2. Agenda
• Brief History of time
• Magical Creatures
• Sexy Car Pics
• Summary and further thoughts
• Where I say “Thank You”
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3. Display ad sales has evolved dramatically
Source: Programmatic 101: What All Publishers Need To Know (Digiday WTF Programmatic For Publishers – 4/30/15)
4.
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6. Display ad sales has evolved dramatically
Source: Programmatic 101: What All Publishers Need To Know (Digiday WTF Programmatic For Publishers – 4/30/15)
I was raised with the concept of ‘tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them. It’s sorta old school. I don’t thikn of myself so much as old school – but there’s something to be said for certain actions, habits, styles and products being old, but still relevant. In some cases, and I’ll make this point soon, what was once old, is new again.
So, I’m going to tell you the truth about PG. I’m going to say that we’re ready, but not as ready as we should be. I’m going to show you pictures of cars. I’m going to tell you pictures of unicorns. I’m going to explain why, but ultimately it’s going to feed into the truths of how we’ve mis-focused. Not lost focus, but misfocused.
I’m going to do this without showing you a ingle graph.
I’m going to tell you stories and for those ready to take pictures of slides, feel free to relax. There are literally no picture worthy slides. I did this deck. It’s not about what’s on screen. It’s at best, a bizarre view into how I think about all this and pictures that help to realize that. Which is why there are cartoons, unicorns and cars. And no graphs.
This is a graph. I’m kidding. This is a chart. Big difference.
PREHISTORU – people coded ads to the sites – no ad servers. No idea of impressions etc. (PRINT)
This is a chart that is a basic history of where we came from. This is, perhaps the only slide, that might possible by pic worthy. You can take your phone off camera mode now.
Why do I put this up. I do because in order to understand hwere we are, its often helful to understand where we ame from. This is about 30 years of history in 3 minutes. Back when I started, there were websits and people hired salespeople to sell that inventory. They’d make phone calls, send emails, stalk agency lobbies, in the hopes of selling impressions on their websites. They would GUARANTEE a certain number of impressions for a certain investment level. Simple. Make sense? They would sell them that inventory. They would create value, differentiate themselve and their products from the herd, build relationships and ultimately sell. I’m going to say that last part again. They’d create value. Differentiate themselves and their products, build relationships and all of that would help them sell their website traffic to clients, agencies, advertisers.
A lot of these people were excellent. I had the honor or working with many. Many have gone on to to great things based on the work they put forth then, and continue to put forth. I’m lucky to know them.
It was soon understood that if the website was big enough – the sales force would rarely if ever be able to sell ALL of the impressions. From that, AdNetworks were born. These were very smart people who again, created value from less. A website could be premium. A website could say this is who I am, this is who I have! These folks, I’d argue were even better because they created value and differntiateion from next to nothing. For many of them and many of their clients, THEY were the value. Ross would take care of them. Hed find the right audience. Peter would negoitate good rates. Liz would push who she represented to do something better. They did exactyl what the website sales people did – but had to hustle more.
Someone very smart, who I also worked with then realized that this method was flawed. Those rates that were negotiated were done in a flat method. It was more or less eCPMs so that the network could make money and it was inefficient. Why not BID on every available impressin. I work at BI. WE have a valueable audiece. But not EVERY person on BI is valuable to EVERY advertiser. I’m in a man in my 40s, married with 3 kids and live in Westchester. I’m super valuable to many brands, but not to every brand. [INSERT YOUTH BRAND]. Bidding made sense, it was a better way for advertiser to buy and so very smart people went out and sold through the infancy of RTB. They sold thru the process of better buying.
And while the first two arrows take some time, the rest goes really fast – not surprsingly. Exchanges and SSPs quickly birthed DSPs to help with the effiencies being created and evolving. And then, publishers started getting savvy and saying –wait! We have a valuable audience and we used to let these adnetworks sell our wares – we’ll hook up these PIPES and we’ll let the money flow in. And that was cool. It was an efficient way to make money. And then publishers said –wait wait wait. If we know you, you can’t buy us on the open. Come, the water’s so warm. Our audience is so loveyl. You can buy or not buy but you have to give us atl least this much money and so they set floors and that worked too. And advertisers liked to transact that way. Publishers set it and forget it. Money flowed through the open. Certain brands and agencies were invited into a very exlusive party…a private party “PMP” and things had the potenial to be even better because we’d MONETIZE Tthose mpressions at a higher rate. Flat Rate unreseved deals came about – a way to take BIDDING out. Wait what? And then…PG, P-Direct came about because there was an efficiency in running through the pipes.
It was a way for a site to mark a specific amt of inventory at a specific price to sell to an advertiser. Full circle.
It’s a natural progressoin I suppose. The first truth I’ll tell you is an old one.
PETE: white lists, ads.txt, but brand safe and audience. No more 30% on site X isn’t what I want, you can jus tbuy what you want.
Better on PMP vs PG for the bird in had slide
This is a graph. I’m kidding. This is a chart. Big difference.
PREHISTORU – people coded ads to the sites – no ad servers. No idea of impressions etc. (PRINT)
This is a chart that is a basic history of where we came from. This is, perhaps the only slide, that might possible by pic worthy. You can take your phone off camera mode now.
Why do I put this up. I do because in order to understand hwere we are, its often helful to understand where we ame from. This is about 30 years of history in 3 minutes. Back when I started, there were websits and people hired salespeople to sell that inventory. They’d make phone calls, send emails, stalk agency lobbies, in the hopes of selling impressions on their websites. They would GUARANTEE a certain number of impressions for a certain investment level. Simple. Make sense? They would sell them that inventory. They would create value, differentiate themselve and their products from the herd, build relationships and ultimately sell. I’m going to say that last part again. They’d create value. Differentiate themselves and their products, build relationships and all of that would help them sell their website traffic to clients, agencies, advertisers.
A lot of these people were excellent. I had the honor or working with many. Many have gone on to to great things based on the work they put forth then, and continue to put forth. I’m lucky to know them.
It was soon understood that if the website was big enough – the sales force would rarely if ever be able to sell ALL of the impressions. From that, AdNetworks were born. These were very smart people who again, created value from less. A website could be premium. A website could say this is who I am, this is who I have! These folks, I’d argue were even better because they created value and differntiateion from next to nothing. For many of them and many of their clients, THEY were the value. Ross would take care of them. Hed find the right audience. Peter would negoitate good rates. Liz would push who she represented to do something better. They did exactyl what the website sales people did – but had to hustle more.
Someone very smart, who I also worked with then realized that this method was flawed. Those rates that were negotiated were done in a flat method. It was more or less eCPMs so that the network could make money and it was inefficient. Why not BID on every available impressin. I work at BI. WE have a valueable audiece. But not EVERY person on BI is valuable to EVERY advertiser. I’m in a man in my 40s, married with 3 kids and live in Westchester. I’m super valuable to many brands, but not to every brand. [INSERT YOUTH BRAND]. Bidding made sense, it was a better way for advertiser to buy and so very smart people went out and sold through the infancy of RTB. They sold thru the process of better buying.
And while the first two arrows take some time, the rest goes really fast – not surprsingly. Exchanges and SSPs quickly birthed DSPs to help with the effiencies being created and evolving. And then, publishers started getting savvy and saying –wait! We have a valuable audience and we used to let these adnetworks sell our wares – we’ll hook up these PIPES and we’ll let the money flow in. And that was cool. It was an efficient way to make money. And then publishers said –wait wait wait. If we know you, you can’t buy us on the open. Come, the water’s so warm. Our audience is so loveyl. You can buy or not buy but you have to give us atl least this much money and so they set floors and that worked too. And advertisers liked to transact that way. Publishers set it and forget it. Money flowed through the open. Certain brands and agencies were invited into a very exlusive party…a private party “PMP” and things had the potenial to be even better because we’d MONETIZE Tthose mpressions at a higher rate. Flat Rate unreseved deals came about – a way to take BIDDING out. Wait what? And then…PG, P-Direct came about because there was an efficiency in running through the pipes.
It was a way for a site to mark a specific amt of inventory at a specific price to sell to an advertiser. Full circle.
It’s a natural progressoin I suppose. The first truth I’ll tell you is an old one.
PETE: white lists, ads.txt, but brand safe and audience. No more 30% on site X isn’t what I want, you can jus tbuy what you want.
Better on PMP vs PG for the bird in had slide
This is a graph. I’m kidding. This is a chart. Big difference.
PREHISTORU – people coded ads to the sites – no ad servers. No idea of impressions etc. (PRINT)
This is a chart that is a basic history of where we came from. This is, perhaps the only slide, that might possible by pic worthy. You can take your phone off camera mode now.
Why do I put this up. I do because in order to understand hwere we are, its often helful to understand where we ame from. This is about 30 years of history in 3 minutes. Back when I started, there were websits and people hired salespeople to sell that inventory. They’d make phone calls, send emails, stalk agency lobbies, in the hopes of selling impressions on their websites. They would GUARANTEE a certain number of impressions for a certain investment level. Simple. Make sense? They would sell them that inventory. They would create value, differentiate themselve and their products from the herd, build relationships and ultimately sell. I’m going to say that last part again. They’d create value. Differentiate themselves and their products, build relationships and all of that would help them sell their website traffic to clients, agencies, advertisers.
A lot of these people were excellent. I had the honor or working with many. Many have gone on to to great things based on the work they put forth then, and continue to put forth. I’m lucky to know them.
It was soon understood that if the website was big enough – the sales force would rarely if ever be able to sell ALL of the impressions. From that, AdNetworks were born. These were very smart people who again, created value from less. A website could be premium. A website could say this is who I am, this is who I have! These folks, I’d argue were even better because they created value and differntiateion from next to nothing. For many of them and many of their clients, THEY were the value. Ross would take care of them. Hed find the right audience. Peter would negoitate good rates. Liz would push who she represented to do something better. They did exactyl what the website sales people did – but had to hustle more.
Someone very smart, who I also worked with then realized that this method was flawed. Those rates that were negotiated were done in a flat method. It was more or less eCPMs so that the network could make money and it was inefficient. Why not BID on every available impressin. I work at BI. WE have a valueable audiece. But not EVERY person on BI is valuable to EVERY advertiser. I’m in a man in my 40s, married with 3 kids and live in Westchester. I’m super valuable to many brands, but not to every brand. [INSERT YOUTH BRAND]. Bidding made sense, it was a better way for advertiser to buy and so very smart people went out and sold through the infancy of RTB. They sold thru the process of better buying.
And while the first two arrows take some time, the rest goes really fast – not surprsingly. Exchanges and SSPs quickly birthed DSPs to help with the effiencies being created and evolving. And then, publishers started getting savvy and saying –wait! We have a valuable audience and we used to let these adnetworks sell our wares – we’ll hook up these PIPES and we’ll let the money flow in. And that was cool. It was an efficient way to make money. And then publishers said –wait wait wait. If we know you, you can’t buy us on the open. Come, the water’s so warm. Our audience is so loveyl. You can buy or not buy but you have to give us atl least this much money and so they set floors and that worked too. And advertisers liked to transact that way. Publishers set it and forget it. Money flowed through the open. Certain brands and agencies were invited into a very exlusive party…a private party “PMP” and things had the potenial to be even better because we’d MONETIZE Tthose mpressions at a higher rate. Flat Rate unreseved deals came about – a way to take BIDDING out. Wait what? And then…PG, P-Direct came about because there was an efficiency in running through the pipes.
It was a way for a site to mark a specific amt of inventory at a specific price to sell to an advertiser. Full circle.
It’s a natural progressoin I suppose. The first truth I’ll tell you is an old one.
PETE: white lists, ads.txt, but brand safe and audience. No more 30% on site X isn’t what I want, you can jus tbuy what you want.
Better on PMP vs PG for the bird in had slide
We would sell, create preference, differentiate ourselves and our products. We’d talk about BENEFITS. We never, if rarely spoke about features. But…
When we started putting an emphasis on the Programmatic…we started putting less emphasis on the sales. We marginalized it. We leaned on tech and if you argued that we needed to, I might not disagree. BUT…I don’t know that it needed to be one or the other. Furhermore, I’d argue that now, as PG rises – and it is and will continue to – we need to put the person back in salesperson.
Process, instead of product. And the truth is, that’s a problem.
The 2nd Truth is we’re ready technically – but we should be more ready as a humans.
I have a a few friends at a few places. I know those organizations and I know my own. I look at premium publisehrs and see dozens are direct salespeople. They are doing Gods work. They call, email, stalk potential clients. Of those dozens, there are almost always 4 or 5 absolute no fucking around light the world on fire rockstars. So…20,-25% of that salesforce is utterly amazing. The rest are varying degres of very good to underperformers. The math is fine.
But as the scales tip…and I look around…I wonder where all the programmatic salespeople are. There are a lot of people in this room with C, E, S, Vs and Ps in their titles. I don’t think we’re hiring enough. And…I think it’s because we continue to look for
PRODUCT: OG,person, site, etc.
PROCESS is how its done. (pipes)
This is a term I have used ad nasuem. This is a term most of you have probable used as well when describing the perfect programmatic sales person.
BEHOLD! The unicorn. I know all about unicorns. I put my littlest to bed every night and we talk about, amongst other things, unicorns. They are beautiful and magestic. They are magical. And much like other magical creatiures and beings like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny…they don’t exist. Whether we realize it or not, we are quite literally saying that we are looking for something that doesn’t exist.
Let’s go through a typical checklist:
We want someone young and hungry.
Someone data oriented
Someone who can seamlessly go into any number of SSP Uis to set up deals
Ok…that’s doable. That’s like…a horse.
BUT THERES MORE!
We want them to find said potential deals.
We want them to monitor these deals
We want them to upsell these deals
Ok…that’s like a really beautiful horse…like…more so than other horses.
AND…we want them to be able to knock down doors at agencies…
AND…whether we realize it or not….we want them to create preference, differentiate us, build relationships, travel, and…sell. A LOT.
That’s a unicorn. I would hazard a guess that we have a bunhc of people in this room who are really good at a bunch of those things – or at one point were good at all of them, but never at once! But then…someone who was incredibly smart proposed BUILDING a unicorn. That person was me. I literally want to kick my own ass for not just saying it, but saying it with conviction.
Wanna know what a built unicorn looks like?
This is lancelot. Barnum and Baily Circus in conjunction with, I kid you not, a self proclaimed WIZARD created this. They “BUILT” a unicorn. I won’t bore you with how – it’s sort of morbidly fascinating – but I hope we can all agree that the reality doesn’t not match up to the vision.
And it’s very important that we recognize that it is not poor lancelot’s fault. He’s a goat! But if we continue to look for and ‘build’ unicorns, I Think we’re going to be very disappointed for the most part.
TRUTH 1: PRORGRAMMATIC GUARATEED IS BETTER THAN PMP FOR EVERYONE – But lets stop talking about
TRUTH 2: SINGULAR PMPS DON’T SCALE IN ENOUGH MEANINGFUL WAYS
TRUTH 3: WE DON’T NEED UNICORNS
This is lancelot. Barnum and Baily Circus in conjunction with, I kid you not, a self proclaimed WIZARD created this. They “BUILT” a unicorn. I won’t bore you with how – it’s sort of morbidly fascinating – but I hope we can all agree that the reality doesn’t not match up to the vision.
And it’s very important that we recognize that it is not poor lancelot’s fault. He’s a goat! But if we continue to look for and ‘build’ unicorns, I Think we’re going to be very disappointed for the most part.
TRUTH 1: PRORGRAMMATIC GUARATEED IS BETTER THAN PMP FOR EVERYONE
TRUTH 2: SINGULAR PMPS DON’T SCALE IN ENOUGH MEANINGFUL WAYS
TRUTH 3: WE DON’T NEED UNICORNS
This is my car. It’s a 2012 Toyota Sienna.
This is it from the other side. I’m not sure which side is it’s best.
This is my car with all the doors open. The 2 front, the 2SUTOMATIC SLIDING side doors and the trunk.
Wanna look under the hood? Mmmmmm
And here’s how you’d take that apart. You know how much I care about this? Zero. I care literally zero about it. I didn’t talk to a mechanic to figure out what kind of car I wanted.
And I bought it for this. This is a BENEFIT to me. My wife and I, 3 kids, 2 grandparents. Those backseats go down – you’ve seen the trunk space! Ski trips, Beach Days, weekend getaways. It all fits. It’s all easy. I didn’t go to a mechanic. I spoke to a car salesperson. And while I am confident if I had asked about internal combustion, cubic centimeters and ideal fuel injection, that person would have been able to give me some broadstrokes – I wouldn’t have cared if they couldn’t because at every single place I went, they called in a mechanic when they didn’t know the questions. And the mechanice NEVER EVER was the reason I bougth or didn’t. It was the product and how it stood apart.
Here’s the truth. We need people. We need to get back to what is and will always be real. We need Sales People. We need people to talk about benefits. We need people to talk to the product.
Speaking of the trunk.
Is it getting weird? Good.
I bought this car because I need a vehicle that will get me from A to B. Check. I love the captain seats. It makes me feel like…a captain.
Not that captain
No again.
Yeah. Ok.
Speaking of the trunk.
Is it getting weird? Good.
Wanna look under the hood? Mmmmmm
And here’s how you’d take that apart. You know how much I care about this? Zero. I care literally zero about it. I didn’t talk to a mechanic to figure out what kind of car I wanted.
Speaking of the trunk.
Is it getting weird? Good.
TIE IT BACK TO PMP AND PG AND THE HISTORY SLIDE. CONVERSATNT NOT FLUENT
PG is here and has been. We need to show up as well and in a real and meaningful way.
Put the person back in Programmatic Sales Person
Because we are going to need PEOPLE to sell PG.
PEOPLE are real.
PG will only succeed in thew ay you want if you lean on the above and ask them to lean on BENEFITS. To create preerence and to be your SELL.
