Can you combine the open programmatic landscape with the most premium ad inventory around?
When it first reared its head, the automated ad trading model was more commonly thought of as a way to sell unsold inventory. Now that has changed, with new technologies offering ad buyers the ability to sell automatically from a smaller and more controlled group of publishers.
Still, at Horizon Media, the agency’s trading desk wants to combine “premium” with continuing to buy from open ad exchanges. So, how will Monica Capelan pull it off?
“Clients always want to be in the most premium areas that they can be against,” says the VP of Sales Planning for Horizon’s HX, in this video interview with Beet.TV.
“So I think the more open conversations we have with SSPs and the more open conversations we have with optimizing those SSPs to make sure that we are in the best environment possible… I think that that’s really the next step for us when we’re working with these clients.”
When Capelan started four years ago, HX was just four people. Fast-forward, and the unit has now reached 45 – an indication, she says, of the growing zeal with which ad buyers want to conduct automatically.
And HX will continue automating through the typical systems with which programmatic has grown up.
“I would say 80% to 90% of our buys are open exchange,” Capelan adds. “We prefer to have the decisioning power in our hands. Certain channels like CTV (connected TV) where you can only engage in a PMP (private marketplace), that’s where we’ll have to beat PMP only.
“But, unless a client has a specific site or specific reason that they need to be executing on a specific site, we prefer open exchange buys.”
Capelan is encouraged to do so because verification partners and pre-bid solutions have made life easier.
Next up, she is hoping industry consolidation can reduce the number of supply-side platforms she has to work with.
This video is from a Beet.TV series titled Consolidation & The Case for Supply Chain Innovation, presented by PubMatic. For more videos, please visit this page.
