The Programmatic Ecosystem (and it's Eleven Counterparts)

This is where programmatic can become confusing, lost in its own jargon and catalog of acronyms. We’ll outline the major players within the programmatic ecosystem and their main functions, as well as their Eleven counterparts.

The Advertiser

"The advertising world wouldn’t exist without the companies that buy the ads."

The same goes for the media + entertainment industry; all of your favorite TV, radio, and print media would be non-existent without advertisers.

The Publisher

"Publishers are all the publications, websites, and mobile apps that create and deliver the real value – the content – as well as the ad space that advertisers buy."

Publishers in the Eleven system are comprised of content creators and distributors as well, except ours are real people, and with entertainment, not ads.

Ad Exchanges

"Ad Exchanges are the backbone of programmatic ad buying and a major driving force for the display advertising renaissance over the past few years. Ad Exchanges are essentially marketplaces where advertisers and publishers buy and sell ad space programmatically. Publishers make their inventory available and advertisers then bid for those ads, often in real-time, based on how much a particular visitor is worth to them."

Eleven’s mission is to be that backbone for the the entertainment industry. Our BCX is the first Ad Exchange for the branded entertainment space. It’s similar to an Ad Exchange, except it itemizes viewership as inventory across the social media “multiverse”.

Ad Networks

"Ad Networks are like the older, less capable big brother of the Ad Exchange. Like Ad Exchanges, Ad Networks aggregate inventory across multiple publishers and package it up, helping advertisers buy ads at scale more efficiently."

Okay, that might be a little harsh, but we treat Influencer marketplaces in the same manner, as they’re structured exactly like Ad Networks.

Data Management Platforms (DMPs)

Advertisers use DMPs to collect, store, and leverage their first-party audience data. DMPs also aggregate data from third parties and make it available to clients to use in their advertising.

Eleven’s DMP does this and applies tailored methods to use that data effectively while planning for branded entertainment.

Demand-Side Platforms (DSP)

A demand-side platform is a tool that enables marketers to bid on and buy ads from Ad Exchanges. DSPs are not all the same, and some differences are more important than others.

1. Quality of reach.
   • For the most part, reach itself is a commodity. Most DSPs connected to the major ad exchanges deliver 95%+ of the reach and impressions. The benefit of being connected to the five largest DSPs and the rest of the other hundreds of DSPs is marginal. However, not all DSPs deliver the same type of reach. DSPs that have direct integrations with the ad exchanges can offer different types of inventory beyond real-time bidding (RTB) inventory. DSPs can also have significant differences in cross-channel reach. For example, some DSPs offer access to native FB inventory via an API connection, while others may only offer access through Facebook Exchange.
2. Access to Data.
   • One differentiator of a DSP is the kind of data it lets an advertiser access and leverage. Some DSPs specializing in leveraging unique first-party data, like search intent, while others allow access to third-party data through DMPs. Some DSPs can connect into CRM data, while others excel at collecting mobile data.
     Access to Data. 
3. Transparency.
   • This can mean different things to different people, but generally advertisers tend to be most concerned with pricing transparency. Pricing transparency is largely dependent on how the DSP charges its users – whether on a CPM or CPC basis. DSPs that price on a CPM basis tend to be more willing to make their margins known, whereas DSPs that price on a CPC basis will not.
4. Service model.
   • There is a wide range of control over campaign management and optimization that a DSP might make available to its customers. At one end, some DSPs may only offer a managed service model where they control every aspect of optimization. At the other end of the spectrum, a DSP may offer a self-service platform for managing and optimizing campaigns. Many of the self-service platforms typically will also offer managed services for clients above a certain spend threshold.

So, here’s the thing...Prior to Eleven, there was no DSP for branded entertainment; however, there are tons of influencer marketplaces. Given the volume of demand at the time of inception, they pretty much left it manual, and like DSPs, they also offered managed services for premier clientele.

Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs)

Advertisers use DSPs to buy ads on Ad Exchanges. Publishers use SSPs to sell their ads on Ad Exchanges. It’s basically the mirror opposite.

The Eleven SSP is built for the talent industry and is specifically tailored to grow as our media consumption habits evolve. Currently, it’s used by MCNs, talent agencies, managers and creators of all types to sell inventory on their social video channels as if they were TV channels, via brand integrations.

Agency Trading Desk

"Agency trading desks (ATDs) are the media buying and reselling arms of major advertising agency holding companies like WPP, and Publicis, and. ATDs reflect a mix of people and technology. While media is often bought programmatically using technology like DSPs and DMPs, it’s then resold to advertisers as a managed service."

This hasn’t happened yet...While there are some partnerships between ad agencies and the Digital Talent industry, giving rise to “digital studios” forming between the two. Really, it’s just those parties working together to co-sell branded entertainment to a normal client. There’s no real tech engine behind this, as they were dealing with a publisher (influencer) that had no inventory.

What’s the issue with agency trading desks and transparency?

ATDs know the cost of an ad when buying media, because they buy most of it programmatically. However, when ATDs resell the media at a markup to their clients, their clients don’t enjoy the same cost transparency.

Clients don’t know how much the impression they’re buying originally cost the agency (which is different from the past, when clients knew agencies were usually taking a 15% cut on media). This informational imbalance has enabled ATDs to “arbitrage” their media, buying media at lower costs and keeping the margins when reselling it.

The worry here is that by being on both the buying and selling sides, there’s a higher chance for the agency’s goals to be misaligned with the client’s goals. Agencies may want to prioritize selling higher margin media, whereas clients may want to prioritize higher performing media.

To be fair, while most of the transparency concerns have been focused on ATDs, this same arbitrage model exists for standalone DSPs that sell their inventory on a CPC or CPA basis.

This is why it’s crucial for Eleven to remain a neutral force in the space. We’re highly transparent and have no fealty to any particular advertiser or publisher; instead, we have a specific interest in pleasing both sides of the table.

Sources: https://bizibl.com/marketing/download/abcs-programmatic