Richard Welch

With principle-based buying returning to the forefront, Brian Chap's recipe for agency accountability takes me back to Jon Mandel's explosive rebate disclosures back in March 2015. Jon's kimono-opening moment was undoubtedly the catalyst that woke us all up to the billions leaking from media budgets by way of non-transparent kickbacks and fees. The can of worms has yet to be closed. That's why principle-based buying doesn't sit well with me. It feels like we're rewinding the tape after making so much progress over the last decade. BUT ... if you're a client-side media buyer that chooses to engage with a principle-based agency, there are three of Brian's "BENCH" framework activities that I think should be prioritized to the top. These three are relatively simple to do and can dramatically increase transparency and accountability. 1 - Secure platform access to your ad server, your DSP and the major SSPs through whom you are buying. Ensure you know how to compare media costs at each step in the supply-chain. 2 - Conduct audits. Whether as Brian recommends or simply by contacting a handful of publishers where you buy media, you should be able to reconcile your cost input to your media value output. And while you're at it, you'll be strengthening your direct publisher relationships, which has many longer-term benefits both in terms of media cost and priority. 3 - Most definitely hold your agency accountable. This applies also to every adtech vendor in your media supply-chain. I am not a fan of principle-based media buying. But if you're going to try it out, you need to remember that this is far from a set-it-and-forget-it approach to advertising. https://lnkd.in/eDw-Z3w8

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As an industry, we need better metrics to help make sure we're buying quality media in premium environments that drive results for our clients. We don't need to sacrifice quality for cost efficiency. From the linked article, "advertisers who prioritize data integrity and make a point of buying impressions from high-value publishers with better data practices see a 33% lower cost per action, a 32% reduction in CPMs and a 5% higher return on ad spend." https://lnkd.in/grKnzm_H

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CTV is a driving force for digital ad spend growth, but those of us who have been around since the days of "Ad Network 1.0" know that non-transparent "ad bundles" and fuzzy PMPs with fancy logos and no accountability will burn out the minute that the supply - demand imbalance come into play. With the rise of Amazon Prime Video and the growth of FAST channels reaching saturation overload, we are just about there. Program level transparency and full impression-level accountability across all CTV sources is only a matter of time.

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Happy to help our partners at Amazon with this measurement initiative. Proof that real purchase data, not modeled proxies, is what closes the gap between streaming exposure and verified sales outcomes.

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Excited to share that Aperiam has invested in Bedrock Platform. Obvious statement of the century: programmatic advertising has a complexity problem. The infrastructure that was built to give media buyers control has, over time, done the opposite. Burying teams under layers of operational overhead, legacy tooling, and opaque supply chains. Bedrock is built on a simple but powerful thesis: what if you stripped away the bloat and rebuilt the stack around what actually matters... precision, transparency, and speed to execution. Their platform combines AI-driven campaign automation with curated, premium inventory across video, CTV, DOOH, and audio, and aims to be flexible and get smarter over time. Plus, the team (Shane, Austin, Ryan, James) has deep roots in the infrastructure layer of ad tech and understands the plumbing better than almost anyone. We believe the next generation of programmatic will be leaner, faster and AI-first. Bedrock is building that.

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If you are a Performance/Growth Marketer testing or looking to test CTV, this article is a must read. CTV inventory is primarily non-clickable so the industry relies on Cross Device to connect the device visiting the website to the TV in which the ad was served (and vice versa). Here's the problem - most CTV vendors use IP Address (Wifi) as the sole source of truth for cross device tracking. This is both antiquated and heavily flawed, but they do it anyway and hey, it certainly doesn't hurt in-platform performance. Data validation provider Truthset conducted this study on behalf of CIMM (Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement) and Go Addressable to definitively understand the accuracy of IP Address for Cross Device tracking applications (CTV). "Truthset analyzed records from six major data vendors, including 1 billion email addresses, nearly 250 million IP addresses and 164 million postal addresses." Here are some key findings: > IP-to-Email matches: 16% accurate >IP-to-Postal matches: 13% accurate If you are a brand allocating ad dollars to a CTV campaign leveraging IP Address for cross device tracking/targeting, is this accuracy acceptable? “There’s this promise in the industry of completely accurate, deterministic data that matches sophisticated and vast advertising targets and attributes onto individuals and households,” Jon Watts, Managjng Director of Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) said. “This leads marketers to believe that when they buy against a particular target, they’re reaching that target – and, unsurprisingly, the truth is much more complicated than that.” IP Address Match Rates Are a Joke – And It’s No Laughing Matter https://lnkd.in/gwGa_iBt Keynes Digital #crossdevice #CTV #connectedtv

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The premium video space (led by CTV) is hot and unsurprisingly, so is the competition for adspend. It’s the reason Dominic Finney and I decided to conduct a snapshot survey on the market from the buy-side. Because that’s where the rubber hits the road. I know from experience that it’s too easy to get caught up in your own bubble and build tech products and services that are not aligned with the market. A bit like buying a new car and before you know it all the optional extras boxes have been ticked and the costs and timelines have gone crazy. At Unruly we built an analytics product – leadership loved it, but it generated £0 revenue. And it took up a big chunk of time, resources and investment before we called it a day. Getting the ground truth on the market is incredibly valuable but more challenging today than ever as the access to decision makers has become harder for a number of factors. This means it’s too easy to go to our trusted industry friends who generally soft ball us. Good for the ego – bad for market fit. What came out of our recent research is that there’s a gap between the sell-side and the buy-side. Opportunity but also risk. We’re going rerun the study again in September because it’s important and we have no doubt that AI will have an impact on some of the challenges raised and lastly, because the market overall is moving so fast. The survey was just a snapshot – there are other questions we’d have liked to ask and as we’ve discussed the results with the industry plenty more have bubbled up. With the market moving at such a frenetic pace we expect there will also be things we might miss and that means we’re looking for input from you to make sure the next report does an even better job of representing where the market really is and where it’s going. In short, we want the hard truth. #video, #YouTube, #CTV

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New data shows linear TV advertising had the lowest ROI of any media channel in 2024—just $0.62 return for every dollar spent. Meanwhile, streaming audio topped the charts at $3.22 per dollar, beating out retail media, paid social, and digital display. It’s a clear signal that performance and efficiency are driving where media dollars go—and where they stay. At iHeart, we’re seeing this shift firsthand as more brands lean into audio as a core part of their strategy. https://lnkd.in/du7TYqFk

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🖥️✅ AdExchanger (6/16): “Because both platforms require users to be “100%” logged in, said Roku. In other words, those audiences are very easily identifiable thanks to a wealth of first-party data parameters, so it’s easy to target and measure them with a higher degree of accuracy compared to other available methods. The two companies expect that their combined data footprint will allow advertisers to reach roughly 80 million CTV households through Amazon’s DSP. According to data from Comscore, this represents over 80% of the total CTV households in the United States. Not surprisingly, much of that coverage comes from Roku. Roughly 50% of the total streaming consumption in US households already happens via the streaming provider’s own operating system across all their devices, Roku told AdExchanger. Although the public launch won’t actually occur until Q4 of this year, so far both teams are happy with the outcomes of the initial closed tests. Per Amazon DSP, the combination of Roku and Amazon’s data has achieved three times improvement in return on ad spend, as well as 42% more unique reach at the same media budget and a 27% frequency reduction, meaning how often users see the same ad. Ideally, the final launch will benefit all the different players within the digital advertising industry. Publishers will have an easier time serving ads to the right customers, marketers will reach those same customers with more precision, and the users themselves will have a better experience, said Amazon.” ⬇️ #programmatic #biddable #upfronts #ctv #ott #fast #tvos https://lnkd.in/eQtyxtyt

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Yield optimization isn’t one-size-fits-all. Magnite’s Demand Manager offers publishers the flexibility to choose whichever path best fits their team, goals, and resources. Read more from Scott Solomon, our VP, DV+ Platform: [link] https://magnite.smh.re/1KO

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The DOJ’s ruling against Google’s ad tech practices confirms what many in our industry have long known: transparency fuels innovation. Here I share why this decision marks a turning point for publishers, advertisers, and consumers. Read now: https://lnkd.in/eH6AQf-z #FundedByAdvertising

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Super excited to announce this expanded partnership between Instacart and The Trade Desk!  Instacart is the first U.S. retail media network to integrate its grocery selection with The Trade Desk platform for streamlined self-service use cases, enabling approved advertisers and agencies to build first-party custom audiences based on specific product criteria for programmatic campaigns. CPG brands can also access real-time sales measurement signals from Instacart directly in The Trade Desk platform. Here we go! https://lnkd.in/eygGcAJr

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Always fun to collaborate with Andy Plesser and the Beet.TV team. #Gaming continues to grow in time spent and engagement, with consumer behavior beginning to mirror that of #CTV. Unity has invested in unlocking both the potential and capabilities for the modern marketer to buy at scale, with brand safety, and targeting / measurement to prove effectiveness. ...more to follow in the coming weeks on what that means for our partners but I am excited about the innovation we are unlocking. We will be at #rampup #marketecture #gdc #possible #cannes in the coming months -- don't hesitate to reach out to learn more! Melissa Jensen Heidari Adam Kadet Drew Bassler James Prudhomme Sebastian Diaz Jaramillo Alex Blum

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I spoke with Rachel (Eisenberg) Gantz from Comscore, Inc. about their new Certified Deal ID, why it's necessary to bring order to the chaos that programmatic often becomes, why they chose Magnite as their launch partner and what's next as the Certified Deal ID gains wider adoption. You'll note the word "quality" keeps coming up again and again around CTV advertising, as buyers look to maximize their ad spend and the industry realizes that not all impressions are created equal. That said, it is worth remembering that quality is in the eye of the beholder, that some impressions may qualify as quality impressions for some brands and not for others. Which is why having standards is so important. Read on! https://lnkd.in/eagkiHAF

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we've posted a couple of reports in the past - but I think that this one is the BEST and most interesting one we published (...so far...) this is a true comparison of "attribution" vs. incrementality - comparing the actual aggregated, weighted, and indexed results based for the clients who share attribution data with INCRMNTAL Super interesting - get it below!

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Great piece from MediaPost on the launch of Search.com, a division of Public Good. "Search.com offers news publishers, review websites and other types of blog platforms a way to monetize content by feeding it into the Search.com platform and by offering white-label custom search solutions that work across their websites." + API options for developers that offer an alternative to paying licensing fees to LLM providers. Search.com's ad-supported API is free and pays you a rev-share. Reach out if you want to give it a try!

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The Xandr Invest shutdown is a good moment to reassess the DSP category, which increasingly falls into two tiers; established and emerging. There’s no such thing as a Swiss army knife in ad tech. You need different platforms for different jobs and client needs. Xandr was a preferred DSP for a lot of vendors. It worked well for efficient retargeting and was a step removed from many agency buying workflows.  Their focus on optimization algorithms made it useful to platform and data companies. The real opportunity now is in emerging DSPs. They’re outgrowing the DSP category as a whole. They offer flexible pricing and fee structures. And they’re built around specific capabilities: measurement, channels like CTV, and tighter client service. Most agencies are already using multiple DSPs. The big platforms deliver scale. Emerging DSPs deliver precision. Hawk fits into the emerging tier — good support, low platform fees, a focus on different media types than TTD, though we service all media types. You don’t need to match the big DSPs feature for feature. But where you’re not at parity, you need strong USPs. For us, prospecting on an omnichannel basis — reaching your best customers wherever they are — is critical.

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"𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐤, 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲" That's how Scott Brinker describes the challenge facing marketers today as AI fundamentally reshapes our industry. After mapping the martech landscape from a few hundred tools to over 15,000, Brinker has seen it all. But he's clear: "𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘶𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘴." 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐖𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 While we've been waiting for martech consolidation, the opposite happened. AI hasn't simplified our stack – it's created new complexity. But here's what's different: for the first time, technology is becoming easier to use even as it gets more powerful. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞? 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 "𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡'𝐬 𝐋𝐚𝐰": 📈 Technology changes exponentially 📉 Businesses change logarithmically Sound familiar? That growing gap between what's possible and what we can actually implement is hitting every marketing team right now. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 The early wins aren't flashy, but they're real: ✅ 𝐁2𝐁 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐬: AI agents prep sales materials, research leads, and create personalised outreach the moment leads qualify ✅ 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐬: Cold email sequences, ROI calculators, and research briefs that nobody had time for before ✅ 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬: Finally breaking down silos between marketing, sales, and service 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠... Get ready for a fundamental shift. The predictable seat-based pricing we've relied on? It's giving way to consumption and outcome-based models. We'll need to forecast AI usage like IT teams forecast cloud costs. The maths isn't hard, but the mindset shift is significant. 𝐌𝐲 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐘𝐨𝐮 Where are you feeling that "ferry pulling away" tension most acutely? Is it the gap between AI capabilities and your team's ability to implement them? Budget pressures from new pricing models? Or something else entirely? The opportunity is massive, but so is the risk of being left behind. The good news? You don't need to transform everything at once. Start small, align cross-functionally, and begin building the governance frameworks you'll need. Scott Brinker, Editor-in-Chief of chiefmartec and VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot. Andrew Birmingham 🕵️‍♂️ at Mi3Australia https://lnkd.in/gptJk3Vs #MarTech #AgenticAI #MarketingStrategy #DigitalTransformation #MarketingOps #AI #MarketingLeadership

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