James Parker, MiQ: Programmatic in CTV, User Privacy, Sustainability, and ATS Singapore

MiQ's head of revenue & growth SEA, James Parker, recently sat down with ExchangeWire to talk about all things programmatic, CTV, data security concerns, and more.

Ahead of MiQ's appearance at the highly-anticipated ATS Singapore, he also offered us a sneak peek into what he will be talking about at the event.

Programmatic advertising involves real-time decision-making. How should marketers measure campaign performance, and what strategies do they use to continually improve ROI?

Programmatic advertising is a dynamic and rapidly evolving field. At its core, programmatic advertising relies on data-driven decisions and quick adaptations to ensure that marketing efforts are both efficient and effective. This approach has become increasingly crucial in today's fast-paced and highly competitive digital landscape.

Marketers have a wealth of advanced strategies and a diverse range of metrics at their fingertips to gauge the success of their campaigns and boost return on investment (ROI). Among these, Key Performance Indicators such as click-through rate (CTR), cost per acquisition (CPA), and return on ad spend (ROAS), offering real-time insights into campaign effectiveness.

In addition to KPIs, marketers can leverage a combination of other tools, including real-time analytics, A/B testing, audience segmentation, strategic ad placement, bid optimisation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and attribution modelling to optimise their campaigns.

Although these strategies give marketers data-driven insights, programmatic advertising thrives on the synergy between artificial intelligence and human intelligence. Marketers should collaborate with data scientists, strategists, analysts, and traders throughout the campaign lifecycle to consistently enhance performance and ROI.

We’re seeing rapid growth for CTV advertising. How do you think the industry can ensure that programmatic ads in CTV are relevant, engaging, and respectful of viewer preferences?

CTV provides a huge opportunity in terms of combining the brand experience of the big TV with the precision and outcomes associated with programmatic. The key to relevant, engaging and tailored campaigns is an approach that is enabled by technology that brings together the most diverse range of datasets for AI-powered decisioning. 

Consumers are agnostic about the platforms, devices and apps they consume TV on, constantly switching to get the best content at maximum convenience, so marketers need an agnostic approach to targeting them too.

By connecting data across devices and multiple buying platforms, it’s possible to smooth video ad frequency per user or household, enabling less wastage and more reach for advertisers and providing a better brand experience for consumers. And by connecting audience data across context, interests and demographics, it’s possible to target your highest value audience on CTV whatever they’re watching, rather than just targeting specific content or apps.

Finally, a focus on brand safety and content transparency is key. Not all CTV inventory is created equally, so ensuring you are working with partners to ensure a multi-layered approach to brand suitability is imperative. 

How do you address data security and user privacy while leveraging data to optimise programmatic campaigns?

In order to put consumer privacy concerns at the heart of our products, we built the MiQ Identity Spine with a robust, partner-agnostic approach. Its innovative architecture delivers the scale and accuracy needed across the entire adtech ecosystem, especially as cookieless will be the new norm. Furthermore, the MiQ Identity Spine never ingests any personally identifiable Information directly. In this way, we safeguard consumer privacy and ensure a gold standard in data management. 

Additionally, it enables clients to get maximised addressability, unified audience profiles, cross-channel and cross-platform insights, and sustainable, future-proofed strategies. It is proven to increase reach by up to 70% while prioritising user privacy. It does this by connecting over 25 different identifiers and solutions that we can group into four areas; authenticated IDs, contextual data, clean rooms, and anonymous cohorts, allowing for privacy-first and cookieless audience creation and activation.

How should the industry prioritise sustainability within its operations and supply chain?

Our industry wields a unique capacity to disseminate messages, values, and narratives on a global scale, serving as a powerful conduit for heightening awareness about environmental issues. By harnessing this influential power, the advertising sector can not only elevate consciousness but also cultivate positive shifts in behaviour among both consumers and businesses.

By embracing sustainable practices, the industry's internal operations and supply chain can set the stage as exemplars for other sectors. This entails sourcing eco-friendly materials for promotional materials, optimising energy efficiency within office spaces, championing digital marketing over resource-intensive print campaigns, and forging partnerships with sustainable suppliers. 

The advertising industry shoulders a dual responsibility: as a communicator of sustainable messages and values, it can ignite transformative change on a grand scale, while, as an entity in itself, it can lead by example by prioritising sustainability in its practices. 

With just two weeks until ATS Singapore, can you give us a sneak peek into what MiQ will be talking about at the event?

Recently, artificial intelligence has become a hot new topic but for MiQ and the programmatic industry it's been there from the start. Our data scientists, tech teams and traders have been harnessing the power of AI for years, using it to deliver excellent campaign performance.

During our presentation, we will take a closer look at how artificial intelligence paired with human expertise can lead to better outcomes and bigger innovations in programmatic, helping to solve some of our biggest industry challenges. We hope the session will spark an engaging conversation with the audience around shaping the future of programmatic. 

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Hear more from James at MiQ, as well as many other experts in ad tech, at ATS Singapore on 3rd and 4th October, 2023. Tickets available here.