https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/netflix-plans-house-ad-tech-partners-trade-desk-magnite-google

Fast Forward to today. First mover advantage. A new DSP is live. Others are not far behind. It will be months before competitors know what happened. I work with the VP of a DSP and you don't have to twist someone's arm, especially who already runs ads to spend with Netflix. Marketing Departments will have no idea how to get ads on Netflix.

Fascinating to watch everyone walk around Cannes with their clout bracelets and no one realizes that RFID trackers are embedded. Everyone's movements, tagged to individuals, are being followed.

You're a world-class expert in Programmatic Advertising, and I want to learn from the best.

Can you break it down for me through five different lenses, each with a distinct goal and level of depth?

1. Explain it like I’m in middle school Give me the core idea of programmatic advertising in simple terms. Break down how the ecosystem works—who’s involved, how ads are bought and sold—using a clear, real-world analogy. Keep it straightforward, no fluff or jargon.

2. Teach it like I’m a seasoned industry pro Let’s get into the advanced stuff: the underlying mechanics, the hidden levers, who the real players are, and how the value chain actually operates from end to end. Where are the bottlenecks or inefficiencies, and what parts of the process are ripe for disruption or improvement?

3. Coach me like a mentor Walk me step-by-step through how to plan, launch, and optimize a successful programmatic campaign. What are the key decisions I need to make? What common mistakes should I avoid? What blind spots do even experienced marketers tend to miss?

4. Think like a strategist Put programmatic in the larger context of media, marketing, and business growth. How does it connect to other channels? Why does it matter more than ever? Where’s it headed next?

5. Summarize like a top-tier consultant Give me a concise, reusable cheat sheet I can use to teach others or revisit when I need clarity—bonus points for frameworks, flowcharts, mental models, or quick-reference principles I can apply right away.

Please include real-world examples, cite references where useful, and anticipate the confusing parts. I’m looking for clarity, depth, and speed—so I can walk away with both confidence and practical know-how.

Advertisers are addicted, agencies are conflicted

Bots are programmed to click, humans click accidentally

Humans block ads, bots don't

Retargeting by advertisers, audience extension by publishers

Audience segments and cohorts of bots, not humans

Brand safety defunds real news, and funds fake news

"No data" does not mean "no fraud"

Humans don't give consent; bots just fake consent

Double paid, not double verified

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thought-exercises-programmatic-media-augustine-fou/

Supreme Leader Jeff reminds you if you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself

I feel like there's very few companies in programmatic that have real tech. Seems like most is vaporware

With all the news about fees, cheating, monopoly and now this. Why are any buyers not just walking away. I mean google delivering spyware.

Hey everyone,

We run a fashion e-commerce store targeting the European market

Trying to figure out if Criteo is any good for prospecting.

As they're very known for the large buyer data they have, specifically in fashion ecommerce

Thanks in advance!

After burning through hundreds of dollars on AI API calls last month (mostly using GPT-4 for tasks that GPT-3.5 could handle), I got frustrated with the lack of cost visibility and intelligence in existing AI dev tools.

The Problem:

• Most AI coding assistants hide costs until your bill arrives

• You're using expensive models for simple tasks

• No easy way to orchestrate different models for different purposes

• Building custom AI workflows requires writing code

What I Built: Octomind - an AI development assistant with real-time cost tracking and intelligent model orchestration.

Key Features:

🔍 Real-time cost display:

[~$0.05] > "How does authentication work in this project?"
[~$0.12] > "Add error handling to the login function"
[~$0.18] > "Write unit tests for this component"

You see exactly what each interaction costs as you go.

⚡ Layered architecture: Route simple tasks to cheap models, complex reasoning to premium models. All configurable:

[layers.reducer]
model = "openrouter:anthropic/claude-3-haiku"  # $0.25/1M tokens

[layers.primary] 
model = "openrouter:anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet"  # $3/1M tokens

🤖 MCP server integration: Add specialized AI agents through configuration alone:

[mcp.servers.code_reviewer]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-everything"]
model = "openrouter:anthropic/claude-3-haiku"

Now you have agent_code_reviewer() available in your session.

🖼️ Multimodal CLI:

> /image screenshot.png
> "What's wrong with this error dialog?"

Visual debugging in your terminal.

Real Impact:

• Reduced my AI development costs by ~70% through intelligent routing

• Can compose AI workflows without writing custom scripts

• Full transparency into what I'm spending and why

Example session:

$ octomind session
[~$0.00] > "Analyze this React component for performance issues"
[AI uses cheap model for initial analysis: ~$0.02]

[~$0.02] > "Suggest a complete refactor with modern patterns"  
[AI escalates to premium model for complex reasoning: ~$0.15]

[~$0.17] > /report
Session: $0.17 total, 2 requests, 3 tool calls, 45s duration

The tool supports OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Amazon, and Cloudflare providers with real-time cost comparison.

Installation:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/muvon/octomind/main/install.sh | bash
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="your_key"
octomind session

GitHub: https://github.com/muvon/octomind

I'm curious what other developers think about cost transparency in AI tools. Are you tracking your AI spending? What would make AI development workflows more efficient for you?

Edit: Thanks for the interest! A few people asked about the MCP integration - it uses the Model Context Protocol to let you add any compatible AI server as a specialized agent. No coding required, just configuration.

One pitfall we’ve seen lately is teams treating ChatGPT ads like a performance channel way too early. Right now, the reality is ~$200K minimum spends, reporting limited to weekly CSVs (no real‑time dashboards), and infrastructure that’s still pretty barebones. In that setup, expecting ROAS is premature. At present, LLM ads should be treated as a learning investment for a way to understand how agentic workflows & AI‑driven placements are behaving.

Also, maybe a weird observation- A lot of this feels like AI talking to AI. Not even sure how much of the ad is actually landing with a human vs getting filtered/reshaped along the way. What do y’all think?

In many cases yes, especially for brand campaigns.

Private marketplaces usually give:

Higher viewability

Better placements

Lower fraud

But performance campaigns sometimes still win on the open exchange simply because of cheap scale.

Many buyers split budgets across both using SSPs like Magnite and PubMatic.

I’ve been talking to a few UK-based traders lately and it feels like the entry point for a direct TTD seat has become unreachable for anyone not spending £100k+ a month.

A lot of mid-sized teams have the talent for hands-on-keyboard trading but are being forced onto "lite" DSPs or managed services with hidden margins just because they don't hit those enterprise spend thresholds.

I’ve actually found a way to bypass these minimums while still getting a full, direct seat (identical to going direct to TTD). It’s been a game changer for keeping autonomy without the massive overhead.

If anyone else in the UK is hitting this wall and wants to know how to set it up, drop me a DM or leave a comment - happy to share what worked for us.

Ad waste is a well known problem in the digital marketing industry, often nourished by MFA websites (Made for Advertising). MFA websites are those created exclusively with the intent to generate large quantities of bid requests to skim off the top of advertisers’ budgets.

As we will see later, these are neither negligible amounts of money nor insignificant percentages of impressions.

How can the adoption of vanity metrics incentivize ad waste?

Often, brands and agencies use metrics such as CTR, CPM, and viewability as reference points. In general, these metrics are not closely related to the business objective, at least not directly. If brands decide to use these metrics to measure the success or failure of a campaign, agencies have little choice but to adjust to their clients’ expectations.

On the sell side, publishers are also affected by these choices because they, too, are pushed to create content that better aligns with CTR, CPM, viewability, and similar metrics; otherwise, they struggle to properly monetize their work.

It is within this vicious cycle that MFA websites find their space. And now, thanks to artificial intelligence, which previously required days, these websites can be created in mere hours. This has dramatically increased the number of MFA sites.

Do MFA websites involve only small publishers?

Actually, the record shows that MFA websites have been linked to well-known and prestigious names. The scandal involving the Forbes subdomain (www3.forbes.com) was even reported by the Wall Street Journal.

There have also been cases where MFA websites were included in inventory sources within deals.

What are MFA websites?

MFA websites are created solely to divert as many funds as possible from advertisers’ budgets. They generate an abnormal number of bid requests.

What are the characteristics of MFA websites?

These are the most notable traits:

• Ad overcrowding (at least double the usual amount)

• Ads that appear partially or totally overlapped

• Low-quality content

• Web pages refreshed frequently

• Rarely appearing in search engines

• Traffic sourced entirely from paid display, video, and social ads

• Circumvention of frequency caps

• Bid requests marked as viewable that actually are not

What are the ad waste numbers?

According to ANA (Association of National Advertisers):

• 15% of the annual global programmatic ad spend goes to MFA websites.

• 21% of global programmatic impressions in a year are served on MFA websites.

Given these numbers, why does the industry still place so much importance on vanity metrics?

It’s a trade-off. Serving ads only on high-quality inventory would reduce scalability and increase CPM, two factors that agencies and brands are highly sensitive to.

However, investing in high-quality inventory yields better results in terms of actionable metrics, those directly linked to a brand’s business objective. These metrics also provide valuable insights on what next steps to take, if needed.

There is no doubt that spending at least part of the budget on MFA websites helps reduce CPM and improve CTR and viewability. However, it also creates a poor user experience and ultimately harms brand reputation.

The steady decline in third-party cookie availability has made inventory quality even more crucial.

What can be done? Is the industry taking action to mitigate ad waste?

Fortunately, progress is happening!

• Xandr and AppNexus have launched the Inventory Quality program to verify inventory source quality.

• Tech vendors specializing in bid request analysis are developing new methodologies and standards to prevent ads from being served on MFA websites.

• Industry bodies such as ANA, 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies), WFA (World Federation of Advertisers), and ISBA (Incorporated Society of British Advertisers) have joined forces to establish a standardized approach for identifying MFA websites.

In summary, MFA websites and ad waste have finally been put in the spotlight.

Additionally, programmatic players are growing increasingly aware of the issue.

I'm looking to buy existing websites that have access to an AdX (Google Ad Manager) account. If anyone has one or has any leads, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks! 

There's got to be a current former TTD client who is willing to share details on pricing. I hear too many stories about invoices being a surprise or needing a forensics background to understand fees. Could someone please share details into tech, services, media, "features?" (the last one is most interesting). DM if that's preferable. Thanks!

Yahoo is making serious inroads in the DOOH market, recently it partnered with Hivestack, one of the dominant digital-out-of-home players in APAC.

https://marketech-apac.com/hivestack-yahoo-announce-strategic-tie-up-for-global-dooh-efforts/

The news comes on the back of the Yahoo partnership with Marriott, which launched an ad network to advertise on its native app, and eventually will allow placement on TVs in the rooms, and digital screens in the lobbies, gyms, and bars.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/marriott-rolls-out-media-network-that-lets-brands-reach-travelers-on-its-apps-and-tv-screens-11652698800

200,000 Instagram Followers Sounds Impressive, Right? But If Your Goal Is Online Sales, How Many Will Become Customers? Do These Metrics Help Plan Future Actions?

As suggested by the title of this article, we might have several questions about the effectiveness of our digital marketing campaigns. Depending on what we want to achieve, we decide which KPIs to consider. But are we sure that our key performance indicators are the most suitable for revealing the truth? To answer this question, we must always keep in mind our business objective.

In the previous example, does the metric answer the questions: Are we reaching the right audience? Is the message we are communicating truly effective? Are the channels we are using appropriate?

We can attract a high volume of traffic to our website, but it doesn’t guarantee a rise in online sales. In the best scenario, it might provide just a piece of information. The Instagram followers in the example above may therefore be considered a vanity metric.

What are vanity metrics? They are metrics that are not directly related to the main business objectives and don’t provide useful insights about the possible actions we need to adopt in the future.Vanity metrics may look good in a presentation, but they lack substance.

Meanwhile, always referring to the previous example, ROAS, ROI, and CPA can provide a better picture. These metrics might be considered actionable metrics because they align with the business objective and eventually indicate actions to take if needed.

But how can we distinguish vanity metrics from actionable ones? It all depends on our business objective and the context. Our metrics provide significant information when we consider the situation around them. Let’s say that our campaign works at the upper part of the purchase funnel. Its aim is to bring traffic to our website and build brand awareness. In this case, average engagement rates and the time spent by each user on certain pages would better indicate whether our campaign is achieving its goal. In this scenario, our KPIs would help identify which actions to take if needed.

The concepts of vanity metrics and actionable metrics are not new to the digital marketing industry, but this important distinction is often neglected.

Resuming, ask yourself these three questions: 1) Does this metric tie to our business goals? 2) Can this metric inform future decisions? 3) Is the context around this metric understood?

And you what do you think? I would like to hear your opinion on this matter. I’m looking forward to read your comments.

Hey everyone! I know this might be a bit of a weird question, but I’m trying to get a sense of what’s considered a "good" amount of weekly impressions reach for a programmatic campaign.

Obviously, I imagine it varies depending on the campaign objective (awareness, performance, etc.) and the format (display, video, native…), but I’m curious if there’s a rough benchmark or range people typically see or aim for.

Would love to hear how others think about this — do you have any rules of thumb or reference numbers?

Thanks in advance!

Roxot Ad Server Monitoring visualizes your DFP events for the last 24 hours in real time. The tool suits both publisher's Management and Ad Ops. Get the feel of the product - http://go.roxot.com/ad-server-monitoring

With whatever the heck is going on with Trade Desk, what are some DSPs that have reasonable fees? amazon, Yahoo, Magnite, stackadapt, viant, etc.?

During my career, I have often seen CTR taken as the central metric to determine the success or failure of a campaign. Undoubtedly, CTR is the first metric we look at to see if our ads are interesting to our targeted audience. But does CTR tell us the entire story? For example, an ad might enjoy a high CTR because it is compelling or its imagery is eye-catching, yet if the landing page or offer doesn’t resonate with visitors, those clicks won’t turn into conversions or revenue. This can mislead marketers into believing that their campaign is performing well based solely on an impressive CTR, while the factors that actually drive business growth; such as conversion rate, cost per acquisition, and customer lifetime value (depending on the business objective); remain unoptimized.

In other words, focusing only on CTR; even as a tactic; ignores the crucial elements of the customer's journey, such as the user experience on the conversion path or the quality of the traffic being driven to the website. In essence, while a high CTR indicates that an ad is attracting attention, it doesn’t guarantee that the visitors are engaging with the product or service in a way that advances business growth.

Looking beyond CTR to more actionable metrics; like conversion rate, customer acquisition cost, product page views, average time spent on those pages, and engaged sessions (to name a few examples); provides a clearer picture of what your campaign ultimately drives in tangible results. This shift from vanity metrics to actionable ones ensures that your optimization efforts are aligned with what truly matters for long-term success.

A definition of vanity metrics versus actionable metrics that I like a lot is: good metrics should drive decisions, not distractions. Actionable metrics lead to real business growth, not just better-looking reports.

Some may object that CTR and other vanity metrics are used in the early stages of the purchase funnel, and that they should be viewed as part of a global strategy that, in the lower funnel phases, also considers actionable metrics. But the fact is that vanity metrics can be used for short-term directional decisions, yet you always need something in place to check the relationship with lower funnel value; and correct it if necessary. Does an ad with a high CTR have a lower conversion rate than an ad with a lower CTR? It could mean that the ad copy, creative, or CTA; although attractive and clickable; did not accurately represent your actual offer.

As the saying goes, "what you measure grows." The metrics you choose as your KPIs will determine what you focus on. Choosing the right or wrong KPI will impact everything from your strategy and execution to the campaigns you run and the results you achieve. Hence, it is crucial to ensure that your KPIs are not vanity metrics but are meaningful and drive business impact.

Let’s return to the second question in the title: Does optimizing for CTR lead to serving on junk inventories?

I would ask you to run this test: If you have a campaign with a goal of increasing CTR and a conversion pixel implemented on the landing page that fires every time a user lands on it after clicking your ads, compare the number of clicks with the number of post-click conversions. Do the two numbers match? If not, how large is the discrepancy? According to playbooks and help center articles, a 20% discrepancy is considered acceptable. A discrepancy between the number of clicks and the landing page conversion events might be due to several reasons:

• Slow loading of the landing page due to internet connection issues

• Fat-finger errors on mobile devices

• Pixel implementation issues

• Third-party cookie restrictions or ad blockers

• Users clicking on the ad but immediately abandoning the landing page

• And many other reasons not mentioned above.

But what if the discrepancy is 30%, 40%, 50%, or even above 60%? Mostly, such discrepancies are due to fraudulent clicks generated by bots. In general, these malignant codes are situated on MFA websites; for this reason, it is very important to ensure that your campaigns serve on good quality inventories.

Optimizing campaigns based on actionable metrics also means you are serving on good quality inventories. Even when discussing traffic quality, if you focus more on GA4 average time spent by users on product pages, it would consequently improve the quality of traffic (in terms of engaged sessions, for example). Conversely, if you want your campaign to maximize the number of clicks, the system might favor serving on inventories from MFA websites; which, although offering lower CPMs, provide a bad user experience and ultimately discredit the brand reputation.

We are starting as a DSP have a couple of integrations with largest Ad Exchanges like Verve, OpenX, Google, Xandr. Our DSP supports Brand advertisement, as well as Conversions in mobile and web.

I would pay money to someone that could consult me on the following.

1. What is the typical breakdown of $1000 ad spend?

   • Ad exchange

   • Sales commission

   • Account manager commission

   • Pure profit of DSP

2. Is there such a thing as "agency cashback"? DSP returns some % of ad spend to the Agency behind the scenes, invisible to the end brand, incentivizing agencies to use their DSP, even if it underperforms?

3. How sales people remuneration works?

4. How account management people remuneration works?

5. For a DSP that just starts, where to gain experience/intelligence/consultancy on this?

Thank you!

Wonderful community btw, was so helpful that I've got over 20 replies on my previous post.

Thank you again!

Hi All Members,

I am currently looking for a job change in Ad Operations or Programmatic campaign with an experience of 7.8 years on DV360, TTD and CM360.

I am based in India. If anyone has any openings in your company. Please let me know.

Tried hard on Linkedin but not feeling lucky there.

Thank you so much