Blog

Online Marketing - It’s not that Difficult, it’s just that Different

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:03:16 +0000

There’s a really well written, well argued piece by Michael Wolff in MIT’s Technology Review currently circulating around the business/tech world that considers the challenges Facebook and the rest of the web face in trying to make a viable business of enabling marketing on the internet. It misses the boat entirely.

"For all its valuation, the social network is just another ad-supported site. Without an earth-changing idea, it will collapse and take down the Web."

False. Facebook is just one of multiple web-based platforms available to brands and marketers, with its own select set of capabilities. Any supposed “collapse,” (won’t happen) would never sink the web. The web is already hosting platforms ahead of the game Mr. Wolff describes.

Granted, all of the points Wolff makes about online advertising are probably correct. However, it treats advertising as the only web-based means to an end - that end being effective and valuable marketing for brands, the real customers of Facebook. That’s missing the “disruption” you hear so much about caused by the web, and thus Facebook, completely.

When another industry is completely overturned, it’s disruption. When it’s your industry that’s flipped upside down, it’s a disaster. The root of all problems with marketing on the web of today is a failure by brands and marketers to understand the disruption caused by the web, and thus the nature of the internet. And that nature is one of malleability. The web is the cloud. The cloud is the app. The app is the video. The video is the content. The content is the publication. The publication is the web. The web is everything - so long as everything can be digitized - plus something more. And that something more is the inherent communication capability and artifact discoverability of the web. Yet when the web showed up as a new marketing channel, marketers and brands didn’t first view it as a grand new opportunity. They saw it as something to be dealt with; Another channel through which they must push a message. They’ve tried to treat the internet as some digital analog to things they already know. They’ve tried putting “display ads” up on websites in the same fashion as they put ads in papers. They’ve tried bookending video clips with ads like they do on television. But you can’t depend on television or newspaper analogous advertising on the web of today and expect to perform any better than if you were to depend on road-side billboards being transmitted over FM radio.

As a brand, your best marketing is your product or your service. That’s the foundation. In the age of the web, your product or service can’t be inferior. The web will know. But every product or service needs voices singing its praises, letting the world know about it. And every foundation will suffer cracks. Occasionally your beloved tablet power adapter melts down. Or your employees screw up a latte order. Or your client fires you because your team was so busy creating a greener planet it forgot to finish the project on time. Things break at scale. On the web, every business is dealing with scale. When those cracks show up, people talk. The web lets you listen. The web lets you react. Even better, the web makes it entirely possible for you to discover customers who are actively seeking your solutions. Even better than that, the web makes it possible for you to identify customers who are already dissatisfied with your competition’s solutions. But how are you going to act on all that potential with a dependency on display ads?

The web doesn’t require more or tougher work for marketing. The web just requires different work. Is it really going to be that much more difficult to effectively communicate bidirectionally with your customers and build relationships than it is to attempt to create perfectly optimized, unidirectional campaigns across a large audience while completely ignoring the bulk of the information that those consumers willingly give to you? Seriously? The data is there! Use it! More importantly, the communication is there! Participate in it!

If you’re a marketer, this prospect shouldn’t scare you. It will challenge you, but those challenges have answers. Don’t put up objections over scale. Worries over scale require a solution to be scaled, and you probably haven’t even figured out the solution first. The solutions are available. The web (and by the way, the entire web is “social” these days) doesn’t just put you in the consumer’s car or home. The web doesn’t just put you in the living rooms of the world. The web puts you right in the laps or palms of the world; Right on their sofas, and in their bus seats, and their train rides, and their beds. The web gives you reach during customers’ lunch breaks, after dinner, during the work day, mid-workout, while they’re watching TV, and before they fall asleep. The web lets you know what those consumers are thinking. And the web is equipped with platforms to enable you to listen and respond.

All that data and all that knowledge brings great power, and great responsibility. There’s the obvious and oft-discussed matters of responsibility around privacy concerns, but there’s the less talked about matter of smart utilization too. Marketers, brands, and publishers all have tools available to them today that can and will allow them to tie together massive amounts of data, enabling them to be ever more responsive to customers. Consider all the customer relationship management systems deployed in the world today, from small businesses to global corporations. Now imagine all that data being tied together with offline and online audience segment data. Imagine all the knowledge you can gather about not just where to pitch your next customer, but how best to approach that next customer, how to keep her, and how to get her to do some of your marketing for you. All this knowledge demands smarter utilization than just trying to bid for the chance to throw a few display ads her way.

That’s not to say display ads are dead. It’s just to say that relationships between brands and customers have more value than impressions. Brands and marketers should determine what their customer acquisition and retention budgets should be, and then act on both “traditional” web advertising and relationship-based marketing accordingly.

The web, with platforms like Facebook, is the facilitator of those relationships. Facebook is a behemoth in the game of “engagement,” but it’s only one relationship facilitating platform of many. Some platforms, like the one I’ve helped to build at Lotame, can and will allow you to tie together all kinds of data about audiences and segments across all kinds of devices and inputs, to create dream marketing scenarios like the one described above. What law is written that says that brands and marketers should only seek meaningful and valuable connections with their customers when those customers log in to look at their friends’ baby pictures? Perhaps that B2B relationship is better built when your customer is reading an online tech journal. Maybe you’ll do better finding that avid traveler on a web forum. It’s just possible that some other interaction could be more valuable than a “like.”

The web is a platform - a platform of platforms. It’s time to stop thinking of anything on the web as a “site” anymore. Nothing is “just another ad-supported site” on the web today - not for brands and marketers using the right platforms. The organizations that come to understand that will be the organizations that flourish on the web and beyond.

Matt Quirion is a Senior Software Engineer at Lotame. Check out his blog for more of his insights.

You Aren't Ready for a DMP if...

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:59:44 +0000

If your business doesn’t plan on developing a strategy around data, then you ARE NOT ready for a DMP…….

I remember being told by one of our senior folks that “we are moving from an industry of people who we must sell to people now buying a DMP.” All I have to say to that is THANK GOODNESS. I am so impressed by the RFI’s and RFP’s and the meetings I am having with companies who are developing real strategies around their data. I am also proud to say there are many asking “What do we need to do in our business in order to make a DMP a true success and a worthwhile investment?”

It is music to my ears!

Why?

For too long I have heard from publishers, “We need a DMP so we can check the box for audience targeting.”

That is not enough to make it worthwhile or a success. It might be a great starting point but there is so much more to think about.

So before you consider implementing a DMP, here are few things I want you to consider:
•   How can we proactively leverage our DMP to sell more deals?
(Yes, that means developing products, pulling in marketing and making everyone internally smarter.)
•   How can we use our data to make our campaigns perform better?
•   How can we leverage our data to make our advertisers smarter?
•   What other data do we have and how we can pull it all together?
•   How can every part of our business from Ops to Research to Sales use our data?
•   Your sales people need training and they are smart enough to get it…if they don’t, well then I suggest you reevaluate your hiring selections. It’s no longer about the “schmooze”, it’s about educating, differentiating and bringing value to your customers’ marketing programs. (If you do this, then you may earn the right to develop a relationship and break bread together.)
•   AdOps-These people are the KEY to your success in any data strategy plan. Treat them well-they deserve it!

So here’s the shameless plug…if you are ready and don’t know where to start, call us and we can help you develop that strategy….We want to help you. It is our job! There was an old beauty campaign (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7SqJY5rIv4) that said, “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good.” Ain’t that the truth!

At LOTAME we are truly the pioneers in data management platform technology and data strategy development. We have a sales, product and client services team who walked in your shoes and gets it! DON’T BELIEVE ME? Ask our customers.

This blog post was written by Madeline Rich, Director of Client Development at Lotame.

Upcoming Audience Data Webinars

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:25:09 +0000

Upcoming Audience Data Webinars from Lotame

Building Custom Audiences that Win More RFPs

Join our very own pro-audience builder, Jamie McConville, as she walks through all of her tips and tricks to build the perfect audience for every campaign with Crowd Control DMP. Jamie will be working off of several actual RFPs to help create the smartest audiences to drive the highest performance rates for each campaign.

If you are a current Crowd Control client and have an RFP you would like us to use as an example, please send them to mbenjamin@lotame.com by Friday, May 18th. RFPs will be blinded so no sensitive information is shared.

This webinar will be presented on Wednesday, May 23rd at 2pm EST by Jamie McConville

Click here to register

AdAdvisor by TARGUSinfo Data Now Available in Crowd Control

Join Lotame and TARGUSinfo for a look inside the AdAdvisor data segments now available inside Crowd Control DMP. AdAdvisor, powered by TARGUSinfo, allows marketers to deliver the most relevant display advertisements to online consumers based on offline household-level data. With TARGUSinfo’s proprietary linking logic, AdAdvisor helps advertisers instantly connect consumers to attributes and propensities such as demographics, lifestyle preferences, and brand affinities.

Presented on Wednesday, May 30th at 2pm EST

Click here to register

Alliant Data Now Available in Crowd Control

Join Lotame and Alliant to get a look inside the transactional data segments available from Alliant Online Audiences, now available in Crowd Control. Derived from direct-to-consumer offers, Alliant offers large audience segments that can be selected using any combination of purchase history, marketing behavior and monetary measures. The data provides a powerful platform for both brand advertisers and conversion marketers seeking to craft responsive, high-performing segments that precisely meet campaign goals.

Presented on Wednesday, June 13th at 2pm EST

Click here to register

We hope to see you there. If you have requests for other topics you would like to see discussed in a future webinar, please direct them to support@lotame.com.

Lotame Crowd Control App Available in Appnexus

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:14:21 +0000

AppNexus recently featured the Crowd Control app on its AppNexus Impressionist blog as part of their seriese 30 Apps in 30 Days. As an AppNexus app, users can access the Lotame Audience Builder to create custom audiences using first-party data, purchase third-party data, and make audiences available for targeting in Appnexus immediately. Crowd Control combines first- and third-party data and organizes each behavioral data point into over 1000 meaningful categories of behaviors, demographics, actions, and content.

Lotame is proud to be a partner with Appnexus and we encourage you to check out the original blog post about Crowd Control here.

Build Audiences to Win More RFPs

admin — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:11:36 +0000

In our ongoing effort to educate our clients about maximizing the value of our amazing data management platform, Crowd Control, Lotame offers an ongoing series of webinars on Wednesday afternoons at 2pm. And we are mixing it up this month by offering the opportunity for your (or your client's) RFP to be part of the action. See below for more details.

Building Custom Audiences that Win More RFPs

Join our very own pro-audience builder, Jamie McConville, as she walks through all of her tips and tricks to build the perfect audience for every campaign. Jamie will be working off of several actual RFPs to help create the smartest audiences to drive the highest performance rates for each campaign.

This webinar will be presented on Wednesday, May 23rd at 2pm EST by Jamie McConville

Click here to register

AdAdvisor by TARGUSinfo Data Now Available in Crowd Control

Presented on Wednesday, May 30th at 2pm EST

Click here to register

We hope to see you there. If you have requests for other topics you would like to see discussed in a future webinar, please direct them to support@lotame.com.

Olympics Lead to Increased UK Ad Spend in 2012

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:27:07 +0000

This year total media spending growth in the UK will outpace the US and Europe as a whole, which many are attributing to the upcoming London summer Olympics. Acccording to the "Global Advertising Forecast" from Strategy Analytics, total media spend in the UK will increase 4.2%, while the US will see a 2.7% growth. Europe will see an increase of 3.7% over last year.

The worldwide average growth is predicted to be 4.9%, which is supported by an explosion of growth from emerging markets including China and India. See Adam Lehman's recent aricle on internet advertising in China, which originally appeared in AdvertisingAge.

For all those advertisers looking to cash in on the growing interest in the summer games, Lotame can help. We have 18 prepackaged Olympic Sports audiences now available, ranging from the All Olympic Sports audience (42MM monthly uniques) down to niche sports such as cycling or riflery.

Not only do we have the audiences, but we also have the insights. Did you know that Olympic Sports enthusiasts are 2.9x more likely to be interested in automobiles than the general population? Our data analysts have taken a closer look at this audience and are offering some insights into non-endemic audiences that might perform well for your campaign. Want to learn more? Click here to see more insights and a complete list of all Olympic Sports audiences available from Lotame.

Targeted Victory Uses Crowd Control to Target Hispanics

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:23:00 +0000

Kate Kaye from ClickZ wrote an article recently, "Romney Ad Firm Partners for Big Data on Hispanics", about our client, Targeted Victory, who handles the online ad buys for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, and their focus on Hispanic data with a recent partnership with Pulpo. Below are some highlights of the article:

Working closely with the Romney camp, Targeted Victory will identify as many people as it can in each voter group target, then match that group against Pulpo's data to surface segments to aim ads at online. For example, the firms could target ads to Hispanic moms in Miami who vote independent. "We start a campaign with a custom site list based on where we've seen those users before," said Kuykendall, adding "news sites can be very relevant."

The Pulpo partnership allows Targeted Victory to use the audience segments it creates to target ads for other political campaign clients in addition to the Romney camp. The companies stressed the information used to target web ads is non-personally identifiable.

Targeted Victory stores all of its data with Lotame, a company it's worked with for the past few years. Leading into the 2010 race, the companies partnered to develop a platform for targeting video ads for voter persuasion and mobilization. The majority of the ads targeted using the Pulpo data will be video spots in Spanish, English or a combination of the two based on how Pulpo categorizes user language preference.

If you'd like to read more, please read the full article on how Targeted Victory is activating their Hispanic audience data.

China Cannot Be Ignored

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:22:59 +0000

Upon returning from a recent trip to China, Lotame's COO/GM, Adam Lehman, wrote an article that appeared in AdAge today, "China: Can You Afford to Ignore the 'Other Internet'?"

In this article, Adam discusses the implications of the explosion of growth in internet use as well as internet advertising in China. Here are some brief stats:

More than 513 million Internet users
More than 355 million mobile Internet users (nearly 200 million of which are mobile-only Internet users)
Projected 2012 Internet advertising revenue in 2012 of $8 billion+ USD

No matter how you slice it, China cannot be ignored in our global marketplace. Take a look at the original article here.

Targeted Victory Case Study

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:44:28 +0000

Training and Support is Crucial to a Successful DMP Partnership

Targeted Victory – the leader in online advertising, mobile communications and social networking for political candidates and causes – was looking for a data management platform after experiencing difficulty managing and consolidating their growing data assets. They needed a centralized location to streamline their data management and provide a more sophisticated product offering for their political clients.

Partnering with Lotame, Targeted Victory deployed Crowd Control to collect, categorize, and target audience data. Crowd Control is now the central portal that Targeted Victory uses to monitor everything that is happening across all of their websites, email campaigns, online advertising, and social media applications. The partnership continues to expand and benefit all parties involved, as Targeted Victory increases revenue while offering a lower premium for clients. Targeted Victory is pleased with the level of service and support offered by their new SaaS partner.

“Training our staff was arguably the most important aspect of our implementation, due to the fact that our entire team had never worked with a DMP,” says Michael Beach, Co-Founder, Targeted Victory.

Targeted Victory now includes audience targeting in 70% of its ad campaigns.

See the complete DMP case study here.

Upcoming Data Management Webinars

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:11:09 +0000

Looking for more insight about how to maximize your results from Crowd Control? Please join us for the following webinar digging deeper into Crowd Control:

Who is Lotame and What is Crowd Control?

Want to learn more about who we are and what we do? Join Jeff Burak, VP Platform Solutions, as he walks you through how Crowd Control can help publishers, networks and marketers take control of their audience data.

Presented by Jeff Burak on Wednesday, May 9th at 2pm EST

Click here to register

Audience Building 101

Looking for some insight about how to build the most powerful audiences in Crowd Control? Jamie McConville has been building audiences in Crowd Control since 2007, and she's willing to share her tips and tricks with you. Jamie will walk you through some basic and advanced features of the Audience Builder, including recency and frequency, using groups, and the difference between "and" & "or" in an audience. Join us to learn how to make your audiences work the best for you.

Presented by Jamie McConville on Wednesday, May 23rd at 2pm EST

Click here to register

The ABCs of Ad Technology

admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:27:28 +0000

A few months ago, we came across some schwag at an industry event that said the following: “DMP, DSP, SSP, WTF?” Very fitting of the current industry. The acronyms never seem to end in ad tech, but there are important differences among the many different tools that are available. We’d like to offer a short and sweet breakdown of the differences between these acronyms.

However, be warned: just because a company claims to be one of these acronyms doesn’t mean they actually have all the capabilities of that stack. You can put lipstick on a pig...

Demand Side Platforms, or DSPs, allow digital advertisers to buy display impressions across multiple ad exchanges through one interface. Marketers use DSPs to manage bids for banners and pricing for the data they are layering on to target their audience. By aggregating multiple inventory sources into one platform, marketers can target a very narrowly defined audience segment at scale, without having to log in to multiple ad networks or exchanges.

DSPs also allow advertisers and brands to buy audiences rather than specific website ad placements through real-time bidding, or RTB. This ability to bid in real-time was one of the most revolutionary aspects of DSPs; the platforms utilize optimization algorithms to establish the value of an incoming impression and place a bid accordingly. In other words, the platforms do the work of bidding/buying impressions for the marketer. The DSPs use behavioral targeting data, collected from cookies and data exchanges, to identify audience segments. The advertiser then uses that targeting data to define what kind of person they want to target with their advertising and how much they are willing to pay per impression. Then the DSP bids on the ad impressions using that advertiser’s criteria and budget, and serves the ads.

Check out Josh Dreller’s “Quick Guide to Demand Side Platforms” on iMedia for his thoughts on DSPs and some companies that offer them. However, remember that there has been a trend of several ad networks rebranding themselves as DSPs (understandable since DSPs threaten their bread & butter).

Our synopsis: DSPs help marketers monetize their media, by enabling efficient RTB for ad impressions.

Data Management Platforms, or DMPs, consolidate online and offline customer data from various sources into a single location, then break the data down into specific demographic and behavioral segments that can be used to target online advertising. This allows marketers and publishers to make sense of the data they have, and who their audience actually is. Reporting and analytics available from a DMP allow users to learn more about the audience’s interests and online behaviors, leading to increased engagement.

DMPs collect audience data based on specific behaviors (such as click, download, upload video, video completion), interests (examples could include sports, football, parenting, museums, travel), or demographic information. Publishers, marketers and ad networks can utilize a DMP to take control of their data and build the intellectual capital to make them smarter with every campaign.

According to Ben on Ad Ops Insider, “DMPs are designed to help both marketers and publishers make the data they have actionable, and are the fundamental tool for any data strategy beyond the elementary level.” In other words, you can organize your data into one place, get insights on who the audience is, and then target ads appropriately to that audience.

Our synopsis: DMPs help publishers and marketers consolidate data from all online and offline sources, get insights into the audience, and target ads to them appropriately.

Ad Networks
Advertising networks provide a way for media buyers to coordinate ad campaigns across multiple sites (ranging from dozens to thousands) efficiently. Ad networks vary in size and focus: large ad networks may require premium brands and millions of impressions per month, while small ad networks may accept unbranded sites with thousands of impressions per month.

Ad networks are often a good way for media companies to sell out their online display inventory.
Not all exchanges/networks are RTB-enabled, and RTB-enabled exchanges/networks cannot offer RTB buying directly. They require DSPs to act as the buying brain.

Our synopsis: Ad Networks allow media buyers to efficiently coordinate ad campaigns across many sites.

60 Data Points on 1 Million Users? Yes, Please.

admin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:56:54 +0000

One of the things we are most proud of here at Lotame is our data collection methods (remember, garbage in, garbage out). We know that because Crowd Control (our data management platform) collects many data points above and beyond URLs and metatags, our clients get a lot more information on who their actual audience is.

The chart below shows just how deep our data collection goes. We collect about 60 distinct behaviors from approximately 1 million users. 60 behaviors per user is nothing to laugh at; in fact, it is about 2-4x more data points than what our competitors can do. And the best part? Each Crowd Control client has access to audience profile and affinity reports, which give details about each audience's interests and actions.

Optimizing Beyond CTR

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:17:51 +0000

This blog post originally appeared on the Lotame Tech Blog on March 22, 2012.

People are always talking about “game changers.” Let’s talk about a game winner: G.O.A.L. Goal-driven Optimized Audience by Lotame brings on-the-fly understanding and optimization of data into real world applicability. G.O.A.L.-based audiences in Crowd Control offer the most powerful tools in the DMP space to date, allowing targeted audiences to adapt to their market exposure!

So what exactly is G.O.A.L.? We like to think of it as a tool that takes the guesswork out of meeting your advertising campaign goals. Rather than someone manually changing a campaign or an audience to drive better performance and customer engagement, G.O.A.L automates this process. All you have to do is select the goal you are trying to reach, and our tool will do the work for you.

Most people automatically assume the campaign goal they want to reach is an increased click-through rate. But G.O.A.L. can be used for optimizing other targets too. Your KPI (key performance indicator) will vary from campaign to campaign, and can really include any interaction you want customers to have with your material, which isn’t just limited to advertisements.

What can G.O.A.L. optimize beyond just CTR? Some examples include:

View-Through: You’ve got a big campaign running across a few of your sites, and you want to ensure that a certain tag fires for members of your audience who have visited your site and seen the ad. With G.O.A.L., you can pre-define who you think your audience might be, and learn over time what members of your audience really fit into that crowd. In short, optimizing for view-through is an attempt to increase the number of impressions viewed during an advertising campaign.

Video Completion: You think you know who among your audience will really be interested in that video demonstration for homemade sushi, but Crowd Control will really figure it out. First you define the audience you believe most likely to appreciate this content. Then you create an opportunity behavior indicating your audience members have seen the opportunity to view this demonstration on the front page of your site. Finally, you determine that anyone who actually plays the video to completion must really be interested in the art of homemade sushi and set that as the goal. And upon achievement of that goal, you ensure that an appropriate tag is fired for that audience. Automatically Optimized Homemade Sushi Artisans; what an audience!

Sharing or “Liking”: Your marketing team is really interested in getting more “likes” for a new product on Facebook. With G.O.A.L., you can optimize for your audience members to share or like a product, so that your campaign gets exactly the results that you are looking for.

Survey Completion: You’ve got a survey that needs thousands of responses to mean anything to your organization. And you’ve got a pretty good idea of who among your audience might be most likely to answer this survey, but this is the first survey you’ve ever run on the site. Let Crowd Control figure it out for you. Define your initial audience as some relatively large subset of your entire audience. Then define your opportunity behavior as “had the chance to open the survey by clicking on the link.” Next, define your Goal as “completed the link.” And then really optimize by defining a tag that will automatically open the survey for members of the G.O.A.L. audience – people who’ve shown a real likelihood to be the sort who will care to complete your survey.

Intra-site Navigation: Are you trying to get your site visitors to one particular page of your site? Maybe you want them to fill out a “request us” form, or to check out the new research page of your company’s website. By selecting a visit to a particular URL as your KPI, G.O.A.L. will help you get more people to the webpage you want.

Completed Purchase: Any measurable KPI can be optimized against using G.O.A.L. And if you aren’t sure which one might work best, you can try a few different KPIs. There is no downside, because the outcome will always be a better-performing campaign. The beauty of this tool is that the hard part is taken out of your hands, and the optimization is automated. So you can get back to all the other tasks you have on your plate.

Upcoming Data Management Webinars

admin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:22:47 +0000

Looking for more insight about how to maximize your results from Crowd Control? Please join us for the following webinar digging deeper into Crowd Control:

How to Select the Right DMP for my Business

How do you sift through all the options available to find out which DMP is right for your business? Listen to this exclusive webinar to learn how to select a DMP based on a defined set of criteria. We will cover the pros and cons of all the major DMPs on the market today.

Presented by Bruce Budkofsky on Tuesday, March 27th at 2pm EST

Click here to register

Targeted Victory + Crowd Control

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:54:18 +0000

Andy Monfried, Founder & CEO of Lotame, sat down recently with Michael Beach to discuss how the partnership has enabled Targeted Victory to deliver superior audience targeting to its clients.

Watch this video blog post here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIgncrdz9NQ

Ad Networks found the "Pot o' Gold" First

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:47:12 +0000

Ad networks were among the first web businesses to realize the value of audience data. They understood that it could garner higher CPM’s from marketers. Ad networks came into being from the thousands of websites whose primary revenue source was advertising, but who just weren’t large enough to attract ad budgets from marketers. They also couldn’t generate enough revenue to pay salaries for ad sales or ad ops teams.

These digital ad networks combined hundreds, and in some cases thousands of websites and gave each one scale and representation in the marketplace. Some networks quickly amassed millions of consumers and hundreds of millions of ad impressions. But while they offered scale, they didn’t have the cache of the popular and “safe” brand sites, and therefore couldn’t command the higher rates that some of the better-known websites like Wired.com were able to command. Some websites were able to get higher CPM’s because of their sheer size (reach), while others sold the value of their niche audience, professionally produced content, or both.

Networks had a problem. Low CPM’s and massive amounts of ad inventory translated into small payouts for each website. Supply rapidly outgrew demand. Today, supply (which I’m going to talk about in a future blog post) is still outpacing demand.

Networks had to figure out a way to generate higher CPM’s and make their inventory more valuable. Their content was broad-based in nature, cover thousands of interests and topics. They had to identify common characteristics among their audience, and target them based on those characteristics that had scale. Demographics were the easiest to start with since they were most commonly measured and reported. Networks started to reshape their portfolios based on audience demographics. As search grew and demographic and behavioral targeting capabilities became more sophisticated, the networks leveraged these capabilities and began to collect information about their audiences. They did this in such a way that they could target segments using both demographic and interest-based data points. That was the beginning of audience data.

Over the past five years companies have developed Data Management Platforms (DMPs) to enable publishers and ad networks to collect, organize and monetize their first-party audience data. The use and monetization of this data is evolving rapidly. In my next post I’ll give my predictions for how audience data will be utilized in the future.

This article was written by Bruce Budkofsky, VP Platform Sales at Lotame.

Does Size Matter?

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:28:28 +0000

Does size matter?

Some publishers and ad networks have been purchasing third-party data for years to enhance their targeting capabilities for marketers. Many of them are starting to question the value of data because they’re not convinced that it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. Some have already made up their mind that it’s not worth it to purchase data. More and more are saying that it’s too expensive and not delivering enough of an ROI to be worth the effort.

This is adding to the confusion in the marketplace about third-party data. It’s leading to questions about the integrity of the data. Publishers are starting to question where it’s coming from and how it’s being validated. Publishers are questioning how often the cookies are refreshed. They’re questioning if everyone has the same data and if there’s any data that’s “unique”. They’re starting to question why they’re buying third-party data at all. That’s my favorite question, especially when they’re not leveraging their own first-party data, first.

A publisher’s first-party data is the most valuable data a publisher can leverage. Why? Because it’s their own data. It’s coming from their own audience, their own consumers. They’re observing it and collecting it first-hand. It’s not “hearsay.” It doesn’t cost them anything to collect it and organize it. So why aren’t they collecting it? Why aren’t they using it? Why are they buying data about their audience from others?

One reason is because they’ve bought into the notion that data can only make a difference or have an impact when it’s of substantial, significant scale. Some data aggregators preach an audience segment that doesn’t “scale” is worthless. What do they mean by “scale”? How large qualifies “scale”? Is it 5MM uniques, 10MM uniques, 100MM uniques? What size is it that matters?

I would argue that size, or scale, is relative to size of the publisher that’s looking to leverage the data. To a site with 1MM uniques, 200K is meaningful. It’s 20% of their total audience. Let’s say a CPG marketer wants to engage with the “moms” on this particular publisher’s website. Without the “moms” segment, the CPG company would never advertise on this site. The possibility exists that 80% of the ads purchased won’t reach the right people. By bringing the “moms” segment to the marketer, they can ensure that 100% of the ads will reach “moms”.

Marketers’ #1 goal is to reach the right audience with 100% of the impressions. The better able publishers are to doing that, regardless of the scale they can offer, the better chance they have of winning a share of the budget. Their “fair share” of the budget will be relative to their size. I’m sure they’ll be happy with their fair share, because if they’re not targeting specific audiences today, they’re getting $0.

Bruce Budkofsky is VP Platform Sales at Lotame

Did the White House Just Thread the Needle on Privacy?

admin — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:49:39 +0000

This article by Adam Lehman, COO/GM of Lotame, originally appeared in AdvertisingAge. Click here to see the original.

The Data Diaries

Data-Driven Marketing: I can’t go on like this.

U.S. Government: But I feel like I’m just getting to know you.

DDM: But don’t you see? That’s the problem. I’m more complicated than you’ll ever understand.

USG: I can’t accept that. I need you close to me.

DDM: Why? We were both doing o.k. before we met. And since then, let’s face it – you’ve been all over me.

USG: It’s just my way. But I have a plan so we can at least be friends.

That’s the backdrop for the recent White House announcement and report on “Consumer Data Privacy In A Networked World.” So what to make of this new two-step in the ongoing dance between government and industry over how to regulate the burgeoning data economy in the U.S.?

As with anything coming out of D.C., we should start with the political angle. And this should play as good politics. First off, heading into a re-election campaign, who’s not in favor of consumer privacy? While not rising to puppy dog and apple pie status, the average voter seems to want some degree of privacy attached to his or her digital life, so delivering this report through a more forceful White House announcement and brand enables the President to add consumer privacy to the litany of issues he took on in his first term. The White House also handled the legislative angle with skill. In the context of 8 different pieces of privacy legislation currently pending in Congress which appear to be going nowhere for the time being, the White House reports calls for its “Consumer Bill of Rights” to be passed into law – but gives equal billing to an immediate effort to convene all stakeholders in a parallel process to develop self-regulatory codes of conduct reflecting this new Bill of Rights. Adding emphasis to this dual track, the White House included the industry umbrella group, the Digital Advertising Alliance, in the White House event and trumpeted an agreement reached with the DAA to require its members to honor Do-Not-Track headers.

And for the substance? On first pass, the report appears to carry over many of the positive aspects of the initial Department of Commerce Green Paper. For starters, the recommended frameworks are principle-based (largely steering clear of prescribing soon-to-be-obsolete technical standards or getting too far into the weeds on definitions). Given the constantly changing landscape of technologies, business models, business and consumer practices and consumer expectations, it’s a fool’s errand to pursue anything other than high-level principles. In addition, the report devotes quite a bit of airtime to the goal of increasing global interoperability. (Good luck on that one, but at least this objective recognizes the significant challenges facing digital businesses when it comes to understanding and meeting compliance standards outside the U.S.) On the more cynical side of the coin, much of what’s discussed in the report is a reflection of the present state of play, rather than a dramatic new direction. For example, we already have multi-stakeholder processes yielding enforceable codes of conduct – most notably, the DAA’s self-regulatory principles for Online Behavioral Advertising and Multi-Site Data. In that regard, many of the proposed elements of the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights are already reflected in these existing codes of conduct. As for another policy prong in the report – strengthening the FTC’s enforcement authority to prohibit unfair and deceptive acts or practices – last I checked, the FTC already fully possesses this authority and is actively exercising it. Even the industry “Down Payment” on the Individual Control principle by agreeing to honor Do-Not-Track headers simply formalizes what many companies (including my own) have been doing for months.

More to tell as we get past “flash analysis” to “fine-tooth-comb” review of the 50 page report. But one thing we know for sure: with the various follow items called for in the White House report, and the next FTC report scheduled to arrive soon, the dance will continue. Hopefully industry's legs will be fresh enough to keep up with all of the twists and turns, so the Internet can continue to be the "engine of innovation, business growth, and job creation" acknowledged in the White House's announcement.

Can DMPs and CMSs Get Along?

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:59:35 +0000

The original version of this article appeared in AdMonsters of February 23, 2012. Click here to see the original.

While the primary focus of many data management technologies is to manage data assets for better audience targeting, the capabilities of a data management platform (DMP) go far beyond audience targeting. DMPs and content management systems (CMSs) can work together to deliver relevant content for your site visitors to increase your loyal user base and their engagement levels.

Audience Insights From Data Management Platforms

Let’s start with audience insights available from data management platforms. A sophisticated DMP creates rules around various elements of a page to collect specific behaviors exhibited by the users while consuming page content. For example, a user visiting a health section of a website, clicking on a “share this” link, or submitting a comment each create different behavioral data points.

These data points are arranged into a detailed hierarchy of behaviors, actions and demographics specific to the company’s digital audience. Clients use this information to create complex audience definitions and behaviorally target them in various digital media campaigns.

In addition to the first-party data collected from a client website, DMPs also provide access to third-party data that can be used by the client to enrich their audiences. For example, a user visiting yoursite.com might have exhibited interest in sports on yoursite.com, as well as a health behavior on a third-party site. Leveraging a DMP, yoursite.com will gain additional insights on their sports user such as the user’s interest in health-related content that you might not otherwise be aware of.

Integration With CMS

Audience insights collected from data management platforms can be used to power content management systems to increase the number of pages viewed, engagement and loyalty of your site visitors.

Content Personalization – This integration between DMP and CMS can be used to personalize content that’s appropriate for the user interests and that resonates well with the user. This in turn increases user loyalty and engagement with the site, resulting in increased ad inventory levels for monetization.

Dynamic Content Creation – You can also use both systems to create dynamic rules to identify and segment audience behavior on-the-fly. Dynamic classification by DMP allows your CMS to show extremely customized content to the user as the user navigates through the site.

Content Targeting – Based on the pages visited and actions performed by a user in a given session, a DMP can create user behaviors in real-time. For example, a user on a website visited the movies section and sports section. Your DMP will immediately identify these behaviors and categorize them. Using third-party data, the DMP can also inform you that the aforementioned user is a male interested in golf. By passing this information to the CMS, content owners can show movie reviews and sports reviews to the user in the subsequent visit. They can also customize the navigation of the site and related links section to increase the engagement of the user by showing relevant content.

Content owners with an e-commerce module on their site, such as retailers, can use such behaviors to display coupons or offers specific to user interests. By knowing that the user started to purchase a product in their previous session and did not complete the checkout process, their CMS can create a rule that displays any current promotions on that product to create new and better opportunities for sale.

Below are some examples on how DMPs and CMS can work together.

Simple Integration Between DMP and CMS

Using an API or a server-to-server integration, data management platforms allow a client’s CMS to extract comprehensive audience insights specific to a user visiting a site. DMPs can immediately inform any system used by a website, including ad servers and content management systems, about the interests and behaviors of the user visiting the website.

As soon as a user visits a website, the DMP will send the CMS a comprehensive list of attributes known about the user. The CMS will determine content blocks or templates that should be shown to users depending on the attributes passed by the DMP.

Examples include:

Showing a health article if the DMP determines that the user is interested in health.
Requesting the user to ‘share content’ based on third-party influencer data informed by DMP.

Advanced Integration With CMS

You can throw some modeling into the mix to achieve even better results. By working with their DMP, content owners can identify content blocks that will be served to their site visitors using a CMS. Content blocks can be composed of site sections, groups of articles or articles themselves. Once the content blocks are identified, the DMP will track user visitation to these content blocks to identify user behaviors frequently exhibited by users visiting these content blocks. This helps to understand which content blocks atttract which users based on their behaviors.

When a user visits a site, the CMS will call the DMP to obtain a ranking of content blocks that will resonate well with the user based on their interests and known behaviors. This ranking can be used to display relevant content on the page or in the related links section of a page to keep the user engaged on a visit.

In addition to the behavioral affiliation identified by the DMP for each content block, you can input default rules in your CMS that can work alongside content block ranking recommended by DMP. For example, a breaking story or content on the home page should be shown to all users irrespective of their behavioral affiliation.

Content owners can also make it multi-dimensional by creating multiple sections on each page, and by calling the DMP to understand the combination of content blocks that should be shown in each section for maximum impact on user engagement:

In summary, Data Management Platforms and Content Management Systems are born to work together. Digital stakeholders use DMPs for effective audience targeting within their available inventory. But a DMP-CMS integration can lead to increased inventory, loyal users who can always be reached, and improved engagement and intra-site navigation to increase available inventory levels.

Kalyan Lanka is Director of Product Management at Lotame. Kalyan is responsible for Lotame’s product strategy and roadmap. His primary focus is creating a unified data management platform that showcases the value of data and uses beyond audience targeting. Prior to Lotame, Kalyan was Director of Product Management at comScore. At comScore Kalyan managed their International product management team responsible for product strategy and development in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Kalyan holds a Masters from Duke University and a Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

Overwhelmed by Data? Here's How to Tame It

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:58:15 +0000

This article by Adam Lehman, Lotame's COO/GM, originally appeared in AdAge on February 21, 2012. Click here to see the original.

Start With What Your Sites Collect, Add More, Find Trends and Act on Them

The amount of data we can now collect from digital interactions is staggering. Almost as staggering as the number of ways in which you as a digital marketing professional interact with data on a daily basis. To the uninitiated, working with and making sense of data can seem seriously daunting.

It shouldn’t be, though. Publishers and marketers already have a wealth of data at their fingertips – they simply need to know how best to use it. With that in mind, here’s a quick primer on how to use data to drive your digital strategy.

Explore all available data sources and channels

First-party web-based data (the information you can learn about visitors to your sites) is often the most accessible and valuable. Visitors to your sites are generating useful signals with every action they take. And this data is your data – meaning you don’t need to pay third parties to use it and you have the ability to use it as fully as the rights you’ve secured through your user terms. Before you “pass go” in implementing your data strategy, you need to inventory the audience data you’re already generating through your sites; and then identify how to grow and groom that pool – by adding more granular data collection, refining the ways you organize and segment the data, and incorporating tools for activating your segments (as I describe more below). To maximize the value of your first party data, you may want to enlist the help of a Data Management Platform (like Crowd Control, the DMP my company offers).

But you don’t need to stop at first-party, web-based data. It’s important for both publishers and marketers to explore all the data collection sources available to them. These additional channels include CRM systems, mobile sites and apps, and even “offline” transactions.

Your mobile optimized sites and apps will power cross-channel insights and targeting capabilities, while CRM data and offline transactions can round out your audience understanding by providing additional attributes drawn from within your universe of first-party sources. In all these cases, this data can be combined in a privacy-friendly way (when properly de-identified in the process through which it’s aggregated into anonymous audience profiles).

At the same time, consider supplementing your first party data sources with third-party data. Leveraging the information you derive from your existing first party sources is a great start, but you can learn even more by understanding how your consumers behave outside your domains. And these learnings from third party data sources can both expand the size of the audiences you design and improve the performance of the advertising, e-commerce and content you promote to these audiences.

Identify valuable points

Collecting data is one thing, but using it is a different skill. When you decide to put your data to use, first identify the data types and sources to use. Remember, you want quality and relevance. Amassing a large amount of data is useless if you can’t spot repeatable trends and then act on them. Put differently, the popular statistical phrase, “garbage in, garbage out,” is spot-on when it comes to your audience data strategy.

After identifying the quality data points you’ve collected or licensed, you can then convert these disparate data points into audience segments, and insights. Through a capable DMP partner (or proprietary systems you may have developed internally), you should be able to “slice and dice” these segments in virtually infinite ways – designed to match your specific analytic and audience marketing objectives.

Activating your data – advertising and beyond
Now that you’ve mined all relevant first party and third party data sources, and culled your data into custom audience segments based on quality and relevant data, it’s time to put those audience segments to work. The most common way publishers and marketers have used these audience segments is to improve the targeting, and therefore efficiency, of online advertising campaigns. And that use case makes good sense as a starting point. Ad tech systems and players – including DMPs, DSPs, networks, trading desks, agencies, ad servers, exchanges, ad verification systems, etc. – are all now integrated in ways designed to enable you to turn your smart audience segments into effective audience-targeted ad campaigns. But don’t stop there.

If you’re a content publisher, you need to deliver relevant and engaging to your site’s visitors. And your smart audience segments stand at the ready for you to use in meeting this objective. By mapping these segments into your CMS, you can create a uniquely relevant content experience for each of your visitors. If you’re a marketer or e-commerce company, you can use your audience segments to put the right offer in front of the right prospect at the right time on your site. And these additional uses of your audience data create a virtuous circle – since they will generate more content usage and online transactions, which will in turn add more valuable data to your audience data coffers. More broadly, all of this data will make you and your organization smarter. The insights you can draw from evaluating your audience segments and the way they perform for you will infuse your entire marketing and business strategy.

So the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by the explosion of digital data all around you, take a deep breath and remember that you have the potential to translate the force of that data into serious new value for your customers and your business.

Adam Lehman is COO and General Manager at Lotame.

Behavioral Targeting 2.0 with G.O.A.L.

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:40:06 +0000

Why Does Lotame's New G.O.A.L Product Matter to You?

Behavioral Targeting (BT) has been available for about 10 years now. Most publishers, advertisers, and agencies are familiar with it, and frankly, it just works. The major problem with BT is that it often doesn’t produce conversions in the same volume or Cost per Conversion-efficiency as other online advertising tactics. This is because the “right people” usually aren’t the same as the “conversion people”, believe it or not. Lotame has recognized this issue and is launching a new product to address it, once and for all: G.O.A.L., or Goal-driven Optimized Audiences by Lotame.

G.O.A.L. gives you the flexibility and safety you’ve grown to love with BT by defining an audience that fits your comfort zone (say, Mothers) and then setting the conversion metric to optimize against (say, Making a Purchase on your site). As soon as you begin advertising to this audience segment, G.O.A.L. will analyze the campaign performance in real time and adjust the definition accordingly, by removing sub-behaviors that aren’t driving conversion and emphasizing the ones that are. All of a sudden, your Sports Enthusiasts are signing up for more newsletters, your Hip Homemakers are downloading more apps, and most importantly, your Mothers are now buying more product on your site.

Sure, there are other online advertising tactics that could yield more total sales results, but honestly, many advertisers don’t want to stomach the inherent risks associated with these tactics: broad networks with some less-than-desirable inventory suppliers, lack of transparency, etc. When you combine the safe and flexible targeting of BT with the automated conversion-focused optimization of G.O.A.L., your ROI will improve, campaigns will renew, and budgets will increase. Best of all, it all happens automatically and without needing to hire additional AdOps staff.

Lotame platform clients can subscribe to G.O.A.L. today. For more information or to schedule a platform demo, email cc@lotame.com or call (646) 556-6300.

Will Riegel is a Lotame Sales Engineer and Advertising Enthusiast

Don't Scare Away Your Mobile Audience!

admin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:01:01 +0000

With Crowd Control, we make it easy for brands and publishers to enhance audience targeting capabilities and know more about their audience data. Using our tools and reports, brands and publishers can make sure that the right messaging and content reaches the right people at the right time. But as the Mims’s Bits Blog from the MIT Technology Review points out, all of those capabilities can be negated when a brand or publisher has an opportunity to serve a user on the mobile web, and tries to pitch their mobile app instead:

And that is it. That is literally the end of my interaction with this site, because my only option is to download the iPad app. There is no alternative — no way to click through to the video or text that I was after. And you know what? I’m not going to download your stupid app. Because I am not at home on my own wifi, and that would be an anti-social use of public bandwidth, not to mention the fact that this connection isn’t so great, so it would probably take, for all I know, half an hour.

Mobile web usage is doubling year over year and has done so since 2009. And given that there will be more smart phones than people by year’s end, and more tablets will be shipped than laptops by 2015, it seems safe to assume that trend’s not going to end. So as long as brands are serving up web pages, and hoping to capitalize on the sharing of their content over social media or the discovery of their content via search engines, they probably don’t want to scare away any of their audience. Perhaps a better approach is for those brands and publishers to welcome the audience right in first, and then pitch the opportunity to download the app while visiting.

This blog post was written by Matt Quirion, Sr. Software Engineer, at Lotame, and originally appeared on the Lotame Tech Blog. Check out the original here.

Upcoming Data Management Webinars

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:01:30 +0000

At Lotame, customer success is our top priority, and our primary goal is to provide our clients with the most cutting-edge technology and the information required to maximize their return on investment. To fulfill this goal, we are constantly rolling out new Crowd Control features in response to our customers' data management needs.

In an effort to serve you better, you are invited to join us for a series of short webinars covering the topics listed below.

Building Your Own Data Exchange or Audience Network

Join us to learn how to use Crowd Control to manage data across a network or private exchange. Extract and combine data from multiple properties and leverage the attribution feature to pay out publishers. Use the aggregated data to target segments across your inventory and even execute data sales, just like the major data exchanges!

Presented by James Curran on Wednesday, February 22nd at 2pm EST

Click here to register

Data Capture 201

As a follow-up to our previous "How Data Collection Works" webinar, we will be taking a deeper dive into Lotame's data collection methodologies. We will cover the basics of the SCOUT and Optimus data capturing tools, and will provide a brief demonstration of Optimus in action. Registration for this webinar is only open to current Lotame clients.

Presented by Brian Cochran on Wednesday, February 29th at 2pm EST

Click here to register**

**Registration for Data Capture 201 only available to current Crowd Control clients**

We hope to see you there. In addition, if you have requests for other topics you would like to see discussed in a future webinar, please direct them to support@lotame.com.

A DMP Apart

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:33:22 +0000

Here at Lotame, we are pretty proud of our amazing technology and the service we offer our clients. Frankly, we consider ourselves to be a cut above the rest. Why are we so amazing? Here’s a look at what makes Lotame different…in the best way possible!

Time-Tested: Crowd Control launched in 2006, meaning we’ve had six years to test the technology and work out the kinks. In addition, we ran millions of dollars worth of digital media campaigns through the platform (back when we were an ad network), so we know how to maximize the benefits of a DMP. We’ve put this experience to work to help publishers and advertisers consistently exceed revenue and campaign goals, and we’re not shy about sharing our best practices and tips with clients to help them realize amazing results!

Dedicated Client Services Team: Who has the knowledge to share these best practices with you? Our clients receive unlimited access to a dedicated client services representative to assist with any questions and to maximize the value received from Crowd Control. Many of our client and professional services team members have been a part of Lotame since the company’s infancy, and as a result they know the product backwards and forwards. Who else would be best to show you the ins and outs of a great technology than the expert users themselves?

Intuitive, Flexible Interface: Consistently referred to as having the most user-friendly interface in the industry, Crowd Control’s dashboard boasts seamless integrations, unmatched rule-based data collection, and turnkey audience building. Often, the first comment we hear when demonstrating Crowd Control is: “Wow! It’s so easy to use!” And we are proud of that. Running a successful advertising campaign is hard enough … Crowd Control makes the process easier.

Superior Data Collection Methods: While other DMPs offer only URL-based data collection, Crowd Control also utilizes a proprietary Action-based collection technique for ingesting and segmenting data points on the actions users are taking on your page. What does this mean? We can capture up to 4x as many data points as our competitors. So while they’re only collecting data based on which page of the website you are on, Crowd Control is keeping an eye on who’s commenting, who is sharing and who is uploading videos, just to name a few examples. This results is more in-depth and accurate behavioral data for our clients…which leads to greater engagement with their customers.

Flexible Custom Hierarchies: No more fitting your data points into a concrete unmovable set of buckets; Lotame will work with you to create a customized hierarchy to best suit your data management needs. This hierarchy can then be easily updated in real-time whenever you need. With Crowd Control, you don’t have to conform to anyone’s standard but your own!

Real-Time In-Platform Reporting: Crowd Control clients get access to comprehensive, real-time Audience Profile and Affinity reports for every audience they build, so you can see exactly what your audiences are interested in and how they interact with your digital properties. Maybe you didn’t know that your Nutrition Blogger audience was also really interested in Rock Music. You can use these insights to scale your audience, or just to reach them more effectively. And the coolest part is that all of these reports can be exported from Crowd Control directly to clients via email with the click of a button.

Media Agnostic: Its your data, take it wherever you’d like. Not only does Crowd Control offer greater insight into audience data segments, but it also allows you to obtain your media inventory anywhere: DSPs, networks, exchanges, or direct publisher relationships.

Highest Possible Privacy Standards: Privacy is a hot topic in the data world and we consider ourselves ahead of the curve. As a thought leader in the privacy arena, Lotame partners with every major industry watchdog, including Evidon, IAB, DMA, and NAI, and we adhere to the most stringent privacy standards in the industry. We have never collected PII (personally identifiable information, like names or email addresses), and we don’t plan on it.

Check out the Lotame Tech Blog for more thoughts from our tech team.

At Your Service

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:09 +0000

With five years of experience pairing data with media to deliver targeted ads to consumers, Lotame’s professional services team is comprised of audience targeting veterans. With the aid of Crowd Control, our industry-leading data management platform, our team uses what we learned serving ads over the years to support our clients’ needs and provide the best service possible. We are ready to offer some specific services to our clients.

RFP Planning

Our experience responding to RFPs makes us experts in the process of RFP planning. Given that advertisers are likely receiving numerous responses to each RFP, the key is for publishers to differentiate themselves. Rather than sending out a standard response to a potential advertiser, we research and analyze the data of past campaigns that may relate to the proposal. Lotame has millions of data points gathered from hundreds of campaigns. By taking into consideration the product, target, goals, and creative, our team is able to dig into this data and craft a response in line with what will be most successful, and thus, what the client wants to see. This is done by building specific audiences for the campaign, expanding these audiences based on our findings (which often relates to behavioral targeting) and by making other recommendations, such as creative type or content that performed best in the past.

Reporting

The professional services team is also exceptionally skilled in building custom reports. Our End of Campaign reports have been described by our past media advertiser and agency clients as “innovative,” “informative,” and “pioneering.” After running an ad campaign with Lotame’s Media Group, clients always received a final report, which included a campaign summary, insights & analyses on campaign performance, and recommendations for future campaigns. Diving into the positive and negative behavior drivers of a campaign, and adding (or negating) these drivers into campaign audiences has increased campaign performance up to tenfold.

Further Analysis

In addition to campaign reporting, the team is also here to assist with any other in-depth analysis where our clients show interest. Whether the goal is to explore previously-run campaigns to find top-performing data points and/or audiences, or to assist sales teams using RFP data, we are here to help. Past RFP data often shows any commonalities in deals lost or won, as well as data that could aid in landing those lost deals.

In summary, Lotame’s professional services team knows we can improve campaign performance, increase RFP close rate, and increase repeat business for our platform clients. We look forward to getting out there more and more to show how awesome we are, not only as a DMP provider, but as a professional services team.

Jamie McConville is Manager, Product Services at Lotame.

2012 Election Will Be Defined By Data

adam — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:05:13 +0000

Adam Lehman, Lotame's COO and GM, wrote this article that originally appeared in AdAge on February 6, 2012.

Why the 2012 Presidential Race Will be Defined by Data

Republicans are 14% more likely to be interested in hybrid cars. Really.

As the primaries move west, political professionals and voters are paying close attention to poll numbers, attack ads, and gaffes in the Republican presidential-nominee horse race, now consolidating around Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Within the digital-marketing community, we're equally focused on what this election cycle portends for the future of online political advertising.

Presidential elections have served as important catalysts and benchmarks in the slow but steady adoption of digital marketing tactics by political campaigns. The 2004 election represented a break-through as the Dean campaign used emerging social networking tools and communities to generate a potent new stream of donations and to organize and engage supporters. In the 2008 cycle, the Obama campaign took this process to the next level, with a well-tuned digital marketing machine, blending search and display, social and e-mail – and blew the roof off with record-breaking levels of donations and digital engagement, not to mention a residual digital community the President’s political organization continues to mine.

So where will the 2012 Presidential fit within this trajectory? The 2010 mid-term elections provided us some good clues. Overall, digital spending on political ads continued to grow at a steady pace. Political campaigns adapted quickly to the rapidly growing supply of pre-roll video inventory, into which they could deploy existing video assets. We also saw the immediate impact of the Citizens United ruling, as 527s and others ramped up their digital investments.

As independent expenditures continue to fuel significant increases in online political advertising, we see the major new theme for the 2012 cycle as data. Using data platforms (such as Crowd Control, the data management platform marketed by my company, Lotame Solutions), political campaigns and their digital agencies are able for the first time to seamlessly marry together relevant and privacy-safe data sources to target their online advertising buys. These data sources include both offline registration data (brought online in ways that de-identify the personal information while associating the political affiliation and other relevant voting data with a browser cookie), and more traditional online data types, such as age, gender, geography and the interests and actions expressed by a web user’s browsing behaviors. By building audiences using these rich sources of data, campaigns can be concentrated and efficient in their advertising – to raise visibility, persuade prospects, earn donations and mobilize supporters. In 2010, Blaise Hazelwood, the founder of Grassroots Targeting, helped Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal get re-elected. She emphasizes that "the power of data is no longer exclusive to offline voter contact. For a candidate to reach all of their potential supporters and win an election, he or she must also target online, using individual data points to persuade and to motivate turnout." Though we’re still early in the 2012 cycle, we’re already seeing strong interest in these data-driven advertising tactics.

How will prospective voters experience these developments? For starters, voters in swing states should prepare to be inundated – not only by the expected phone bank calls, robocalls, mailers and television ads – but by an onslaught of online ads from every digital corner (search, display, e-mail, pre-roll). On the plus side, with the greater use of smart data, consumers should be seeing ads more likely to relate to candidates and issues of interest to them. On the other hand, given the unprecedented amount of money that will be invested in political advertising overall, and the increasing percentage of this spending that will be earmarked for digital, the average swing state consumer may simply feel inundated (especially once campaigns race to deploy their remaining gunpowder at the end of the campaign).

Will 2012 mark a turning point when political campaigns realize that digital advertising offers them even more efficient and impactful marketing channels, and at much lower cost per impact, than their more traditional channels? Not in the sense that campaigns will invest less in their traditional go-to channels (especially T.V.) But we do believe 2012 will reflect another significant step forward in shifting the share of ad spending towards digital; and that savvy campaigns, party groups, 527s and other political spenders who make use of all of the available digital tools, data, channels and tactics will reap the benefit of their foresight through superior advertising outcomes and more victories on November 6, 2012.

Click here to see the original posting in AdAge.

Infographic created by Alex Theriault, Director Client Services, Lotame

Lotame’s SMART Data Outperforming Competition

doug — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:20:16 +0000

Data, data, data… That’s all you read and hear about nowadays. What is data? How should you collect it? Does it work? How can you make it work?

Well, here’s yet another piece talking about data – but hopefully a simple piece, making decision makers’ lives much easier.

Since leading Lotame’s SMART Data Division in October of 2010, I have been focused solely on creating methodologies and practices that would result in Lotame having most accurate raw data available. I met numerous detractors along the way telling me that “scale is what matters – be more lenient on the accuracy and just focus on scale.” But, I stuck with my vision for the mere fact that I truly believed two things:

1. Accurate data will inevitably perform better than any other data (and perform better based on almost every realistic and relevant metric)

2. Data buyers will begin buying data that performs well and not be overly focused on just price and scale

It has now been over a year since I began this quest and I am happy to report that trends are starting to align with my two beliefs. Below you will see feedback and results we have received from buyers and platforms across the industry who use Lotame’s SMART data. This data highlights that buyers are definitely starting to buy based on performance (I even met a major ad network recently who told me they don’t even look at price but rely on their optimization UI to choose the segments that perform best, regardless of anything else) in addition to the fact that Lotame’s SMART data is way out-performing all other data providers’ segments. Due to many of these companies needing to be completely agnostic when it comes to data providers, most names are withheld but the data has come straight from them via email and/or report. [NOTE: the below discusses performance in terms of an “index”. An index is designed to measure magnitudes of change. The calculation is simply your performance divided by the average performance times 100 ((your perf/avg per) * 100). Therefore, an index of 100 is average. Anything below 100 is below average and anything above 100 is above average. An index of 200 means that your performance was 2 times better than average.]

Findings

Ad Network 1:

Background: A major ad network sent us reports for Q2 and Q3 of 2011. Millions of impressions were delivered targeting Lotame’s SMART Data segments as well as many other data providers’ segments (intuitive segments based on vertical, i.e. the Finance segment for Finance campaigns). The metric Ad Network 1 used for their analyses was CPA (cost per acquisition). They looked at how all of the data providers’ segments indexed against the average CPA for the campaigns.

Results: The average index for Lotame’s SMART Data segments across all verticals was 332, with a high of 2,390 for one specific vertical (Business).

Analytics Platform 1:

Background: An analytics platform sent Lotame a report comparing Lotame’s SMART Data to other competitors, based on Conversions per View, CTR, and Expansions per View.

Results: Lotame’s average index was 127 for Conversions per View, 250 for CTR, and 178 for Expansions per View. Lotame’s overall average index across all segments and metrics was 206.

Ad Network 2:

Background: Another ad network ran an automotive campaign targeting several different auto segments from various data providers. The client’s success metric was CTR.

Results: Lotame’s Automotive segment was the top performing segment used, based on their success metric of CTR.

Collective:

Background: Collective, a major ad tech company, sent out a newsletter to their entire company, their clients, and their prospects highlighting how well Lotame’s SMART Data has performed for them. Specifically, Collective highlighted one campaign. From the newsletter,

“Collective delivered a campaign targeting Lotame data for a local luxury automobile company. We targeted Lotame’s Lifestyle : Affinity : Vehicle : Luxury segment for this campaign. The advertiser’s goal was to reach users in market for a new luxury vehicle. “

Results: Again, from the newsletter,

“Key Highlights: Key findings of this campaign illustrate that this audience segment garnered an interaction rate of 27% performing better than any other segment and the campaign average of 11%.”

To summarize, Lotame’s SMART Data segments have been performing better than their competitors’, based on all types of metrics – CTR, CPA, Interaction Rate, Conversions per View, and Expansions per View. This is a testament to our intense data collection and QA practices, highlighting that accuracy does indeed drive better performance.

Doug Pollack is Director of Data Analytics at Lotame

Data - The Foundation of the Internet Food Pyramid

craig — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Learning From the Past

I started working 20 years ago, and while times were very different (Internet access was pretty limited, with only 3 million users worldwide, and nobody knew what software as a service would really mean) some things haven’t changed that much.

My first job was with an engineering company, and one of the things that we did there was to help electric providers access and manage their data. All of these organizations were responsible in some way for generating piles of data. Not only the information about how their facilities were licensed and built, but notes, documents, specifications and every bit of information you could imagine related to maintaining, operating, and modifying the facility.

It was great, these companies had tons of data about everything they had ever done – they had the power of data (pun intended). Well, in theory anyway. The problem for most of these companies was twofold. First, most of them did not have this direct access to this data. Even though it was about them, many times it wasn’t considered theirs. The engineering and maintenance firms either considered it their own or convinced the power providers that they (the engineering companies) were in the best position to hold onto this data, usually in systems to which only the engineering firms had access.

At best the electric provider would have a room full of paper documents that reflected the work that had been done. This made getting access to that information a time consuming, and sometimes frustrating and costly exercise. This led to the second problem – this data was primarily at rest. In other words, since accessing the data was time consuming and costly, no one had any incentive to use it to do anything until they absolutely needed to, so the data just sat there most of the time.

Some of our more forward-thinking customers leveraged our services to address these issues, building systems where they could capture; store, retrieve, and more effectively use all of this data. That gave them real power. They were in a better position not only to respond to both internal and external requests, they were also in a much better position to pro-actively improve their facilities and processes in a way that they had not previously had the stomach to attack due to the extra time and costs.

Apply Those Lessons Now

Everything happens in cycles, and looking at businesses on the Internet today we see some of the same problems. Sure, we have widespread connectivity, new tools, high-powered servers and software capable of creating and churning through terabytes of data, but what is anybody doing with it? Many companies out there find they are not in that different of a position than those electric providers from 20 years ago, collecting piles of data in any number of systems or logs. But once it is there, what is anyone doing with it? What are you doing with it?

Take Charge of Your Data

At some point in the lifespan of any company you need to be asking yourself about your data strategy. You need to think about all of the opportunities that data can afford you, from providing a better service, to attracting more customers, and ultimately improving the bottom line of your company. Chances are that if you are not answering these questions one of your competitors probably is giving it some consideration, and while I for one do not put much stock in the “competitor x is doing y, so I need to as well” line of thinking, ignoring your data strategy is doing a disservice to both you and your customers.

Today there are any number of tools and vendors out there that will tell you that they can help you with these kinds of data management and usage problems. One tool that you can add to your arsenal for executing against a data strategy is a Data Management Platform (DMP). ”Great…” you are probably thinking, another buzzword and another vendor to worry about. “What is a DMP and how can one help me anyway?”

Pick the Right Tools and Partners

First, I would suggest that you do not view whomever you choose to work with as a vendor, but rather that you view them (and they view you) as a partner. Now that we got that out of the way, I am going to ignore any number of the definitions that you might be able to find out there from vendor or industry sites, and I’m going to tell you what I think it is and what it can do to help you.

I view a DMP as a platform that helps you:

Determine how your customers or users interact with you through any number of contact points, including a desktop browser, a mobile device, or even other applications you may use in your enterprise;

Combine this data with data you may have from other platforms such as a CRM or POS or third party data;

Allow you to view that data in a way that makes sense to you;

Analyze and report on that data so that you can visualize the relationships between the various ways that your users interact with you;

Use all of that data information to create a better user experience for that user, whether that be showing them more targeted content, serving them a more relevant ad, or even provide them a better purchasing or call center experience;

Use the data any way you see fit – it is your data after all.

You may choose to use any number of those types of features in combination or note use any of them at all, but a DMP should ultimately provide those options so that it can support your organization as it grows and evolves. Elaborating a bit from the points above, a DMP shouldn’t be a closed system that collects your data and just sucks it into a black box where you don’t get many, if any choice, of exactly how to view it or use it. Instead a DMP should be an open platform that allows you to combine data from multiple sources, and allows you to use that data any way you want through APIs and integrations. You don’t want to be one of those electric providers mentioned above that always had to ask the engineering firm permission to get their own data. Instead you want to be that company that is in charge of your own data and strategy. You should be in charge, and you should have options to control the data that is collected, the classification or categorization and lifespan of that data, and the use of the data. A system that provides defaults for you is great. But a system that has defaults and provides you the option of customizing them is even better. One that offers all of that and is easy to use and offers some level of transparency into how the system works is best.

Remember Privacy

And let’s not forget the ePrivacy Directive in Europe, which makes ownership of all data emanating from a given site the responsibility of that site’s owners. If you do not control your data, but cede even a small amount of control to other companies who pixel your site, the ePrivacy directive is clear – this will become your liability. It is vital to understand all of the tracking on your own site. Work with the partner you choose to set up a system to regularly monitor and audit all the code on your sites. This is more than just a “cookie audit.” Much of the tracking covered by the ePrivacy Directive doesn’t use cookies at all. You need to know the actual scripts that run on your pages. If you haven’t obtained a full tracking audit recently, be sure this is your first step. You’ll be surprised by the results. Once complete, you’ll need to categorize each tracker as essential or non-essential, and then rank them on a scale of relative intrusiveness. Bake this into your data strategy at the onset of your planning.

Put Your Data to Work

Once you have a data strategy and start working with a DMP, then you can put that data to work for you, moving from a state of rest to a state of competitive advantage. Build a strategy, pick a DMP partner, and wow all of your customers through providing them great content, meaningful targeted ads that they are more likely to find interesting, or even person-to-person customer support.

Craig Connell is VP of Engineering @Lotame

Collective Features Lotame Data Segments

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:18:08 +0000

Lotame appeared in Collective's AMP Audience Insights Newsletter as a featured data provider. Click here to see the original.

Featured Campaign

Collective delivered a campaign targeting Lotame data for a local luxury automobile company. We targeted Lotame's Lifestyle : Affinity : Vehicle : Luxury segment for this campaign. The advertiser's goal was to reach users in market for a new luxury vehicle.

Key Highlights: Key findings of this campaign illustrate that this audience segment garnered an interaction rate of 27%, performing better than any other segment and the campaign average (11 percent).

Click here to learn more about Lotame Smart Data

10 Ways to Use Data to Grow Your Business

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:16:43 +0000

This post, written by Kalyan Lanka, originally appeared on the iStrategy blog on January 24, 2012. Click here to see the original.

Collating data has become a crucial part of today's digital media ecosystem. Not only that, but identifying crucial data points and managing them effectively is key for efficient audience targeting. Yet better data management has several other benefits beyond just audience targeting.

This post outlines 10 things digital stakeholders should consider while managing their valuable data assets.

1. IDENTIFY VALUABLE DATA POINTS

Several publishers and advertisers (or agencies) have access to valuable data points that help uncover your audience behaviors, actions and interests. These data points (First-party data) are available from users visiting your sites, interacting with your creative, and visiting your brand’s microsite. To uncover the power of data, it is important to identify such data points with special emphasis on quality. Remember, GIGO. Check out this post from my colleague, Doug Pollack, highlighting the importance of collecting valuable data points and where to look for them.

2. EXPLORE NEW DATA COLLECTION AVENUES

In addition to the data collected from your websites and campaigns, explore all data collection avenues you have access to. Collect data from your mobile optimized pages and applications for cross-channel targeting. Data from your CRM solutions and offline transactions create new collection avenues and helps to improve the value of your data by providing additional attributes specific to your consumers.

3. CONVERT DATA INTO INSIGHTS

After collecting raw data points, it is important to convert such data points into insights about your audience. A user visiting a page on your site is a data point. You can gain useful insights about a consumer based on the content on the site they visited, what attracted the user to the site, content that was shared on your site, or comments made by the users.

4. USE INSIGHTS TO CREATE DETAILED TAXONOMY OF USER BEHAVIORS

Whether you are working with a Data Management Platform or creating your own audience management platform, put more emphasis on classifying and arranging user behaviors into a repository of a detailed taxonomy. On average, there are 42 data points generated per page view, per site online. A detailed taxonomy of user demographics, content affiliation, interest and actions allows you to cherry pick and quickly generate complex audience definitions for targeting.

5. USE INSIGHTS TO FINE-TUNE AUDIENCE TARGETING

Create multi-dimensional profiles of your audiences to understand the affinity of your audience and identify lookalikes. For example, knowing that ‘Influencers’ on your site are also interested in ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Rock music’ helps you create specific audience targets that improve ROI of your campaigns. You can also use these insights to help your advertisers and their agencies in creating targeted content and creative.

6. INVEST IN THIRD-PARTY DATA

Your first-party data is always the most valuable and easily accessible asset you have. But, remember that your loyal users exhibit different behaviors outside the digital assets you own and operate. Such behaviors could be the missing link you need to address specific advertiser requirements. Identifying these non-endemic user behaviors allows you to generate additional revenue, improve the efficiency of your targeting, and respond to more RFPs beyond content-based targeting and targeting based on endemic behaviors on your site.

7. DE-DUPE DATA ACROSS SOURCES

If you are working with a Data Management Platform or creating your own audience management platform in-house, it is important to develop the capability to de-dupe data and uniques across sources to minimize ad wastage. Make sure you are not reaching the same ‘Health conscious’ users identified via your first-party data and purchased third-party data sources. Third-party data and external data sources are valuable only when they create incremental reach and uncover insights that you don’t already know about your audience.

8. MAKE DATA PORTABLE

Make sure you can export your data and audiences to ad servers and other media avenues seamlessly for targeting. The last thing you need is a closed environment that creates rich data and audience targets that are not actionable.

9. USE DATA BEYOND AUDIENCE TARGETING

Data and insights derived from your data have several use cases beyond audience targeting. Use your first-party and third-party data to optimize content on your site and creative, to personalize content in real-time based on user interests, and to create content dynamically.

10. CLOSE THE DATA LOOP

While executing a targeted campaign, make sure you collect data from these campaigns and use them as inputs for future campaigns. For example, collect valuable data points such as clickers and users interacting with your rich media creative. Use surveys to study the effectiveness of your campaign and bring those data points back into the data loop for real-time audience optimization to improve campaign performance.

In Conclusion...

The amount of audience data available to you is practically unlimited, and using it to better understand your consumers will only help you sell more and increase your ROI. Whether your goal is responding to more RFPs to sell more advertising space, or matching your creative and content to a user’s interests, an informed data management strategy is a requirement for successful publishers and marketers.

About the author

Kalyan Lanka is Director of Product Management at Lotame. Kalyan is responsible for Lotame’s product strategy and roadmap. His primary focus is creating a unified data management platform that showcases the value of data and its uses beyond audience targeting. Prior to Lotame, Kalyan was Director of Product Management at comScore, where he managed their International product management team responsible for product strategy and development in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Kalyan holds a Masters from Duke University and a Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

Do All Your Cookies Taste the Same?

admin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:14:55 +0000

This blog post, written by Jason Downie, originally appeared in AdMonsters on January 11, 2012. Click here to see the original article.

When considering which data to buy and layer onto campaigns, marketers are becoming lost in a sea of segments. Several data buyers have told me they have access to 50,000 segments. That’s 50 with 3 zeroes. Which cookies should you buy? How can you differentiate one company’s 500 segments from the thousands of others available out there? “Automotive Data from Company 1” is indistinguishable from “Automotive Data from Company 2” in a buyer UI.

One useful distinction to note when deciding on purchases is whether the data is sourced offline or online. For the last two years, the old and new worlds of data collection have been colliding, and they are very, very different.

The offline data industry is well-established. Companies have been collecting data on consumers, and marketing to them based on that data, for well over 100 years. They can count every piece of mail sent, every record sold, every green lead card (think Glengarry Glen Ross) generated. Profit margins are known.

And most important, data collection practices are well-established. Every single offline data giant knows where to get demo data (Census, birth records, other government sources), HHI and car type (modeled off of Zip+4), purchase data (credit card companies), level of credit (credit bureaus) and home type and value (state and county records).

These companies have jostled for market position for decades, and have differentiated on scale, quality of modeling algorithms, efficiency of data warehousing and delivery, marketing, sales and customer service. But they are all using the same basic data sources to generate very similar data. Fifty different websites boast a “database with 5,000 fields covering 220 million households.” All are racing to get the same data sets online.

The scale of the cookie pools of offline data companies has become their biggest differentiator. The strategy is “Find a match partner, and scale it up!” Because their data all comes from the same offline sources, the only question online marketers have to ask is: “How big are ya?” Whether you are buying from Companies A, B, C, or D, you are buying the same cookies.

Conversely, companies that source their data online are often very different. “Data networks” can collect proprietary data in a privacy-safe manner that tends to be both granular and unique. The Internet is alive with emotion, social activity and a vast array of entertainment, news, information and education. There is no way to fake collection of this data. Nor is there a way to model it with complete accuracy. There is no way to refer to census data, model on ZIP+4, or check with the credit bureau.

Instead, the data comes from the observation, collection and organization of the activity of anonymous users. A good online data provider will augment its data set with an offline cookie base, but that’s the easy part. The secret sauce is collecting data that can’t be obtained anywhere else. Each online data network will have access to its own special blend of sports, news, fashion, comedy, television, online dating and social media sites. Each data set is unattainable anywhere else. Period.

For example, at Lotame we have compiled a deep and broad set of data from a hugely diverse set of sources: more than 100 major online publishers and several innovative offline providers. We’ve built a data network of almost 300 million unique users, who exhibit behaviors in more than 3,500 categories that our technology enables us to comprehend, sort and deliver to marketers.

Given these capabilities, a sample “value chain” of collecting data on online users might look like this: one of several offline companies tells the online data provider that a particular group of users is female, between 25-35, with household incomes of $50,000 to $75,000.

The online provider then adds to the profiles what they (and only they) have found out: some of these middle-class young-adult women visited sports sites recently. A small fraction read articles about the Dallas Cowboys. Some visited fashion forums, and answered posts about where to go for the best discounts on new shoes. A few others uploaded vacation photos, visited news sites and read articles about politics. Some took quizzes on dieting do’s and don’ts, and a few of them published those quiz results, and shared them with friends on Facebook.

The online provider can build audiences of millions of people like this for marketers to target. That’s why brands find this data so valuable.

Some cookies taste store-bought. Others taste homemade. Which ones would you rather have?

Jason Downie has worked on data analysis and strategy at Lotame for more than a year. He previously spent 10 years as a consultant at Bain and Company, five years touring with a professional a cappella boyband, and 4 years as a restaurateur.

Join Us for Upcoming Lotame Webinars

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:43:56 +0000

At Lotame, customer success is our top priority, and our goal is to provide our clients with the most cutting-edge technology, as well as the information needed to maximize the value of this technology. Looking for more insight about how to maximize your results from Crowd Control? Please join us for the following webinars digging deeper into topics such as:

Understanding and Using Your Audience Data. We will walk you through how to build audiences, leverage Audience Profile and Affinity Reports to perfect your custom audiences, and how these reports can enhance audience development and ad targeting.

Presented by Bruce Budkofsky on Wednesday, January 25th at 2pm EST

Click here to register

How Data Capture Works. This will be a high-level look at the general principles and mechanics behind Lotame's data capturing.

Presented by Will Riegel on Wednesday, February 8th at 1pm EST

Click here to register

Tags and Tag Management. What exactly is tag management? How will it help my business? Why do I need to do it? Can I do it myself? Learn the basics in this brief webinar with our sales engineers.

Presented by Marc Gluck on Wednesday, February 15th at 2pm EST

Click here to register

The Four Questions for Lotame - Part 1 of 2 *

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:38:28 +0000

Founder and CEO, Andy Monfried, shared his thoughts in response to an article about IBM’s long-time CEO Samuel J. Palmisano who recently stepped down, on his personal blog yesterday. Blog post below.

I made an attempt to answer the key questions Palmisano asked himself throughout his successful tenure at IBM as it relates to the business here at Lotame. I found both the article and Sams guiding vision fascinating and noteworthy. Two of these answers are below as part 1 of “answering Sam.” I think this exercise is relevant for leaders of companies to do for their employees, their customers, and their shareholders.

“Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?”

Clients spend money with us for one simple reason - to generate even greater value from their own businesses. How does our platform enable this outcome? It's no secret that enterprises are generating enormous amounts of data every day. Crowd Control empowers clients to capture, organize and activate this client data - to offer their advertising clients more targeted and effective ad campaigns; to deliver to consumers content that is relevant and engaging; and to provide the business with mission-critical consumer insights and analytics which inform overall business strategy, in real time.....

Our platform is built to drive results. The real question is, "what are real results when it comes to my data?" And, furthermore, "what is data?" At Lotame, we help our clients figure out the answers to both questions — and we aim for them to be more than buzzwords.

We help make client’s data useful, informative, and most of all DRIVE a desired result. The types of outcomes we aim to drive are:

INCREASE IN REVENUE.
BETTER COMMUNICATION & RELEVANT MESSAGING WITH THE RIGHT CONSUMER.
MORE INFORMED STRATEGY IN REAL-TIME.
COMPREHENSIVE INSIGHTS & INTELLIGENCE.

One thing we have consistently heard is that enterprises want to take control of their data management - and our UI makes that possible. We have some key unique features "under the hood" - including a fully customizable taxonomy, automated audience optimization tools, and a real time insights engine that delivers world class research and analytics around data and audiences. We also offer our clients the unique benefit of a proven platform - one which we previously used with great success to deliver billions of audience-targeted impressions.

To begin achieving the above goals with Lotame, many companies must first answer a big question —"what is data?" Data means different things to different companies, but for many it refers to information created by the consumers you are trying to reach and want to better understand.

Data is more than demographic information you used to sign up for something. And it can be used for more than retargeting a visitor to a site. If data is more than this, what can it be?

Data can enable you to:
a) Gain information on how your users carry on a conversation and interact with your site, brand and/or products.
b) Expand your horizons and grow your business by learning what else captures your audiences attention and who else acts and behaves similarly to your core audience.
c) Leverage this behavioral and interest level data to produce more relevant content to drive your business strategy and growth.

“Why would somebody work for you?”

In short, we were ahead of many platforms when we started. Our business was founded in 2006 as a platform to help publishers and marketers manage the immense amount of data generated by their sites. Back then, publishers had no idea they were giving away their data, and worse yet, many were unaware they were even generating it.

Our site from 2006 explains precisely what we set out to do. Along the way, we created a business that allowed us to generate many millions of dollars in revenue by using the technology for our own purposes and sharing those results with our clients. Our ad network helped us refine, update and run billions of impressions. It also empowered us to generate tons of research and to understand best practices around data. But most importantly, Lotame's ad network helped put us in a position to return to our roots as a platform to generate results from data for Crowd Control clients.

We shuttered our ad network, (rather than sell it, after many offers) in order to stay focused with laser-like precision on our mission to make Crowd Control the pre-eminent Data Platform in the market. Our company is cutting-edge, with leaders who will make tough decisions and not postpone them. We let data and instinct guide our choices. We are not shy. We have a culture predicated on freedom, risk taking, and most of all, good energy. Leading this organization the past few years has been by far the highlight of my professional career. I am proud of what we have built, and I value the contribution of each team member. If you like good energy, risk taking and working in "organized chaos” (like for engineers, "Scrummy is Yummy" release schedules) then Lotame is the place for you. If you like selling and supporting a cutting-edge product that our customers view as "new and experimental" — but are willing to commit time and resources to the value proposition, then this is a place for you. If you are driven by an intense, "fear of failure" mentality -- then, Lotame may be the place for you.

The next two questions that Sam asks of business leaders may be answered by our clients, and investors.

Coming soon. Stay tuned.

2012 Predictions - Ad Tech and Beyond!

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:41:23 +0000

It's the end of December - time for crunch-time football, holiday cheer and Ad Tech predictions for 2012!

Lotame's GM, Adam Lehman, released his predictions for the coming year. As an added bonus, he has included a mix of other predictions to boot.

1. Whither Display - Old notions of "display," as standard IAB units, will give way to the new bigger, badder definition of display that encompasses the full array of non-search digital formats - pre-roll, mobile, social and "native" ads (e.g., Promoted Tweets), supersized units, etc. In other words: Display is dead - Long Live Display! This change will be supported by DxPs ushering in an era of unified data management and media decisioning across many of these media types and channels. By this broader definition, display advertising will experience solid growth in 2012 - though most of the growth will be absorbed by the two big kids (bullies?) on the block, Facebook and Google.

2. Privacy - There will finally be - no new privacy law - again (notwithstanding the long list of proposed legislation kicking around Capitol Hill). In this vacuum, the FTC will continue to step up its enforcement activities based on existing laws, and the many white hats in industry will achieve a level of visibility for self-reg programs that finally catches the notice of average consumers (whether they care or not).

3. Consolidation - Google will make another AdMeld-size acquisition to fill out it's Ad Tech stack. Both AOL and Yahoo will be taken private, marking the epilogue to Web 1.0. In the crowded thicket of mid-size ad tech companies, we'll see sister-kissing mergers multiply as these companies and their nervous VC investors seek viability through scale.

4. Innovation - The innovation keyword for 2012 will be integration: across data and media platforms; across channels - especially desktop and mobile; and across all types of data - desktop, mobile, CRM, POS, etc. The Ad Tech boomlet broke Humpty Dumpty into too many pieces; 2012 will be an important year in putting the pieces (and more) back together.

5. Globalization - Got that passport handy? Like so many industries these days, our homegrown Ad Tech market will be increasingly influenced by the rest of the world - both in terms of demand (for cutting-edge new solutions from non-U.S. customers) and competition from new market entrants.

As for life beyond Ad Tech:

6. Politics - Republicans will win both the White House and the Senate, unless a meaningful 3rd party (like Ron Paul) candidate runs, in which case President Obama will be re-elected. On the other hand, if a serious fourth party candidate (like Mayor Bloomberg) runs, all bets are off!

7. The Economy - GDP growth will be in the 3% range. The Dow will crack 13,300 for the first time since 2007, but won't hold that level. Unemployment will drop to 8.1% by November of 2012. The Euro will fall all the way to $1.20.

8. Entertainment - "The Descendants" will win the Oscar for Best Picture; and Madonna's Super Bowl performance will be wardrobe-malfunction free and include an overdone version of "Material Girl" in the set.

9. Sports - The Cleveland Browns, Cavs and Indians will all win championships, ending Cleveland's 47 year championship drought in dramatic fashion! Now that we have those hometown fantasies out of the way, my "real" sports predictions: Tiger will win the Masters; Federer will make his last stand with a gutsy win at Wimbledon (while the gluten-free Djokovic will claim two of the other three grand slam events); the Saints will upset the Packers en route to their second Super Bowl win in 3 years; LeBron will get his title, along with the Heat; and I won't even hazard guesses for baseball or hockey.

10. Electric Cars - The Chevy Volt will be recalled (I own one); delivery of the Tesla S will be delayed; and the Prius Plug-In will average less than 10 miles of electric range under real world driving conditions.

What are your predictions for the coming year?

Lotame & Appnexus

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:52:47 +0000

Targeting your data in over 14 billion auctions a day

A Blog Post by Montana Harkin

Every day my team is focused on our Crowd Control users’ wants and needs, and how to make it easy for users to accomplish their goals. This focus on quality manifests itself as a clean and accessible platform in Crowd Control. When combined with AppNexus’s Apps, our platform brings Lotame’s high-quality, demonstrated behaviors into the grasp of any AppNexus customer.

As a result of this Lotame-Appnexus integration, publishers and networks can gain deep insights into their data from Crowd Control, while using AppNexus’s ad network to provide the reach their clients are looking for. Armed with real-time opportunity estimates in AppNexus and real-time audience analytics available during the campaign, publishers and networks have the tools to make themselves stand out as unique and valuable.

Marketers and agencies with seats on the AppNexus exchange can also leverage the power of Crowd Control-powered audiences. Crowd Control can house first-party data, campaign or otherwise, and seamlessly augment it with third-party data available via Lotame’s data network on a usage basis. Even without first-party data, users can build custom audiences in Appnexus using Lotame’s data network.

Once a mutual client of Lotame and AppNexus is set up, creating and targeting an audience is a three-step process: Define an audience in the Crowd Control App, use Crowd Control to create an AppNexus segment, and target that segment in a campaign. We’ve worked hand-in-hand with AppNexus to keep the process simple so our clients can stay focused on their goals.

The Data Ecosystem is changing. We know that to stay competitive we need to make the best use of data by keeping it mobile and insightful. Lotame is working to make data into a refined asset that will be used to achieve goals and provide value.

If you’re interested in leveraging your data inside of AppNexus, contact us today for a demo. To learn more, read the AdAge coverage here and the AppNexus’ press release here.

Montana Harkin is a Web UI Engineer at Lotame. He is a member of the development team, whose focus is keeping Crowd Control the most intelligent and user-friendly data management platform on the market today. He can be reached at mharkin@lotame.com.

A Step In The Right Direction

adam — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 05:00:00 +0000

We applaud the U.S. Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force on the thoughtful and balanced approach reflected in its just released Privacy Green Paper.

In commenting on the importance of addressing commercial data privacy issues in a forward to the report, General Counsel Cameron Kerry at the same time notes that “we must proceed in a way that fully recognizes the digital economy’s complexity and dynamism.” Right on. Along the same lines, the introduction to the report highlights the “United States’ dual emphasis in commercial data privacy policy: promoting innovation while providing flexible privacy protections that adapt to changes in technology and market conditions.” Exactly. And the report then emphasizes approaches which seem well-designed to meet these twin objectives – revitalizing Fair Information Practice Principles, working with industry to implement voluntary, enforceable codes of conduct and encouraging “global interoperability.” As the IAB points out in it’s initial response to the green paper, though we have a lot of work to pursue in continuing to advance consumer privacy, we view the Internet Policy Task Force’s report as a productive and practical step in the right direction.

- Adam Lehman, Chief Operating Officer, Lotame

Taking Another Look at Infrastructure

admin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:00:00 +0000

This article by Nick Martin originally appeared in Digiday:Data on December 1, 2011. Please click here to see the original.

On the Web, data is king. Data management platforms are gaining traction as the tools of choice for collecting and harnessing the power of all this data, turning it into genuine knowledge, making it actionable and thus monetizing it.

Yet publishers, ad agencies, networks and others often discover that many self-avowed DMPs satisfy only some of their data-management requirements. Many firms end up cobbling solutions together from among multiple data management offerings. In order to enable clients to take full advantage of the power manifest in their DMP, a software firm must be able to fully understand each client’s requirements, and then provide appropriate solutions. Doing so is not easy.

Realizing such a goal begins with acknowledging that however intuitive its interface may be, a DMP counts for little without the right people and infrastructure to support it. Great DMPs combine terrific software with superior service and support.

From a client’s perspective, a DMP’s value comes in two forms. On one hand, it enhances the quality of supporting data. On the other hand, quick integration, direct consultation and the constant presence of knowledgeable support save time and money. This can prove most valuable when a question arises that wasn’t addressed in the sales pitch.

A DMP’s infrastructure support organization ideally employs a centralized service organization to combine the business aspect (management, sales, product, data and client services) with the technology end (developers, engineers, quality assurance). This “service center” is responsible for hosting and delivering all the secondary functions and tools that allow each piece to communicate effectively not only with each other, but also, and most importantly, with clients.

Properly aligned with the product, staffed by knowledgeable, client-focused personnel and regarded by the parent organization as an enabler that is part of their product, rather than an a mere expense, a support infrastructure fulfills a product’s promise for clients and employees alike.

Another consideration: World-class support infrastructure defines a company’s brand. It’s natural for customers to trust that a firm that values its product and clients enough to develop and deliver such service can do the same for its primary product.

A top-notch DMP supported by a world-class service center saves everyone a whole lot of time, too. Comprehensive integration procedures, intuitive training, quick answers to questions, clear white papers and self-help documentation, coherent communication and even some levels of task assistance all come standard with a worthwhile DMP.

Nick Martin is senior technical analyst at Lotame, a data management platform.

Get To Know Your Black Friday Shoppers

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Lotame’s industry-leading data management platform, Crowd Control, offers unique, actionable insights about pre-packaged and custom-built audience interests and actions.

Black Friday Audience: Lotame built an audience of 2MM consumers who exhibited or expressed an interest in fashion or shopping on Black Friday in the past month. The following data was collected from this audience over a one day window.

Demographics

Holiday shoppers in this audience are primarily men (67/33 M/F skew) with a median age of 39.5. Of those reporting level of education, roughly one quarter (26%) report having a 4-year degree or better level of education. 51% of these shoppers report having one or more children.

Interests

72% of the shoppers in this audience have exhibited an interest in fashion and style online in the past month, making them 4.2x more likely to have this interest than the average consumer. The majority of those consumers expressed an interest in Clothing and Cosmetics.

Over one-quarter (27%) of the shoppers in this audience have expressed interests in video games in the past week, making them just over 1.9x more likely to have this interest than the average consumer.

Actions

Just over three percent (3.2%) of the shoppers in this audience are influencers—consumers who create, rate, share, edit, upload or discuss content online, making them 64% less likely to be influencers than the average consumer. The most common influencer actions among these consumers is voting on content and commenting (21% each), followed by sharing content (19.8%).

Media

1 in 5 of the shoppers in this audience have uploaded or viewed a photo online in the past week, making them more than 1.6x more likely to have done so than the average consumer.

Recency/Frequency

On average, consumers on Lotame express an interest in the holidays 3.5 times per day, with the most engaged or dedicated consumers expressing those interests 6 or more times per day.

How Data Quality Drives ROI

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Doug Pollack, Lotame’s Director of Data Analytics, wrote the following blog post for Digiday, which appeared November 16, 2011. Read the original here.

In statistics and computer science, the term “GIGO” stands for “garbage in, garbage out.” No matter how brilliant your employees are, they won’t be able to turn low-quality data into accurate models. If you start with inaccurate data, your results will be equally fallacious.

Poor data-collection practices today could lead the industry to turn its back on the use of data. Some say, buying data “just isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” One agency rep recently said to me, “If buying data alone costs 50-cents CPM and a run of site placement costs the same, then the data should double the performance, and it very rarely does.” The upside in this scenario is that agencies today are analyzing media buys in a more intelligent way, in an effort to increase ROI. At the same time, data is getting a bad rap from companies that are not employing the best data-collection methods.

A primary focus of companies that collect, organize and sell data is scale and efficiency. The goal is to obtain as much data as quickly and as easily as possible in order to maximize revenue, in a manner that is privacy-safe. While scale sometimes comes naturally from data sources, other times companies rely on potentially inaccurate methods to infer behavioral or profile-based information. In addition to utilizing inaccurate methods to achieve scale, companies employ careless methods to achieve efficiency. Common overly simplistic methods to collect declared and demonstrated data include extrapolating assumptions from URLs or metatags.

URL data-collection methods often result in broad-based assumptions based on terms included in the URL. For example, if a user visits the travel section of a news site, the URL would tell the data collector that they are interested in travel and news, but wouldn’t necessarily delve into the fact that the pictures the user was looking at are of the 2012 Olympic stadium in London. That information would help further define that person’s interests in Sports and, in particular, Olympic sports – something a lot of advertisers are looking to target in and around the Olympic season.
Metatag data-collection methods are heavily reliant on the person or team that built the website. In some cases, the website builder pastes the same 200 meta keywords in the source code to describe every page on the site, which eliminates any unique data about a visitor’s behavioral habits. Metatag description words could be unrelated to the content on the page all together. For example, metatags could say recent news, and the content could be about travel. Metatag methods can also produce extremely broad results or only include the title of the webpage which barely scratches the surface of a user’s declared and demonstrated data.

Data collection is at the core of many companies’ business models, including data management platforms, ad networks and data resellers. Employing poor, overly simplistic and/or inaccurate data-collection methods to attain scale and efficiency often result in negative downstream effects on performance.

The objective of behavioral data collection is to figure out who the consumer is, how they feel, and what they are really interested in. Accurately understanding this information will ultimately improve the consumer’s online experience and make the advertising they are exposed to more meaningful, which means better performance for the brand’s marketing dollars.

Pairing data with mathematical modeling – provided that both are high quality – produces the best results. While data plays an integral role in the advertising industry, there appears to be a lack of education and awareness around data-quality controls and standards. Companies in our industry need to put more time and effort into developing and implementing data collection processes that combine technology with manual efforts to produce accurate, consistent, high-quality, scalable data. Quality data produces a significant increase in performance and ROI. Isn’t that what advertising’s all about?

Doug Pollack is the director of data analytics for Lotame.

11:11 11/11/11

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:11:11 +0000

In celebration of the time and date, 11:11AM 11.11.11, we decided to feature Lotame’s 11 most in-demand, pre-packaged audience data segments in Q3 2011.

Social Media Users: Users who visit social media sites and perform actions, ie “Like,” and “Follow.”
Television: Visitors who display an interest in television, segmented by genre.
Style, Fashion & Clothing: Consumers who demonstrate an interest in shopping, accessories and trends.
Video Games: Consumers who demonstrate interest in console, handheld and/or online games.
Electronics & Technology: Visitors interested in computers, electronics, mobile phones, and digital art.
Sports & Recreation: Visitors who exhibit an interest in sports or a specific sport.
Hispanics & Spanish Speakers: Users who have visited a Spanish-speaking site at least 3 times in the last 30 days.
Vacation Travel: Users interested in vacation travel and family trips.
Mobile Phones: Consumers who exhibit an interest in mobile phones.
Health & Fitness: Users interested in health, fitness, working out and eating healthy.
Food & Beverage: Site visitors who exhibit an interest in cooking, food and beverages.

Interested in learning more about Lotame’s pre-packaged audience data offering, visit our Smart Data Segments section.

What Are Your Consumers Doing Online?

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Bryan Seltzer, VP Platform Sales at Lotame, sat down with Carole Walker, CEO Integrity Marketing & Media LLC, at a recent iMedia conference to discuss Lotame’s pivot to offer publishers, agencies and advertisers an industry-leading data management platform (DMP).

Watch the interview on iMedia here.

What if you could have a more comprehensive picture of your target consumers’ online and offline behavior?

Lotame’s Bryan Seltzer has some advice for how to do it.

Interview Topics

Transforming into a DMP
The next decade is all about the data
The difference between online and offline behaviors
How to use your data
Agencies don’t manage client expectations correctly
Proactive transparency
The blend of traditional and digital

New Privacy Developments at Lotame

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0000

A blog post from Adam Lehman, COO/GM, Lotame

Given the ongoing evolution of the digital content and marketing landscape, we’ll be continuing to make corresponding advances in our privacy policies, practices and technologies. In that spirit, I wanted to provide an update on three recent developments:

We’ve posted an updated Lotame privacy policy. For anyone interested, we’ve also included a “blacklined” version highlighting the specific changes from the prior policy to make it easy to see these changes. Although we did not make any significant substantive revisions, we did want to add some additional detail in a few areas (within the bounds of our broader goal of keeping the overall policy short, straightforward and readable). In particular, we have shifted our business focus from offering a data-driven advertising network, to offering publishers, marketers and agencies a full featured data management platform (DMP); so we have called out a few areas of the policy that are impacted by this evolution of our business from ad network to SaaS (software-as-a-service) provider.
As I’ve noted previously, we honor Do-Not-Track headers (and have been doing so since shortly after the release of the first Firefox DNT feature). More recently, we’ve made some engineering advances that increase the compatibility between how we respond to DNT headers and opt-outs. We’re looking for even greater industry clarity on how best to handle DNT headers, based on the recommendations of the W3C Tracking Protection Working Group. In the meantime, we’ll continue to do our best to honor the intentions of consumers expressed through their opt-out and DNT elections.
This week the Digital Advertising Alliance released new Multi-Site Data Principles. Lotame strongly endorses these new principles. We’re glad to see yet another step forward for our industry in demonstrating our commitment to establishing consumer privacy protections by way of self-regulation.

As always, if you have any thoughts, suggestions or other feedback on these topics, please let us know.

Adam

Lotame CEO Andy Monfried Describes His Ah-Ha Moment

admin — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0000

Lotame CEO Andy Monfried Describes his Ah-Ha Moment for Lotame and How He Grew It to Tens of Millions in Revenue.

Jay Gould, Business Insider contributor, interviewed CEO Andy Monfried about Lotame’s business and its evolution.

Watch the clip on Business Insider, where Andy Monfried describes:

His ah-ha moment for Lotame.
How he quit his lucrative job at Advertising.com.
How he recruited his developers away from ad.com.
How he convinced customers to start working with Lotame.
And how Lotame tripled its revenue every year.

Watch the complete interview on BehindTheWeb.com here.

Lotame's Response to Tracking-the-Trackers

admin — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0000

A Note from Lotame’s COO, Adam Lehman

We need to correct some mis-impressions generated by a new Stanford report, and related press coverage. Notwithstanding the implications of the report:

Lotame does not buy, sell or otherwise use information related to drug use frequency.
Lotame does not buy, sell or otherwise use usernames or other personally-identifiable information (including name, address, e-mail address, phone number or government identifiers). If a publisher passes usernames to us, our systems are designed so that this information does not qualify as a behavior, get categorized into any behavioral segment used for analytics or ad targeting, or otherwise get associated back to an anonymous user profile.

We take consumer privacy seriously at Lotame, and work hard to both create progressive privacy policies and practices, and then operate in accordance with those high standards.

By way of example, we have been honoring Do-Not-Track headers for six months (since the first DNT tool was released by Firefox). We didn’t feel the need to beat our chests about taking this step – we just thought it was the right thing to do.

It’s always disappointing when we need to beat back a gratuitous sideswipe like the references to Lotame in the Stanford study (which was purportedly focused on user names and User IDs). But we realize these types of stories are an occupational hazard when working with data; and we remain as committed as ever to being a progressive industry leader when it comes to our consumer privacy policies and practices.

Please visit our Consumer Privacy Center to learn more about how Lotame protects consumer privacy or contact privacy@lotame.com.

The Road to Meaningful Choice - Are We There Yet?

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0000

Lotame’s COO, Adam Lehman, wrote a blog post for the IAB about meaningful choice when it comes to privacy. Read an excerpt below, or read the full post here.

At Lotame, we’ve spent a lot of time and resources working to provide consumers with meaningful choice when it comes to their data usage in connection with Lotame’s services. And more generally, we have dedicated the lion’s share of our industry-wide collaboration over the past two years to this objective. So, as we motor along on the journey towards an even more data-driven digital future, we need to ask the age-old travel question in relation to our meaningful choice goal: Are we there yet?

In response, I would say “yes” and “not yet.” On the “yes” side, notwithstanding the often sensationalized press stories, steady barrage of advocate criticism, and periodic industry hand-wringing, there are now a plethora of privacy management tools available to consumers willing to invest in evaluating and acting on their choices. The industry has successfully rolled out a sophisticated enhanced notice platform, which is increasingly appearing on display ads around the Internet. This is no small feat given the industry-wide coordination and technical mechanics required to provide granular notice and choice options on a dynamic, standardized basis. In addition to this industry program, several other players in the marketplace offer consumer choice tools ranging from emerging Do-Not-Track options embedded within browsers to a gaggle of new consumer data management services. So if you (as a consumer) want to implement constraints around how your online data is collected, used, and shared, you have the tools available.

On the “not yet” side, we still have a way to go with the self-regulatory program. We need to effectuate much broader adoption and initiate real enforcement actions against companies who don’t comply. A recent study of top websites found that only 11% of ads served by third parties contained the enhanced notice “Ad Choices” icon. Even if industry players debate the methodology of the study, we’ve got to quickly increase that number to demonstrate that the self- regulatory program can be a comprehensive choice solution for consumers. We also need to keep extending the self-regulatory program to apply to all major ad types, including video, rich media, and mobile ads. Of equal importance to the self-regulatory program, we need our industry groups (not just outside “researchers” and advocates) to surface and curtail the atypical, on-the-edge practices that don’t align with industry standard–recent controversies over flash cookies, supercookies, and history-sniffing come to mind–so that consumers, advocates and regulators don’t feel like we are playing a privacy shell game.

A Note from Lotame Founder and CEO, Andy Monfried

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0000

Colleagues, Clients, Partners & Friends,

Important, positive and, yes, inevitable change is underway at Lotame and I’m excited to share the news.

In 2006, I, along with a few former colleagues from Advertising.com, set out to create a technology that would revolutionize the way data was used to drive results for online publishers and marketers. While at the time we were unaware we were building the forerunner to what today is the data management platform (DMP), we knew we were on to something big.
As the technology evolved, we realized we needed a real world proving ground to road test our platform – aptly named Crowd Control. So we decided to build our own network, and thus, the Lotame Media Group (LMG) was born.

The network was a necessary and integral part of Lotame’s business. It provided an effective way to refine Crowd Control and see firsthand what worked – and what didn’t. I frequently likened LMG to a laboratory where bleeding edge scientists toiled towards synthesizing wonder drugs. Our “laboratory” enabled us to distill Crowd Control – a formula that consistently drove and continues to drive stand out results for our brand clients and publisher partners.

In the five years since its inception, LMG has yielded two important things. First, a superior technology and UI widely acknowledged as the best in the business. And second, a certainty that the path on which we originally embarked was indeed the right one to have gone down.

Now, as is always the case with technology companies, our business has evolved, and it’s evolved beyond the need for the network. Over the coming months, we will be sunsetting LMG, eventually phasing it out entirely. Shuttering LMG was difficult because it worked well for our clients and taught us a great deal about how to effectively manage data. But I’m entirely confident I’ve made the right call as the decision enables us to renew our commitment to being the DMP by which all others are judged.

Bottom line, Crowd Control is the most robust platform with the best audience management technology, the most intuitive UI, the most advanced data monetization tools and the most relevant and actionable analytics. Using Crowd Control publishers like Conde Nast can respond to more RFPs, differentiate their inventory with more advanced targeting and earn additional revenue from data sales. Advertisers can better understand audiences and can target and retarget additional consumers of similar interests by leveraging comprehensive pre and post campaign insights.

My team and I stand ready to answer questions about how the most fully developed and most feature rich DMP, backed by the most experienced team in the business can support your marketing objectives. Please let us know how we may be of service.

On behalf of everyone at Lotame in our offices around the country, thanks for your continued support. I hope you share my enthusiasm about this important evolution of our business.

-Andy

Common Publisher Data Management Pain Points

andy — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0000

We’re long past the days of slapping ads on a website to make it profitable. Online advertising has advanced to the point where advertisers need more than just audiences at scale. They want their ads to reach the right audience. If a publisher can’t provide a brand or agency with the right targeting, the advertising dollars are going elsewhere.

The good news for publishers is that their sites are already generating the data needed to grow revenue through audience-targeted advertising. But managing that data by themselves is a fool’s errand, so most publishers partner with a Data Management Platform to simplify the process.

I asked David Rowley, Ad Operations Director at BlogHer, for some perspective on the challenges publishers face when they work with data, and how a DMP has made things easier for him:

The simplification

Trying to manage data on your own is next to impossible and will likely involve hiring extra staff to crunch the numbers, build and install the cookies, and interpret all the data into something you can leverage when making deals with advertisers. That’s one of the biggest reasons why publishers choose partners. Once the integration is complete, the ad ops team can fire up the interface and gain a much deeper understanding of their audience and data.

“One of the main reasons we partnered with Lotame was the intuitive UI," said BlogHer’s Rowley. "We can see everything we want to know about an audience on one screen, and the interface makes it simple to create, refine, and augment audiences with just a couple of clicks.”

Publishers entering the data field for the first time may approach it with a level of skepticism. After all, what if your DMP requires you to “lock in” to its solution for years, with no updates and little interoperability? Others may wonder if data is just a fad, in which case they may be better off saving their money for the next big thing. In fact, data is here to stay, and publishers need flexible and forward-thinking partners. Failing to look at all the data in the best light or relying on new technology can slow a publisher down tremendously.

“In such a nascent area of the industry, data is going to go through a lot of changes over the next couple years,” says Rowley. “It was critical for us to partner with someone who already has an innovative platform, but is also keeping an eye around the corner, and is looking to push and shape the industry.”

Handling privacy

Publishers using audience data on their websites right now also need to be aware of the most up-to-date privacy rules and regulations. All of the advertising on your site needs the Forward I icon, and your site should carry an OBA compliance statement. This can be a burden for your ad ops team if you decide to manually manage it. Luckily, a DMP can help with this process as well. “We didn’t just want a partner who was OBA compliant,” says Rowley. “We wanted someone who has a strong voice in the conversations that are happening – and will continue to happen – in Washington as well.” Compliance will grow in importance during the next few years. Working with a leading company will alleviate the pressure, and will keep you on the side of the angels.

Leading the charge

Ok, now you’ve found a DMP that gives you great insights, easy-to-use tools, and is privacy compliant. That’s a huge leap forward, but it doesn’t quite spell the end of your pain points. One of the reasons data management is so difficult is that so few people are experienced with it. Take the time to find someone to take the lead role in managing your data from an internal standpoint. “If you are lucky enough to have a consultant or a project manager, lean on them,” advises Rowley. “If not, it’s best to have your head of ad operations lead the process. We are the department closest to the data and the platform. We have to know how to use it, target with it, and understand all its capabilities.” 

After that, make sure everyone on your team is well versed and trained in the DMP. “Training and continued re-education is extremely important,” Rowley says. “The ad ops team needs to know the platform very well, but sales and marketing need to be just as informed about all the capabilities, because they are the ones creating the marketing materials and talking with ad buyers. If they don’t know what they are selling, your DMP won’t reach its full potential.”

Andy Monfried is the CEO of Lotame.This article originally appeared in adMonsters. Click here to see the original.

Thoughts on “What Makes Lotame Different”

craig — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 05:00:00 +0000

I spent some time last night thinking about what makes Lotame different. There are two different ways of thinking about this question – to illustrate this, I’ll ask you to think about Lotame and our products as a product box that you might find at best buy or your local software retailer. There is the glossy outside of the box that highlights all the great features that should be contained inside the box, and then there are the actual contents of the box.

Those bullet points and features that you find outside the box are the technical points that may initially draw someone to the product. The packaging and the differentiation in the feature set is what draws the eye of the potential buyer. This is equivalent to our feature set – the way we package audiences, the profile report, ability to buy and sell in the platform, etc. All of the really cool stuff our product does.

Inside the box is where you find the things that relate to customer experience – How well does the product work? Does it deliver on the features the packaging described? Does the company answer your questions and support you? Is the company invested in you as a customer … are they your partner?

I’ll leave it to others to compare our glossy box to those of our competitors, and instead I’ll focus on what is inside the box. While I think that we have a good bit of growing and improving to do (who doesn’t), I think we have a fantastically solid base for the customer experience inside the box. These are some of the things that I think differentiate us (or can) in customer relationships that will not only encourage people to want to keep and extend their relationship with Lotame, but also encourage others to “pick up the box” on word of mouth alone.

We hire smart, passionate people who work together as a team. This may seem like a small, insignificant thing – doesn’t everyone try to hire smart people? Yes, but you might be surprised (or maybe not) at how little effort some companies put into hiring people and how little attention they pay to cultural fit and ability to collaborate with a team. Certainly within Technology, we work very hard to find people who are not only smart, but who fit our culture and can work together. We don’t want to hire people who are just strong performers; we want to hire people who are strong ‘collaborators’. Everyone has seen it, when a company hires that person that is the best at what they do … but they can’t work with anyone. You spend more time placating this usually high maintenance person, who everyone wants to keep their distance from because his ego gets in the way of working with the team. We don’t hire those folks. We want a team that, even when there are stressors, is able to hang in there together to get the work done as a unit. My sense is that that is the way we hire in general, looking for good strong people who are team players. In all my years working (I’m older than some of you probably think!) I have never worked in a company where all of the business lines of the company work so well together and have come to count on the support of each other. This is good for us internally, but it is also good for the customer. It means that they are much more likely to have an experience where the various departments and people are working together to answer their question or solve their problem.

We are very transparent, both inside and out. What you see is what you get from Lotame. We are very upfront and honest with our employees with regards to company direction and status, both good and bad. We are also very honest with our customers. If we don’t do something, or we aren’t the best solution for their problem, we generally tell them. Again, within Technology we work to be as transparent as possible to the rest of the company. We publish release notes, don’t hide problems / bugs, and we try to be very clear about what we are working on and how long it will take us. We are working with the rest of the company to offer that transparency outside as well. We are working on some plans to get a version of our release notes out there for the rest of the world to see and we have a plan for improving the RSS widget within Crowd Control to not just regurgitate Lotame news, but to inform users of new features or issues they might encounter. If we are upfront and honest about what we do, even about the bad, it reflects well on us and shows the customer that they can count on us for honest answers.

We are looking to build relationships, not a customer list. This is apparent from the direction of the Board and our focus on the customers on the platform side. You may be impressed when you look at a customer list that this company or that company shows you, but ask them how many of them you can call and talk to. I remember sitting in a meeting with a vendor who told me about all of the great relationships they had and pulled out this big long list of customers. Well, I happened to know the CTOs at some of those “happy” customers, and let me tell you – they were not very good references. When I did ask for a reference list, it was much smaller than the customer list – and none of the people I talked to were on it. Lesson? At the end of the day, every customer can be, and is, a reference for someone else, whether we use them as a reference or not. That reference may be internal to them, it may be someone they know, or it may be a random call from someone who heard we were working with them. We should treat customers as if we expect them to be a reference. Even the customers who leave us can serve as an important reference. If they tell someone else that we didn’t do exactly what they want or what they needed, but we were honest, open, and treated them with respect, it will serve us well.

We are looking to build a brand and a company instead of focusing on being bought or going public. Sure, it might be great to get a “big pay day” and get bought by someone else or go public. The investors certainly hope in the long run for one of those two outcomes, but companies that focus solely on that as their strategy are long on what is outside of the box and short on substance. The people who suffer for that are the customers. They get sucked into what may look like a great product, but the company is so focused on acquiring new customers and being noticed by someone else that they rarely pay attention to the customers they have. They hope to have executed on their exit strategy before they have to worry about references or silly things like customer satisfaction. Focus on building the Lotame brand and building a good solid company is good for our customers. It makes them feel better that we care about the long term, and to do that we need to worry about what they want and need, and that we will be there for them.

We are willing to help people, even if it doesn’t add to our bottom line right at that moment. Sometimes when we are interacting with our customers or partners we hear about struggles they are having. Sometimes we can do things to directly help them with those struggles through our products, and sometimes it is just advice. This is what being a partner with someone is all about; it isn’t always about the upsell. The more we do to show people that we have their best interests at heart, the more they will come to us first when they need solutions we can provide. Just the other day we noticed that a company we are partnered with was using the same technology that we are for their Help / Documentation system. When we were on their site we noticed that it as thought they might be having some problems with configuring the software (based on our own experiences with similar problems.) We fired off an e-mail and asked them if they were having a problem and if they were interested in how we solved it. They were in fact having a problem and were very happy to receive our advice … we sent them some code they could use to resolve their issue. Did this result in a sale? Did it add to the bottom line? Not in the short term it didn’t, but it did show our partner that we are interested in helping them be successful too and that may pay dividends down the line in our partnership with them.

So, as I said, we have a great solid base to work from … much more than many other companies out there. But we can be even better.

We need to build this idea of customer support more completely into our DNA. If we want Lotame to continue to grow exponentially, we need to be a company that is part of the decision-making and execution process for our partners and customers – not a point solution. To this point on the Audience side of the business, Agencies have been able to use us for a point in time, get a report from us, and walk away. There is little incentive for them to come back to us, not even if we perform well for them. What we want is to make the information and service that we provide to them part of their daily lives. This is particularly true on the Audience side with direct sales and on the platform side (and applicable to the Agencies on the Audience side as well). If we gain an understanding around the processes companies use, we can help them improve those processes or their results with our services. Asking questions, gaining an understanding of how and why they do what they do, explaining to them best practices that we have seen – those are the things that will get us the information on what our customers really need. The most valuable information comes from putting yourself in their shoes and understanding what they are trying to accomplish and why. Without the why, we may build the wrong thing that really isn’t useful to them. We may build some glossy new feature that no one uses, when all the really wanted was an Audience Cheat Sheet.

My commitment to all of you is that Technology will strive to ask you (our internal customers) questions, trying to understand your needs and points of frustration. We will participate in as many sales meeting / calls and customer events as well that we can so that we can not only hear customer desires and concerns first hand, but we can show that our company is focused on providing the customer a place where they can be heard. We will use all of that knowledge to continue to build the best product out there with a kick-ass UI, great features, and an overall good product experience. On top of that, we will strive to give you the best customer support possible, answering your questions, showing and telling you about new features, and listening closely to your new ideas and concerns as we can. The best place for the inside the box experience to start is in our own house. We are inside the box!

- Craig Connell, Director of Engineering, Lotame

Audience Data And The Lotame DMP Offering In Europe

admin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Chris Stark, Managing Director of Lotame UK, discusses audience data and Lotame’s DMP Offering with Ciaran O’Kane, Editor-In-Chief of ExchangeWire.

How important is a DMP in managing and leveraging data for automated display buys? Is it a necessary piece of the buy-side stack? One of the vendors offering a DMP solution in Europe is Lotame. ExchangeWire spoke to Chris Stark, Managing Director, Lotame UK, about the Lotame offering in Europe and the key role the data management platform can play in automated buying.

Can you give an overview of the Lotame offering in Europe?

CS: We’ve launched Lotame (as in ‘say hello to me’) in Europe in response to the rising awareness of the potential value in online data. Our offering, CrowdControl, best fits in the category of a ‘Data Management Platform’: it is a cookie-based software-as-a-service that empowers users to easily extract and activate internal and 3rd party audience-related data sets. The value proposition goes beyond the basic function of advertising. Data is proliferating rapidly in this atmosphere of ‘data-driven-ness’ and we hope to help make audience data management just another part of doing business for both publishers and marketers.

How does the Lotame DMP help media buyers manage and leverage their data?

CS: Media buying reflects step three of a four-step process of an online campaign:

(1) Develop audience and creatives

(2) Find the audience on inventory

(3) Decisioning / media buy

(4) Result

If we assume that inventory were unlimited then audience parameters are boundaries that define the inventory to purchase. In other words, audience is a key lever in the buy—even in the real world of finite/segmented inventory sources. ‘Spray-and-pray’ tactics are, I think, a manifestation of the dearth of data (and lack of transparency). As a healthy base of data emerges, the audience component of the basic buy will see much more traction.

Marketers will always be looking for better return on spend. Testing and trialing of audience (and creative) combinations is already the norm in the RTB world and I think we’ll see the same with any direct buys that don’t occur via an exchange. Bespoke is not the antithesis of scale. Particularly in smaller markets, campaigns will be a blend of audience/creative combinations (consider that Optimisation is simply another kind of audience data).

For the buyers of media, audiences become a focal point of their buy transactions—and thus an area of investment even as inventory prices fall. Media buyers will need to be thinking about the efficiency and transparency of their data buys. Lotame’s CrowdControl helps maintain data in a relevant and manageable format and gives buyers the tools to easily build infinite bespoke audiences to continually build what works best.

Is a DMP more than just a souped-up data warehousing solution?

CS: I’ve spoken to a number of companies on both the supply and demand side who already sit on some pretty impressive data warehouse infrastructure and yet they have difficulty activating this data online. I’ve heard this referred to as the ‘last-mile of data’. A DMP could be viewed as a sort of front-end of a data warehouse with a focus on creating usable information from the back-end data and activating it through analytics, monetisation, and other outputs like content delivery or eCRM.

What differentiates your offering from other vendors with a DMP solution?

CS: It’s fair to say that no one is sure of the value of data. Even in the US, we’ve been able to see reasonably different pricing of data across a few aggregators. A simple example is the relative value of demographic data. In some instances, it has been priced higher than interest data. Through other providers, the reverse is true. Naturally the source of each bit of data affects its value (perceived or real). In some ways, this disparity among aggregators is indicative that the market has a way to go in determining data value. I think it also illustrates a more important point: the reality that there isn’t an ‘end-state’ where data of type A will be more valuable than type B in an absolute sense. Rather that value is going to be fluid and variable.

I believe the term ‘Cold Start’ has been aptly used to describe the atmosphere where all sides sit and watch–unsure how to proceed—simply because they don’t know the value of data (1st party or 3rd party). Transparency and control must be in the hands of the data owners and data buyers to test and evaluate and learn how much audiences are worth. We believe in empowering our clients to take control of the data around them and drive toward determining that value.

To that end, Lotame’s CrowdControl helps clients understand their audiences in their own vocabulary. Raw, declared (not panel) data can organised according to a taxonomy specific to the client. Transparency of data sources and data types, as well as out-of-the-box affinity reporting lets users discover more about each audience, in real-time. The DMP also needs to be part of a client’s internal workflows without being disruptive. Audience management, insight, and import/export are possible in just a few mouse-clicks, so exploration and value-development is easy. Lotame also provides access to its ‘Co-Op’ of data providers who have opted to share data publicly or via bespoke relationships.

Ultimately CrowdControl is meant to be able to stand alone and be integrated into client tools/workflows. What probably most strongly differentiates us is the capacity to support creation of private data co-ops. Automated and self-service onboarding tools let clients assemble their own network of partners/providers and extract, manage, and activate the resulting collection of data.

How important is it to have a scalable data infrastructure behind your DSP solution? And what role should the DMP play in this area?

CS: As I’ve already mentioned, audience will be a focus of investment in online advertising. A scramble to aggregate audience data has already begun in the US and we can read about its beginnings here in Europe now as well. Audience segments will be made available through numerous channels in an effort to monetise and more players will enter the market offering 1st and 3rd party data. In the exploration (and creation) of value, it will be compelling to see as many pieces of data as possible. I think that any buying entity will benefit not simply from a large supply of data, but from an adaptable, rationalised and transparent supply of data. This is where the DMP should play a key role.

How would a typical media buyer work with the Lotame DMP solution?

CS: There are a few approaches that may be relevant. In many cases, Lotame is already working w/ DSPs such as Invite to offer pre-packaged segments from our Co-op of publishers. At the next level, a buyer might elect to sign up w/ Lotame and have a login to view, build, and buy audiences created by them directly on the DMP—these would need to be shared via offerings like RMX’s Audience Sharing function or through an agreement with a DSP. At the highest level of integration, a buyer might import and manage its own data and purchased-3rd-party data directly in the tool.

Publishers Must Evolve with Marketplace to Meet Revenue Goals

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Publishers Must Evolve with Marketplace to Meet Revenue Goals, Maintain Relevance

As more and more marketers and agencies look to buy audiences on the Internet, or more specifically audience data segments, most are buying on age and gender. Buying media space or time based on a primary audience target, such as Men 18-34 or Women 25-54, is the most traditional and popular form of media targeting.

However, as the larger media providers grow, the composition of their users gradually shifts from high concentration, specific audience segments to a more general audience that mirrors the population of the Internet as a whole. What was once a niche website at the onset grows to a mass consumption medium and loses its specific audience composition in favor of a larger, broader set of users or customers. As a result, those larger publishers are now having a harder time delivering efficient reach among any specified target.

Media planners and buyers who purchase television time have been buying spots from television networks targeting those specific shows that have the highest reach and compositions of their desired target audience. Contextual relevance was nearly impossible to target until the cable networks began broadcasting in the 1980′s and provided specialized programming on lifestyle interests such as sports, food and travel. Competition among the television networks heated up, and agencies began to demand guarantees against specific audience segments. If enough reach wasn’t delivered against the specified target, make-goods were demanded until the guarantee was delivered. This is still common practice for TV buyers today, in both the Upfront and scatter marketplaces.

Today, as the larger lifestyle-focused publishers continue to fight for their share of marketing budgets, they’re getting squeezed by search, social media, web portals, Internet service providers and ad networks. Each of these new competitors has a tremendous advantage over a site with 20 million or fewer unique visitors, as they can deliver enormous reach against any audience type, often with contextually relevant content, and at an extremely efficient rate. So how can a large publisher continue to compete effectively and continue to grow their revenue 30 to 50 percent annually, as only the best publishers and ad sales teams have been able to do over the past 10 years? This level of growth is quickly coming to an end, and only the sites that evolve with the marketplace will be able to keep up.

Gathering insights about your site’s users can be done in a number of ways. The most common practice is to use 3rd party panel research such as ComScore or Nielsen, which compare a publisher’s site to the overall web population or to other specific sites. But these services often fall short of providing more complex functionality like providing demographics by section of a site. Another common practice is to provide an audience description based on registration or membership information. This is often more reliable, as it utilizes actual information provided directly by the person rather than extrapolated panel data. Today, there are technologies available to publishers, such as Crowd Control Data Management Platform from Lotame, that provide more detailed and accurate information about their audiences beyond demographics, such as individual interests and behaviors as indicated by actual site navigation.

Gaining such insights will enable publishers to target marketers’ messages more effectively, sell custom audience segments, buy additional audience segments and/or create more content to meet the needs and demands of their audiences. The more a publisher learns about their audience, the more valuable, useful and actionable the information becomes. It can take months to learn how to maximize the value of an audience, but until a publisher gets started collecting and organizing such data, they’ll always be months away from regaining the revenue growth pace that they’re expected to continue to maintain…at least for 2011.

Bruce Budkofsky, Vice President of Platform Sales & Services, Lotame

Lotame Positioned as Privacy Thought Leader

adam — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 05:00:00 +0000

As the U.S. Federal Trade Commission proposed in early December a Do Not Track mechanism for Internet Users, Lotame Solutions, Inc. emerged as a thought leader in the future of online privacy.

If Do Not Track were passed, the FTC would implement and govern a system that if turned on, would prevent marketers from monitoring a person’s activity online.

Adam Lehman, Chief Operating Officer at Lotame, represented the company at the Future of Privacy Forum event on December 1st at the National Press Club. He said that although Lotame strongly aligns itself in support of transparency and consumer choice, he found consensus among other industry leaders that Do Not Track is not the answer.

“Through the course of the event, we discussed a wide variety of concerns and issues regarding the potential design, scope, implementation and impact of a Do Not Track mechanism,” he said. “Notwithstanding the alignment of virtually every panelist around providing consumers with new and better tools for privacy online, we were not able to agree on how this would be achieved by way of DNT.”

One of the main concerns with Do Not Track surfacing from industry leaders is a doubt that federal regulation and enforcement will be able to keep up with the rapidly evolving tactics of online marketers.

“Though well-intended, legislative or regulatory solutions are almost certain to fail in keeping up with the rapid pace of change in Internet technologies, services and business models and will ironically instead likely serve to constrain consumer choices – not only with privacy management, but in the products and services made available to consumers through the advertising-supported Internet economy,” Lehman said.

Steve Sullivan, the IAB’s vice president for supply chain and revenue solutions, said in an interview with USA Today that he thinks the FTC should take a backseat as the industry creates its own set of checks and balances.

“Tracking is not a bad thing,” Sullivan said. “It needs to stay self-regulated in the industry.”

Lotame has already taken great strides to protect consumers through numerous Opt-Out Tools and the Lotame Preferences Manager. Lotame also participates in self-regulatory and voluntary programs like the industry’s new central opt-out page, www.aboutads.info and the Open Data Partnership project.

“We have fortunately already solved numerous issues associated with current opt-out approaches, and consumers now have access to a rich and growing array of tools dedicated to assisting them in managing their online privacy and customizing their online advertising experiences,” Lehman said.

Lehman said that consumers should rest assured that Lotame will remain at the forefront of privacy discussions.

“Lotame will continue to take a progressive stance in supporting consumer needs in the digital marketing ecosystem and adopting and promoting tools that meet those needs while favoring innovations from industry, entrepreneurs and other independent players over legislative or regulatory solutions.”

Online Trust Alliance - Thoughts From the DC Event

adam — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0000

I had the pleasure of participating on a panel at the Online Trust Alliance conference yesterday entitled “Trust, Confidence, Challenges and Clicks – From the Eyes of the Marketer.” I want to give a shout-out to my co-panelists Randall Rothenberg, the CEO of the IAB and Josh Glantz, the VP and GM Online for Publishers Clearing House; and the moderator, Scott Meyer, CEO of Better Advertising. Being in dialogue with these three added to my trust and confidence in our industry’s ability to address consumer privacy concerns regarding digital marketing. Through the leadership of Randy at the IAB, along with the other associations who created the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, we now have a credible and actionable framework for providing enhanced notice to consumers at the point of both data collection and advertising, making clear which companies have played a role in the process, with links to their relevant policies and tools for opting out or customizing their services. Through Scott’s innovative new venture Better Advertising, and others like it, we now have companies dedicated to supplying the platforms and know-how necessary for marketers, agencies, web publishers and service providers to comply with the new self-regulations. And through the privacy-friendly perspective advocated by Josh and similarly responsible publishers and marketers, we have industry players prepared to elevate the way in which they provide consumers transparency and tools for managing data and privacy.

In the relatively short time we had together on the panel, we certainly didn’t solve all of the challenges associated with increasing consumer trust in the digital marketing ecosystem (including how best to to educate consumers about how the new information and tools available will further empower consumers interested in managing their privacy preferences, so that we can all take individual responsibility for how we participate in the data-driven marketing economy). That said, with so many serious-minded people committed to making the world of online media and marketing work for both businesses and the consumers they serve, I know we can succeed in addressing the concerns that regulators, legislators and advocates have raised.

- Adam Lehman, Chief Operating Officer, Lotame

The “Macrotization” of Ad Serving, Ad Exchanges, and Demand Side Platforms

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0000

December 15th, 2009

The online advertising industry at large is sprinting towards maximizing efficiency. Overall, the working theory is that smart aggregation and assembly of various technology providers will create a unique solution for display advertising, and one that combines audience targeting, procurement, arbitrage and media trade. However, if, as Randall Rothenberg, CEO of IAB, states: “technology succeeds in driving the cost of reaching the perfect audience down to zero” in his latest post titled “Is Marketing a Strategic Resource or a Procured Commodity?” then the industry might be fumbling towards false ecstasy, with “the same low costs, the same perfect efficiency, for doing the same exact thing.”

Allow me to explain. With all of the aggregation and consolidation of publishers, networks, and exchanges, in many instances, an overlap occurs with publisher inventory. Think about a typical web publisher in today’s ecosystem. Think about how many ad networks that publisher works with. Now think about how many ad exchanges those ad networks work with. Then think about how many Demand Side Platforms those ad exchanges work with. The result? The tail wags the dog: when you bid on an impression, in all likely hood, you are bidding on yourself, for the same piece of inventory. This overlap and inconsistency in many cases results in decreased efficiency.

Here at Lotame we call this concept “Macrotization” wherein you try and optimize results at the macro level but have built algorithms and processes that can’t ultimately be supported by the disparate supporting systems and components. Many of the components in these new advertising platforms don’t necessarily complement each other, even though it may seem as if they do, and complementary buzzwords often connect ephemeral dots that don’t belong. In time, the foundation for macrotization will settle, but for now, tremors still abound.

The truth is, there are few companies out there that successfully manage all pieces of the “macrotization” process. Those that can will deliver true efficiencies for their clients because they can seamlessly connect and control all pieces in the value chain—from audience identification through media delivery and resulting insights—in a completely transparent manner.