The Yield Doctor with James Deaker
by deaker
Improving Yield Management in Digital Media
Episodes
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What Happens When AI Agents Run Ad Ops? Burt CEO, Shay Brog
What happens to ad tech business models when AI agents, not humans, are running the queries? Shay Brog, CEO of Burt Intelligence, joins me to talk about building the operational intelligence layer for ad-supported media, where automation is paying off for publishers right now, why yield decisions...
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The 900 Optimizations Your Ad Ops Team Never Gets To | Frans Vermeulen, Swivel
How do you get one ad ops person doing the work of 15 to 20? Frans Vermeulen, President of Swivel, explains how AI-driven automation is changing yield management, programmatic optimization and ad operations for large publishers and CTV broadcasters, without ripping out the ad stack. Frans has…
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What Happens When an Ad Tech Company Goes All-In on AI? | CEO Nicolas Schueller
What happens when an analytics company spends nine months teaching an LLM to understand ad revenue data? I talk with Nico Schueller, CEO and co-founder of Adomik, about how the company went from floor optimization on AppNexus to JP, its AI infrastructure for publishers. We cover: What’s inside...
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Bonus Impressions vs. Price Discounts: Which Protects Publisher Yield?
Title: Bonus Impressions vs. Price Discounts: Which Protects Publisher Yield? Description: When an advertiser asks for a concession on a $10 CPM, should you drop the rate to $8 or give them 25% more impressions? Mathematically, a $10,000 budget gets the same result. But from a yield management...
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What is Kana? Building AdTech with CTO Vivek Vaidya
What is Kana, and how is AI reshaping enterprise marketing? In this episode, Vivek Vaidya (Co-Founder & CTO of Kana; former CTO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud; co-founder of Krux and Habu) breaks down Kana's vision, tech stack, and how they are automating marketing admin to accelerate growth.…
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Why Target Sell-Through Rates Are a Massive Mistake
Struggling with publisher direct sell-through rate (STR) targets? Whether you're managing direct sales inventory or retail/commerce media networks, treating STR like an airline load-factor quota destroys revenue. In this video, James Deaker (The Yield Doctor) breaks down why 100% sell-through...
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FTC ruling on Amazon Ads - What was Amazon thinking?
The FTC alleges that Amazon has been representing that it's ad marketplace runs a second priced auction, when in practice it is essentially running first priced. There are a number of aspects of the story that have been overlooked, including the fact that Amazon could have moved to a First Priced...
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LeadershipIn podcast - James Deaker, Greg MacDonald, Geoff Wolinetz
This week it was my pleasure to join Geoff Wolinetz and Greg MacDonald on the @LeadershipIn podcast where we had a three-way roundtable about our experiences as independent consultants. We discuss: * The pros and cons of being solo vs. growing a team * How to think about the models of advising…
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Fast Effective Ratecard Updates
What do you do when leadership says, “We need next quarter’s rate card pulled together fast”? The natural instinct is often to react to the last lost deal or competitor price drop—but updating a rate card under pressure requires focusing on the signals that actually move the needle. In this…
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3 AI Pricing Traps that Publishers and Ad Tech companies need to avoid
There are areas where you need to careful of using AI to help in Pricing and Yield in Digital Advertising. It will give you an answer, but without the right oversight that answer may hurt your business. ⏱️ Timestamps [00:00] - Appropriate Use Cases for AI in Pricing [01:55] - Trap #1: Algorithmic...
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AdTech Pirate Gold: Finding value in Supply Path Optimization
Every year, the digital advertising industry gets outraged over the "AdTech tax"—the famous gap between what an advertiser spends and what a publisher actually receives. But are intermediaries actually stealing your gold, or are they providing a service you forgot you needed? In this video, I use…
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3 Pricing Traps to avoid
Are you micro-tweaking your digital advertising rates every time market demand ripples? It’s time to stop. When sales demand softens, executive teams often panic and treat pricing as the only quick fix. But changing core rate structures out of panic usually creates operational chaos rather than...
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Inventory Forecasting Made Easy: 5 Rules for Digital Publishers
Predicting digital ad inventory shouldn't feel like guessing the future. In this video, we break down the key concepts of inventory forecasting and give you simple, actionable strategies to dramatically improve your accuracy without getting bogged down in unnecessary complexity. Whether you’re...
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Digital Advertising needs AI Guardrails
AI is rapidly reshaping digital advertising — but the biggest risk may not be what most people are talking about. In this presentation from Programmatic.AI in Las Vegas, James Deaker (“The Yield Doctor”) argues that the real challenge is not AI-generated creatives or job replacement. It’s what...
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Monica Khan on the Creator Economy
The creator economy is booming — but most creators still struggle to build durable businesses. In this episode, Monica Khan (Founder & CEO of Creator Revolution, former YouTube and Meta executive) joins The Yield Doctor to discuss: how creators actually make money in 2026, why YouTube still...
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Beyond the Price List: Most Media Rate Cards Leak Revenue
Description Most media companies think a rate card is just a price list. That’s wrong—and it’s one of the main reasons they quietly leak revenue. In this video, I break down how rate cards actually work, why structure matters more than pricing, and how the best operators use rate cards to shape...
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Maximum Yield: Kiri Masters on Growing Your Retail Media Bottom Line
Is your Retail Media Network actually generating new revenue, or just shifting trade spend around? In this episode, James Deaker (The Yield Doctor) sits down with retail media expert Kiri Masters to diagnose the "Retail Media Doom Loop" and uncover the blueprint for building a high-margin…
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What Is dCPM in Digital Advertising? (Simple Explanation)
What is dCPM—and why does it confuse so many people in digital advertising? In this video, I break down what dCPM (dynamic CPM) actually means, how it evolved from the ad network era to modern programmatic platforms, and why it’s still widely misunderstood today. We’ll cover: The difference…
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Sales Incentives Should Align to Profit… Except When They Shouldn’t
Most sales compensation plans are designed to drive revenue. But what if they’re quietly destroying profit? In this video, I break down a common but overlooked problem: the misalignment between sales incentives and business economics. When comp plans reward the wrong behavior, you don’t just get...
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Rate Card Update - The Heartbeat of Your Pricing Strategy (And Why It Matters)
If your rate card only changes once a year, you don’t have a pricing strategy — you have a pricing ritual. In this video, I introduce the concept of the Pricing Heartbeat — a structured, ongoing approach to keeping your pricing aligned with the market. Most companies treat rate cards as static...
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The Hidden Cost of Custom Rate Cards
Most publishers think custom rate cards are a necessary part of doing business. A large client asks for special pricing… Sales pushes for flexibility… and before long, you have dozens of “exceptions” across your business. But what seems like a short-term win can create long-term damage. In this...
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Pricing has no power
Most pricing teams aren’t failing because they’re bad at pricing. They’re failing because they’re set up to fail. In this video, I break down one of the most common (and misunderstood) problems in pricing organizations: why strong analysis, good data, and capable teams still struggle to have real...
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Why Revenue Can Fall Even When Every Product Raises Prices
In digital media, one of the strangest meetings you can be called into as a revenue or yield leader is this: Every product team reports that price realization improved. And yet… total revenue is down. It sounds impossible, but it happens more often than you might think. In this video, I walk...
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RampUp 2026: Three Signals About Where AI in Advertising Is Really Heading
I recently attended RampUp 2026, LiveRamp’s annual conference, where AI dominated almost every session and conversation. But what struck me most wasn’t the technology itself — it was how early the industry still is in figuring out how AI will actually be implemented in digital advertising. In…
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AI Won’t Fix Bad Data — Identity Resolution & Enrichment Drive Revenue (Brian Silver)
AI is everywhere in digital advertising right now. But as Brian Silver (EVP, Global Marketing Solutions at TransUnion) makes clear in this conversation — AI will not fix bad data. If your identity resolution is weak… If your data is fragmented across 16 systems… If your enrichment strategy lacks...
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Stronger Data Controls Let Companies Move Faster
Most executives assume stronger data controls, privacy processes, and governance frameworks slow a business down. In practice, the opposite is often true. In this conversation, I’m joined by Devan Brua, Founder & CEO of PrivacyWise, to explore why weak data practices quietly create friction…
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Bad Ads are Good Signals
Bad ads are rarely the real problem. They’re symptoms. Symptoms of weak incentives, poor decision-making, or ad operations teams stuck firefighting instead of optimizing. In this video, I walk through a set of external signals — things anyone can observe using nothing more than a standard browser…
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Three Ways Publishers Go Programmatic (And Why Most Get It Wrong)
Most publishers don’t struggle with programmatic because of bad technology — they struggle because they never decided what programmatic is for. In this video, I break down three distinct “programmatic operating models” (not tactics), so you can recognize which one you’re actually running today —...
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Retail Media Networks Grow in Predictable Stages — and Each One Has a Trap
Retail Media Networks (RMNs) don’t grow in a straight line. In this video, I break down the predictable stages of growth that every Retail Media Network goes through — from early launch momentum to scaled, complex operations — and, more importantly, the challenges and traps that tend to appear at...
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Retail vs Commerce Media Networks: Growth, Data & AI with Danilo Tauro
Every publisher wants a bigger slice of ad revenue. In retail, that only happens if you can prove ads drive incremental sales, not just clicks. In this conversation, I sit down with Danilo Tauro (ex–Global Director of Media, Tech & Data at Procter & Gamble; former Head of Product for Amazon Ads;...
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Dynamic Pricing - An abused technique
Dynamic pricing is one of the most overrated tactics in programmatic yield management—not because it doesn’t work, but because most teams try it far too early. In this video, I break down why dynamic pricing often backfires, the risks you need to understand, and the foundational yield management...
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AI in Ad Tech - Evolution vs. Revolution
AI isn’t sweeping through digital media in one big wave. It’s reshaping ad operations in three very different ways — evolutionary changes, true revolutions, and a whole category of “too early to tell.” In this session (recorded at AdMonsters Austin), I break down what each category actually means...
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From Zero to One: How Lyft Built Its Advertising Business with Shane Dwyer
Rarely do you get to hear from someone who built an entire advertising business from the ground up — inside a company that wasn’t even known for ads. In this episode, James Deaker (The Yield Doctor) talks with Shane Dwyer, Head of Sales for Lyft Ads, about how Lyft created a thriving advertising...
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Yield Book - 4 Lessons
What can yield analysts really take away from Ari Paparo’s new book Yield? This isn’t a book review — it’s about the gold inside the book that every pricing or yield analyst should highlight and study. In this video, I break down 4 key lessons that will make you sharper and faster in digital...
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Airlines Mastered Yield. Why Can’t Digital Ads?
Why is yield management so much harder in digital advertising than in airlines or hotels? In this video, I break down why pricing and yield management in digital media is uniquely complex — from the explosion of ad formats, currencies, and targeting options, to the lack of market transparency and...
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Book Review: Yield by Ari Paparo
In this video, I review Ari Paparo’s new book Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance. As “The Yield Doctor,” I’ll share my perspective on: Who should read this book The key themes and stories inside What it reveals about Google’s rise to power in ad tech...
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Blind and Transparent Ad Networks
Some of the biggest names in digital media still run blind ad networks—and advertisers keep buying. But why? In this video, I break down the differences between blind vs. transparent ad networks, showing how each model works, what advertisers see, and why publishers and network owners choose one...
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2025 Lower Price Floors YT
Ad tech vendors often warn publishers: “Don’t lower your price floors.” But what if that advice is holding you back from seeing your true demand curve? In this video, I explain why starting lower isn’t about giving away value—it’s about uncovering hidden demand, attracting new buyers, and making...
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Cherry Picking in Ad Tech: What It Is and How to Protect Your Inventory
When publishers move to programmatic, one of the biggest fears is losing control. Will buyers cherry pick your best inventory and leave you with the scraps? Will premium deals dry up? In this video, I break down: What “cherry picking” means in ad tech and programmatic advertising Why it’s a real...
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Goldilocks Metrics: Avoiding the Deal Desk Optimization Mistake
What makes a deal desk truly successful? Faster approvals? Higher margins? Fewer escalations? Be careful—optimizing for the wrong metric can backfire. In this (5-minute) Yield Doctor episode, James Deaker explains why many common deal desk KPIs are Goldilocks metrics—they shouldn't be too high or...
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The Discounting Trap: How Pulling Demand Forward Breaks Your Business
The Perils of Predictable Discounting | Yield Story with The Yield Doctor In this Yield Story, James Deaker (The Yield Doctor) shares a cautionary tale about the dangers of predictable discounting and pulling revenue forward — a trap that many pricing and yield leaders fall into. Based on real…
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Lauren Weinberg - CMO Scorecard
What Do CMOs Really Care About? | A Candid Conversation with Lauren Weinberg What does a CMO actually look for in a media partner? And what publisher metrics matter... or don’t? In this exclusive interview, James Deaker (The Yield Doctor) sits down with Lauren Weinberg—former CMO at Square and...
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What Happened to Publisher Pricing Software?
Why don’t publishers have good pricing software anymore? Back in 2007, Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft used a tool called Rapt to optimize rate cards in real time. Today? That software is gone—and no one has replaced it. In this video, I explain why Rapt disappeared, why nothing has filled the gap, and...
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How AI Is Actually Changing Ad Operations — with Nagarajan Chakravarthy
There’s a lot of hype around AI in ad tech — but where is it really having an impact today? In this episode, I speak with Nagarajan Chakravarthy, Chief Digital Officer and founding team member at iOPEX Technologies. We go deep into practical examples of AI transforming advertising revenue...
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Meta Goes All-In on AI Ads: What It Means for Advertisers & Agencies
Meta Goes All-In on AI Ads: What It Means for Advertisers & Agencies Meta just announced plans to fully integrate AI into its advertising platform by the end of next year — enabling brands to create and target ads using artificial intelligence with little to no manual input. In this video, I…
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How AI Is Reshaping Digital Advertising – A Deep Dive with Alanna Laforet
In this episode of The Yield Doctor, James Deaker sits down with Alanna Laforet—CEO of Laforet Productions and former head of the IAB Tech Lab—to unpack where AI is actually transforming digital advertising today, and where it's headed next. With experience spanning DoubleClick, Google, Omnicom,...
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Alex Roucourt on Adverting Uplift
Alex Roucourt discusses the challenges to effective advertising measurement in a post-cookie environment and offers solutions to address these challenges
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Shiv Gupta Earnings May 2025
Shiv Gupta from the U of Digital breaks down the trends from the Q1 Earnings cycle in Digital Advertising and Ad Tech
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Yield Stories - Sell Out The Homepage!
A short story on the problems with setting a "sell-through" goal for a website and what should be done instead to maximize revenue through good Yield Management