Programmatic doesn’t have to be highway robbery, but it usually is
Mark Ritson’s belief that programmatic is as dodgy as a $7 note has a little too much truth to it, and it’s a human issue, not a tech one, explains Simon Larcey.
You might think it strange that someone in the adtech industry like myself – someone with a vested interest in the success of programmatic platforms – should come out with a statement that programmatic buying is highway robbery.
In fact it saddens me to have to make such a claim, because it doesn’t have to be the case. The technology we have at our disposal is truly impressive, but now it’s time to see some maturity among the businesses who sell the product.
I would have never thought that I would publicly express my agreement with someone as controversial and infamous as Mark Ritson, but when I read a recent article where he decried programmatic for being as dodgy as a $7 note, I couldn’t help but agree with him.
Larcey: Why should a marketer pay an extra fee to ensure their ad is seen?
Simon Lacey this could open a can of worms but totally agree, programmatic is a great way of doing business but tainted in the hands of humans right now.
Technology is powerful in the right hands and troublesome in the wrong hands, it does not right now (and this could change) replace the smarts of a human.
Bravo Simon.
And just to think that the situation is at better than it used to be.
To quote The Donald … Sad.
Hey Simon
Good to meet you last week. I think we as an industry need to do a better job of a) being transparent (which is something we at PubMatic are fully focused on) and b) talking about the “value” that each piece of tech or partner adds. So we need to look at what the repercussions would be to marketers if they were to remove each element. Yes they may pay more, but the ROI may be severely negatively impacted if they removed some of the players who are (rightly) charging for their technology. Good to keep talking about the topic.
Simon
You and Mark are both way off reservation
Where do you get off disparaging the $7 note like that?
Do you even own one? Have you even
held one in your hand?
I’m guessing not. They are epic. And almost impossible to get. I recently offered someone $200 for theirs and they laughed at me. They were going to keep it in their family for generations to come.
seems pretty un dodgy to me
From a marketing perspective it has been a huge success in the country that decided to mint it as legal tender. Look it up. Fiji.
Now the $8 note in the other hand
That’s dodgy
Cheers
Jeremy
Mate – def talk more with you about topic – catch up soon
Kudos on the peace Simon, you hit the nail dead center… The solution is rather simple, just take the tech in-house..
Re: “If you buy an ad, you buy an ad, not the right to maybe have an ad. If a selection of ad impressions has a $5CPM, that’s what the advertiser should get, not some diluted CPM in an ecosystem of middlemen grabbing their piece of the pie.”
Not true, advertisers and agency professionals have been buying based on a guesstimate of viewability for decades. Digital is a victim of its own transparency in that it is the only model where you can objectively measure whether an ad has been seen or not. How many advertisers can objectively say how many people have actually seen their TV ad or their print ad?
Viewability is an issue that has been affecting advertising from the beginning with the classic story of people getting up to grab a cup of tea during an ad break being no different to a digital ad that hasn’t been seen – the only difference now is that for dig you actually know how many have not been viewed…