feel that google is slowly but surely monopoling this field as well with all the acquisitions?
When going from selfserve to a managed buy, what should I be looking for in my rep to see if he is really doing his job, or he's working 9-5 and does not care for my business?
Thoughts on leanmarket and engage's new platfrom?
Thanks in advance.
Okay, this will be long.. here we go:
In my opinion the biggest challenge for enabling class A inventory is revenue. Large agencies and publisher websites make a ton of money from direct sales. $XX CPMs are extremely common. At the same time, these same publishers dump remnant inventory onto the platforms and sell it for $X CPM. Publishers even go as far as to block certain advertisers on RTB platforms by raising a bid minimum to protect their margins at certain times. If this inventory was flushed onto RTB it would cut out the agency middle man in some cases and in others reduce publishers margins.
The other issue is quality. Publishers are scared to death of one bad ad showing up. Imagine if one porn ad showed up on NY Times. With ad approvals done on such a large scale, a publisher loses some control over what shows up on their website. While this isn't always 100% true, that is the perception of the exchanges still and that is a barrier to more traffic coming on.
This being said, platforms like Turn.com and Google are trying to find out ways to facilitate a double headed approach to allow this to happen. What I mean is they're creating technology to allow publishers to buy direct and negotiate direct deals via DSP interfaces.
QUICK NOTE: Watch this video on the future of RTB:
Perspectives on RTB: How Both Sides Are Winning | OpenX
When this happens, affiliates are going to have access to a lot more inventory. Right now a lot of the spend online is DR focused, as this changes I think the premium inventory will continue to be bought by brands, but there will be a wider range of remnant able to be bought cheaply by affiliates.
I feel like the space is so fragmented right now that it will consolidate. I can't say who will monopolize it, but Google is looking like a clear leader right now in my opinion.
Regarding an account manager, here's what I've learned. Good account managers are hard to find, most of them just want to spend your money so they can get paid more. What I've learned is not to hesitate in asking for a new account manager. When I find one I love, I take care of them and make sure we become friends. These relationships are what makes your managed buys work.
In terms of Lean.com and First Impression. I think both of them are new and a bit raw right now but show a LOT of potential. They're both platforms to keep an eye on and I expect to make an impact on the performance (specifically affiliate marketing) heavy sector of the RTB landscape.
