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The innovative ad tech world has had its fair share of ups and downs. From being adland’s new shiny play thing, to being the naughty opaque kid on the block, ad tech companies have risen, fallen, been sliced, diced, re–jigged and spurted back out. In our June issue we looked at how ad tech Down Under is alive and kicking.
Whether it be Videology’s US bankruptcy last month, Rocketfuel’s job cuts and share price quibbles in 2017, or AdRoll’s shock Australian staff cull, it’s been a challenging path for certain ad tech companies.
We asked seven industry execs for their views on what the biggest challenge in the ad tech space in Australia right now?
Joanna Georges, director at Mondial Digital and head of ANZ, Mobilewalla said: "Omnichannel and its understanding is the biggest challenge in Australia. Very few understand the possibilities of data and tech. And, even less about what data is available across channels, especially mobile. More questions from clients and agencies need to be asked, and partners need to be more transparent."
Paul Garrity, managing director, CEO and co–founder, Impulse Screen Media said: "Effective multi–touch attribution remains the biggest challenge for marketers. As our multi–channel universe continues to expand (with programmatic TV and internet of things–connected devices maturing), it’s going to be imperative to stitch data together to produce actionable insights that are capable of driving hard business performance metrics."
Nicole Gardner, head of account management, Quantcast said: "At the recent online retailer summit, Naina D’Souza
from Michael Hill said: “Just because you can measure it doesn’t mean you should.” And just because we can access the data, doesn’t mean we should. Go back to the brief. Determine the most appropriate metric and don’t be distracted by everything else."
Ashley Wales–Brown, managing director,Ve Interactive ANZ said: "Outside of the obvious (ad blockers, browser filters, apps tracking etc.), arguably the biggest challenge for ad tech continues to be delivering meaningful and transparent outcomes. Businesses who use first–party buyer intent data in combination with advertising data will be the ones who weather these challenges most successfully."
Christopher Blok, country manager ANZ, SpotX said: "The need to combat the walled gardens. In order to do this, there needs to be unification of a standardised User ID (UID) across the ecosystem. This can then be used across any supply or buy–side platform, with the hope of providing audiences with a better experience and to rein in tracking. DigiTrust has already committed to this and is the first step by our industry to provide transparency and control to audiences."
Colm Dolan, CEO, Publift said: "Transparency in margins. For publishers, direct ad revenue has dropped off a cliff. But, advertisers seem to be still paying a lot for display programmatic. What percentage is taken by intermediaries along the chain, from ad buy to display, on a publishers site?"
Alicia Doumanis, sales director, Yango Media said: "Our clients talk a lot about the white noise created by the industry, but in many cases they are confused and it dilutes some of the value delivered by a concise, well–implemented digital marketing strategy. We have found the best way to show value is to simplify and focus on measurable business outcomes like online revenue, cost per acquisition and cost per lead, wherever possible."
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