On the SPOT

What do gaming and programmatic advertising have in common? Stephen Johnston is joined by publisher development and yield management expert, Matt Kaye. the two reflect on their common interest and expertise in video games and programmatic advertising to uncover insights publishers can apply to monetization in 2023. Can what we learned in years past from premium subscriptions, paywalls and freemium upsell models be applied to the modern web? The issues explored in this episode for the benefit of creating sustainable revenue for publishers in the post-cookie era include supply and demand, creating scarcity, finding the ideal unit-to-volume ratio, and fill rates.

Links to the articles discussed: https://www.adexchanger.com/commerce/amazon-is-leaning-on-its-data-clean-room-to-spur-ad-tech-growth/ https://www.adexchanger.com/analytics/what-deadline-google-analytics-pushes-back-universal-analytics-sunset/

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/378484/ad-industry-to-hold-first-national-dialogue-on-gre.html https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/378433/former-omd-chief-osborn-to-lead-ad-decarbonization.html https://www.thedrum.com/news/2022/10/04/over-half-marketers-will-pay-more-digital-ads-with-lower-carbon-footprint https://digiday.com/awards/shopify-frequence-piano-and-slate-are-among-this-years-digiday-technology-awards-finalists/ https://exchangewire.secure-platform.com/a/page/wires/shortlist-2022

Digital advertising is moving toward a future in which ad delivery data will increasingly resemble information used by the shipping industry to track the delivery status of packages moving within its systems. In fact, the number of data points in programmatic ad tech far outweigh the volume of data in traditional shipping logistics, so it's important to utilize technology to avoid rabbit holes and manage the complexity that is inherent in this space. In this week's episode, Stephen introduces Tony to his concept of Advertising Logistics and points out how many of the core aspects of an advertising transaction are being overlooked by the entire industry. PubWise plans to change that; they see gold in this overlooked data, and it goes a long way in raising the bar from satisfactory to optimal.

In times of change, be sure you don’t put all your identity eggs in one basket. In this podcast, we talk about the different solutions in the identity space and how publishers can make sure they are making the most of this opportunity. Testing options isn’t optional. In this podcast, CTO and Founder Stephen Johnston points his "tell it like it is" approach at identity and how to weather change.

In this week’s podcast, we put PubMatic's chief commercial officer Jeffrey Hirsch on the spot about issues related to creating a more open and robust marketplace for stakeholders across the programmatic ecosystem. Listen as he and PubWise CTO Stephen Johnston share timely insights about observability, supply and demand path optimization, data interchange standards and how to identify where value is being created and trust is being earned across the rapidly-evolving digital advertising supply chain.

It was only 2018, when the USPTO issued U.S. patent number 10 million. That same year there were 285,095 utility patent applications filed in the US, and only 50% were granted. This was the year we filed an application with the USPTO, and we’re not only excited that we were granted a utility patent for our Smart Path Optimization Technology (SPOT), but we can also finally talk about it! In this podcast, CTO and Founder Stephen Johnston talks about what makes their patent unique in the programmatic ad space and how it significantly decreases their customer’s carbon footprint.

There is a lot of debate on how to actually measure GHGs. At PubWise, we focus on the top of the waste hierarchy, which gives top priority to preventing waste in the first place. Our ability to improve performance while sending up to 40 percent fewer bid requests into the programmatic ecosystem reduces data center processing power, which translates directly to less pollution from greenhouse gas emissions.

Just as the sports industry has tipsters that offer betting advice, AdTech has a slew of trade pubs that each have their opinion on the post-third-party-cookie world. In this episode, Stephen dives into some of the different approaches featured in the news lately. He believes that in the future, audience size will not be the proxy to value; having an identifiable and addressable audience that your demand partners value will be the gateway to building strong partnerships that will survive the test of time. With less than a year until the end of third-party cookies in Chrome, the race is on to figure out how to redefine monetization.

In this episode, we talk about how audience targeting will come full circle as 3rd party cookies are phased out. But it’s not all doom and gloom; contextual targeting is more relevant, timely and provides a greater degree of specificity, whereas 3rd party cookies can get stale and lack context. Find out how machine learning can be your competitive advantage in identifying the partners that will deliver the audience you are in search of.

While AI seeks to make computers do smart things, machine learning can often be thought of as getting machines to do the dumb things really fast, over and over and over. The result is a smart thing made up of many simple building blocks. With ML our machines can learn from the past and as a result, advertising becomes more relevant and less expensive. This means more revenue for publishers, better performance for advertisers and a better experience for users. In this episode, learn about how programmatic advertising is an adversarial system and the role MLOps will play in its evolution. In fact, MLOps topped LinkedIn's Emerging Jobs ranking.

The literal definition of future-proofing is the process of anticipating the future and developing methods of minimizing the effects of shocks and stresses of future events. Just like the underlying concept of the smart car is to free the driver from many of the mundane tasks associated with driving, machine learning in the programmatic space aims to shield advertisers and publishers against decisions made today that will no longer be relevant in the future. This week we learn more about how we keep small optimizations continuously relevant, and the three major components that are essential to future-proofing in programmatic advertising. The ultimate goal is free up time to focus on the big ROI optimization opportunities while machine learning can focus on the never ending micro-optimizations that are never, ever done.

AdTech is in the midst of a sea change, fueled by the depreciation of identifiers and the rapid changes in privacy and regulation. In this episode, Stephen shares his perspective on the players in this space and how they could be impacted by the end of an era (cookiepocalypse). He believes everyone in AdTech has a collective responsibility to get involved on the front side, instead of being up in arms about where we land. Join us to hear how the foundation of digital advertising is impacted by addressability and measurement, and how you can get involved.

While transparency and observability are often used synonymously, the ability to control and take action is what sets them apart. Transparency may inform you when something occurs, observability helps you understand why it occurred and what you can do to change the outcome. There is a programmatic ecosystem paradigm shift underway, driven by machine learning and the availability of massive amounts of data. In this episode, find out why end-to-end observability is critical. Afterall, if you can observe end-to-end, you can control end-to-end and you can optimize end-to-end. At PubWise, we call it Radical Observability™.

The fast-approaching cookie crackdown (third-party cookies, 3PCs) has many companies fearing the future state of digital advertising. But for Stephen, it’s seen as much more of an opportunity. As the first fully observable programmatic advertising platform, the removal of third party cookies plays right into the vision PubWise has been dreaming of. This week we learn more about how this momentous shift in the evolution of the internet will amplify the need for radical observability and benefit users across the globe.

Why settle for satisfactory when optimal is within reach? In this episode, Stephen Johnston talks about the theory of satisficing, which is explained by cognitive heuristic, behavioral science, and neuropsychology, and the role it plays in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. Stephen is fanatical about using technology to move beyond ""good enough"" by utilizing machine learning to adapt to the never-ending changes in business strategies, advertising logistics, programmatic technologies and data regulations. Stephen offers a unique perspective, combining his degree in psychology with his passion for programming, to paint a picture of an advertising world that no longer settles for mediocrity.

There is a big difference between transparency and observability and in order to get the whole picture, you need to focus on what is controllable and optimizable. Ask yourself what is truly driving audience quality and CPM, and find out how the right data plus the right machine learning can give your Ad Ops team the capability to drive sustainable revenue that adapts to ever-changing market dynamics.

The evolution of digital advertising is driven by innovation in technology. In this episode, we look at how one of the leading media buying platforms puts a stake in the ground on the importance of end-to-end transparency.

From video games to changing the game. In this episode we learn how fun turned into function with the evolution of PubWise. Find out what it means to truly be a publisher-first programmatic platform, built by publishers, for publishers, and PubWise!

There was a period of time when people thought sites like Napster and Kazaa were going to be the future of music. Many forward-thinking people feel programmatic advertising is in a similar state and only now entering the Slope of Enlightenment. One of these people is our very own Stephen Johnston, and in this episode, we hear why we’re living in the digital dark. We also get insight into how his team is leading the charge for a more informed future.