The AdMonsters Content Team – Gavin Dunaway, Gautam Srivastava, and Maria Tucker – are excited to bring you this inaugural live blog from the AdMonsters Publisher Forum in sunny Oxford! Stay tuned today for insights and innovations from global leaders in ad operations!
The Kick-Off
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9:05 — Rob Beeler introduces the day and runs through the AdMonsters events coming up – you can find out for yourself on the AdMonsters homepage.
9:14 — Matt O’Neil takes the floor and shocases the AdMonsters website, we’re looking for contributors all the time so get involved if you’re keen and contact us on [email protected]
9:17am — Have you used the AdMonsters forum (hyperlink)? Matt takes us through the messageboards and showcases some of the great content you’ve all posted on there.
9:21 — Rob and Matt address the room and run through some of the fantastic content we have here on admonsters.com including the job boards, news and some of the new content that we’ll be publishing right here for the fine online advertising community (pssst, that’s you guys).
9:30 — Rob introduces Greg Taylor from the Oxford Internet Institute for ‘The Microeconomics that underly Display Advertising’
Greg Taylor, Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute: The Microeconomics that Underly Display Advertising
9:35 — Greg takes us through the principles of supply and demand in display advertising and gives us some empirical evidence on targeting.
9:41 — If the privacy rules in regards to targeting and cookies in the EU go through this will have a huge effect on our advertising industry, especially for sites that contain general content where they have no other way of targetting their users other than these methods
9:45 — ‘Obtrusive’ adverts (overlays) tied together with behavioural targeting have a negative effect on engagement levels – whereas individually they work well.
9:48 — Greg sings the praises of Google and their paid for search policy in terms of ‘adding value to the user approach’. If the value is there – show the ad, if not then they don’t.
9:50 — Good point from Greg on behavioural targetting. ‘RTB and real time bidding allows more selectivity over the types of consumers that see an ad.’
9:54 — It’s about the floating market. If you have consumers that prefer one of two rival products the products themselves will target the market of the ‘undecided’. This increased competition however creates higher supply and as such lower prices and lower engagement/yield.
9:56 — Attention retention. As targeting technologies improve this problem will become more severe and competitiors saturate the market going for the same consumer.
10:00 — Conflation/Standardisation is something that is rife in the economy (i.e. wheat – too many types of wheat so they standardised the product) RTB has created deconflation, i.e separating the market into smaller chunks with more brands.
10:06 Rob introduces one of our wonderful sponsors Ben Barokas from Admeld
Ruby Sponsor Session: AdMeld’s Ben Barokas
10:07 — ‘An Ad Ops Roadmap’: We live and work in such a constantly evolving world and in ad operations it’s more so than most.
10:10 — So many venture capital companies and publishers are throwing so much capital into the online advertiisng industry, it’s great as it means we won’t be out of work but it’s a lot to get your head around to know who’s doing what, why, when and with who
10:13 — Ben touches on Private Exchange Soloutions and looks back on the last year. 2010 says RTB become a real force in the market place and the rise of mobile optimisation and audience insights. Looking into 2011 however we saw the first private ad exchanges prioritisation bidding and advertiser level reporting.
10:15 — Where do we go from here? What are some of the issues that will affect you? Going forward RTB will be seen as a one piece soloution, be aware of that and as you probably already know data protection is becoming more and more of an issue.
10:19 — So how should publishers approach buyers? See yourself through the lens of the buyer!
10:22 — So what should publishers do? Get involved and look at the market, identify the advertisers you want to engage with and create a strategy to target them. Understand how advertisers are buying, set floors where appropriate and importantly staff accordingly.
Keynote — Brian Keegan: How to be an Intrapreneur
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1:30 — An entrepreneur converts an idea or invention into a successful innovation typically using money he/she scrounges together. An intrapreneur works within a company to bring an idea to fruition.
1:34 — A little background on Keegan — from iron mongerer to self-employed life insurance salesman, an Irishman selling insurance in Northern Ireland during the bombing campaign in the late 80s. “Somebody’s sick joke.”
1:36 — Saw an opportunity during the Thatcher years (one particular edict making a plethora of military personnel redundant) and launched 360 Group — outsourced compliance and back-office work for contractors.
1:38 — Entrepreneurship is about spotting the opportunity “plum,” grabbing it and refusing to let go.
1:40 — Get you idea into the high seas, the choppy water — nothing ever happens in the harbors.
1:42 — BHAG — Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Hairy is necessary, or else it’s just a bag.
1:43 — First vision, then strategy. Suggests Jim Collins’ “Good to Great.” From that, getting the right people on the bus — how do you attract the right team?
1:45 — Right people pass by all the time — Keegan’s team starts with the who before the what. Personal qualities are important. Three things to look for — competency, loyalty and general “fun.”
1:46 — DISC questionnaire — a “quick and dirty” yet highly effective profiling test. Matt adds it lets you see the difference between a candidate’s natural vs. adaptive (e.g., stressed) state.
1:47 — Getting rid of or changing the team. The “Fed-Up Club” — employees you can’t keep happy. “They are toxic,” Keegan says. “You gotta get the neg spray out and get them out of that office.” Key is to get rid of them because they will poison your good people and office — encourage them to look elsewhere, but just dump them.
1:54 — Rewarding attendance — bonus days for 100% attendance up to three extra days off.
1:55 — Meeting rhythm — most people despise them, but having routines can “set you free.” At 360, daily there’s a 15-minute huddle setting the day’s agenda. Weekly is a joint bread-breaking, an hour-long office lunch focused on priorities. Monthly is a four-hour epic focused on the bigger stuff — in addition to review, there’s overall strategy discussions and learning opportunities. Finally, 360 does a one-day yearly get-together in which management leads a customer feedback session, which in turn can be an opportunity to expand client service use. Also, it can provide guidance on where to expand the company’s offerings.
2:05 — How do you make time for a quick stand-up meeting? Keegan admits there was a lot of kickback when the company introduced the daily meeting, but the benefits prove themselves soon enough. It’s a “leap of faith,” but once the momentum gets going the people get into it. Matt comments, you don’t try to solve anything, just update the situation. Keegan adds that it allows team members to get a clue of the status of each player — “Maybe I won’t bother Jane today about that report since she has so much to do…”