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0 pointswastedhours7y ago0 comments

> That's just not how digital ad campaigns are run

I appreciate you trying to fight the argument that's being made, and you have a background for a valid opinion people are dismissing.

That being said, I'm on the buying end and work a lot of different channels, and would argue that there are definitely direct buy models that SO could utilise.

Lots of smaller sites have started offering direct buy inventory in larger quantities recently, and pretty much every media package I've bought this year has had some internally served display with it. I'd expect this to work its way upwards, and would fully expect something self serve to come soon for internal buys.

Also, SO seems prime for a self-serve product akin to AdWords, Reddit, or even Facebook. We already buy on those channels (even though through an agency, the agency is just buying self-serve on their end - and they put their insurance, tracking and ASBOF & TI on the cost).

That's be a really cool project actually, self-serve ad platform for a forum/knowledge base.

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4 comments · 1 top-level

manigandham7y ago· 3 in thread

I'm curious how you're buying these packages? Is this traded directly with the site instead of a DSP? Also it seems like you're in the UK, is that right? Aren't the privacy laws having a major effect on the programmatic market there?

I covered it in other comments but yes, SO could start their own self-serve ads like Reddit (since they both use adzerk). The problem with that ends up being lower quality ads and the inevitable support costs, and the fact that they don't have unique formats other than banners. Reddit, Quora, Pinterest, and others have custom formats but it's definitely something they can pursue.

shostack7y ago

In your opinion, what are the main factors or thresholds (impression volume, RPM, etc) where a self-serve solution starts to make sense for a publisher? Ie. what framework would you use to determine viability?

Separately, in your opinion, what sort of stack should a publisher consider if they want to be privacy-friendly? Obviously if certain values are left out of the bid request, fill RPMs will suffer, but that may be acceptable for some publishers as the cost of striking a better balance between privacy and ad revenue.

I realize there's a lot to unpack, but feel free to get technical with me, I'm on both the buy and sell side.

manigandham6y ago

It comes down to inventory (volume and quality) and supply path (how easy is it to buy). There's a trade off there as buyers will put in more work if it's highend buys (like NYT homepage takeovers) but a normal site probably need around 10M clean (no bots, not paid traffic) impressions per/month to make it worthwhile at this point, so that there's enough fill to offset separate discussions for your supply.

If you have that volume, then the first step is to create private marketplace deals (with deal ids) and negotiate with all the big agencies and trading desks. It's mostly about getting the right intros and meetings but is good outcomes for both sides and is easy to maintain.

Privacy-friendly is a whole different game though and the industry is not ready. Everyone is still focused on cookies even though we're rapidly getting to 50% of impressions not having them at all (or having no persistent ones). One option is running your own adserver (several that you can buy on the market) to control the endpoints (reduce adblocking and cookie loss) but that doesn't really affect the bid requests and creatives as you say. It's really just fixing the final layer and it's also a lot of work for most pub dev teams. Hard for anyone but big sites that can dedicate enough resources to a self-serve system and back it up with a sales team.

The long-term solution is working with and upgrading RTB to handle privacy compliance. This is a new project that my team has started called Privolta [1] which is a privacy-first ad server and SSP that removes all PII and identifying marks in a bid request while still allowing buyers to maintain frequency caps and aggregated targeting. The biggest challenges are in working with DSPs to clear a supply path and also monitoring and modifying creatives safely so no tracking data is collected while the ad is rendered. Happy to discuss more if you're interested, let me know.

1. https://www.privolta.com/

wastedhoursOP7y ago

> Is this traded directly with the site instead of a DSP?

Yep, direct buy with the site, I'm in a niche with a lot of sector specific media - some mix it with other inventory (so I guess serving it as bespoke through a standard DSP), and some only have direct bought. We also buy a lot through standard platforms too for reach and retargeting, but I've noted a marked increase in the last year-18months of sites offering it directly (often at competitive rates).

> Also it seems like you're in the UK, is that right? Aren't the privacy laws having a major effect on the programmatic market there?

Not massively to be fair, the market has just consolidated a bit more - so large scale buys are going more and more through Google (as the industry trusts them to either know their stuff or pay the fines if they get caught). Perhaps the rise of sites offering it is as a result, thinking they can offer a more privacy conscious option, but my assumption is that they're just trying to offer a more niche offering with closer alignment between content and ads (and trying to slowly push CPMs up - which is somewhat fair, my CTRs are higher on direct bought vs prospecting ads).

> SO could start their own self-serve ads

I think that's why other commenters have been getting agro, the fact is they could do it, and they have some very useful 1st party data to make it quite a compelling offering, but they're relying on all our old tools. I'd like to see them get the revenue in and then build it out.

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