We’re excited to introduce the next segment in our Q&A series, Ask the Expert! Ask the Expert features a series of conversations with product experts where we dive into the areas you care most about like identity resolution, targeting, attribution, and more. Our next segment features a conversation about sell-side targeting.
Mike Chowla, SVP of Product at OpenX joins us to chat with Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris Feo. OpenX is the world’s leading sell-side platform for audience, data, and identity targeting. In their conversation, Mike and Chris review:
- The shift to targeting on the sell-side
- How first- and third-party data are being used on the sell-side
- How OpenX is thinking about alternative IDs
What is sell-side targeting?
Sell-side targeting optimizes the way buyers and supply-side platforms (SSPs) work together. This approach moves the responsibility of inventory and audience targeting from the demand-side platform (DSP) into the SSP, providing advertisers with increased reach and better performance.
With sell-side targeting, locating your target audience becomes easier as you have a more direct connection with publishers. This increases your ability to scale against a target audience. Specifically, the SSP directly matches the buyer’s audience or data segment to the publisher inventory and audience and automatically sends the impression to the buyer’s DSP of choice via a deal ID, providing advertisers with improved reach and performance metrics as well as control over their inventory. With more direct access, your budget can likely go further, and you can decrease your effective cost per mille (eCPM) and get more working media.
“Supply-side targeting is the next phase of how supply path optimization (SPO) and buyers will need to work more closely with SSPs.” – Mike Chowla, SVP, Product, OpenX
Buying on the sell-side vs. open exchange
When buying on the open exchange, you have access to a vast number of impressions. With sell-side targeting, you can apply your campaign targeting directly on the supply-side and activate those impressions through a deal ID. Sell-side targeting works across various formats including web display, mobile, in-app, and connected TV (CTV) for a seamless advertising experience.
OpenX offers the unique capability to match users using their device graph within their SSP. This means you can target users from traditional data sources such as cookies or mobile ad IDs (MAIDs) and reach them in CTV or app environments. This gives you even more reach and precision in your advertising efforts.
The role of first- and third-party data on the sell-side
Buyers are showing a keen interest in bringing their own first-party data into the process of sell-side targeting. Meanwhile, certain agencies have been actively involved in working with identity and data. OpenX is currently collaborating with several agency ID solutions such as Choreograph, Merkel, and Horizon.
Buyers are also purchasing third-party data and data segments from various providers through OpenX’s platform for sell-side targeting purposes. By utilizing this data on the supply side, buyers are able to increase the match rate against their first- and third-party data segments in all environments. This ultimately maximizes scale against these audiences and drives a more efficient CPM due to eliminating waste.
Measurement and attribution on the sell-side
In the current state of SSP advertising, there is more of an emphasis on targeting capabilities than measurement and attribution. That said, SSPs can provide granular log level reports that can be utilized for multi-touch attribution (MTA) or mixed media models (MMM). These granular insights not only inform measurement and attribution models, but they also provide valuable optimization insights such as clearing price.
Additionally, advertisers have all of the same reporting options that they’re used to getting through their DSP because their buys are activated via deal ID in the DSP of their choice.
What to consider when transitioning to sell-side targeting
There are two primary items you should consider when transitioning to sell-side targeting:
- Supply
- Reach
Reach
Collaborating with partners who have the right capabilities can greatly improve reach and audience extension across different devices. For instance, if you bring your first-party audience or a third-party audience and are identifying that consumer via a cookie or MAID, being able to extend that targeting segment to other devices and platforms can be highly beneficial.
Supply
It’s crucial to collaborate with partners who have the right access to supply and direct connections with publishers. While targeting is essential, it’s equally important to have high-quality supply to drive performance.
Reaching consumers in a cookieless future
Whether you’re targeting on the demand or sell-side, it always starts with the consumer and who you’re trying to reach.
Significant changes in the consumer privacy landscape are impacting advertisers’ ability to access various signals emitted by consumers through their devices and browsers. Recent developments from Apple and Google have further amplified this situation.
Alternative IDs as a solution to signal loss
In response, we’re seeing the emergence of alternative IDs like UID2, Ramp ID, and ID5. OpenX supports these types of IDs and considers them crucial for audience buying in a privacy-centric cookie-less future.
We are still in the early stages of this evolution. While some of the IDs have good coverage, cookies will continue to be the primary targeting method as long as they remain available.
Nevertheless, we see alternative IDs as one of several solutions that will become increasingly important as third-party cookies disappear. Contextual buying will also emerge, and a set of solutions will come together to enable advertisers to keep finding their audience in a cookie-less world.
Overcoming signal loss with identity resolution
Looking ahead, as we continue to lose signals due to the evolving consumer privacy landscape, we will witness two things:
- Continued fragmentation
- A wide variety of identifiers
Content will continue to be available on various devices. We’re currently experiencing the emergence of connected TV, but who knows what other devices will surface over the next five to ten years. As cookies disappear, which have been the primary identifier, and alternative IDs are introduced, the wide variety of identifiers will create further fragmentation. This highlights the need for identity in the future.
Identity resolution at Experian matches fragmented identifiers to a single profile to create a unified, cross-channel view of your consumers. Our identity resolution solutions can help future-proof your marketing strategies.
How Experian and OpenX work together
Experian is a key player in OpenX’s OpenAudience solution and helps to power many of their data segments as well as their identity graph. While OpenX collaborates with a variety of providers and operates a fully interoperable platform, Experian remains valuable to the core technology within OpenX’s SSP.
“Experian powers a lot of the data segments and identity graph that OpenX has in our OpenAudience capabilities as part of our SSP.” – Mike Chowla, SVP, Product, OpenX
Watch the full Q&A
Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Mike and Chris’s full conversation on sell-side targeting. In the Q&A, Mike and Chris also share their thoughts on the impact artificial intelligence (AI) will have on the AdTech industry and their go-to sources for staying up to date on all things AdTech.
About our experts
Mike Chowla, SVP, Product, OpenX
Mike Chowla is the SVP of Product at OpenX where he leads product development and innovation, from customer discovery and user research to the development, delivery, and support of a market-leading product suite. Chowla holds a BS in Engineering from the University of Southern California, and an MBA from The University of Pennsylvania.
Chris Feo, Chief Business Officer, Experian
As SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris has over a decade of experience across identity, data, and programmatic. Chris joined Experian during the Tapad acquisition in November 2020. He joined Tapad with less than 10 employees and has been part of the executive team through both the Telenor and Experian acquisitions. He’s an active advisor, board member, and investor within the AdTech ecosystem. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard golfer, frequent traveler, and husband to his wife, two dogs, and two goats!
Latest posts
For decades, financial institutions relied on direct mail marketing and mass media for credit card offers and invitations to apply (ITA) for loans. Today however, credit marketing is going digital. In fact, according to Statista, financial services ranks 3rd in total digital ad spend this year. Lenders need to deliver relevant credit offers to consumers in the spaces and platforms where they interact. Below are three best practices to help financial services marketers make the most of their digital budgets and strategies. 1. Test new acquisition channels Consumers are no longer just in one place. They are constantly moving around and business strategies need to encompass that. Today’s consumers have multiple devices – a mobile phone, a TV, a laptop, a smartwatch, etc. and each of these devices uses a different tactic to attract consumers. Marketers need to reach their audience across all the channels with which they are engaging. To maximize performance and profitability, lenders need to leverage multiple channels to target and re-target their intended audience. They need to expand the reach of tailored prescreen ad campaigns by adding email, digital display ads, or other online channels to the traditional direct mail channel. This will help increase response rates, decrease length of time to conversation, and provide insight on consumer behaviors and preferences that cannot be achieved with a direct mail offer alone. 2. Target an audience that is right for you. Through a streamlined credit criteria selection process, and Experian’s expertise in audience creation, you now have the power to target the best consumers for your business needs in a fully customized approach. Financial services marketers should isolate appropriate populations – enabling you to make unique offers for different consumer segments and target them in the channels they leverage. In addition, you need to ensure your data is accurate and compliant. Fresh, accurate data enables you to pre-select the best prospects for your business need—right when they are most motivated to respond—and avoid making preapproved offers to nonqualified consumers. Also critical is that while we are able to use regulated data sets to reach consumers, we need to do so with extra caution while meeting FCRA guidelines. It is imperative to honor consumer opt-outs across all channels and ensure you have audit rights with media publishers. The Experian Ascend Technology Platform gives financial institutions the power to integrate client data, industry-specific data feeds and the power of Experian’s unique capabilities in data, analytics, machine learning and advanced AI to deliver enhanced opportunities throughout the customer lifecycle, including lending offers to acquire new customers and cross-sell to existing ones. 3. Test and adjust your campaigns Before the world of digital, it was difficult for financial institutions to track campaign impact on audiences. By employing online promotions, lenders can see how much interaction consumers are having with their promotional media. Financial services marketers should take processes and campaigns that have worked in the past and perform small, iterative tests using different channels. We believe that by adding a digital touch to a client's direct mail prescreen campaign, there is the potential to experience a lift above direct mail response rates; decreased length of time to conversion, and we can provide insight on consumer behaviors and preferences that cannot be achieved with a direct mail offer alone. It is important to test and optimize accordingly. Experian is also at the forefront of the digital credit revolution with Amplified Prospecting™. Experian’s Amplified Prospecting empowers lenders to deliver relevant firm offers of credit to prescreened consumers via multiple digital channels, including email, online display advertising and social media. Simply put, it allows you to timely engage the most desirable consumers where they’re increasingly consuming information and media today – improving your response rates and return on marketing investment. Experian is a leader in the credit revolution, offering more ways for consumers to secure credit including the industry-first Text for Credit™, which allows users to initiate and complete the credit application process within minutes with a simple text message. In addition, Experian recently introduced Experian Boost, a revolutionary new online tool that can instantly improve your credit scores and help the 100 million Americans that don't have access to credit today, either because their credit scores are too low, or because they don't have enough credit history. With faster, more efficient data integration and processing you can more accurately target leads, achieve better response rates, and optimize your marketing spend. To learn more about Experian’s Financial Services solutions, contact us at (877) 902-4849 or experianmarketingsolutions@experian.com to learn more!
Sixty-Nine Percent Organic Sales Growth Spurred by Expanded Business and Continued Investment in The Tapad Graph™ NEW YORK, May 7, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, a part of Experian, a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a record start to the year, following its highest earning year in the company's history. Since January, Tapad has experienced a 69 percent organic increase in global revenue; with strategic investments in talent, continued high retention rates, and an expanded range of clients across global markets. Globally, Tapad increased its client base across multiple categories and verticals, catering to agencies, brands, telecoms, and data providers. The Tapad Graph™'s varied use cases and differentiated global scale have been instrumental to the company's overall success to-date. With an ongoing investment in product, and expected feature releases slated for 2019, the company anticipates these accomplishments to continue. "Since the inception of our business, Tapad has heavily focused on enabling marketers to boost the performance of their campaigns with the help of our advanced digital identity resolution technologies," said Sigvart Voss Eriksen, CEO at Tapad. "While we continue to grow, creating privacy-safe solutions that solve marketers evolving needs remains integral to our evolution. As pioneers in cross-device, we're constantly innovating and pushing ourselves to be at the forefront of industry change. Our leadership in the space is recognized across the industry, as is evident by our current success." In addition to partner expansions, Tapad also invested in new talent. In February, Tapad announced Ajit Thupil as the company's first Senior Vice President of Identity, deepening the company's commitment to creating ground-breaking digital identity resolution products for brands, agencies and platforms. Tapad's investment in talent has been recognized by One World Identity's 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award and by ClickZ's 2019 Marketing Technology Awards. "At Tapad, our focus is on continuously advancing our digital identity resolution products to cater to the needs of marketers across industries," said Chris Feo, SVP of Global Data Licensing and Strategic Partnerships at Tapad. "As a part of that commitment, we are consistently growing our partner base, product features, and widening our reach on a global scale. We're excited to sustain our growth throughout 2019." To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit Experian.com Open job opportunities across the globe can be found on Tapad's career page here: https://www.experian.com/careers/ About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph™, and related solutions, provide a privacy-safe approach to connecting device identifiers to brand and marketer data, thereby allowing marketers around the world to maximize campaign effectiveness. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its innovation, growth and workplace culture, and has earned numerous awards, including the TMCnet Tech Culture Award. Based in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telenor Group. Contact us today!
The UK digital advertising market is worth £13.44bn, an increase year-on-year of 15%, reveals the 2018 IAB UK & PwC Digital Adspend Study. Report highlights The majority of all growth is coming from smartphone advertising, which has increased by £1.65bn (35%) from 2017. Smartphone advertising now represents 51% of all UK digital ad spend, up from 45% in 2017. Video is now the largest display format (£2307m), overtaking standard display banners (£1486m). Outstream/social in-feed has increased its majority in total video spend, now occupying a share of 57%, up from 52% in 2017. Social revenue now represents 23% of all digital ad spend. Growth is predicted to slow during 2019, with 5% estimated growth (+9% digital, +11% display, +9% search) compared to 15% in 2018. 2018 marks the tipping point towards a mobile-first ecosystem “For the past few years, industry commentators have been hailing the year of mobile. Each January the predictions come and the waiting commences for evidence to mark a tipping point, a shift to a mobile-first digital ad ecosystem. Well, drumroll… it was 2018! The latest Adspend report from IAB UK and PwC reveals that spend on smartphones outstripped spend on desktop for the first time last year. Brands spent 51% of total spend (which stands at £13.44 billion) on smartphones in 2018, up from 45% in 2017 – a significant milestone in the evolution of digital advertising. “This evidence shows that advertisers are increasingly thinking mobile-first. Growth in investment has historically lagged behind the amount of time spent on the device and we expect to see growth continue at a rapid pace to keep up with audience behaviour – two thirds of time spent online is now on mobile, according to UKOM. Other areas of growth highlighted by the report include video, which accounts for 44% of the total display market, while mobile video now makes up 51% of smartphone display. This is no doubt down to bigger mobile screens, better 4G and more readily available WiFi making video ads an increasingly attractive option. “Across the board, advertisers are investing in digital for longer-term brand building as well as short-term activation, with the direct-to-consumer market helping to drive this trend. What’s more, digital continues to be an accessible and popular route to market for businesses of all sizes, from leading advertisers to SMEs.” Tim Elkington, Chief Digital Officer, IAB UK Content & context crucial for attracting audiences “As people spend more and more of their time on mobile, it’s comes as no surprise that advertisers will follow where audiences are with their marketing spend. “Video has been the driving force in this growth, indicating that engaging visual content is still key in helping brands to achieve great results and to capture consumer attention in a vast sea of digital noise. “Video still has a way to go if it is to reach the level of effectiveness of traditional formats like cinema, but it will be interesting to see how the format develops over the next year or so. Ultimately, brilliant content and properly considered context are crucial for advertisers hoping to attract relevant audiences and build strong brands long term.” Kathryn Jacob OBE, CEO, Pearl & Dean Mobile-first approach driving investment in user experience “As a mobile-first approach has become the norm for many businesses, we’ve seen significant innovation and investment in the user experience that has fuelled the rise in mobile commerce. “Yet, for some years, limitations in the technology and formats available have meant that mobile advertising couldn’t always keep pace with changing consumer behaviours – delivering weaker performance when compared to desktop. “Fortunately, mobile has made huge strides in recent years. Mobile advertising affords great targeting opportunities for brands and a more interactive and immersive experience for consumers. “There is no reason to doubt this trend will continue as advertisers design their media, creative, and targeting strategy with mobile at the heart – optimising performance, enhancing the customer experience, and delivering the best results.” James Cragg, UK Managing Director, Tug New technologies to improve investment efficiency “The UK digital ad market has continued to grow despite the various challenges that the market has faced, including the current socioeconomic climate and general changes in the industry. As spend increases, it’s important to look at how media buying can be made as efficient as possible, minimising waste and maximising the return on investment. “Marketers will start to look to new technologies, like AI, to offer an impartial and more efficient approach to media buying, allowing marketers to measure effectiveness of campaigns and allocate spend accordingly.” Carl Erik Kjaersgaard, Chief Executive, Blackwood Seven Industry going from strength to strength “This significant growth in ad spend is great to see and shows that our industry is going from strength to strength. It’s especially good to see that as advertisers invest more and more in digital advertising, they’re becoming more considered in where they’re spending their money – with a large portion of the growth coming from companies that are part of IAB’s Gold Standard. “At The Trade Desk, we’ve long been ambassadors for the importance of transparency. These findings show that it isn’t just the right thing to do, but makes good business sense as advertisers increasingly choose partners who are demonstrating a commitment to best practice.” Anna Forbes, UK General Manager, The Trade Desk Advertisers embracing mobile “As consumers spend more of their time online, it’s no surprise that digital ad spend has continued its rise, up 15% to £13.4bn. With digital, in every sense, becoming further embedded in our daily lives, it is inevitable that this number is set to rise further next year. “Given the vast majority of people using their smartphone as their primary digital device, evident from site traffic stats we see across the board, the IAB report shows that advertisers have started to fully embrace this shift by following with ad spend. Over the last few years, a combination of faster wireless connectivity along with more capable devices has made it the go-to device for consumers to get online. This is set to continue over the next few years with 5G and even faster, more capable smartphones arriving (i.e. foldables) that will further cement ‘mobile’ as the main digital device to reach consumers.” Wajid Ali, Head of Paid Search, ForwardPMX Budgets must go to professionally produced content “In the IAB’s latest ‘Digital Adspend Study’ it is positive to see that outstream continues to dominate video spend, showing close to a 10% year-on-year increase. “Unsurprisingly, the study highlights that mobile is the most important distribution device (76% of all video spend is on the smartphone), and it’s great to see the format we invented dominating that space. “However, it’s now more pertinent than ever that clients and agencies invest their outstream budgets into professionally produced content and not social infeeds. Budgets must go where content is being produced, rather than aggregators and distributors, where the content is read rather than where a click happened. “We must remember how important local, national, and vertical press are to the global digital ecosystem. By unifying the best publishers at scale, delivering mobile-optimised creativity and outcome-orientated distribution, we are fighting to ensure publishers are getting their fair share of revenue in comparison to the social platforms.” Justin Taylor, UK MD, Teads UK market in robust health “The latest IAB digital ad spend report shows encouraging signs that the UK digital advertising market is in robust health, with mobile advertising continuing its upward trend. “The rise of up-and-coming ad formats like Shopping Ads, Google’s Responsive Search Ads, and Facebook Messenger Ads show that advertisers are looking for ways to capture consumer attention in the evolving digital landscape. As a result, the lines across search, social, and e-commerce are more blurred than ever with the introduction of features like Checkout for Instagram and Shopping ads on Google Images. Furthermore, with the rapid growth of Amazon’s ads business, e-commerce has quickly emerged as a third pillar of digital advertising, making it vital for marketers to have a complete view of the customer journey across channels and devices, if they hope to more accurately understand campaign performance and attribution.” Wesley MacLaggan, SVP of Marketing, Marin Software Digital identity resolution essential in understanding customer journey “Last year’s figures show that UK ad spend is starting to mirror the behaviour of consumers who, according to UKOM data, spend two-thirds of their time online on a smartphone. The fact that mobile ad spend now surpasses that of ad spend on desktop highlights marketers’ understanding that digital identity resolution is essential, not a nice-to-have. “Appreciating the cross-device behaviours of consumers allows brands to gain a better understanding of the customer journey and build stronger relationships with their audiences long term.” Tom Rolph, VP EMEA, Tapad, a part of Experian Contact us today!