The state of Embracing new channels,

privacy-forward targeting
programmatic and expanded opportunities

in 2022
The state of
programmatic
in 2022

Embracing new channels,

privacy-forward targeting
and expanded opportunities

Programmatic marketing — digital
media ads purchased and ads placed
through the SSP/DSP real-time
ecosystem — is in a state of evolution.
Following the pandemic, marketing
teams increasingly turned to
programmatic to better reach and
engage audiences at scale. Now, their
attention and allocation to this method
have entered a new phase of growth
and importance — representing an
even larger and expanding share of
marketers’ budgets and efforts.
In this state of the industry report,
Digiday and AdTheorent explore these
changes and more, surveying 64
brands and agencies.
This report highlights how advertisers
have been reassessing resources,
budgets and approaches and how
they plan to do so in the future.
The report also contains expert
insights highlighting the trends and
transformations underway — valuable
for marketing teams planning their
programmatic strategies for 2023 and
beyond.

What’s in this
How privacy restrictions
report: and regulations are evolving
in the programmatic space

The rising prominence of CTV for

How marketers are budgeting
programmatic marketers
for programmatic in 2023

The rising importance of DOOH adoption and

programmatic with marketing opportunities
teams
How performance and
Measurement challenges for partnerships are defining the
programmatic teams future of programmatic

01
The programmatic mix:
Budgets and channels in
2023

Brand and agency respondents

indicated they’re shifting more
budget to programmatic
advertising in the coming year, with
49% of respondents planning to
allocate between 41% and 100% of
their budget to the channel in 2023,
up from 36% in 2022.

Q. How much budget did you 80%-100% 6%

allocate to programmatic 6%
advertising (either managed or
self-service) across your media 61%-79% 10%
mix in 2022 and how much do 10%
you expect to allocate in 2023?
41%-60% 20%
2022 2023 33%

21%-40% 29%

25%

1%-20% 29%

14%

0% 0%

0%

I don’t know 6%

12%

02
Additionally, as more marketers Q. One year from now, when it comes to the following
purchase ads through programmatic channels, please describe how much of your monthly
methods, they’re also adding programmatic budget you expect to allocate to each.
channels to their mix to reach
consumers where they’re spending OOH Linear TV CTV/OTT Audio Mobile
time across a variety of devices. As a
result, some channels have gained 80%-100% 0%
more attention than others. 2%
2%
CTV and over-the-top (OTT)
0%
streaming TV ads have gained
4%
momentum, with more marketers
purchasing ads in this space and
seeking to use it as a lower-funnel 61%-79% 6%
tactic or as part of a full-funnel 2%
strategy rather than just an upper-
4%
funnel or awareness-only tool. In fact,
4%
31% of respondents are allocating
20%
between 21% and 40% of their
monthly budgets to CTV/OTT, 29% are
allotting between 1% and 20%, and 41%-60% 6%
18% are spending between 41% and 10%
60%. Meanwhile, 62% of respondents 18%
are spending 20% or less of their 6%
budgets on linear TV. 28%

Mobile continues to capture the most

monthly spend, with 20% of 21%-40% 10%
respondents allotting between 61% 15%
and 79% toward the channel, 28% of 31%
respondents between 41% and 60%, 24%
and 24% of respondents allocating 24%
between 21% and 40%.

1%-20% 56%
Less traditional channels are gaining
31%
traction as well. Fifty-six percent of
respondents are allocating between 29%
1% and 20% of their monthly 44%
programmatic budgets to out-of- 8%
home (OOH), while 44% are
allocating 1%–20% to audio.
0% 14%
31%
6%
12%
6%

I don’t know 8%
9%
10%
10%
10%

03
Marketer interest in
programmatic is higher
than direct-sold inventory

For marketing teams, 2022 has been a Q. Compared to direct-sold inventory, how has the
time of format diversification as importance of programmatic in your marketing
advertisers increasingly tested and strategy changed over the past 12 months?
implemented cookieless solutions.
The urgency shifted into higher gear,
especially at the start of the year, prior Much more important 23%
to Google’s announced deadline
extension in July, helping drive growth
in programmatic offerings. Overall,
More important 44%
marketers are demanding that
programmatic must drive quantifiable
business outcomes and advertiser ROI.
Equally important 27%

“This validates our thesis that

advertising dollars should follow
Less important 6%
performance, where performance
means the verified fulfillment of
advertiser-specific goals,” said Jim
Much less important 0%
Lawson, CEO at AdTheorent.
“Advertisers must know that the digital
investment they’re making is providing
a return, whether that be driving sales,
in-store visitation, ad engagement or
any other relevant positive outcome for
their brand.”

In this survey, responses helped

highlight the dramatic shift in digital
marketers’ programmatic share of
wallet — 67% of marketers said that
programmatic has become more
important for their marketing strategies
over the past year.

04
Respondents also indicated a Q. How much of your programmatic budget is allocated
slight preference for self-service to managed platforms and how much is allocated to self-
programmatic solutions, with 63% of serve platforms?
survey respondents allocating 41%–
100% of their programmatic budget
to self-serve and 51% of respondents Managed service Self-serve
allocating 41%–100% to managed
programmatic solutions.
80%-100% 11%

25%

61%-79% 15%

19%

41%-60% 25%

19%

21%-40% 13%

19%

1%-20% 15%

10%

0% 15%

2%

I don’t know 6%

6%

Those who prefer self-service

are drawn to the flexibility of running
programmatic campaigns on their
own terms. Three-quarters of
respondents have the same teams
operating across multiple
Q. On an operational level, what best describes your
team’s approach to programmatic buying?
Separate buying teams are tasked 15%

programmatic offerings. with investing in separate platforms

“We choose to buy media The same buying teams work on 75%
programmatically so that we can spending across multiple platforms
control for comprehensive
frequency management and
Spend is automated across platforms 10%
greater fluidity between tactics, as
with minimal human involvement
well as real-time optimization and
reporting,” said Mary O’Brien,
programmatic director at PMG,
Other 0%
providing an example in a recent
interview.

05
The challenges on marketers’
minds: Measurement
accuracy and performance

With the privacy landscape still in
flux, there are varying views about
the ways in which marketers expect
their campaigns to be affected. As
teams work to refine and evolve
their programmatic strategies and
adopt new technology-powered
tactics and advertising channels
to maximize performance, privacy
concerns continue to loom. One of the will somewhat decrease over the next
industry’s primary concerns is year, and 31% indicated
how the performance accuracy of measurement accuracy will
programmatic campaigns will be somewhat decrease. While it’s clear
affected within the next year. that accuracy is a top concern
moving into 2023, more than half of
In this survey, 40% of the respondents advertisers believe that these aspects
said they expect the performance will represent no change or an
accuracy of programmatic campaigns increase in accuracy anytime soon.

Q. One year from now, how do Targeting 4%

you expect privacy changes
to impact the scale, targeting, 28%
20%
measurement accuracy and
performance of programmatic 36%
campaigns? 12%

Significantly increase Performance 6%

Somewhat increase 22%

No change 26%
40%
Somewhat decrease
6%
Significantly decrease

Measurement 4%

20%
27%
31%

18%
It remains to be seen how teams
will balance the changes amid
scale, targeting, measurement and
Scale 6%
performance in the year to come.
26%
Successful marketers are already
working to better prepare for future 34%
privacy changes, including testing 28%
non-ID-based solutions, to soften some
6%
of the anticipated signal-loss expected
in a post-cookie world.

06
Embracing
automation to
combat signal loss
Marketers are facing challenges
around signal loss with the impending
deprecation of cookies from Chrome
in 2024 — not to mention that they’ve
long been gone from Safari and Firefox
— in addition to ad identifier restrictions
with Apple’s ATT.
As the concerns around measurement
accuracy and scale develop, advertisers
are looking for tools to assist them in
their evolution beyond traditional ID-
based solutions, such as AI and ML.
“We absolutely embrace machine
learning and automation as a means to
combat signal loss,” said O’Brien at PMG.
“It’s a good mitigation strategy for
cookies going away. Automation and
ML-based optimizations long-term will
be a positive for performance.”
And, for those who’ve relied heavily on
cookies in the past, automation is crucial.
“Traditionally, we’ve relied heavily on
cookies for programmatic
measurement,” she said. “But now we’re
diversifying our measurement approach
into solutions like incrementality testing
and media mix modeling. Other than
that, we’re making sure we aren’t overly
reliant on one approach should
legislation impact that buy or platform as
policies change over time.”
Regarding Google’s latest cookie
deprecation announcement, Lawson
advised a positive and consumer-focused
approach: “Marketers shouldn’t be sitting
around waiting for Google to tell them
what they should or shouldn’t be doing.
Marketers should already be testing
privacy-forward solutions. There are
highly-effective ways to leverage the
benefits of digital advertising
while respecting consumer privacy. It’s
unnecessary to chase specific user IDs
around the internet because statistics
can replace individual IDs to drive
valuable business outcomes.”
For privacy and
programmatic, next steps
mean more education
Privacy-forward solutions are respondents (53%) are developing
very much on the minds of or partnering for contextual
programmatic marketers. targeting solutions to complement
behavioral targeting. One write-in
A majority of respondents (67%) response for “other” mentioned
are developing or partnering implementing server-to-server
with providers not dependent tracking.
on PII for targeting to adapt to
ongoing privacy restrictions. Most
Q. Over the past 12 months, what steps have
you taken to adapt your programmatic strategy
to ongoing industry privacy restrictions (loss of
third-party cookies, Apple’s iOS update, etc.)?
Select all that apply.
Developing or partnering with 67%
providers not dependent on
personal data for targeting (i.e.,
machine learning, predictive
targeting that does not rely on
cookies or PII)
Developing or partnering for 53%
contextual targeting solutions to
complement behavioral targeting
Developing or partnering for first 49%
party solutions such as site sign-ins
and email newsletters
Privacy changes are not 10%
impacting our programmatic
strategy
Other 2%
07
The way forward when it comes to
privacy begins with asking the right
explore non-ID solutions such as
predictive advertising, which relies
Privacy
questions and challenging broken upon statistics in lieu of individual preparedness
premises. behaviors and user IDs. Proactively
testing these solutions and not check-in
“It starts with education and defaulting to what’s been done the
learning about what is available to last five years is the key to taking full
programmatic marketers in 2022,” advantage of programmatic
said Lawson at AdTheorent. “Brands advertising in 2022 and beyond.” The industry shares concerns
should ask their programmatic partners about ongoing consumer
about driving performance, efficient Forty-nine percent of respondents privacy restrictions, but some
and effective targeting methods, and indicated advanced targeting that are more prepared than others.
attribution innovations outside doesn’t utilize cookies or PII is more
of walled gardens. They should effective than retargeting or “We weren’t fully reliant on
explore unified IDs and other cookie behavioral targeting, and 29% felt cookie-based audiences, to
replacement IDs, but they should also they’re about the same. begin with,” Andrew Harrison,
head of North America e-
commerce sales at KraftHeinz
Q. How effective do you consider advanced said. “By using first-party data,
targeting tactics that do not rely on personal clean rooms or retail walled
information or cookies, like those that use machine gardens that can port in our first-
learning, to be in comparison to legacy targeting party data, we are prepared for
methods like retargeting or behavioral targeting? any changes.

“I think if you have the right

Much more effective
Somewhat more effective
10% relationships, you’ve been
preparing for a while,” he
continued. “And now it’s just
a matter of seeing when the
39% privacy changes will be truly
implemented.”

About the same in terms of 29%

effectiveness

Somewhat less effective 20%

Much less effective 2%

08
New era, new Brands and agencies are continuing to
shift ad dollars into CTV. The channel
party cookies, and it is clearly a vital
channel for most teams, with 59%

channels: increasingly presents performance

outcomes that do not require third-
saying it’s somewhat to very effective
for them.

CTV is
shifting to a Q. How effective is CTV at driving its
intended objectives for your team?

performance Very effective 12%

enhancement Somewhat effective 47%

tactic for Somewhat ineffective 15%

marketers Very ineffective 2%

I don’t know 14%

CTV is not a part of our 10%

marketing strategy

When it comes to connected TV Q. What proportion of your

campaigns, programmatic is playing programmatic spend is going to
a growing role in media buying and CTV in 2022 and 2023 (expected)?
campaign placement strategy.
2022 2023
In 2022, 62% of respondents were
allocating just 1%–40% of their
80%-100% 4%
programmatic spend to CTV.
Next year that changes, with 49% 2%
remaining in that category of spend
61%-79% 2%
and 32% looking to put 41% or more
of their programmatic budgets into 6%

connected TV campaigns. That’s an

increase of 22% in 2023. 41%-60% 16%
24%

21%-40% 29%
25%

1%-20% 33%
24%

0% 6%
6%

I don’t know 10%

13%

09
Regarding the ways marketers Q. What methods do you use to purchase
are buying these programmatic CTV inventory? Select all that apply.
activations on connected TV, many
are purchasing CTV ad spots through
programmatic guaranteed methods Programmatic 55%
(55%). However, private exchanges guaranteed
are close behind at 49%; open
auctions are not far behind that Private exchanges 49%
(41%).

Open auctions 41%

We don’t purchase 10%

CTV inventory

I don’t know 6%

The role of connected TV in the

funnel is worth noting as well.
As consumer interest in subscribing to
streaming services supported by ads
grows, advertisers can tap into a
more data-driven, targeted
approach.
Q. Are you interested in CTV to drive
superior performance when used as part of
a full-funnel approach versus using CTV as
an upper-funnel tactic alone?
Very interested 33%

“CTV is an important part of the

full-funnel story, and when used in Somewhat 45%
conjunction with lower-funnel tactics, interested
it has been proven to drive increased
performance,” said Lawson at Not sure 8%
AdTheorent. “We ran a campaign for
a customer and determined that the
consumers who saw both the CTV Uninterested 6%
and display ads converted at a 50%
higher rate than if they were exposed
to the display ads only. Being able to Very uninterested 2%
tie outcome-based validations
to how media dollars are spent is
important, and this type of reporting is
CTV is not a part 6%
another way to share the value of
of our marketing
programmatic CTV with customers.”
strategy

In this survey, 78% of respondents

indicated they were somewhat to
very interested in utilizing CTV as a
performance driver rather than only
as an upper-funnel tactic.

10
“For a women’s apparel client of ours,
we’ve seen CTV drive the type of
performance you would expect, like
reach and brand awareness lift, but
we evaluated the path to conversion
more deeply to understand how CTV
moved users down the funnel and if
it drove conversion lift,” said O’Brien
at PMG. “What we saw was that CTV
was really effective at driving users
down the funnel, and it created a lift in
the overall conversion rate that we
saw when a user was exposed to CTV.
That was a great story because CTV is
an expensive channel, so to be able to
justify it with some lower-funnel metrics
was definitely a positive.”
When it comes to CTV metrics overall,
overwhelmingly, video completes
were the way our respondents said
they tracked CTV campaigns (61%).
Business outcomes, ROAS/ACOS and
CPA trail behind at 37%, 31% and
28%, respectively.

Q. How do you track CTV Video completes 61%

campaign attribution? Select
all that apply.

Business outcomes 37%

(sales, visitation)

ROAS/ACOS 31%

CPA 28%

CTV is not a part of our 10%

marketing strategy

I don’t know 8%

Other 0%

11
“At the end of the day, CTV is an Q. Which KPIs are valuable to you in your
opportunity to ensure you can programmatic marketing? Select all that apply.
still connect with and relate to
consumers despite the fact that
Conversions
they may not be watching as much 65%
broadcast TV,” said Harrison at
KraftHeinz. “I think it’s helped a lot
of CPGs to make the digital space Clicks
a little bit less of a black box and 65%
has always been an area that I think
there is an opportunity to drive strong
Business outcomes (sales,
brands, consumer sentiment, brand 54%
prescription fills,
sentiment, increased likelihood for
visitation)
a conversion, a buy and to get that
reach metric.”
52%
Cost per action
From attribution to key performance
indicators, while conversions and
clicks win out as the highest-value 50%
Impressions
KPIs overall at 65% each, business
outcomes, cost-per-action and
impressions are close behind (54%,
44%
52% and 50%, respectively). And, ROAS/ACOS
while programmatic CTV marketers
appear to be very interested in video
completes as far as attribution goes, 39%
Video completes
when it comes to overall campaign
KPIs, they’re all about the dollar-
based results.
2%
Other

“Marketers should take note that
programmatic is capable of
achieving so much more than
‘clicks,’” said Lawson. “At AdTheorent,
we use a privacy-forward machine
learning-powered programmatic
platform to drive advanced
advertiser-specificied
KPIs tied to business outcomes such as
sales, prescription fills, fo m completes
and more. Marketers should move
beyond the click and demand more
from their programmatic campaigns
and partners.”

12
Opportunities are increasing,
but programmatic spend isn’t
catching up for DOOH (yet)

For programmatic marketers, Q. What proportion of your programmatic spend

spend on digital-out-of-home is going to DOOH in 2022 and 2023 (expected)? 2022 2023
activations is mostly staying the
same — and comparatively modest
— between 2022 and 2023. The 80%-100% 0%
majority of programmatic teams are 0%
earmarking 1%–20% of their spend to
DOOH in 2023, and that’s the same 61%-79% 6%
they put in the category throughout 8%
2022. Only 6% are budgeting more
than 40% of their programmatic plan 41%-60% 11%
to DOOH, and that’s down from 11% 6%
in 2022.
21%-40% 6%
13%

1%-20% 46%
46%

0% 21%
13%

I don’t know 10%

14%

While more people are spending
time out of their homes, advertisers
aren’t ready to allocate a more
significant percentage of their
budget toward DOOH. The price of
the format may be an operative
factor in these budgeting decisions.
“I’m surprised to hear that DOOH
spend hasn’t increased for 2023 yet,”
said O’Brien at PMG. “I consider it
more like CTV, where it would be a
huge growth channel over the next
few years. I wonder if the hesitancy
could be due to the potential
recession worries and new
advertisers choosing to invest more in
less expensive formats with DOOH
being much higher impact and
expensive.”
At KraftHeinz, Harrison wasn’t surprised
that DOOH spend isn’t poised for a
surge in the year to come as e-
commerce growth since 2021 has led
companies such as his to believe
DOOH is no longer a must.
“For CPGs, I think they’ve appreciated
the growth in e-commerce, and over
the last few years, they’ve been trying
to lean in,” he said. “There was a
massive consumer shift into e-
commerce, so I think what that
enabled was a belief that you could
drive e-commerce volume and
growth without the same spend.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that
retail media spend will increase next
year,” Harrison continued, “so it’ll be
interesting to see where that spend
comes from. Does it come from trade,
existing media channels or brand
media spend? You’re going to see a
shift into retail media from a variety of
different sources.”
For DOOH to gain a share
of marketers’ budgets, it’ll need to
prove its value separate from what
brands are gaining from the
increased prevalence of e-
commerce currently.

13
DOOH metrics
in focus
For programmatic marketers that
are putting a lens on DOOH this
year and next, most respondents
(43%) said they analyze brand site
traffic, and sales lift in DOOH
campaign regions, including QR
codes on ad creatives to
measure direct scans and
including CTAs to track
conversions followed, each with
33%. Three respondents wrote in
additional responses saying they
use impressions, don’t have a way
to measure DOOH campaign
attribution and use a partner for
footfall attribution.
Q. How do you track DOOH campaign
attribution? Select all that apply.
We analyze brand site
traffic and sales lift in 43%
DOOH campaign regions
We include QR codes on
ad creative to measure 33%
direct scans
We include calls-to-action
(CTAs) to track conversions 33%
We use geo-fencing
around DOOH units to 29%
retarget users on mobile
devices

DOOH is not part of our 18%

marketing strategy

I don’t know 14%

Other 6%

14
The future of programmatic:
A focus on performance and
agility
As marketing teams seek to evolve
programmatic strategies to maintain
campaign scale and achieve
advertising success in the future,
they are hiring in-house experts for
programmatic teams (44%), using
a hybrid of third-party technology
vendor partnerships and in-house
experts (40%) and partnering with
third-party technology vendors that
specialize in programmatic (35%).
“We’re talking a lot right now about
agility,” said Harrison at KraftHeinz.
“I think because of how dynamic
programmatic is, keeping that
flexibility and willingness to quickly
change your mind or shift your
approach is really important because
it’s so different from a historical media
approach where you’re looking at
CPMs, and you’ve got all these very
defined KPIs you’re going after. Some
of the machine learning and
predictive elements of programmatic
make it really exciting.”
Q. What steps are you taking to improve your
programmatic marketing strategy in the future?
Select all that apply.
Hiring in-house experts for
programmatic teams
A hybrid of third-party
technology vendor partnerships
and in-house experts
Partnering with third-party
technology vendors that
specialize in programmatic
Engaging with a consulting
firm/agency
I don’t know
Other
Opportunities for marketers in the
programmatic space in the new year
are plentiful and involve some
relatively new lines of thinking.
“The first is around sustainability and
responsible advertising,” said O’Brien
at PMG. “There’s a huge opportunity
for digital marketers to put an
increased focus on sustainability and
reducing our carbon footprint, whether
that’s through supply path optimization
or being intentional with inventory
44%
40%
35%
8%
6%
2% (none of the above)
selection and the publishers we’re
investing in.
“Traditionally, programmatic has
performed well on a post-view
basis when we look at cookie-
based data to be able to showcase
programmatic impact to a program,”
O’Brien continued. “Knowing that
cookies are going away, it’s going
to be really important to lean into
durable measurement solutions, such
as incrementality and media mix
15
modeling, ahead of the cookie
deprecation in 2024.”
Performance overwhelmingly stands
out as the top priority for
programmatic teams moving into
2023 at 71%, with privacy-forward
targeting approaches that aren’t
reliant on PII or cookies coming in
second at 54%.
With over half of respondents
focusing on privacy-forward
approaches to address the signal
loss resulting from the deprecation of
third-party cookies, marketers are
shifting toward first-party data.
However, it’s imperative to have a
privacy-forward approach to this
customer data. It’s a precious asset,
and when handled with care, it
drives significant campaign
outcomes for marketing teams.
Q. What are your key priorities over
the next year related to programmatic
advertising? Select your top two priorities.
Performance
Privacy-forward targeting
approaches
(not reliant on cookies or PII)
Transparency
CTV strategies
DOOH strategies
Other 0%
“First-party data is not a privacy-free
zone or a ‘fast pass’ to target however
you want,” said Lawson at AdTheorent.
“Brands should think very carefully
about how they use that data. They
need to think about how they can act
on first-party data and make it
actionable to drive business outcomes
but in a way that does not make
valuable customers and relationships
feel exploited or monetized, as the
walled garden duopolies have done.”
One way to do so is through predictive
targeting. This method analyzes the
impression data correlated with
conversions. Put simply, algorithms look
for patterns in the data that may have
led to that conversion and ultimate
purchase.
“We can start with a first-party
data pool and model off of it to
understand and expand it, and
then we use predictive targeting to
71%
54%
40%
40%
23%
identify impressions most likely to yield
conversions or engagement,” Lawson
said. “For example, we have up to 900
different data objects that our
algorithms can look at and say, ‘what
patterns of data exist when the shoes
are being purchased?’
“Based on those conclusions, when
evaluating new ad impressions, our
predictive bidding platform will try
to find ad impressions with data
characteristics that match prior post-ad
exposure conversion events rather than
optimizing campaigns just to target
IDs,” he continued. “So, there’s a huge
opportunity with how well predictive
advertising works, and it’s also based
on the freshest conversion data that
exists. The challenge is educating a
market that’s very used to advertising
based on IDs and having more
nuanced conversations with media
buyers.”
16
Partnerships for growth: How
marketers are tapping into
programmatic resources
When it comes to identifying a partner
that can help marketing teams put
all the pieces together and ensure
they’re making the most out of their
programmatic campaigns, there has
been a change in approach to the
evaluation, involving more creative
consideration of available options and
less deference to entrenched walled
garden giants.
The qualities of a good partner come
down to the following.
Authenticity
Believability
Support
Transparency of reporting
Collaboration
Results across a variety of advertiser
metrics
Flexibility to address advertiser
needs
With these qualities come some
questions:
Does the partner offer unique,
differentiated value?
Can the partner prove its unique
value?
Beyond the initial sales pitch, will the
partner provide enough support?
How can the partner share insights
about performance?
Is the partner staffed and organized
to be an extension of your media
team?
Is the partner equipped to drive
business outcomes that matter?
Is the partner problem-solving and
“The big takeaway is to plan ahead,”
recommended O’Brien. “We partner
with clients at the beginning of the
year to define what their business
priorities are for the year and then
translate those into media objectives
and then our test-and-learn agenda
throughout the year. I think that sets
us up to be accountable to some of
the roadmap planning items.”
nimble enough to be responsive,
proactive and creative?
More specifically, marketers want to
know what tools partners possess, how
easy the platform is to use and what
performance outcomes it is helping to
drive.
“What really excited us about
AdTheorent was the level of support,
transparency of the reporting and the
overall machine learning through the
platform,” said O’Brien at PMG. “The
partnership has been extremely
successful and collaborative. We’re
using the platform with a wide range
of our travel and retail clients. The A+
service, deep insights and reporting,
plus the ease-of-use within the platform
and the overall performance sold us
on the partnership.”
Considering each team’s specific
needs is essential in finding the right
partnership. Harrison boiled down what
his team found to be most helpful in
their search for an ideal partner into
the following:
And those partners themselves are
evolving: "There’s been a big shift
toward partners that are more
agnostic feeling that aren’t forcing
you to use specific measurement
partners or audience partners or data
partners, where CPGs can really craft
their message in their own way that
can be onboarded quickly, accepting
tags to ensure brand safety and then
activate,” said Harrison at KraftHeinz.
Effectively-priced media with a
vertically-integrated approach
Balance of targeting and machine
learning so the buys are constantly
being optimized
Ability to employ geographic
accuracy to reach consumers at
certain retail destinations
Willingness to integrate into existing
data systems and have transparent
conversations around impact on
sales and targeting
And as the programmatic sector
continues to shift, how the future
shakes out will be interesting as retail
media continues to come into focus
and gain a share of the media mix.
“I think you’ve got this really interesting
dichotomy between third-party
programmatic DSPs and direct buys,”
said Harrison. “And as retail media
networks try to become more like
publishers — as they try to find ways
to get more and more impressions
— you’re going to see this squeeze
toward non-retail media linked
providers. From where I’m sitting, that
dichotomy is really interesting.”
17
About
AdTheorent

AdTheorent (Nasdaq: ADTH) uses

advanced machine learning technology
and privacy-forward solutions to deliver
impactful advertising campaigns for
marketers. AdTheorent’s machine
learning-powered Platform A/T powers
its predictive targeting, geo-intelligence,
audience extension solutions and in-house
creative capability, Studio A.T.

Leveraging only non-sensitive data and

focused on the predictive value of
machine learning models, AdTheorent’s
product suite and flexible transaction
models allow advertisers to identify the
most qualified potential consumers
coupled with the optimal creative
experience to deliver superior results,
measured by each advertiser’s real-world
business goals.

For more information, visit adtheorent.com