IPG Mediabrands’ media arm has been through the rise of programmatic ad exchanges and the emergence of private marketplaces which give enhanced control.
Now it wants to bypass some ad exchanges and deal directly with publishers.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Vin Paolozzi, Magna Global EVP innovation, explains that the unit needs to reduce the current number of exchanges it works with to “a much more digestible number”.
“Historically, we’ve purchased anywhere across about 70 different exchanges,” he says. “When you start to look at where inventory is being sourced from, the reality is, is you don’t need that many different connection points to get access to the inventory.
“And so we’re starting, first and foremost, with trying to minimize the number of exchanges that we’re going to work with because we think we can get closer to the publisher, which is most important to us over time.”
Magna Global once set a target of buying half of its advertising in automated fashion by 2016 – somewhat revolutionary at the time.
Of course, Paolozzi’s change doesn’t mean a return to manual buying. Today, publishers themselves are increasingly operating their own ad-tech platforms to open themselves to automated buying
Many brands now know the kinds of publishers they want to buy with, and don’t need to have full sight of the world of inventory.
The move won’t just mean changes for the publishers, it will also mean changes for the exchanges Magna continues to work with.
“For the first time, we’re actually putting real service agreements in place with exchanges, which we’ve never done in the past,” Paolozzi adds. “The reason for that is, looking for those who will give us the things that we need to better service our clients.
“Who’s going to help us understand the fees that are being taken out, what’s being used? We’re looking at who has the direct connections to the inventory sources, and minimizing kind of the reseller aspect of what’s happened in exchanges in the past.”
This video is from a Beet.TV series titled Consolidation & The Case for Supply Chain Innovation, presented by PubMatic. For more videos, please visit this page.
