Publishers Weigh In On Programmatic At IAB Mobile Marketplace

As part of today’s IAB Mobile Marketplace event, a panel was held on the effect on digital advertising of programmatic tools from publishers’ perspectives. In the panel were Liz White from Time Inc. and Jeremy Hlavacek from The Weather Channel.

Time has been pushing to optimize the responsiveness of mobile web sites and ad experiences. Over 50% of the audience for people.com is coming from mobile devices. They now have a dedicated team working on their private exchanges, trying to act on 1st party data that they have across their publications. The challenge now is how to add value to their premium inventory. They have expanded their private exchanges globally.

Meanwhile, The Weather Channel mobile app — which currently has 130 million users — is launching a new version in a couple weeks with optimized ad experiences. 30% of their revenue is from programmatic-bought ads. Programmatic tools help them deal with large audiences at scale. They actively use their SSP, moving away from a network-based mindset where they pass off inventory to third parties.

Their new app is going to have 300x250 ads as well as native ads. 1st party data includes weather, UV data, wind speed, and dozens of other pieces of weather data within their programmatic solution so buyers can buy on those factors. Platform is called Weather Effects, also takes geo-location into account. they don’t currently sell that product in the exchange, as it is considered premium inventory. They look to offer cross-platform solutions including cable network. With the rise of programmatic TV-buying in the future, the sorts of 360-degree solutions they may be able to offer should become very powerful offerings for applicable brands.