Stephen Tompkins' Ideas

Random Ideas, thoughts and more

Don't Miss Your Shot...

Amare-stoudemire-blocks-lebron-james-video
A couple months back, I attended a OpenRTB meeting at the NASDAQ. My colleague and I were the only brave agency folks to speak up at the event. (against my wishes and better judgement) In any event, a few of the major demand side platforms were there and talking about establishing a standard for RTB and if it would lead to more brand dollars being place online.

The moderator then posed the question to the audience after a few answers he decided to pose the question to the two agency folks in the audience. My colleage being not wanting to answer quickly dropped the microphone in my lap. My answer was short but I think it was poignant and after a couple of months it still holds true. I simply said, "if you wish to build better pipes and make a more efficient marketplace we are all for it. My concern lies in inventory quality and the ability to drive better performance for my clients." 

Not a surprising answer considering my background in design and my position at an agency. The surprising thing was what is implied within the answer and how many folks simply still do not understand the major factors determining campaign success. 

Those indicators to me are the following:
  1. Relevance
    • Time - We all know the importance of hitting the right user at the right time. In the addressable marketplace we employ data partners to hit the right cookie in a place the right place. I do wonder alot about data and its usefulness though. How much performance are these campaigns actually driving? Are the CTR's enough to actually justify the spend? The answers to these questions I believe lies in the numbers and perhaps a new metric eDCPM or effective data cost per millie. How many campaigns actually back out the math and see what an effective spend to incremental CTR curve would look like? My thoughts are we would find that day part targeting or some other free tactic would work just as well. In the end, I guess I still struggle with the actual value of data like many folks.
  2. Quality
    • Place - Place ties into quality because you bad placement = bad quality. Many of the people laying out publisher websites approach their sites with a mind set of monetization first and UX second. I hope one day that we will see a fundamental shift of web development that places monetization second to UX. This strategy has led to a oversupply of inventory on a level that is hard to understand. All these ads placed on a site with no thought to the actual person's feelings has led to "banner blindness" which in turn has led to an overall dilution of quality. 
    • Creative - Creative is a indicator that is near to my heart. I started my career as a designer and have seen a robotization of creative only lead to watered down campaigns. It also has only helped to precipitate the consumers ability to tune out ads they find to be made by machine and lacking of passion. Developing creative with a sense of design that would engage users and draw them in would again drive user engagement and in turn better performance. 

These indicators certainly do not live in a box and all interact with each other to form what is a visceral experience with online ads. For example, inventory has a relationship with timing that creates a paradigm of perfection to ultimately end in a conversion. So, next time you create or strategize a campaign keep these in mind and you will ultimately drive better performance from the start!

 

 

 

 

New Job - time for a change...

P54

So, I have not posted in awhile and some major things have changed.

1. I have moved onto work at VivaKi on the AOD product. 2 months in and it rocks! Innovative product and great folks!

2. I decided due to my inability to post material related to my display knowledge (aka sheer laziness) I would personalize this blog a bit more. I'll still add tech stuff now and again but look for more of my unique life in NY :)

For now, I am off to play basketball so here is a picture of my new work door.

Coach Spolestra and Data Driven Results

I just read a great article on ESPN.com about the data driven approach that Coach Spolestra (of my beloved Miami Heat) took in the off season to prepare for two of the best perimeter scoring players of the decade. In a nut shell, it says he analyzed charts showing where Wade and James felt most comfortable shooting from the field. The data showed that both loved the high pick and roll. The only problem is that two players running the high pick and roll doesn't work because one needs to pass to the other to score. Alas, with two players who like to play the same way, what do you do to get internal buy in for changing the fundamental nature of their games? You use data to prove that trading off your comfort zone (high pick and rolls) with some varied plays will result in a better overall performance which translates into more wins. 

Reading this article immediately reminded me of my data-driven business. Many times we use data from various sources to make decisions based on real time interactions. In other words, looking at a placements performance from multiple views during a campaign allows us to better optimize its performance based on interactions through the life of the run. This is not a ground breaking revelation in itself but I started to think about the second part of the article.  

What if you were to sacrifice a placements sweet spot to help the overall performance of a buy? How would this look? Would you use creative in conjunction with placement to determine optimal run time? Or would you use something more complex and multi-faceted like time of day/creative/placement on page and color to determine its success? I would think the more complex you drove the space the better your results would become. 

Coming from a graphic design background, I am a big proponent of creative being the main factor toward someone's propensity to click and subsequently purchase. With this in mind, I am starting to think more in terms of creative becoming more than just a pretty ad. Creative, like a placement, has its own ecosystem (color, text, graphic) all of which play into a users taste and need to be added to the data driven decisions that are made on strategy.