The Women In Programmatic Network was set up to represent women in the programmatic industry. To celebrate its work and its members, NDA will be running a series of interviews with its members.
To launch the series, we hear from the Network’s Co-Founders, Emily Roberts, Programmatic Trading Manager, BBC Global News EMEA and Sophie Toth, Programmatic and Ad Tech Lead, Euronews.
Why did you set up Women in Programmatic in the first place?
Emily: There are so many incredibly talented women in the programmatic industry that we wanted to create a network for women to get together, bounce ideas off each other and get to know one another.
It has gone above and beyond what we ever thought it would, and we now have over 100 amazing women signed up to our network.
Sophie: The idea arose after we’d gotten to know each other at one of the industry events back in 2019. We instantly got along and started to discuss industry questions around programmatic and digital as a whole.
We realised that other women might like to get involved in our conversations and knew so many great contacts.
I think this was the point and main driver to create the forum where we can talk to each other and focus on our successes and challenges.
The challenge is for us to reach the women who would be happy to join our growing community and share their programmatic journey.
What is your overall goal or mission statement?
Emily: To bring exceptional talent together to discuss the latest and greatest in the world of programmatic!
Sophie: And to give opportunity to share anything they would think would be worth a discussion regardless of the level of seniority.
Programmatic is broad and has many fields so everyone is welcome from creative people to legal experts.
What are the biggest challenges, and opportunities for women in the programmatic industry today?
Emily: As part of the network we have so many amazing opportunities, from networking, speaking in panels, to interviews in publications. We are really hoping that this network will be a platform for women across the industry.
What does the industry need to do to champion women in the programmatic industry better?
Emily: One of the things I still find really surprising is how many panels still don’t include a single woman. I feel that this has got to change, if you are on a panel question the diversity and raise it with the organisers. Simple changes like this make a massive difference.
Sophie: Agree with Emily. I also think that women professionals should get the chance to prove themselves in traditionally male dominant roles as well. It would be good for business in many ways. Embracing different views and new ideas just some from the many examples I could tell…
What are the biggest challenges, and opportunities overall for programmatic advertising this year?
Sophie: Data of course – and all probes around it, such as IDFA, 3rd-party cookie depreciation by Chrome or finding the best way for + consent collection.
Programmatic bread and butter is data, information and how we marketers can create an actionable and useful tool from it.
We also face more and more demand for innovative campaign execution as well as CTV has been growing significantly and we need to adapt and find the solution for a transparent and trustworthy programmatic ecosystem by eliminating bad actors
Any future plans?
We would like to extend this movement Globally and with great local professionals create regional hubs.
We have been thinking about a VOICE series where we will introduce female professionals who have been contributing to our digital ecosystem but they haven’t really had opportunity to be heard front of larger audience
Finally we would like to link and educate both sides of the ecosystem and launch digital classes and build the missing bridge between buyers and sellers. We should help finance, legal and other linked departments to understand the way of programmatic…
Emily: And go for a couple of cocktails with the network once the pandemic is over!
