Are you sure you want to bring programmatic in-house?
While programmatic autonomy might seem like a dream for some, there’s more hurdles to getting there than brands might think, writes consultant Matt Prohaska.
One of the top debates in our industry today is whether leading brands should bring part or all of their programmatic buying practice in-house. This discussion has received plenty of attention and deservedly so – after multiple regional and global reports have found that many holding companies and independent agencies have been less than transparent about fees, data usage, and inventory supply sourcing, a pendulum is naturally swinging to marketers wanting more control over where and how their dollars are being spent.
But I would caution those that are looking to completely “cut the cord” and remove their agency from all programmatic buying duties, since it’s much easier said than done. There are ways to get the desired change and results without going “all-in” and tearing up that agency contract.
Arguably programmatic is pretty close to not needing talent.
Much like high frequency trading – really, talent sets the strategy but not much else.
Media likely to be a much smaller industry going forward because of this.
Hi Henry thanks for your comment – it actually takes quite a bit of human Talent to do it right, unless Publishers want to simply toss their inventory into an Open Auction and get minimal pricing. A little effort goes a long way from the sales and operations teams (and part of why we have trained so many buyers and sellers around the world, including Sydney and Singapore again in August 😉
Has very little to do with high frequency trading (apart from the superficial comparisons).
Think you’ll find the image used as the thumbnail for this article reflects those used by Mr Timothy Whitfield.
Some originality would be nice.
P.S. nice advertorial
Thanks for your comment Mr. Hmmm. Much respect for Whitfield – we didn’t choose the image, so sorry and I agree some attritubtion should go there – we always source, so yes he gets credit. The originality we hope cones from being the first to integrate programmatic into an existig sales team when I was at The New York Times in 2013. Happy to discuss more when I am in Sydney with our team 6-10 August. Thanks
Hi Matt and ‘Hmmm’,
I suspect this could be an error at our end. From what I can work out, the original creator of the image is Matthew Freeman, so if we owe him, or Tim Whitfield, any credit or apologies, we definitely offer those up.
The image was in our database from previous opinion pieces, but we have corrected this now and replaced it in case we are accidentally using someone else’s images.
Apologies for the confusion,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
“Arguably programmatic is pretty close to not needing talent.”
By the same logic, 747’s don’t need trained pilots, Formula 1 race cars don’t need trained drivers, and nuclear submarines don’t need trained captains. As ad tech platforms become more sophisticated, more experienced AdOps with more knowledge and more skills are needed. Our campaign managers make 50 – 100 settings decisions when setting up programmatic campaigns, and have to know which variables to adjust and how to adjust them for campaign optimization.