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1RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
Automation:
Your MediaBuyingCompass
”I don’t understandwhy more people aren’tspending more money ina programmatic fashion.
It’s the future.” – Digital Lead, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
2RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Lost in the Sea of Digital Media Buying Options
Charting the Course
Stormy Seas
Land Ahead
How Rubicon Project Can Help
3
4
5
8
10
11
3RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
Introduction
Let’s find out how...
Long gone are the days of negotiating big dollar media buys with networks over cocktails at the
Oyster Bar. While the holy grail of advertising is still to reach consumers in the right place at
the right time with the right message, advertisers today have a harder job of engaging with
consumers. Brands are spending countless hours and billions of dollars every year trying to
optimize reach, and navigating the ever-evolving media landscape can feel complex, confusing
and, oftentimes, inefficient.
THERE IS NO DENYING IT… the media industry has been
turned on its head. One of the more notable areas
of change in the media environment is the growth of
automated buying, which includes both programmat-
ic buying but more broadly applies to any method of
buying, selling or fulfi l l ing ad placements that is automat-
ed and technology-driven. In Digiday’s most recent State
of the Industry report , “findings show that programmatic is
no longer just a fr inge player in the world of a d v e r t i s i n g
t e c h n o l o g y b u t a s t r o n g a n d g r o w i n g presence.” 1
Estimated to exceed $15 bill ion dollars in spend-
ing by the end of 2015, programmatic buying will
account for fifty-five percent of the U.S. digital
display advertising market2. It is evident that many
advertisers are embracing the transition and are experienc-
ing huge success, but there are still many lagging behind.
Despite the rapid growth of automated buying, and increased interest in it, many
advertisers are still unclear or uncertain of when and how to take advantage of
automated buying and how to leverage it.
The main explanat ion we can provide for this lag is a gap in education. In 2014, the Associat ion of Nat ional
Advert isers surveyed 153 marketers and found that only 26% said they knew what programmatic buying was
and had actual ly used i t . The other 74% ranged from either being completely unaware, somewhat knowl-
edgeable but unclear, or in need of education 3. Even those who use programmatic tools to buy media may be
rely ing solely on their media partners to execute i t and may not have a comprehensive understanding of what
automated buying can do for them.
In an effort to close this educational gap, Rubicon Project has led new research to understand the current
att i tudes, bel iefs , and experiences of advert isers with regards to automated buying. We spoke to a cross-
sect ion of companies that included onl ine retai lers , consumer packaged goods, f inancial services, televis ion
providers, and media agencies. Whi le each part ic ipant v iewed automated buying through dif ferent lenses,
they al l reported that i t is changing the way advert isers reach consumers, and is empowering them with new
knowledge and a chart for navigat ing the vast sea of media.
1 IDC Worldwide Digital Advertising Market Model, 1Q 2015 (Includes Display, Mobile, and Digital Video)
2 eMarketer, Programmatic Advertising 2015 Outlook, February 12, 2015
3 eMarketer, Programmatic Advertising 2015 Outlook, February 12, 2015
4RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
Lost in the Sea ofDigital Media Buying Options
DO THESE SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU?
As brands try to navigate the media buying process
(of which automation is just one facet), there are
several complicating factors they regularly en-
counter. During the course of our research, we
found these to be universally acknowledged
regardless of how connected the advertiser was
with their media agency or the level of experience
the advertiser had with digital media buying.
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY & CONTROL Advertisers feel buying digital media is a “black box”:
they’re not quite sure who they’re reaching, and they
lack visibility into the sites their ads are appearing on.
INEFFICIENCY Buying digital media can be wasteful in terms of targeting, spending, and time.
COMPLEXITYThe volume of digital media options and corresponding data feels overwhelming.
“Simply put, the lack of transparency is around where my ads are landing and
the breakdown of all the costs.”
– Digital Manager, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
”We had all of this data and I knew there was something more we could be doing
with it, but we were limited in our resources. I was frustrated for years because
we were constantly re-learning the same things around campaign performance.”
– Senior Media Director, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
INACCESSIBLE DATA Advertisers are often unable to leverage or capitalize on available data.
5RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
Charting the Course:Success with Automation
The advertisers we spoke to told us that automated buying is addressing many of the functional issuesthey experienced with traditional buying, and ischanging the way they connect with their consumers.
MANY ADVERTISERS REPORTED IMPROVEMENTS IN:
TARGETING
Improved visibility into who advertisers were targeting and improved likelihood of reaching
strategic targets and/or identifying new targets. Some also noted an increase in subsequent
relevancy with customers.
More importantly, advert isers were pleasantly surpr ised to
discover a number of key functional benefits with automated
buying. These outcomes in turn led to a number of higher
order benefits as advert isers gained control over their
buying experience.
Init ia l ly, users started to observe greater functional eff ic ien-
cies, which translated into transparency and improved media
qual i ty for the brand.
”Using programmatic allows us to more effectively target...so we’re able to reach
customers who are more likely to convert to buyers.”
– Digital Marketing Specialist, Online Retailer
“The thing that marks our approach to programmatic is that we are looking to drive
effectiveness. We feel if we drive the effectiveness of advertising, we can drive
ROI. We’re not looking at buying more cheaply; we’re looking at how we buy more
strategically and increase relevancy with our strategic customer audience.”
– Senior Media Director, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
”It drives efficiency because we can use data to more accurately and transparently
reach our target consumers.”
– Digital Lead, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
6RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
4 The Wall Street Journal, “Morgan Stanley Pegs Media Accounts Under Review at $26 Million,” June 2015
Overall, these improvements gave the advertisers the comfort and confidence to better
manage their media buys and their brands. Through automated buying, advertisers and
agencies are becoming more empowered to manage the destiny of their media buys.
TIME INVESTMENTS
Automated buying saved time for the advertiser, so they could focus on driving business objec-
tives and building strong creative.
”The ease of setting up a buy without having to do all the back and forth we were
traditionally used to has been a huge improvement in efficiency.”
– Online Marketing Manager, Leading Television Provider
QUALITY
While automated buying was previously often associated with real-time bidding and sub-par
inventory, the reality has been quite different.
”With programmatic, we can go to the individual publishers that advertisers want,
we can ensure we get placements that advertisers want, and we have a technology
solution that ensures other advertisers don’t show up next to your ads.”
– Director, Media Agency
RICHER DATA & ANALYSIS
Better data and more rigorous analysis to assess impact gives brands and advertisers more
knowledge and control.
“When I started learning about programmatic and how it unlocks the ability to use
our data as a strategic engine, I got very excited.”
– Senior Media Director, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
“What you’re seeing is a fundamental shift in not just how media is bought, but how
advertisers can engage with consumers more effectively.”
– Brian Lesser, Global CEO of Xaxis, WPP’s programmatic-buying arm. 4
7RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
Automated BuyingBenefit Hierarchy
During our research, respondents frequently cited the functional benefits of
automated buying, like improvements in effective buys and ability to target. With addi-
tional probing, we uncovered that these functional benefits laddered to higher-order
benefits like an improvement in respondents’ sense of control over their campaigns.
These higher-order benefits, in turn, led to emotional benefits like confidence and
empowerment in the buying process. The implications of these positive sentiments asso-
ciated with buying are far-reaching: we believe they influence attitudes about managing
the business as a whole and may even empower advertisers to make bolder and more
creative decisions.
EMOTIONAL BENEFITS Comfort
Confidence
Empowerment
HIGHER-ORDER BENEFITS More Transparency
More Control
Smarter Buying & Brand Building
FUNCTIONAL BENEFITS More value for the money
More effective media buys
Reaching new target customers
More robust data analysts
8RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
Stormy Seas: Opportunities forImprovement Still Exists
Despite the fact that automation addresses
so many unmet needs and provides a plethora
of measurable benefits, there are still barriers
to trial and adoption by advertisers.
The advertisers we spoke to cited a variety of
misperceptions, category hurdles, and operational
challenges that are the new realities of the
automated media buying ecosystem.
COMPLEXITYThe abundance of players and complexity of the process can make
advertisers feel overwhelmed. There are too many “middle men” taking
a margin and not adding enough value.
“People are buying prospecting CPMs and then they’re marking them up
significantly to advertisers to take the margin without being clear on how things are
priced. Until there’s more transparency, advertisers will never know just how big of
a mess it really is.”
– Director, Media Agency
“There are so many vendors who are buying programmatically and then adding
proprietary data analysis to warrant charging huge markups.”
– Digital Lead, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
INCONSISTENCIES ACROSS THE VALUE CHAIN
Different buying partners deliver value in very different ways and use inconsistent terminology
to explain the technology, so advertisers have to be savvy to navigate the language and under-
stand what they get from various partners.
“Programmatic is sort of a loose term that has a lot of different definitions, which
I think can shape perceptions. Right now, it’s a buzz word that’s losing its value
because of the variability in definition and the offers that media partners provide.
There needs to be a more formalized definition of programmatic so that we can set
expectations of our media partners and get consistent outcomes.”
– Director, Media Agency
9RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
BIASED PARTIESSome parties were cited for having biased agendas. These comments were particularly perva-
sive when made in reference to media agencies.
SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITYSome players engender distrust among advertisers
by using questionable tactics to distort non-human
traffic, which skews performance and can hurt brands.
DATA OVERLOADNavigating, understanding, and extracting insights from the data can be too demanding without
the right support.
”There’s just so many ways to cut the data and so many things we need to under-
stand given our strategic goals that we are literally deconstructing data and learning
new things every day. There’s no way we could do this without our media partners
managing this effort.”
– Senior Media Director, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
QUALITY Some perceptions still exist that only remnant inventory can be bought through automated
advertising.
”There’s a perception among some advertisers – primarily those who work at luxury
brands - that the inventory is ‘cheap’ and that it won’t align with the equities of
the brand.”
– Media Agency
“Some of the bad perceptions of automated are caused by bad behaviors in the
industry. When you have people out there who are cookie bombing or leveraging
black box tactics in order to hide extremely high prospecting CPMs – these are all
things that hide what’s really happening from the marketers.”
– Director, Media Agency
“We were buying on a fixed CPM model and the agency
was taking a margin on those programmatic buys,
unbeknownst to us.”
– Digital Lead, Leading Consumer Packaged Goods Company
10RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
BE CURIOUS AND BRAVE:ASK LOTS OF QUESTIONSReach out to peers and experts you trust
to get smart. Education about automated
buying is the key that unlocks everything.
SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGEHelp your brand teams understand the
business benefits of automated buying.
DEMAND TRANSPARENCY FROMMEDIA PARTNERSEmpower yourself with digital advertis-
ing knowledge and demand transparency
around buys, placement, and targeting from
your agency. Know exactly what you’ll be
getting in terms of reporting and data
analysis up front. This leads to better
collaboration and partnerships in
the long-term.
TEST AND LEARN Remember, you don’t have to invest 100%
of your budget right away. Do things on a
small scale, to learn as you go, and scale
what works.
ANCHOR IN STRATEGY Use your strategic objectives to guide
how you measure success. For example,
using CPM as a measure of success may not
tell the whole story. Instead, think about
how you’re reaching and engaging target
customers to drive results and evaluate
response rates.
Land Ahead: How advertisers canovercome these challengesTo varying extents, the advertisers we spoke with all use automated buying
to optimize their media investments, and they share with us some lessons
learned. Whether you’re just getting started with automation or well along
the path, here are a few tips from the pros:
11RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
How Rubicon Project can help
SPECIFICALLY, RUBICON PROJECT IS EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THAT…
Automation is going to continue to grow at a significant rate
But for automation to be effective, advertisers will need to become engaged and under-
stand the world of automated buying. More importantly, we believe there is a need to
empower advertisers and we are committed to being your partner in that journey.
We will help younavigate the world
of automation through thought leadership and the
provision of norms andbest practices.
We can introduce you to current users so you
can start to establish bestpractices and lessons
learned with your peers.
We will remaindedicated to doing research
on automation and to sharing those results
publicly to optimizeadvertisers’ experiences.
We can help you prepare yourself and your brand teams
for the shift to automation through our training and
education tools.
“With more than 20 media agencies in review totaling $26 billion5,
brands are retaking the reins of their media budgets and strategies.”
– Jay Sears, SVP Marketplace Development, Rubicon Project
5 The Wall Street Journal, “Morgan Stanley Pegs Media Accounts Under Review at $26 Million,” June 2015
12RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
Conclusions
A Black Box Inefficient Complex
Automated advertising is delivering proven benefits to users that address
the shortfalls of traditional buying and give advertisers:
While automated advertising has delivered
proven benefits to users, there are still some
barriers in place to adoption and trial.
Rubicon Project is here to help address
the outstanding need for:
• Better Education
• Peer-to-peer Collaboration
• Category Thought Leadership
RUBICON PROJECT IS HERE TO HELP
IN SUMMARY, MEDIA BUYING HAS HISTORICALLY BEEN CATEGORIZED AS:
The qualitative research was conducted
by Contexct, LLC. during May and June
of 2015 through in depth interviews. All
findings were blinded and aggregated, but
any quotes were approved for use by the
participant.
There were a total of seven participants in the
United States and the United Kingdom who
represented the following industries:
• Online retailers
• Consumer packaged goods
• Television providers
• Financial services
• Media agencies
METHODOLOGY & SAMPLE
GreaterTransparency
GreaterGlobal Reach
GreaterAccess toPremiumInventory
GreaterIndependence
13RUBICON PROJECT | AUTOMATION: YOUR MEDIA BUYING COMPASS
Jared Skolnick,VP Product Marketing
646 797 4757
@JaredSkol
jskolnick@rubiconproject.com
180 Madison Ave, 14th FloorNew York, NY www.rubiconproject.com
Contecxt, LLC Shelley Zalis, Founder and CEO
310 990 1899
shelley.zalis@gmail.com
Key Contacts