TechBytes with Peter Day, Chief Technology Officer at Quantcast

Tell us about your journey into technology and how you arrived at Quantcast.

After getting a PhD in machine learning from the University of Liverpool, I worked in financial markets for 12 years before I joined Quantast in 2016.

Tell us about the most fascinating aspects of advertising technology platforms? How do adtech solutions bolster marketing efforts in omnichannel?

To me, the most exciting aspect of adtech is its role in fueling an efficient and effective economic model for ad funded content. This model shapes the internet, and witnessing ad tech platforms make such a profound impact is really fascinating.

In terms of omnichannel, it’s important to stay focused on the overarching goal of technology: to make simple things simple, and complex things possible. The reality is, most omnichannel efforts struggle to accomplish this goal, and can actually get in the way. As you start to explore omnichannel strategies, don’t lose sight of what you’re hoping to accomplish – and ask: “is this technology making it easy for me to execute my marketing plan”?

Tell us more about your Consent Management Solution.

Our consent management platform (CMP) is called Quantcast Choice. It’s currently one of the most widely adopted CMPs for GDPR and CCPA, and it helps brands and publishers make their websites compliant with the appropriate regulations within minutes.

Since its launch in 2018, Quantcast Choice has been deployed by over 25,000 organizations across 25 countries and is used by top publishers such as Buzzfeed and Reach.

We believe that both transparency and affirmative user consent are going to be critical globally in the years to come.

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How do AI and machine learning algorithms amplify the benefits of Programmatic adtech solutions/ DSPs?

AI algorithms can help advertisers target the right people even as audiences fluctuate over time. At Quantcast, our data is updated in real-time as audiences change. These millions of data points feed our AI algorithms to uncover patterns in audience behavior—and today’s patterns could look a lot different than last week’s. Having this insight can really amplify your digital strategy and drive more concrete results.

Marketing teams are heavily cutting down on media spend. How does Quantcast help marketers optimize their media budget?

When you have limited ad spend, driving measurable outcomes is critical. So throughout the pandemic—as audiences have changed dramatically—marketers have needed to quickly understand who their new audiences are and how to reach them.

Quantcast’s Audience Planner tool addresses this issue. It aggregates data from more than 150 million web destinations, including half of the world’s top 1,000 websites. Collectively, this data represents an impressive 70% of the time consumers spend online outside of search and social.

Leveraging these insights, Audience Planner gives advertisers and publishers a comprehensive view of how people spend the majority of their time online, allowing them to more effectively allocate budget.

Tell us more about adtech consolidation and the factors / events shaping digital advertising trends.

As the ad ecosystem has evolved, the biggest players have gotten bigger and many smaller companies haven’t innovated fast enough to stay alive. This trend has led to considerable consolidation within specific categories, like DSPs and SSPs. The next phase of consolidation, however, will be across categories to create broader solutions that handle various elements of the advertising ecosystem. And with third party cookies going away, this consolidation process is bound to accelerate.

How do you plan your meetings and events with your team members and C-suite colleagues?

Right now, good meeting hygiene is more important than ever. All meetings should have a clear purpose and everyone should know why they’re there. Execution-wise, my team likes to mix things up. Sometimes we’ll start by watching a video together rather than diving right into an agenda. We’ve also started to block off full days with no meetings at all to give everyone a much-needed break to just focus on getting things done.

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Tell us more about the technologies, tools and solutions you currently use for Marketing, Sales and Communications:

Video conference tools like Google Meet have become essential across the board. For customer communications and sales, it’s been game changing. Since all of our meetings are now virtual, I spend a lot more time with customers and prospects because I don’t have to fly to see them. I’ve also found that these virtual meetings can be more concise and productive.

What are 3 Technology trends you think every CTO should know about in martech / adtech?

Privacy and identity are now at the center of all advertising technology systems.

Whole categories are being disrupted as legacy categories like DMPs and DSPs no longer make for sustainable business models.

Technologies that enable omnichannel marketing are becoming more prevalent, despite how hard it is to do “omnichannel” right.

If given a chance, what would you prefer: attending a webinar, podcasting, or speaking at a physical event?

Definitely speaking at a physical event.

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A podcast you are keenly following and why?

From Zero to IPO is a great one. It talks about what it takes to build successful companies from the ground up and is co-hosted by a friend of mine and Okta co-founder Frederick Kerrest.

Any specific technology solution you are keenly following in the adtech space?

Ours 🙂

How do you feel about the sudden shift to Connected TVs, OTTs, and internet audio streaming platforms?

It’s still early days; we’re in learning mode right now. Only time will tell if we can take the best elements of the open web and programmatic and apply them in CTV / OTT while avoiding some of the pitfalls.

Do you have any friendly advice for Martech engineers and product developers working from home?

Get outside, take a break, and don’t forget to talk to your customers.

Tag a person whose answers you would like to see here:

Martin Sorrell

Thank you, Peter, for answering all our questions!