Ad tech’s has a huge blind spot: The growing dominance of Walled Gardens. As Google, Meta, and Amazon capture over 60% of US ad spend, many in the open web are too focused on the battles between themselves while losing sight of this larger war. The real risk? Marketers giving up and go all-in on walled gardens. We need to create better ad products that compete with the WG’s and we need to solve our glaring issues that make the open web much less accessible to the millions of advertisers on WG’s. Study up on your real competition.

TTD never had a leg up on DV360 from a product perspective. They just weren’t DV360, and agencies needed an alternative. That’s the secret behind the DSP wars. The winds will shift bc competitors aren't taking exorbitant margins and agencies/clients are fed up. Not due to product. adage.com/article/digital-ma…

TTD partners with Sonos for TV OS, in spite of denials this week to gaslight the industry. They are also building a CTV content mgmt system (think WURL/Amagi) & ads infrastructure (think DCLK stack for CTV). Ironic given Google DOJ case this week. This is Project Bridgewater.

Everyone knows that AI will massively change the face of advertising. Here's how...Meet ViantAI. 🚀 Smarter, faster, and more effective planning and buying for any advertiser 📊 Trained on ViantDSP data curated for programmatic advertising on the open web 🔥Product Roadmap

The coverage on the Google cases is eerily suspicious. It shows how under resourced newsrooms are, while at the same time, how scared everyone is speaking up about Google bc so many are compromised. No one is focused on the damage that was caused to ADVERTISERS. Only talking about a bunch of ad tech companies that they put out of business is not the story…no one cares about a bunch of ad tech cos. Make the focus about ADVERTISERS.

What’s wrong with Nike is they’ve been running a mid-2000s to 2014 playbook. Direct-response display. Google search to the (p)max.  When you optimize spend based purely on attribution, you only get the people you would’ve gotten anyway while cannibalizing what actually creates new demand. It makes marketing managers think they are doing the right thing because the metrics look good (vanity metrics) but in the end, the business will stop growing or worse, shrink. You can’t separate the top and bottom of the funnel.

Just reported $DSP Q2 quarterly earnings, lots of questions about us competing against TTD and why clients aren’t just going to go all in on walled gardens. Here’s what we said: 1. Whoever builds Ai tools to significantly upgrade the UX will enable a larger addressable market for DSP’s beyond just the fortune 2000 and mid market advertisers. 10M SMB’s have to choose between only a few lower funnel platforms with simple UI’s (GOOG, META, etc). Traditional DSP’s are like a Bloomberg terminal. This is obvious. 2. More Ai. Huge market potential to truly automate planning, buying, measurement, optimization and CREATIVE. Exciting stuff happening here and the potential is huge. 3. You want to buy direct from the source or through a middle man? Provide Direct Access to premium content owners in CTV & Audio channels at the most efficient CPM’s since these channels can drive scaled incremental sales compared to search and social. 4. Transparent reporting that shows which marketing tactics/channels are driving real contribution (incremental sales) vs attribution (getting credit for existing sales). Chasing the lower funnel has limited growth potential and no one ever built a real brand doing this. Building a brand allows you to consistently crush your growth numbers. If you’re not crushing your numbers, you may be lost in the lower funnel 5. You realize that someone else doesn’t have to lose for you to win.

Congrats the IRIS.TV team! We will enable the open ecosystem to build ad products that rival the walled gardens. Matching the ad to the content is a huge performance driver in CTV. Tune into our Q3 earnings call at 2pm PT/5pm ET to hear more. Link in comments.

Tell me you’re an ad network without telling me you’re an ad network. I haven’t made up my mind yet about curation. Sellers packaging audience data with content is not a new concept and generally I think it can be valuable. If a client wants to buy it, as their DSP, that’s their prerogative and we aren’t going to play games with QPS to stop clients from self directing their spend. We see some really good executions of curation with publisher 1PD but, most of what we see is ssp to ssp marked up garbage with big margins baked in. In this market, data can’t be 50% of the buy. As a former ad network guy, I’m not judging but when clients dig through the data and ask their DSP WTF is this stuff? They are reminded that an ad network is gonna ad network. So, bring real value that drives outcomes and you’ll be good.

“Right ad, to the Right user at the Right Time” is just marketing.  Hundreds of adtech companies have used it for a decade. It’s not true.  No one has ever gotten a unique ad delivered to them that no one else ever got. Stop it. You sound dumb to anyone who knows anything.

Want to build ad products that crush? There’s been lots of talk about Identity on the open web (yes, it’s part of the equation), but Meta has some of the best ad products out there not b/c of identity (anymore) but b/c of their capabilities in matching ads to content. Viant has some of the best identity products on the open web but matching ads to content will be one of the largest opportunities in creating better ad products that rival Meta & Google. We need major investment here.

The Trade Desk trying to force its way into a crowded TV OS landscape. Another move to the sell-side, looking for more control over premium content owners or is it just a repeat of them “taking on China” for investors to believe the hype up to $120/share? lowpass.cc/p/the-trade-desk-…

Tell me again why a DSP would be responsible for this? I don’t know of any real DSP that would go along with this. Try this to us, Google, TTD or Yahoo and you will catch one between the proverbial eyes. You guys are funny, the gaslit arguments are reaching peak level. The best defense of an accusation is a counter accusation for the same offense. Yet another example of how little knowledge there is about DSP’s, how they work and what drives and/or hurts their business…anyone with experience knows this argument is ridiculous. First off, ID bridging is fraud that is orchestrated by a seller (not a buyer) to induce a buyer to bid (at all or likely at a higher CPM). If the DSP bids and wins, the DSP loses b/c it was likely not that actual user so performance suffers and you will churn a customer (or get less spend). We first noticed this in 2017/2018 when Safari users were getting their ID’s “bridged” or “stuffed” back in (call it what you want)…the sellers were just bridging to old “valuable” user ID’s based on previous bids. Easy to spot b/c performance sucked. We immediately stopped this and blacklisted multiple sell side players. If a DSP is allowing this, they are not a real DSP and is likely also on the sell side OR they are stupid and can’t figure out why they don’t perform. FFS.

Founders have superpowers. We all want to hire the 10x’ers, but many are skipping the traditional recruiting process to start their own companies. Problem is, running a company is torture. These founders are incredibly talented with strong product/vision skills, but they get worn down by things they hate: raising money, HR, legal, managing cash flow, and raising more money. To attract these superhumans, you need a shared vision that supports their mission while still giving them real upside. It’s not a new idea, but too many ignore this approach. Don’t sleep on this opportunity.

JB is not coming back. If he owned enough, it would be plausible but unlikely. There are plenty of shirts who would want the job but won’t be successful. This is a company that is still bringing on water. MC leaving is because it’s a great time (no cookie deletion from Google), stock is up and another M&A rumor to distract people from the fact that most of the business is still retargeting. MC can’t sell a lot of stock while CEO so this is a glide path to get cashing out….and good for her. Brian Gleason is the dark horse candidate because he doesn’t have public company experience as a CEO but would be a familiar face and I think is talented. It would also make his career and I like moves that really matter to someone compared to someone who already has that experience and it not mean as much to them. That said, i think it would be interesting if this move ends up being an opening or invitation to a smaller company CEO who merges with Criteo and they end up running it (like Skai). Many founders or execs won’t sell bc they want to stay at the helm. Last point, depending on who they choose will show you the board dynamic and the state of the company (this cannot be overlooked when thinking about public companies). If they hire a McKinsey, Google, Amazon, or some retread Retail exec, it’s over. If they make an internal hire who has a strong set of plays to run (but with no pubco experience) ,they at least have some balls. Too many boards are dysfunctional, are only concerned with CYA and getting their next board gig. Lots of people would take the title and pay but very few will be successful navigating & transforming this business.

Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the cookies and the pixels that you are used to. digiday.com/marketing/after-…

Market Likey

They need a magician

Interesting. I’ve used both and UI is Pepsi/Coke. I’m talking about competing against Google’s DV360 offering which clients believe is superior bc of data/YT. TTD had a service advantage in that they would build to suit clients and pledged allegiance to agencies (hence their name) as they were the ante-Google. That’s what turned agencies their way but we’re in different times now.

The largest CTV publishers are not relying on IP’s, their future depends on leveraging their logged in household information on the world’s best content. Long tail CTV? You might be right but that IP and the data associated to it is about as good as 3P cookie data

I’m a man of the people so let’s do it!!

The walled gardens are the largest threat to the open web ecosystem. We must provide better ad products that produce greater returns for marketers and stop playing the “attribution game” like search and social. Our biggest issue is ad fraud and the ecosystem needs it to be eradicated. We all know it but there are a set of players that allow it to exist in order to pump the vanity metrics. Marketers don’t believe there is ad fraud on search & social. Perception is reality. Search & Social are the competition.

Xavier has a very litt comment here 🔥

😂 we have too many kids to be good at golf!

Hahaha the social media posts are working!!! 😂

$DSP Q3 2024 earnings call: investors.viantinc.com/event…

I already know too much

@RaoulGMI why has the call been so difficult for the Fed this time re: inflation? Basic economic principle of killing demand has never been about interest rates but rather employment. As long as we have 3% unemployment, inflation will stay high. Unfortunately, people losing their jobs is the only true demand killer that will bring inflation in line.

Google, IAS, DV, Crossix.

Agreed they can’t be ignored and they are just “super publishers”. However, they are walled gardens not b/c they don’t partner but b/c of a lack of transparency and their measurement claims they drove more sales than they actually drove with no 3rd party validation. Scouts Honor. The “blind spot” is that most in and tech have little awareness of their actual products and why marketers spend so much money with them. One big reason is how easy it is to buy them compared to ad tech’s complex setup and most open web products can’t show CAC’s at the same efficiency…..and this is b/c Google is ad tech’s attribution overlord. The open web ecosystem is a slave to larger players. This is a mindset problem of accepting defeat (while exercising no will or creativity to explore competing with them) and comfortable living a life under their rule while enjoying the crumbs they leave on the table. The opportunity is to create ad products that truly compete with them and show marketers what drives actual business growth while leveling the playing field.

This is also the same behavior as domain spoofing, IP spoofing, RampID/UID2 stuffing, fake bid floors, simulated bid reqs, marking out-stream as CTV, etc. What else did I miss?

What’s the largest driver of campaign performance? (other drivers in comments that you think are important)

Thank you! It’s actually better when using it. So many use cases across a media and ops org.

No CEO of a publicly traded company is immediately out. They all resign, have a transition plan, become a strategic advisor, blah blah blah. She gone.

Respect your position on the topic but it’s telling that you are not a DSP and may not appreciate the dynamics of that business. DSP’s are incredibly sticky and I don’t think curation would make a top 10 threat list.

The last puff of the cigarette

You guys broke the sign up link 😂 give us 5 min, will be back up shortly

SDC team was incredible. Most importantly, they invented the RTB Auction…many people confuse Right Media with this invention but they were the first buyer to integrate with SDC’s real-time ad auction for MySpace O&O.

It’s a lot easier to use first principle thinking as a marketer than trying to decode the matrix of digital advertising. This is a rational approach that avoids MFA and other junk and will undoubtedly yield better performance.

We have had great success with boomerangs. We think the company keeps getting better but more importantly, we end up getting back people who have really developed themselves and come back with a great set of experiences. Boomerangs are incredibly valuable.

And we’re back. link: signup.viant.ai

You are correct in that CEO’s that announce that they are abruptly out were most likely fired like the Pepsi CEO. All others announce a transition plan to quell investor fears but behind the scenes are very much out. So now we’re both right 😂

Don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Just do it better, faster, cheaper, more direct and service the shit out of your customers. Some think DSP’s are a commodity and parts of them are but keep in mind there is only a handful of real self service DSP’s left in the world.

Contextual tech is certainly part of the process but true AI in this area is not where it needs to be…this goes for ads and content. The focus should be on video and specifically CTV since it already drives good performance but we can really flex here.

You could certainly try and there is an argument for it. However, that argument is ignoring incentives at play in the market. Clients want lower fees which translate to lower FTE’s at agencies. Agencies have to do more with less if they want to compete for new business. This means more automation and less manual buying. DSP’s are just electronic buying and you’re arguing for buying outside of the agency flywheel. This gets worse at Mid market agencies and is a non starter with in-housed clients.

I would caution any data that Google coughed up in the antitrust case. They have been widely called out for destroying data and have very likely submitted misleading info so judges, jury, press, etc can’t follow the trail. DV360 has far more $ flowing through it than TTD and they book revenue in multiple opaque areas so don’t fall for what they ‘say’ is revenue.

The strut around the dinner table tonight…

I can’t stop a buyer from buying what they want and how they want to buy it. That said, we do extensive work to protect buyers from unsuspecting ad tech f*ckery that has existed for far too long. If we don’t protect them, they will blame the DSP. The buck starts and stops with us.

Love it! Smart money knows DOOH rocks as a channel. Thanks for checking it out!

So the point here is that this is just a start and you realize that this taxation scheme is just the start bc the government spending should not slow down. You are clearly stating that taxes need to increase on lower and middle class. If you ran a business, wouldn’t it make more sense to slow down spending as a first move?

Yes, they do but it’s constant whack-a-mole to protect the clients or you get fired. Even harder when clients do deals with these sellers unsuspectingly.

Yes, let’s call it ViantCon 😂

I will put up the $ to hire a sketch artist.

All, great comments and feedback. Truly valuable and that’s why we launched the product through social vs traditional PR. There are some gems in this thread and I going to repay all of you by ripping off your great critiques and marketing ideas 😉.

Agreed. We did it!

I understand the concerns around “we do it all for you” bc of advantage+ and pmax issues but I think it’s still inevitable. Big opportunity will be someone who nails the AI efficiency while elevating the production of the human.

Cannes Lions Festival was excellent this year. But we should create one in Orange County…lots of companies in SoCal and you can’t beat the weather.

Anything with the Rock in it will work!

If the sell side spoofs an ID and gets a higher bid rate and the resulting higher CPM, they make more money. A DSP completely loses in every scenario. Not hard to understand who won’t claim this.

Eric Schmidt on Google WFH policy. What do you think about this?

College coaches need to see this guy play. A++ defender. Runners beware 👀Pitchers love throwing to him and he’s a great teammate in the dugout.

LOL

SDC’s contribution to today’s programmatic landscape is completely overlooked. The Sex Pistols were to punk music, Nirvana was to Grunge/Alternative as SDC is to programmatic.

Olympics are a big part of the growth

Damnit

Not too many catcher/shortstops that look like this out there 😳

Seth, really good job of the mapping. Question, why do we think ACR is so valuable and what use cases are seeing that are the most impactful?

🤔

It would be really bad for them and their numbers would fall off of a cliff

If you work at a big tech company for more than 5 years, odds are high that you lose the muscle in your brain to work hard to make it happen. Many want to leave to flex that muscle again but if you’re a cog in a wheel for too long, it becomes very difficult to get back there. Not all of them but a heck of a lot of them.

#1 is cheap CPA’s while #2 is about growth

Zima! 😂

HSBC is a public company: “The bank said Quinn, a 37-year-veteran at the lender, will stay on as it looks for a successor.” 🤔

Bingo!

You could be right. Pretty weird to go after a stealth team of Roku engineers if you’re not competing but either way coming out the gate with a TV OS would be tough sledding for them. Just a guess but more likely to go the Trojan horse route. Time will tell. Appreciate the thoughts!

So, when are you going to stop spending?

LOL

Try help@google.com …literally.

Follow the incentives. These docs have to be getting blasted by consumers who read and use AI services.

These are signs of late life stage companies that charge consumers for what they already had for free because their is a lack of innovation to stay in Hyper-growth mode…that is gone for all of them so now Wall Street wants profits. Also, regular consumers aren’t the ones that are hurt here, it’s the media companies and influencers…reach and engagement won’t be free forever.

Use M&A to bring in the best talent

Do you think this was leading to a discrepancy of clicks recorded in Amazon DSP vs Google campaign manager because Google deems certain clicks to be of poor quality?

😂

Anyone who thinks this makes sense, is a good idea or is even fair is not a serious person. The reality is you don’t care because at least it’s not you.

🤯 back to the future!

Founder mode is an always on approach. Cool thing about acquiring founders with real upside is that they themselves stay in founder mode. Founder mode can also be practiced by non-founders. Founder mode is being obsessed with solving the problem and blowing a hole through anything/anyone in your way. Manager mode is for losers.

I think you’re making the point that an SSP has access to different data than a DSP and that can be true in some cases. Can you give us examples with real company names and actual curation going on at scale (publisher, SSP, curation mansion, data/supply curation being done, etc)? I would like for us to not go down a rabbit hole for edge use cases.

Like who?

Even more beautiful there around Christmas 😉

There is no incentive not to be a monopoly. Any consequence that results from these lawsuits will pail in comparison to the damage caused by their actions and will not be enough to deter anyone.

Try it and we’ll compare

This is true and a great point. Unfortunately this is only a drop in the bucket when considering the revenue challenges for studio-produced content. The larger culprit is the declining economics of the paid linear TV model are outweighing the revenue growth of streaming business. “Analog dollars vs Digital dimes.” This fight is similar to what the music labels faced with artists/publishing/etc in the shift from CD’s to downloads. In the end, deals get reworked but believe everything will work itself out in the end just like it did in the music business.

It’s not an accurate belief but since there’s little to no transparency and they control their own measurement, there is little reporting on ad fraud in walled gardens…therefore, advertisers believe it’s not a big problem there.

Nearly half of the survey thought it wasn’t fraud…what half is that?

It’s still YUGE

Lots of chucking and jiving in the argument for curation. Data + Bid Request is curation. What is this uncompressed data that you speak of?