Who’s MediaLad? In digital media, everyone pretends they know who he, or she, is.
We do. Or do we? What we do know is that MediaLad is NDA’s new regular columnist, providing his/her unique, irreverent view of the latest gossip and goings-on in the digital media industry.
This week our intrepid hero/ine lambasts the mysterious survival of CTR, tackles video advertising’s inherent problems, calls for the blame game to stop and highlights the problem with industry influencers.
Clicks
Usually, us humans measure everything we can; from genital size to your ad campaign budgets. I honestly can’t get enough of the click. It’s kept me and many others in a job for so long that I can’t turn my back on it now. But time is a healer, and I think now the time has come to f*ck it right off.
I mean, in a world of incrementality, engaged time in view, attention and all of the sh*t we talk about in other channels and in pitches — WHY THE F*CK ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT CTR?!
If your client is still asking for CPC or CTR in a digital plan, it’s totally unacceptable. This metric is only useful in search where there is a purpose for this type of thing. The KPIs you have available either through your buying partners or verification partners are untold — use them. You’re probably paying a fair amount to them all for the privilege of abandoning the click. Don’t be a clickhead.
Video
It’s amazing that people are only noticing once every now and again the issues we have as buyers and sellers of media around video behaviour. There are so many reasons for quirky behaviours from players and ads. Broken code, incorrect trafficking, wrong formats, incompatibility, the list goes on.
It could even be that you’re just being an idiot and buying a format that you shouldn’t in order to hit your targets. We all know that we’re in a numbers game and it isn’t like you’re going to get arrested for delivering AVOC video in places you really shouldn’t be — pressure does funny things to you in media, but please stop writing about it.
Everyone knows. It’s up to key players to prevent this by careful exchange auditing, greater control on what videos play on premium sites and better planning on the buy side.
Education is a wonderful thing.
Digital/programmatic Influencers
We all saw the Panorama show about influencers, didn’t we? Is it time that we took a moment and identified what we need to be aware of in our own industry?
The fact that a select few in our industry dictate to a lot of people through first mover advantage means that their opinion becomes the norm. Just because you’ve been around a long time, it doesn’t mean you’re relevant anymore. Just look at Jose Mourinho, still respected but his methods are being questioned.
I make a conscious effort to call out people in a comical but direct way, so that there are opportunities to see all sides to a story. There are far too many people in our industry simply posting links to articles with just a headline. Have an opinion. You’ve asked me to out myself, well let’s see your true opinion and I might just do that.
Blame Game
We spend too much time focussing all the blame on individuals and companies in our industry. Isn’t it worthwhile to turn around once in a while and ask, ‘what could I have done to prevent that’? Case in point is our old friend YouTube.
Look at the safety issues that can be avoided by simply being picked up by anyone along the value chain. The planner and their manager in the agency. The technology that tells you it’ll be fine. The technology that you haven’t included for not doing a good enough job of selling. The client for not asking the right questions.
Look at it this way; stop blaming each other and start a discussion about how to improve. You’ll be better for it.
Consultancies
Who actually thinks it’s fair that consultancies have collated all the info from agencies on pricing and raw data from their DSPs, and now think they can open a media business? We are all so focused on agencies and publishers and tech take rates but have a word with the consultancies to find out what they’re charging clients. You’re going to be flummoxed, without fail.
I’ve seen who they’re hiring and believe me when I say they’re literally getting interns to do leg work and a few heavy hitters to make the headlines. You’ve then got certain consultancies made up entirely of ex colleagues, absolutely marvellous for the referrals by the way. How can this fly?
Who’s auditing the auditors?
