COLOGNE – The industry is at an inflection point in the maturation of programmatic transactions. Ahead of the curve lies a big influx of brand advertising dollars from buyers who have been clearly articulating their needs about ecosystem transparency.
This is the viewpoint of Rajeev Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of PubMatic, the marketing automation software provider. On the eve of the DMEXCO 2017 advertising and media trade show in Cologne, Germany, Goel says in this interview with Beet.TV that brand advertising will soon far outpace that of direct response.
“I would say the last decade of programmatic has really been characterized by open-market bidding and direct response advertising within the programmatic channel,” says Goel. “The future really lies with brand advertising.”
Looking out four or five years, he sees brand advertising representing about a $50 billion opportunity whereas direct-response will be roughly a $20 billion opportunity.
“It’s a huge transformation that’s coming and I think a lot of the discussion points in the industry today about auction dynamics, about transparency, about quality, about fraud, all of these things you can really trace back to the change from direct response to brand advertising.”
One key change involves the need for more high-impact ad formats, according to Goel, the result of native and video coming into programmatic. At the same time, there’s been “an explosion of data” being processed, analyzed and used to better target consumers with relevant ads.
“We have a huge focus on how do we continue to innovate around very efficient and high-scale transaction and data processing. This is going to be key to anybody who wants to have a long-term stake in the advertising technology game,” Goel adds.
Helping to change the industry dynamics around programmatic have been such flag-planting influencers as Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at Procter & Gamble, who called out the digital ecosystem for being too murky.
“I think it’s great that we have a clear point of view,” says Goel. “Now it’s incumbent upon us as a technology provider to make sure that we’re building capabilities and building processes that allow our publishers and buyer customers to meet those requirements.”
What buyers are looking for is full transparency around where their ads are placed and who’s actually seeing them, although not everyone agrees on a standard level of transparency. PubMatic recently launched a campaign titled Let’s Be Clear to make its views on these issues widely known.
This video is part a series that examines programmatic from both the seller and the buyer perspective. It is presented by PubMatic. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
