TechBytes with Elena Podshuveit, CPO at Admixer

Tell us about your role/team you handle at Admixer. What inspired you to join Admixer Technologies?

When we started in 2008, it was obvious that digital advertising would be booming for decades. Even though we got in the game a bit late (I wish we had started in 2000), Admixer has still grown a team of more than 200 employees. With 12 years in the industry, the people employed are highly experienced and motivated.

I’m responsible for the SaaS product line for online advertising – our strategic business division is aimed at providing a powerful and customer-oriented ad management technology for all market players.

What is Admixer’s unique AdTech offer? How is it different from other AdTech solutions available?

Frankly, if you take any of the AdTech products available on the market (e.g. ad server for publishers) and compare it with all available alternatives, you’ll see that 90% of their functions are the same. We work in a mature AdTech market where all the user needs are well-known, and the competition is fierce. However, what we offer (along with just a few other companies) is an end-to-end ecosystem of products and services.

We have all the necessary tech solutions for advertisers, publishers of any size and ad networks. Plus, since we have our own SSP, we also provide customers with quality supply and demand. What also sets us apart from most of the companies is the fact that we still strive to stay very close to our customers and partners. Our team members share the expertise, support partners in real-time, and cherish the existing customer relationships.

With Google Chrome deciding to keep out third-party cookies, what impact would it have on these programmatic media buying models? How will Admixer adapt to the post-cookie reality?

This is likely to cause the biggest revision of buying models and media planning. Yet, I have to emphasize that the major changes will affect the web publishers (desktop) not the mobile app market as we see it today. The people that should be concerned are the website owners who used to sell their inventory using third-party cookies.

For small and medium publishers who don’t collect user data through registrations, the reborn contextual targeting will be a way out. This model was first introduced by Google AdSense in 2000. Instead of analyzing user behavior, it scans and processes the web page content. At Admixer, we used to have contextual targeting algorithms, so our first thought was to get them off the shelf. To be honest, I think we won’t be the only ones to do that.

For large publishers, media houses and other first-party data owners, life will be easier. Until now, media has neglected first-party data – most marketers had access to third-party cookies and didn’t pay much attention to their own data. In the post-cookie world, the value of first-party data shouldn’t be underestimated.

However, to use it efficiently, marketers should:

1. Be compliant with all regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA,
2. Have an efficient data management platform,
3. Enlarge data as much as possible, e.g. cooperate with other data providers with a similar sign-up process.

The market already has the first conglomerates of publishers who are trying to resist the expansion of Walled Gardens (i.e. online resources owned by major technology companies, like Google, Facebook, Amazon). For example, the European netID Foundation aims to use its own netID as a single sign-on to establish a European alternative to the US providers. Admixer also has plans to help large publishers collect first-party data and with SSO management.

How Admixer products empower publishers and media holdings?

Taking everything into account, the crucial thing for publishers to do now is to learn how to manage their data effectively. To target campaigns without third-party cookies, they’ll need a first-party DMP integrated with an ad server. If they are both part of the same platform, the integration will be smooth. Otherwise, publishers might face complications and not be able to utilize the data.

That’s what we provide here at Admixer. In addition, we bring together the demand from global leading DSPs connected to our SSP with the direct demand from our DSP or direct deals. Finally, with our tech stack, publishers can use their own white-labeled trading desks to let their customers (agencies or advertisers) buy their ad inventory directly.

How do you ensure fraud prevention and brand safety?

We have integrated the most powerful verification tools to guarantee brand safety, media buying transparency, and the highest inventory quality. Besides, we constantly develop anti-fraud algorithms within our platform.

Is AdTech + Artificial Intelligence the way forward for the AdTech companies?

AI seems like a natural add-on for the industry. The cases where AI is already applied or should be applied are numerous. Here are the three main ones:

1. Insights – to forecast and respond to excesses with data extrapolation and analysis on time;
2. Optimization – to amplify bidding strategy and targeting (let’s call it ML media buying);
3. Audience polishing – to find the best audience for every ad.

Tag a person in the industry whose answers you would like to read here:

I’d say, Ari Paparo, CEO at Beeswax, Jörg Vogelsang from Index Exchange, and all the thought-leaders with solid experience and an extraordinary point of view.