In our latest edition of Insights from the Buy Side, we had a chance to catch up with Amy Leung at TD Bank. We covered everything from the upcoming death of the cookie to the changing expectations consumers have around digitally engaging with a business, and how that has impacted TD’s marketing strategy.
Check out the full interview below.
Amy is SVP, Head of Digital Marketing Strategy at TD Bank, where she oversees the digital marketing strategy across both inbound (SEO, Onsite, Mobile App) and outbound (Paid Media, Email, Push, SMS) channels. Her vision is to create a seamless digital customer-led experience that drives loyalty and adoption to reinforce TD’s Unexpectedly Human brand.
OpenX: You started a new role during the height of the pandemic – what has that been like?
Amy Leung: I started at TD Bank after coming back from maternity leave with my third child, and the first day I was supposed to go into the office was when the entire company shifted to remote work. I haven’t actually met any of my team in-person or stepped into the office yet! That being said, it has been a better than expected experience. While many of us would normally be in different locations, we all are now just joining calls via WebEx and it’s a way for us to connect with one another no matter what office we are in. While it’s only been a year, I feel like I have known my team for years and the first thing I will do once it is safe is to give each of them a big, suffocating hug!
OpenX: What are the top marketing priorities in the year ahead for TD?
Amy Leung: We strive for a connected customer experience at TD, and in order to achieve this, our digital capabilities and technology need to be set up to deliver omnichannel solutions. Most large corporations are still reliant on disjointed legacy platforms, and we need to invest in platforms that can bridge the disparity and unify our customer ID.
Second, measurement, reporting tools, and resources must be prioritized in order to deliver data-driven insights that will inform decision making.
Finally, delivering relevant, targeted content will be key to continuing to engage and deepen customer relationships. We recognize that our customers depend on us to be a “human bank” and we want to meet them where they are in this new normal of a digital-first era. With that said, all of this can only be done with a privacy and compliance mindset. We expect that regulations will only increase in this digital world and rightfully so. We want to ensure we adhere to customer preferences and deliver an unexpectedly human experience, every time.
OpenX : What emerging trend or piece of technology are you most excited about today?
Amy Leung: I am incredibly excited about the rapid migration consumers are making to digital business technologies. According to a McKinsey report consumer business digital adoption leapt forward five years in a matter of eight weeks last year.
While digital experiences cannot replace human connections, it does force companies like TD to step back and look at how to deliver a human experience in the digital space. We also have to recognize that most digital adoption is spurred by the desire for efficiency and convenience.
An example of how we’re addressing this is that TD recently launched curbside pickup for debit cards, leveraging a service that consumers have come to expect from big-box retailers. Customers can now order a new debit card directly from the mobile app with just a few clicks, and then arrange to pick up the new card at their local branch in a matter of hours. We know speed is important to our customers, and Curbside Pickup eliminates the need to wait for a new debit card to come in the mail, so our customers can get back to their normal lives sooner.
OpenX: How are you approaching identity and audience targeting, and are you thinking about the death of the cookie?
Amy Leung: It’s definitely an interesting time to be in digital marketing, and all of the upcoming changes, from the deprecation of cookies to Apple’s enforcement of App Tracking Transparency (ATT), have impacted the way we look at programmatic.
There will be a renewed reliance on first party data, and publishers who are able to authenticate their users and provide premium inventory will begin to see higher demand in a cookieless world.
From a TD perspective, 2021 is the year we will all start doubling down on our Martech stack to prepare for the changing world ahead of us, and like many companies, we will be building out our customer data platforms and looking for a universal ID solution. We want to walk the fine line between delivering relevant content to people who are interested in what we have to offer versus doing anything that could be considered too invasive or distracting. We will have to juggle between aggregated data and the desire to measure results on an individual level to determine attribution and spearhead personalization.
OpenX: Tell us about TD’s Unexpectedly Human brand promise, and how that aligns with the bank’s digital focus?
Amy Leung: We’ve always been the bank that prides itself on being different from other banks. Our research shows that nearly three-quarters of consumers (74 percent) believe their banking relationship is transactional. We wanted to challenge that perception.
Unexpectedly Human highlights how we’re evolving with consumers and providing modern convenience – a personalized experience via the channels that they prefer. We focus on delivering interactions, not conducting transactions. We speak to our customers in human language, we understand their needs and goals, and we recognize their pain points – and we work hard to solve their problems.
Unexpectedly Human takes our brand promise to the next level – we are committed to challenging expectations about what a bank is and can be. We want our customers to expect the unexpected – because not only do we promise to treat them like a human, but we’re going to deliver an exceptional experience, each and every time, whether they engage with us through our online and mobile experience or through a face-to-face interaction.
OpenXP: One last question – what are you most looking forward to when the lockdown is over?
Amy Leung: Like many others, we have family living internationally. It’s been a hard year with the inability to visit our extended family all over Asia. I’m looking forward to traveling there and having them meet my kids for the first time!
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity
As digital media prepares for a world without cookies, many brands are turning to their agencies to help them navigate this shift.
In this edition of Insights from the Buy Side we spoke with Jessica Lough, a VP of Precision Media at Digitas NA, and got her thoughts on the future of digital advertising and how she and her team are helping their clients in this fast changing landscape. Check out Jessica’s thoughts on new and emerging identity solutions, recovering from the pandemic and more.
Jessica is a VP of Precision Media at Digitas NA, where she currently oversees the programmatic strategy and activation for Sephora. Jessica has been with Publicis Media for 9 years driving digital & programmatic best practices for brands across a wide spectrum of categories including Retail, CPG, Financial Services, and more. Jessica lives in Denver and during her free time likes to take advantage of all Colorado has to offer – hiking, snowboarding, backpacking and of course, the breweries.
OpenX: How are you anticipating recovery/growth for 2021 across the brands you oversee?
Jessica Lough: No doubt every brand has been impacted over the past year, and for some brands and categories, the impact has been greater than others. While many of the brands we work with have started to see degrees of return to normalcy, we’re also anticipating – and cautioning – that the expectation can’t be a full return to what ‘normal’ was pre-pandemic. Consumer behaviors have shifted over the last year, and in some ways we have to assume that these shifts will be permanent.
However, where there’s challenges, there’s also opportunities for new approaches and new ways of connecting with our brand’s audience. Our recommendation is to take the learnings from the past year to focus on the areas where we’ve seen growth and opportunity, and to be as nimble as possible amidst the evolving landscape.
OpenX: Has 2020 taught you anything you didn’t know, good or bad, about programmatic’s capabilities?
Jessica Lough: 2020 was a whirlwind of a year for a lot of reasons. Continued changes to customer privacy, evolving expectations from consumers of how they interact & engage with brands, and then throw in a global pandemic to top it off and you have a year filled with disruptions and a clear need for evolution.
I’ve learned that the programmatic ecosystem can be resilient, but we have to leave behind our expectations for how things have worked in the past, to form a new future forward approach to how we partner together as publishers, brands, agencies and ad tech.
The good news is that the industry supports change, as seen by the regularity with which we embrace the opportunity to invest & incorporate new channels (audio, OOH, CTV, DTS), new methods of buying (PG, PMP, OX), and new partners in the space.
We’ve embraced the opportunities to expand the definition of ‘programmatic’ and have evolved our understanding of how programmatic can and should be used to drive growth for our brands. The bad news is that we’ve spent too long being reliant on unstable and inherently challenged identifiers, and it’s taken years to come to the full realization that the death of the cookie (and IDFA along with it) is here and now, and with it comes a need for alternative approaches to addressability and reaching our brand’s consumers.
OpenX: How are you approaching audience and identity targeting, and are you thinking about the death of the cookie?
Jessica Lough: Not a week goes by where we don’t have an internal, partner-based, or client facing discussion regarding the death of the cookie and upcoming challenges to identity resolution with the loss of IDFA! This topic is hot on everyone’s mind.
The first step for us is to understand and identify the impact to our brands, which will vary greatly depending on factors like a brand’s reliance on third party data, availability and richness of 1st party customer data, and current adoption of more persistent tactics like contextual targeting and partnerships with publishers. We’ve been working to develop impact assessments on behalf of our clients and level-set on expectations for how the loss of third party cookies and upcoming changes to IDFA will impact our ability to both target and measure conversions on a brand-by-brand basis. This sets up the framework for some challenging but necessary conversations with our client teams.
From there we’re taking the approach that there’s no single solution to replace cookies or IDFA, so we need to establish a process that includes continually vetting, testing and analyzing the impact of the various identity resolution & targeting opportunities within the marketplace. We know that emerging solutions will not fully replicate or replace the expected loss in addressability from cookies/IDFAs, so it is just as important to continue to establish partnerships with key publishers and look for ways that contextual targeting can help to provide new outlets for reaching our customers.
OpenX: What emerging trend or piece of technology are you most excited about today?
Jessica Lough: New open source & emerging identity solutions!
I’m excited to hear more on how solutions like UID 2.0, LiveRamp’s IDL/ATS, and Google’s proposal for FloC will continue to evolve and provide new opportunities for reaching our brand’s customers. Additionally I’m excited about new opportunities with contextual solutions that can read for sentiment/true context to give us a better understanding of the content before determining if it’s the right place to reach our audiences. Again, knowing that we will lose some of our ability to reach addressable audiences in the coming year, new contextual based solutions that can help fill the gaps will be of interest.
One of the great things about Prebid is that there is a tremendous amount of variety and flexibility in terms of how publishers actually use the code. Some pubs are very hands on, updating their configuration every week, while others take more of a “set it and forget it” approach. There is no one “right” way to do it, and we strongly believe that all pubs can benefit from at least a little experimentation, to see what works for them.
While the flexibility that pubs have to set up and utilize the tech in their own manner is fantastic, it can also occasionally be a source of stress. What are the best initial configuration settings? How often should they be trying new features? Are they sure that they are really getting as much revenue as possible?
We wanted to answer some of these questions, and paint a picture of how pubs are using Prebid today, so we created a survey and spoke with over 300 publishers to get their thoughts on all things Prebid.
Check out our findings below, and if any publishers are interested in working with OpenX to help you get the most out of Prebid, email our team at apollo-sales@openx.com and we’d love to talk with you about how we can help figure out what works best for you.
While many industries underwent significant change over the course of 2020, cannabis in particular had an eventful year, with multiple states voting on changes in legalization as part of the election.
In this edition of Insights from the Buy-Side, we caught up with Nicole Cosby, Chief Data & Compliance Officer at Fyllo. Fyllo is a leading digital marketing company focused on helping brands and publishers ensure their cannabis advertising follows local and federal laws. After a busy 2020, check out what Nicole had to say about 2021.
Nicole is the Chief Data & Compliance Officer at Fyllo. An attorney and ad tech executive, Nicole has an impressive background in digital advertising/data policy, brand strategy/licensing, and business alliance development across the advertising, media, fashion, and entertainment industries. Most recently Nicole was Senior Vice President of Standards and Partnerships for Publicis Media, and she has also held director-level posts in product management, ad product marketing, and partnership development for AOL, Kai Communications, and BET Networks.
OpenX: How much are you anticipating 2021 to grow for the CBD/Cannabis industry in programmatic and why?
Nicole Cosby: Cannabis is the fastest-growing industry in the US, with digital ad spends poised to surpass “traditional” highly regulated industries such as tobacco and pharma, who both currently spend around $10 billion annually, according to eMarketer. Without even including Facebook and Google, cannabis digital ad spend was $3B in 2019, $6.7B in 2020 and expected to double again in 2021. More and more publishers, SSPs, DSPs and data providers are embracing the opportunities in this market when managed compliantly through offerings such as what we’re doing with Fyllo Media Solutions and Regulatory Solutions (Compliance Automation).
OpenX: Did the 2020 election (and results) impact your planning for the upcoming year, especially being in the industry you are in?
Nicole Cosby: Voters in New Jersey, Arizona, Montana, South Dakota and Mississippi all voted for some form of legalization and/or decriminalization of cannabis, and these 2020 election results were a validation of our planning and market analysis of states on the verge of legalization.
We were anticipating our existing clients would be poised to take advantage of the continued growth and expansion of the cannabis vertical, including expansion of their advertising reach and dollars. For our ad clients, this not only signaled the growth opportunities to target customers in these markets, but the potential for further expansion into surrounding markets as advancements in cannabis tend to have regional impact and expedite legislation in neighboring states.
OpenX: How are you approaching audience and identity targeting, and are you thinking about the death of the cookie?
Nicole Cosby: With changing consumer sentiment around ad targeting and personal privacy, and the development of regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, in many ways, the ultimate destruction of the cookie has been coming for years.
For Fyllo, we have built our data business around a highly regulated industry – cannabis – thus requiring fully compliant solutions to engage the interest of advertisers. Our focus is on first party data (loyalty, POS, purchase data) which has been leveraged via anonymized segments that can guide our clients without compromising user privacy.
OpenX: What emerging trend or piece of technology are you most excited about today?
Nicole Cosby: I’m very excited about the Fyllo Data Marketplace. The Fyllo Data Marketplace is based on the increasing growth of the cannabis consumer market (1 in 4 adults consume cannabis or CBD, according to MRI-Simmons). These consumers may be found across virtually every demo and represent huge spending power in everyday categories – CPG/Retail; Health & Wellness; Media & Entertainment; QSR; and Spirits. As such, we’ve developed the largest ecosystem of cannabis and CBD purchase data via our third party endemic partnerships and have just acquired Data Owl, one of the leading cannabis loyalty and POS data solutions. Via our endemic audiences we are able to reach known cannabis and CBD consumers, and via our infused audiences, we offer increased value to non-endemic brands via our demographic, lifestyle, interest and brand purchaser audiences enriched with cannabis and CBD transaction data.
I am also fascinated by the new potential AI is bringing to ad targeting and how The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing exponentially. Managing programmatic platforms through AI will enable the use of targeting signals and real-time adaptation for individual ads or campaigns via any given channel. As AI becomes increasingly integrated with adtech, efficiency and optimization will continue to reach new heights for brands.
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity
As digital advertising prepares for a world without cookies, it has become clear that we collectively need a new solution for audience targeting and activation. Enabling targeting at scale is critical to the future of the open web, and at OpenX, we are both building and partnering with different solutions to ensure this can continue going forward.
LiveRamp is one partner who shares a similar worldview and, over the past few years, we’ve combined forces on a variety of initiatives designed to help marketers reach their target audiences across the open web.
LiveRamp was the first partner we turned to when instrumenting all of the supply in our exchange for identity, and OpenX was one of the first supply-side partners to integrate with LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) and help the industry prepare for a cookieless ecosystem.
As part of the joint efforts between the two companies, OpenX also integrated LiveRamp’s IdentityLink (IDL), a pseudonymized identifier that enables people-based targeting and measurement without cookies. IDLs are now available directly in the bidstream, enabling both DSPs and private marketplace deals to leverage people-based identity.
Today, OpenX has become a leading partner for marketers looking to reach addressable audiences based on IDL across the open web. Through display, mobile app, video and CTV, OpenX sees more than 210 million IDLs across more than 2,500 publishers, with monthly volumes of more than 235 billion biddable impressions from the Comscore top 50. This comes from our LiveRamp integration, which enables IDLs in the bidstream. Leveraging IDL allows OpenX to achieve maximum scale and the best possible match rate for marketers and publishers.
We have also added IDL exposure logs into our log-level data solution, BIDS, so that marketers that work with OpenX to access their log-level data will be able to gain additional insight into the reach and performance of their IDL campaigns.
Many marketers have invested time and effort into building out audiences based on IDL, yet once this work is done, they need a channel to activate these audiences, and they need to do so at scale. This is what we are providing, along with the visibility and measurement capabilities that are unlocked by BIDS.
OpenX also supports multiple options for how a marketer activates their audience, giving buyers flexibility on how they want to execute. For marketers working through their regular DSP partners that are integrated with LiveRamp, the DSPs will have the ability to easily bid on audiences based on IDL for their clients.
Or, if a marketer wants to submit an audience based on IDLs to OpenX directly through LiveRamp, we will generate a deal ID that can then be executed with their DSP of choice.
As the industry continues to come together to find solutions for marketers to best reach their target audience, we will continue to expand our relationship with LiveRamp. By adding new formats, new regions of the world and more, our hope is that any marketer that has an audience segment based on IDL will be able to use OpenX as an activation channel to help them deliver their message.
For more info on how to activate an IDL audience across the OpenX exchange, email buyerdevelopment@openx.com.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption in both the advertising industry and the day-to-day lives of consumers, we have finally made it to Q4. In many verticals, spending patterns are starting to return to normal, and collectively, our focus is starting to shift towards the holidays, which remain as important as ever for many businesses globally.
In this edition of Insights from the Buy Side, we talk with Alex Andreyev from Matterkind as he provides his perspective on key lessons learned this year, and how the agency business is navigating the current economic climate.
Alex Andreyev leads advisory services at Matterkind, helping marketers evaluate their technology, process and strategy, while identifying opportunities and future proofing their business. Alex and his wife purchased a log cabin in northern Jersey last year, and they’ve been lucky to bunker there since mid-March.
OpenX: How has your day-to-day business changed as a result of the pandemic?
Alex Andreyev: Many of our clients are spread across the country, so things haven’t changed much from a remote standpoint, although face to face meetings beat virtual ones in my view.
OpenX: How has COVID impacted your overall business? Have certain verticals been more impacted than others?
Alex Andreyev: COVID has expedited some questions marketers have asked themselves for a long time regarding the effectiveness of their media. Companies that have a healthy balance sheet have been able to further invest and future proof their business while taking advantage of the vast media opportunities that exist today, especially in Advanced TV. Companies in a more challenging financial position are homing in on the most effective media. From an advisory standpoint, we’ve been engaged more on helping streamline processes, finding ways to be more agile and maximizing effectiveness of media efforts and measurement.
OpenX: How are you as an agency navigating through the current economic climate?
Alex Andreyev: I’ll let our partner agencies speak for themselves as many have done great work across the board (e.g. UM launched an innovative Demand Forecaster). At Matterkind, we’ve relaunched our brand and brought a lot of new solutions to the marketplace that we’ve been quietly working on over the last few years. One such solution (shameless plug) is Maturity Canvas, which we developed to help understand individual client marketing infrastructure gaps and areas of opportunity. So while it hasn’t been easy for us or many of our clients, we’ve taken this opportunity to work harder and maximize the support and value we drive for our clients and partners.
OpenX: What do you predict to be the new normal for agencies and when will you get there?
Alex Andreyev: I believe there’s going to be a significant push on effectiveness, measurement and data democratization. We’ve all long pushed for measurement to be balanced and tied to business success, but I believe leading agencies and advertisers will maximize the holistic measurement of performance that is also tied to specific business results.
OpenX: Has COVID made you rethink what you look for in technology and publisher partners?
Alex Andreyev: At Matterkind, we have our own technology built and powered by Kinesso, but we also partner with 3rd parties to successfully deliver on our client business. In my opinion COVID hasn’t changed this view, but rather further uncovered how great some of our partners are in working with us on mutual solutions to deliver against client goals and solutions. I also feel this has made us a lot more human and collaboration is easier than before.
OpenX: What are you most looking forward to when the lockdown is over?
Alex Andreyev: Oh man, I miss sports. I just want to grab a beer and celebrate a goal for NYCFC at Yankee Stadium with my friends. In-person might be a 2021 ambition, so I’ll just take a goal on TV and a beer with friends at a 6 foot distance.
Thanks for joining us for this month’s edition of Insights from the Buy-Side. Be sure to stay tuned for our next month’s edition!
As the digital media industry prepares for 2021, many of us are looking back over the past 9 months to examine what we’ve learned. From how internal teams operate, to how we evaluate partners, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to change the way we do business, and certain changes seem likely to stay long term
In our latest deep dive with partners from buy-side, TheXchange blog interviews Mike Parker from iCrossing as he provides his perspective on the state of programmatic today and the impact of the pandemic on certain clients like Kraft and Beam Suntory.
Mike Parker is the Global President of iCrossing. iCrossing is a data, content, and performance-oriented digital agency with offices all over the globe. Mike lives in the Bay Area, where he’s been sheltering in place since the pandemic started. He normally spends a great deal of time traveling – between offices, teams, and clients. It has been a significant change for him not to be in airports and new cities every week. A silver lining has been spending more time with his family, especially with his teenagers who will be going to college very soon.
OpenX: How has your day to day business changed as a result of the pandemic?
Mike Parker: We were well-positioned to pivot to a 100% remote workforce incredibly quickly. As an agency that is distributed across the US, with offices in a number of cities, we were already accustomed to video calls and already fairly mobile, so we truly didn’t miss a beat in our ability to deliver for our clients. I actually think we are doing a better job of staying connected and communicating across teams, whether it’s daily stand ups for client teams or our regular all-company town halls. We are getting excellent feedback from employees.
OpenX: How has COVID impacted your business overall? Are you surprised by any of the impacts?
Mike Parker: Each of our clients’ businesses have been impacted in different ways, as the effects are felt differently across industries. For our packaged foods and eCommerce-driven retail clients, business is strong and it has been more about capitalizing on greater demand. For other categories like automotive and entertainment, we have been more focused on either reducing spend or being very strategic in how to stimulate and convert demand. It has been a bit surprising how many consumers have reached for nostalgia and comfort, especially in the food category for clients like Kraft. Also, absent the ability to visit bars and restaurants, people are doing much more cocktail mixing, which impacts a client like Beam Suntory.
OpenX: What do you predict to be the new normal for agencies and when will you get there?
Mike Parker: The COVID situation has opened our eyes to how well we can work virtually and certainly made us consider our space needs going forward. I still think we value physical spaces that can help facilitate creativity and collaboration, but we will likely see shrinking office footprints as a part of realizing we don’t need everyone in the office every day to get the job done. Unfortunately, I think the financial pressures on clients’ businesses also get passed down and I see clients continuing to look for cost efficiency – from their partners or in-house teams – more than ever. Finally, I think this time further emphasizes the focus on accountability of marketing spend – connecting activities to business impact.
OpenX: Has COVID made you rethink what you look for in technology and media partners?
Mike Parker: The idea of partnership is more important than ever. We are all in this together. Clients are looking for insights and ideas that can move their business forward and we need partners who can collaborate and help us unlock revenue-generating ideas. We are focusing on connecting the technology or media to what specific impact it is going to create for the client versus what features or audiences it provides.
OpenX: What are you most looking forward to when the lockdown is over?
Mike Parker: I’m really looking forward to leisure travel – the chance to go somewhere with my family for a change of scenery. Also: getting together with my wine group. We typically meet every couple of months but the past couple of events we’ve had to hold digitally, which just isn’t quite the same as being face-to-face!
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with Mike Parker at iCrossing. Be sure to look out for our next Insights from Buy-Side blog post.
With the pandemic affecting the entirety of the commercial world, it is vital for businesses to adapt and learn how to continue to service their customers. According to eMarketer, even amid the pandemic, display ad spending is projected to rise 5.5% in annual growth, mainly because of investments in video ads, mobile ads, CTV and programmatic transactions. Programmatic advertising is not slowing down, as now more than ever, more people are at home and in front of screens for work and entertainment.
With each industry and brand having their own marketing strategies, we find that it’s important to understand the landscape of how marketing is evolving as we head into the fall and winter seasons. This week, we are excited to speak with Yogesh Mehra, Vice President, Eagle Marketing at First Republic Bank, about how COVID-19 has reshaped the financial world, as well as what needs to be done in order to adapt to this economic shift.
Yogesh Mehra is responsible for a major chunk of client acquisition at First Republic Bank. Now that he’s working from home, he’s working significantly more because the lines between work and home have been blurred. While most of his time is spent working, he has been spending a lot more quality time with his family, especially during the evenings since he saves an hour of commute time. He’s been helping his kids with their academics and has been playing ball with them in the backyard. Yogesh also just wrapped up Star Wars with his older son.
OpenX: How has COVID impacted financial services? Have any areas of your business been more impacted than others?
Yogesh Mehra: COVID has impacted financial services in ways we have not seen before. Inspiringly, banks and other lending institutions have been a huge part of the solution this time around and have provided meaningful financial relief in the form of waivers and deferments to clients adversely impacted by COVID.
This article talks about some of the short-term impacts that banks will be dealing with. In sum: specific to consumer lending, I think there will be a lot of focus on managing credit risk and developing a COVID-proof customer service model for the future that includes changes in critical aspects of branch and back office operations. Before COVID-19, the banking industry did a great deal of talking about ‘becoming digital’, but less than 15% of organizations (source: financialbrand.com) considered themselves digital transformation leaders. All of that changed overnight with COVID. The digitization of banking that was already in progress has been supercharged.
From a business banking standpoint, the Payroll Protection Program created by the treasury in response to COVID has created some great lending opportunities for the banks to acquire and retain clients.
If you are interested in a more detailed context, check out this fascinating CNBC article explaining how trillions of dollars have flowed into banks during COVID and the future outlook.
OpenX: How are you navigating Acquisition Marketing through the current economic climate?
Yogesh Mehra: 3 things.
OpenX: What do you predict to be the new normal for companies and when will you get there?
Yogesh Mehra:
OpenX: What are you most looking forward to when the lockdown is over?
Yogesh Mehra: Seeing movies in the theater with my two little boys, going to our favorite restaurant and having friends over for a get-together.
Thanks for reading this edition of Insights from the Buy-Side. Be sure to subscribe to our blog below as we look to share more insights from brands and agencies on TheXchange.
In mid-September 2020, Apple will release iOS14 which will have significant implications for ad tech and the ability for marketers to target iOS users.
Users will get control over sharing their IDFA (identifier for advertisers) in apps, and will be asked if they are willing to share their IDFA for ad serving every time an app is installed. Moving from an opt-out standard to opt-in will likely lead to a significant decrease in addressable consumers for marketers.
To help support app install campaigns, Apple prepared version 2.0 of SKAdNetwork, which is a framework that let’s the industry track conversions. However, other use cases such as frequency capping, fraud detection, non-install attribution will remain unaddressed by what Apple offers. You can read more in Apple’s documentation
OpenX is dedicated to supporting our clients and providing solutions that will help both publishers and buyers navigate these changes as seamlessly as possible.
In the short term, OpenX is adding support for Apple’s SKAdNetwork version 2.0 to help advertisers attribute conversions for app installation campaigns on iOS14+. OpenX is going to comply with a IAB Tech Lab solution supporting extensions for SKAdNetwork in bid response and bid requests. In addition, OpenX is committed to supporting advertisers in keeping the control over frequency capping and fraud detection. This will help publishers to enrich their requests and provide more valuable traffic to the buyers.
As a long term solution, OpenX is looking into integrating identity solutions like OpenAudience, LiveRamp’s ATS and other identity providers to enable email/hashed email targeting for in-app traffic.
For updates around how we are addressing BID REQUESTS, BID RESPONSES, and OTHER ADDITIONAL FIELDS, we have prepared detailed information in the documentation section of our site. You can access that here:
https://docs.openx.com/Content/demandpartners/ios14-and-skadnetwork-support.html
Finally, we have gotten many questions from our partners in recent weeks, so we thought it would be helpful to proactively address some of them that we have been hearing most frequently:
How will the behavior of various bid requests change when a user opts out of IDFA usage?
If OpenX does not receive any IDFA, or if the ID value for mobile traffic is set to null, OpenX will not pass that field further. If a DSP has a setting to filter out unmatched traffic in their traffic sets, there will be no bid requests sent within that traffic set.
If DSP currently filters out any unmatched traffic from the OpenX traffic set, will the IDFA opted-out traffic be sent forward?
No, OpenX will not send non-IDFA traffic if the unmatched traffic setting is active. However, we are considering adding a capability to allow targeting on non-IDFA inventory.
Are the bid response fields optional or required?
Most of the BidResponse.seatbid.bid.ext.skadn are required if the bid requests included the SKAdNetworkIDs.
Do you plan to enrich bid requests by providing more contextual data and/or device signals?
Not at this point. Our plan is to support the list of the fields mentioned above covering frequency capping and fraud detection.
Do you have estimations of user opt-out rate on iOS from sharing IDFA?
All estimations at this point are guesses, however, in our dialogue with both supply, and demand partners we expect the drop between 60-90%. We anticipate that many app install budgets will be redirected to mobile web.
Do OpenX plan to register for SKAdNetwork?
No. It is recommended that DSPs register as SKAdNetworks to take advantage of the ability to get the campaign ID in bid response and attribute the conversion.
A few months ago, we set out to conduct a new research project with our partners at The Harris Poll. Going into it, our primary goal was to get a snapshot of the current moment in time and see how both consumers and marketers are adapting to a year that has been unlike any in recent memory.
We’re currently in the process of packaging the report, and will be releasing it later in September, but due to recent events in the news, we have decided to preview some data.
Specifically, we had a section in the research dedicated to the intersection of brands and social justice issues. Since the protests began in May around George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, we have seen social justice issues rise to the forefront of our national dialog, and as we kicked off our latest Harris Poll Research project, we felt that brand engagement around these issues would be an interesting topic to explore.
Should brands be obligated to acknowledge or take a stand for or against social issues? Do consumers want them to?
For this project, we surveyed 1,000 US consumers and 500 marketers in the US, and what we found was very interesting.
In summary, there are many factors for marketers to consider when deciding whether their company should take a position on social issues, and the makeup and expectations of their customers is certainly one to consider. In the end, however, a brand will know best what makes sense for their particular business, and we expect brands to continue evaluating how they will approach these situations going forward given younger generations are increasingly focused on how brands align with their values.
For any questions about the study, or to see the raw data, email comms@openx.com.
2020 has been a difficult year that has required us to adapt and change the way we operate. One positive outcome, however, is that tough times can generate unity, from advocating for social justice to simply checking in on our neighbors. Similar efforts have arisen in the advertising community.
OpenX is proud to announce its participation in a pro bono campaign driven by the Ad Council and executed by our partners at Matterkind/IPG. Collectively, we have launched a PMP supporting a number of timely messages, including COVID-19 PSAs and Racial Justice. We are leveraging programmatic technology to deliver the greatest possible creative agility, speed to market and results.
OpenX created a PMP for the Matterkind team and pledged millions of impressions across any and all inventory, screens and publishers. On an ongoing basis, the Ad Council selects 3-5 campaigns they feel are most in need of media support and rotate the corresponding display and video assets into the PMP. All targeting is dictated by Matterkind and the Ad Council and can be adjusted mid-flight to align with a given message’s intended geo and audience.
Liz DeAngelis, VP of Growth and Managed Platforms at the Ad Council, summed up the PMP by saying, “Donated media doesn’t always allow for granular targeting and frequency controls as well as the ability to optimize, and growing this channel has yielded tremendous success for our campaigns. The team over here is blown away by this program, and I think there is a lot of potential and value to continuing to grow this channel.”
The PMP was originally set up for COVID-19 PSA messaging, but its scope has expanded as the campaign has progressed, and now includes ads around Feeding Hunger, Mental Health and Racial Justice. Exact messages and creative rotation will be updated quarterly.
For example, in states with rising COVID-19 cases, the campaign encourages residents to wear masks and socially distance – soon, it will broadcast tips for re-entry.
Speaking on the campaign, Nancy Hall, EVP, Matterkind East & Head of Outcome Based Marketing said, “We all know how effective advertising is at delivering a message, and the PMP we’ve set up is promoting public service announcements that we feel are critical for people to hear. Working with the Ad Council and partners like OpenX, we’re able to show the power of addressable advertising, and this campaign is a great example of how we as an industry can come together to make a positive impact.”
This one is easy: it’s the right thing to do. We’re privileged to support a good cause and thank our friends at Matterkind and the Ad Council for a successful collaboration.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many changes in advertising overall. Some brands, like those in hospitality or travel, have almost eliminated advertising while brands in other industries, like CPG, telecommunication, and technology, are leaning more heavily on programmatic as consumers remain inside and online. As businesses in all sectors pivot to embrace the new normal, we look forward to providing our publishers Insights from the Buy-Side to help better plan for the road ahead.
In this edition, we interviewed Steve Katelman from Omnicom Media Group (OMG) to get his take on how the pandemic has changed his day-to-day life, and his predictions for the pandemic’s long-term effects on the advertising industry.
Steve Katelman’s role is to maintain a competitive advantage for Omnicom clients. He focuses on digital and technical strategies as others within the company handle pricing discussions. His role is global, so he works with media partners and ad tech companies that have operations worldwide. He normally travels 80% of the time, but hasn’t moved 80 feet from his refrigerator in the last few months (could be one of the reasons he’s gained 80lbs).
OpenX: How has your day-to-day business changed as a result of the pandemic?
Steve Katelman: It has changed drastically. I am now exclusively living in a virtual world. I was a big fan of in-person whiteboarding sessions with participants from our agencies, clients and partners. These are much harder to do via webinar. My work hours have expanded to 6am – 10pm. My eyes hurt from staring at the screen. Obviously buying media has been impacted due to the fact that consumer behavior has radically shifted, but the goals haven’t altered: get the right message to the right person at the right time.
OpenX: How has COVID impacted your overall business?
Steve Katelman: I’ve been in the business since the 80’s (sense the theme here?) and have never experienced anything like this. This impacted everything. It was global. Messaging needed to be updated in an instant. Fortunately (for me), programmatic buying was built on acting in real time so this was doable. I personally looked at it as “marketing to a shelter in place audience.” Where is the audience? What is the message? How can the brand assist? Should the brand assist? This is different for each brand, so it was essentially a reset for our clients’ marketing decisions. We needed to be very nimble and that isn’t an easy task when you can’t walk down the hallway to do it collectively.
OpenX: Has COVID made you rethink what you look for in technology and publisher partners?
Steve Katelman: I think this whole pandemic has spotlighted that data-driven, real-time buying is a very wise way to market in a world that can and will change on a dime. Nimbleness is definitely an attribute I will look for in partners moving forward. There will obviously be winners and losers.
OpenX: What are you most looking forward to when the lockdown is over?
Steve Katelman: That’s easy. Talking to a stranger in a bar.
Thanks for joining us for this edition of Insights from the Buy-Side. Be sure to subscribe to TheXchange blog and stay up to date with our latest content.