TechBytes with Emma Newman, VP UK, PubMatic

Tell us about your role and the team/technology you handle at PubMatic.

I head up PubMatic’s UK business, with a core responsibility for commercial success. My role encompasses two main areas: growing our premium publisher client base, and building trusted relationships with agencies and advertisers. I also hold responsibility for our account management teams who are central to client retention and delivering ongoing success for our clients and the business as a whole.

What is the essence of your Partner-Customer relationship with Gameloft?

At the core it’s about helping Gameloft monetise its in-app advertising. Through PubMatic, Gameloft is able to access a wealth of demand on the buy-side. By increasing demand, it is able to sell more advertising impressions for a higher price, which maximises their revenue. But it’s more than just this. Central to the relationship is a common desire to help buyers realise the potential of in-app advertising. We both want to encourage greater brand spend to be invested here and for marketers to take advantage of reaching premium, engaged and relevant audiences at scale. In order to do this we are spending time working together to educate the wider marketplace through research, thought leadership and events that actively engage with buyers.

What are the key result areas for which they leverage PubMatic?

Ultimately, it’s about helping them monetise their advertising opportunities more effectively via our platform through our focus on the in-app space and our joint efforts to grow the market. To achieve the former, our account management team works very closely with the Gameloft team to ensure they get maximum value from the platform and adopt by best practices. We want them to take full advantage of not just the PubMatic platform but the digital advertising ecosystem as a whole.

How much has the SSP Ecosystem evolved with the maturity of Mobile Advertising Technologies?

The ecosystem is certainly evolving but I’d be wary to describe mobile as ‘mature’. Many of the challenges around in-app advertising exist because it is a much newer environment compared to desktop. The tools, techniques and controls that everyone is comfortable with in desktop are only starting to emerge for in-app advertising. This is part of the reason why buyers have been wary of investing in this environment.

There are several pieces of the puzzle that are coming together to bolster confidence such as: IAB Tech Labs app-ads.txt initiative; the ability for SSPs to build Private Marketplaces (PMPs) to bring greater control and quality; and in-app header bidding solutions that overcome traditional inefficiencies and capture incremental revenue. By working together as an industry, we will be able to overcome the challenges and unlock the potential of in-app advertising. PubMatic’s focus is to increase investment in our technology and services in this area to make in-app advertising easier to execute. We believe this, in turn, will help increase trust, quality and confidence.

Tell us more about your publisher-focused initiatives in 2019 and how it would help in-app campaigns?

In-app is a core focus this year as we recognise the potential for both the buy- and the sell-side. We’ve already launched a new solution called OpenBid which is an SDK that provides publishers with access to demand and brand spend from over 200 sources, including  DSPs, ATDs, Agencies, and Supply Path Optimisation (SPO) and Preferred Partnerships deals. It also allows them to implement header bidding to increase competition and grow advertising revenue. Further enhancements will be rolled out across the year including the launch of a solution for in-app video which we believe is a huge growth area.

To help buyers feel comfortable with investing in in-app advertising we’ve been driving a number of education-based initiatives. We commissioned Forrester to do research into the attitudes of brands and agencies into in-app advertising, the results of which we have been sharing with publishers to help them understand the steps they can take to attract more brand spend. We have also held breakfast briefings, run panel sessions at events, written bylines and are now planning an agency roadshow. Through educating buyers, we are helping drive additional demand for our publishers that have in-app inventory to sell.

What are the major pain points for Product Management and Innovation teams in building/ scaling in-app Programmatic adtech?

Because in-app is a nascent area, we are still learning and building out our expertise. We have recruited in-app experts on the business development and engineering sides to help inform what we are developing to ensure it is relevant for the needs of the market and can be scaled.

Education is also critical. While ‘traditional’ publishers that have apps understand programmatic, for in-app publishers and developers, programmatic is unchartered territory. Many of them have little knowledge of how to approach advertising, as their primary focus is on delivering a quality app for their users. When it comes to advertising, most of them currently give third parties responsibility for driving monetisation. This need for education is not just a challenge for PubMatic but the industry as a whole.

How do you scale or face these at PubMatic?

We are addressing the challenges of in-app advertising head on by making it one of our core focus areas for 2019. We have been investing in building out the teams and in product development and showing a real commitment towards market education to help realise the potential of in-app going forward.