Thinking Programmatic
Why I started this blog.
It must have been around 2011 when I first “thought programmatic”. What I mean is, that I first read about the term RTB. And my curiosity lead me to read everything I could find on the web to grasp the concept behind it. It was like an awakening. I felt like having discovered something so powerful that it would without any doubt revolutionize the advertising industry.
Fast forward 8 years and RTB indeed did revolutionize digital advertising. But not as smooth and as straightforward as the raw concept of it had suggested. The road to where we are today was more challenging than I had initially thought it would be. Not because of one reason, but it’s the sum of many reasons that explain the bumpy road RTB has taken since: a constant evolution of ever new standards and additions to the RTB protocol, new ad formats, the growing online video market (and all challenges that come with it), technical challenges involved in dealing with millions of server request in realtime — per second — are just a few of them. Last but not least also the politics involved when large players in the ad industry are either gaining or losing market share as a consequence of the wider adoption of a new technology.
Almost quietly in the background, something else happened in the meantime: the rise of mobile! To my surprise, however, mobile (in-app inventory) remained widely unaffected by these market changes. While mobile has been at the forefront of innovation in many areas, it hasn’t yet lived up to expectations when it comes to programmatic. One of the explanations for this is the dominance of mobile mega publishers with their black-box platforms reaping in benefits by keeping their gardens walled. Another explanation is the (relative) absence of brand advertisers and the higher (relative) share of performance advertising, where results count first and transparency and control are second to that.
But change is on the horizon: advertisers who used to spend millions a quarter without even knowing where their ads run started to ask more questions. And a maturing landscape of technologies and vendors who facilitate trading ads programmatically in-app (think about all the buzz around in-app header bidding or the advertiser side in-housing trend) ultimately leading to a breakthrough of RTB in mobile. But the ecosystem remains incredibly complex and with so many nuances that usually remain below the surface.
This is why I decided to start this blog.
To uncover this knowledge and share my thoughts around how I see the ecosystem evolving. If you are an expert in the field and would like to contribute your thoughts to this blog, please send me a note on Linkedin. I invite everyone who has deep thoughts to share about where (mobile) programmatic is going to contribute.
