AdTech AI Files

ATTENTION drives Intention.Think about the last time you walked through a store. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of products sat on shelves within arm’s reach. You walked past most of them without even noticing. Not because they were bad products. Not because you had something against them.They simply never earned your Attention.Only the items that interrupt your autopilot, that visually stand out, that connect to a need or spark curiosity, have a chance to influence what ends up in your cart. ATTENTION is the gateway. Without it, INTENTION never forms.Now think about the media landscape we operate in every day.Endless scroll on a phone.Ads below the fold on a desktop page.Muted autoplay video competing with five other open tabs.Technically, those impressions exist. But are they truly seen, let alone have your attention?Compare that to the experience of watching television. A large screen. Leaned back. Sound on. Fewer competing stimuli. The content fills your field of vision. Naturally, attention is higher.This is why CTV is so powerful. It commands presence. It creates an environment where your message is not fighting for a single thumb swipe. It earns a moment. And that moment is the foundation of intention.But placement alone is not enough.Once you have the screen, what are you doing with it?Is your creative designed to capture and hold attention?Or does it the signal for someone to pick up their phone during the commercial break?Great CTV creative understands the stakes. The first seconds matter. Visuals matter. Story matters. Relevance matters. If you fail to hold Attention, you lose the opportunity to shape Intention.Attention drives Intention.Not impressions.Not frequency.Not viewability percentages on a dashboard.Attention.When your media environment earns it and your creative sustains it, intention follows. And intention is what ultimately moves behavior.

In this episode of AdTech AI Files, we unpack the hottest topics from the past few months and explain why they all point to the same conclusion: outcomes matter more than ever, and most AI failures start with weak data foundations.We break down what it actually takes to make “chat with data” work in an enterprise environment. Spoiler: it’s not the model. Live data connectivity, a true semantic layer, and proper governance determine whether AI becomes a decisioning engine or just a confident demo.We also explore why most optimization problems in advertising are really measurement problems, how autonomous systems depend on trusted outcome signals, and why automation without outcome visibility simply scales assumptions faster.From platform measurability and operationalizing intelligence to why outcomes turn automation into learning, this episode connects the dots between AI, data infrastructure, and modern programmatic advertising.If you’re thinking about autonomous advertising, AI-driven analytics, or preparing your data stack for what’s coming next, this episode is for you.

Based solely on Viant’s Q1 2025 earnings transcript.Revenue YoY: 32%CxT: 25%

𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴’𝘀 𝗡𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗮 | Jon Schulzhttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/jon-schulz-4780ba4_upfronts-ctv-livesports-activity-7318655564027215873-qDIg?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAOMQksB5Fgbm_qk5Eeo-7X6VF7Vp2IJNg8Bold #Upfronts Predictions from an #IndustryVeteran — With a Twist | Tom Wolfehttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/tomhwolfe_upfronts-industryveteran-upfronts-activity-7315732919719784448-b_Ct?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAOMQksB5Fgbm_qk5Eeo-7X6VF7Vp2IJNg8Rethinking CTV Measurement for the Streaming Age | Steven Ohrnstein

Pod dedicated to the one and only, Mikhail BerylantPeople, Process, and ToolsFor any company to be successful, it takes these three things. Rarely is there a person that embodies all 3, Mikhail Berlyant is one of the greats that does.I wanted to take a moment to honor Mikhail for the #contribution he has had in my professional career. It was through Mikhail creating Potens.io, a software that sits on top of Google BigQuery, that makes it easy for someone like myself, a non-engineer who knows the business but otherwise no way to bring data to life, to automate & create solutions that empower internal employees to do their jobs and make the lives of our clients a bit easier. This Tool has been used across Viant for the last decade plus, not just Product and Engineering, but nearly every other department across the org, including Operations, Marketing, Accounting, Finance, and Sales. This same tool is the underpinning of Viant's Data Platform, which nobody in our industry can come even come close to competing with. Mikhail is on my shortlist of unsung heroes from which Viant would not exist today without. Without him, I assuredly would have attempted taking on a full-time blogging career a long time ago.Let's continue...When I first started reading Google BigQuery books around 2014-2015, the very first one I purchased was co-authored by Mikhail to my surprise. I’ve never met anyone so PASSIONATE about what they do and so DRIVEN towards excellence. His unrelenting enthusiasm on every call or meeting is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, and I believe that’s a big part of his success.Mikhail is one of the top contributors on Stack Overflow, with a reputation score of 173,230 (no idea what this means, but for comparison, my reputation is 29). He is one of the top contributors in the world in his field which speaks volumes to his expertise.But more than anything, the only thing that gets him more excited than his work is his family, especially when he talks about his grandchildren. And that is a beautiful thing. While we work in different offices and don’t get to see each other all that often, he’s one of the few people that requires a bear hug every time I do. Thank you, Mikhail, for everything you do. I am forever indebted to your life's work.CALL TO ACTION: For anyone else that was impacted my Mikhail, whether a colleague, friend, or one of the 14.9 million people he's helped on Stack Overflow, share your gratitude in the comments and we'll memorialize this post with an AdTech AI Files pod cast a week from today.Mikhail's Stack Overflow link for the record: https://lnkd.in/gS_sZQDC#AdTech #BigData #DataEngineering #AI #Innovation #TechVisionary #GoogleBigQuery #Viant #Passion #Gratitude

“What’s a Good Conversion Rate?” 🤔 The Benchmark MythFor as long as I can remember, marketers have asked me:“What’s a good conversion rate for my campaign?”And here’s the honest answer… it depends.Conversion rate benchmarks are tricky because different brands have different goals. A KPI could be downloading a coupon, signing up for an email, opening a bank account, or even buying a car, all of which have vastly different intent levels and friction points.The head of Marketing Analytics for one of the largest global OEMs once told me “it’s all relative to the dashboard you’re looking at. There’s a million different options and providers of data, so measuring across providers doesn’t have apples to apples comparisons. Focus on the report you trust and make everything relative to what’s within the given report.”With that, when it comes to wanting benchmarks, try these:✅ Instead of chasing an arbitrary benchmark, focus on relative performance.✅ Compare Campaign A vs. Campaign B, not your brand vs. a generic industry average.✅ If one tactic is driving a 20% higher Conversion rate, that’s an insight you can actually act on.✅ Focus on Incrementality, if your spend is driving net new sales at a lower incremental cost per acquisition than your marketing cost, keep goingThink about it this way:Would you rather hit an “industry average” conversion rate, or actually improve what’s working for your business?Benchmarks can be a useful reference, but real optimization happens when you focus on your own data, your own customers, and your own goals.#ConversionRate #MarketingMetrics #DigitalMarketing #GrowthMarketing #Advertising #Attribution #AdTech

The Who, What, and How foot traffic measurement works.

Will Google’s Ad Empire Be Broken Up?When I first started in programmatic, 2nd price auctions ensured advertisers paid a fair market rate. You could bid confidently knowing you’d only pay a cent more than the next-highest bid.Then, about 8-9 years ago, Google led the shift to 1st price auctions (where you pay exactly what you bid) & enabling their publishers to create dynamic bid floors (to artifically increase the clearing price). This fundamentally changed how media was bought, increasing advertiser costs while boosting Google’s profits.My First Exposure to Googles dominance was in 2016.A programmatic trader in Google’s DSP meant to raise their bid from $5.00 to $6.25 but accidentally entered $625. No big deal, they caught and fixed the mistake just 5 seconds later.In that 5 seconds, the remainder of their entire 200,000 daily impression budget was spent at a CPM of over $200. What should have cost $1,200 ended up costing more than $40k.And where did that ad spend go? Straight into Google’s ecosystem.Keep in mind Google has Unmatched ControlToday, Google dominates every part of digital advertising:🔎 Search ads (Google Search)📺 Video ads (YouTube)📈 Ad buying (DV360, the largest DSP)📡 Ad selling (Google AdX, the largest SSP)✅ Verification & measurement (Google Analytics, Campaign Manager 360)🌐 The largest browser in Chrome in the US and the largest Global smart phone operating system in Android.They own the buyer, the seller, the marketplace, devices, browser, and the referee, a level of control no other company has ever had.Will Google’s Dominance End? We’ll get an answer this summer…In the meantime, what can you do about it?PSA for the day: if you’re a marketer in any DSP, don’t think twice about using AI Bidding, if you can get screwed 9 years ago in 5 seconds, just imagine what the technology is today across any entity representing publishers. Pick a DSP that only represents the buyer, and let them work for you.🤔Anyone else have a similar experience?#GoogleAds #AdTech #ProgrammaticAdvertising #Antitrust

The Illusion of High Lift: Why Longer Lookback Windows Matter in Incrementality TestingMarketers love seeing high lift in incrementality studies, it feels like proof that campaigns are driving real impact. But if you’re only looking at short lookback windows (1-7 days), you might be chasing last-touch credit and overestimating effectiveness.The Problem: Short Lookback Windows Inflate LiftWhen we measure lift between 1-7 days, results look strong because ads do work, they drive awareness and may accelerate conversions. But here’s the catch:✅ Many buyers were already on the path to purchase.✅ Your ad may have just nudged them to buy sooner.✅ If you extend the lookback window, the control group converts too.Cutting off analysis too early makes it seem like your ad drove the entire conversion, when in reality, it just influenced timing.Real-Life Example: Travel & CTVA major travel brand ran a CTV and audio, with display retargeting campaign to drive bookings. Their 1-7 day lift study showed a big conversion increase. But at 90 days, they saw: • People go on summer vacations, the control group converted too, just at a later time. • Many “incremental” conversions in the short window were people who would have booked anyway. • The true lift, those booking only because of the ad, was much lower than first thought.This insight changed how they measured success, shifting to 60-90 day lookback windows to separate actual lift from simple purchase acceleration.Why Longer Lookback Windows Give a More Honest ViewThis is critical for CTV, audio, and upper-to-mid funnel media, where the goal is awareness and long-term consideration, not instant conversion.In high-ticket industries like travel, auto, and luxury retail, brands sometimes use 60, 90, or even 180-day windows for true impact measurement. If you only measure at 1-7 days, you’re likely capturing last-touch credit rather than real incremental lift.What This Means for Your Marketing Strategy🔹 Short lookback = overestimated lift. Your ad worked, but not as much as you think.🔹 Longer lookback = a more accurate read. It shows how many would have converted anyway.🔹 Test across different time horizons. Compare short and long-term effects.🚀 Key Takeaway: Marketing isn’t just about driving faster conversions, it’s about driving incremental ones. Ensure your lookback windows are long enough to separate the two.#MarketingMeasurement #Incrementality #Attribution #MediaStrategy

Relative vs. Incremental Lift: How you can Leverage Both Let’s say you own a pizza shop, and you’re running an ad campaign to get more people ordering your delicious pies. You set up a test: • Exposed Group: They see your ad and start craving pizza. • Control Group: No ad seenAt the end of the campaign, let’s say your control group only sold 10 pizzas and the exposed group sold 25, for a total of 35 pizzas sold.🍕 What can Relative vs. Incremental Lift tell you?➡ Incremental Lift answers: “How much of my total sales actually came from the ad?”📊 (Exposed Sales - Control Sales) / (Exposed Sales + Control Sales) • This number is always between 0 and 1. In this case 15 incremental pizzas because of your ad out of 35 total pizzas sold, which means 43% of your total sales were actually influenced by your ad.➡ Relative Lift answers: “How much more did the exposed group buy compared to the control?”📊 (Exposed Sales - Control Sales) / Control Sales • This number can be over 100%, in this case your control group only sold 10 pizzas and the exposed group sold 25, your relative lift is 150%!🎯 The Purpose of Both Metrics🔍 Use Relative Lift to optimize performance between tactics:✅ Which audience, targeting, geo, or creative messaging works better?✅ Which channels are more effective within my media mix?✅ How do I allocate spend efficiently?📢 Use Incremental Lift to measure true impact:✅ Is this campaign actually driving new demand?✅ What % of sales came because of my marketing efforts?✅ Would these sales still happen if I didn’t run this ad?📌 Why It MattersIn the very first iteration of measurement many years ago within Viant’s Advanced Reporting, we focused solely on Relative Lift. We learned that if you focus only on relative lift, you might be optimizing for efficiency, without knowing total impact. We then added incremental lift, which if you focus only on incremental lift, you might miss ways to fine-tune performance. We found our customers appreciate both in the same UI. Your DSP should have both as well. 📢 Bottom LineGreat marketing isn’t just about improving results, it’s about ensuring those results actually matter.#MarketingAnalytics #Incrementality #LiftAnalysis #DigitalMarketing #AdTech #GrowthMarketing #Advertising #MarketingStrategy #Lift #AdTechAIFiles

Pod cast produced from my 8 year old son to kids of all ages. Enjoy!

In honor of International Women's Day, I wanted to recognize 2 women that have had a profound impact on my life. One of them personal, another professional.My mom, a lifelong nurse, specializing in end-of-life care (hospice) and mid-to-late-stage cancer care, always taught me that the most important thing anyone can do in their life is to CARE, whether for a person or a cause. With 8 billion people on this planet and countless causes to #care about, we each have a limited capacity to give our energy. While I’m not always great at expressing my gratitude, one of the things I care most about is the people I surround myself with, both personally and professionally.One practice we’ve implemented in our team meetings is a “shout-out” session. We all may think positive things about our colleagues, but we don’t always communicate them. And I’ve never met someone who doesn’t appreciate a genuine compliment. A simple gesture of appreciation can go a long way, and this few minutes is the best part of any of my meetings all month long. As a small gesture of my appreciation, I want to take this a step further and publicly recognize a colleague I deeply respect & and has had a profound impact on my life. While I’d love to see more of this across our industry, I understand that publicly vouching for someone comes with the risk of them getting “poached”. So it hear it goes…I have had the honor and privilege to work alongside Amanda Bookout (not on LinkedIn ATM, otherwise would have linked) for the past 15 years. Amanda is Viant’s Director of Business Intelligence. There is simply no one better in our industry that understands both the data complexities that AdTech brings and the business application of that data to bring it to life for our internal stakeholders and clients. She handles the most challenging of issues with calmness and intellect through experience. Her positive, can do attitude is infectious and I’m thankful to have been able to witness it as long as I have. Amanda‘s ability to find, hire, onboard, and develop talent is nothing sort of amazing. For those who have ever worked with Amanda, I encourage you to show your appreciation and continue this shout-out, whether it’s through internal Slack, an email, or a comment below. I’ll compile all the comments and include them in an Amanda dedicated episode of the AdTech AI Files Podcast to round out this shout out. Let’s celebrate the people who make a difference. Throw the image in a PPT and introduce it to your next team meeting and hashtag#measure what happens!hashtag#ShoutOut hashtag#Recognition hashtag#Teamwork hashtag#NoAI hashtag#IWD25

Use it or Lose it: a Mobile Measurement Partner ofcourseMobile in-app environments convert 3x more often than mobile web. Think about how often you buy Starbucks coffee through the app vs. opening Safari or Chrome to place an order. For most of us, it’s a night-and-day difference, in-app is faster, more convenient, and personalized. In cases like this, app conversion rates aren’t just higher, they’re the dominant way customers engage and buy.Yet, there are no cookies or traditional pixels in an in-app environment, meaning the standard ways most marketers measure performance don’t include mobile in-app conversions. This leaves a huge gap in understanding your true media impact.The in-app environment is a different world, frictionless UX, higher engagement, and better retention. To truly measure the impact of your media spend, you need a Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) integrated into your DSP.The good news? The best DSPs can do two key things:1️⃣ Pre-built integrations with your MMP – With simple provisioning, you can securely share data with your DSP for retargeting and measurement.2️⃣ Off-the-shelf incremental lift measurement – The best DSPs work seamlessly with MMP data to provide clear insights into the true impact of your campaigns.At the end of the day, it’s simple: use your mobile data or lose viability. If your measurement strategy ignores in-app conversions, you’re making decisions with incomplete data—and in a world where mobile dominates, that’s a risk no marketer can afford#MobileMarketing #MMP #DigitalAdvertising #AppEngagement #MarketingROI #AdTechIf looking for an MMP, check out: AppsFlyer Branch Kochava Singular Adjust

Privacy vs. Blocking: The Real Story Behind Consumer ChoiceThere’s a big difference between consumers opting out of tracking (which would be every consumers right) and Big Tech outright blocking measurement for their own gain. Yet, the lines keep getting blurred.Take Apple’s Private Relay, a feature that allows users to effectively be routed through a VPN while browsing in Safari, making you invisible across the web. It sounds like a major privacy shift, but in reality? After nearly 4 years of Apple pushing it, we see only ~16% of Apple related bid requests routed through Private Relay, meaning most users aren't opting-in. Perhaps due to widespread complaints of Private Relay interfering with the user's experience. I personally experienced an issue with getting onto Netflix while testing Private Relay, as Netflix couldn't verify my location properly.Now, compare that to a marketer simply adding a pixel on their own website to share their first-party data with their preferred measurement or DSP providers. Apple’s broader privacy policy automatically block nearly 2/3rds of pixel-based measurement hits (and upwards of 85% for some marketers), regardless of whether the consumer has explicitly opted out. That’s not consumer choice, that’s a platform-driven decision that limits visibility into what’s actually driving business outcomes for all marketers alike. Benefiting Big Tech in the name of “privacy”, forcing marketers to integrate and further leverage Big Tech's products.So what can you do about it?✅ Leverage 1st-party data: Build direct customer relationships and own your data.✅ Adopt clean rooms: Securely match and analyze data without relying on big tech.✅ Use server-side pixels: Bypass browser-based restrictions to improve measurement accuracy.The future of measurement isn’t about waiting for Big Tech’s next move, it’s about taking control of your own data strategy.#Marketing #AdTech #Privacy #FirstPartyData #PrivateRelay #Measurement #AdTechAIFiles

Linear TV vs. Connected TV: The Frequency Problem Marketers Can’t IgnoreAfter running Linear TV vs. Digital measurement studies for the past decade, one pattern remains consistent:Dolllar for dollar, more times than not, Linear TV campaigns have 3x higher frequency than CTV. And here’s the issue, without frequency capping, that’s a lot of wasted impressions.Why This Happens:✅ Linear can’t control frequency. If someone watches the same channel daily, they’ll likely see the same ad over and over due to the upfront nature of Linear TV.✅ CTV is transacted programmatically, and therefore lets you set caps, allowing the marketer to control how often someone sees your ad✅ Heavy TV viewers skew the data. A portion of the audience gets bombarded, while others barely see the ad at all.What This Means for Marketers:🔹 Wasted Spend: Those extra impressions aren’t incremental reach, they’re just oversaturation for the same people.🔹 Diminishing Returns: Seeing an ad 5+ times in a week doesn’t necessarily make someone more likely to convert.🔹 Smarter Budgeting: CTV gives brands more control, meaning less waste and more efficient reach.How to Fix It?📌 Use digital measurement to quantify true reach & frequency.📌 Balance TV & digital to optimize reach without overexposure.📌 Consider CTV as a bridge, more control than linear, but the big-screen impact remains.Linear TV still has its place, but without frequency controls, a huge chunk of ad dollars get wasted on the same eyeballs. Smart marketers are shifting spend to platforms where they can actually control the user experience. 🚀#AdTech #MarketingMeasurement #TVAdvertising #DigitalMarketing #CTV #Programmatic #MediaBuying #GrowthMarketing #Advertising

The Death of Third-Party Pixels: Why First-Party Data is the FutureIf you launched your own website tomorrow, you’d own everything: your customer relationships, purchase history, and insights. That’s first-party data, it belongs to you, and no one can take it away.Your same business relies on pixels to understand performance, retarget your customers that have added your product to cart but yet to purchase, to optimize and measuring success. You rely on your partners, whether measurement providers or DSPs to help in this endeavor, which makes these Pixels “Third-Party Pixels”. Easy enough…Only 1 problem, let’s take a look at who owns the browsers and operating systems that enables your business to pass your data to your partners:📌 Google + Apple control 97% of the mobile operating system market (Android & IOS)📌 Google Chrome + Apple Safari account for over 85% of browser usage.And when it doesn’t benefit BIG tech, they squash tracking in the naming of privacy (hello Private Relay and Cookie deletion), all of which is increasingly making third-party trackers obsolete.What happens when your measurement strategy relies on pixels that no longer work?🚫 You lose visibility.🚫 You increasingly make decisions on a small part of the pie.🚫 Marketers without a first-party measurement strategy fall behind.What can you do? The best marketers don’t rent data, they own it. They need to take matters into their own hands in a way that big tech can’t touch.Winning in a cookieless world means:✅ Implementing server-side tracking & clean rooms.✅ Building privacy-compliant, deterministic attribution models.The brands that control their data will control their future.AdTech AI Files latest Pod drop discussing this very topic. On Spotify now: https://lnkd.in/gwTMafsm#FirstPartyData #MarketingMeasurement #AdTech #PrivacyFirst #CookielessFuture #DigitalAdvertising #DataOwnership #MarketingStrategy

Why Cookie-Based Measurement Sucks in 2025 Remember when cookies were amazing? Back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, they revolutionized online tracking. But today, they only capture 9% of online conversions. Why? Because cookies simply don’t exist in most of the places where modern digital engagement happens:​ Connected TV – No cookies in your streaming ads.​ Most computer browsers – Safari, Firefox, and even Chrome (if users opt out).​ Mobile in-app – Cookies only work in mobile web (mostly Chrome).​ Audio ads on smart devices – Your podcast ads aren’t tracking conversions.​ Digital out-of-home (DOOH) billboards – Good luck using cookies on a Times Square billboard.​ Consumer opt-outs – Chrome lets users block third-party cookies.Here’s a real-world example: You see a Starbucks ad while searching the web on your phone. Later, you open the Starbucks app and place an order. Does a cookie follow you from web to app? Nope.This is why cookie-based measurement is great for companies like Google (who control the walled gardens) but terrible for marketers at large. If you actually want to measure conversions, it has to happen at the household and person level—which, by the way, Viant may or may not have patented back in 2012.Now, Viant is doubling down on this future, partnering with TransUnion to bring even stronger, cookieless identity resolution to marketers. With first-party data and identity-based measurement, brands can finally connect the dots across CTV, mobile, web, and beyond—no cookies required.The digital world has moved beyond cookies. Has your measurement strategy?#AdTech #MarketingMeasurement #CookiesAreDead #DigitalAdvertising #MarketingAnalytics #ConnectedTV #PrivacyFirst #FutureOfMarketing #DataDriven #MarketingStrategy #ConversionTracking #AdMeasurement #MarTech #CustomerJourney #OmnichannelMarketing #IdentityResolution #CookielessFuture

Based solely on Danilo Tauro (PhD) linked in post on 3/5/25 and the 110 commenters summariez using only AI.Article for reference: linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7303063345098620928/

Why Incremental Lift Shrinks Over Time: The Lookback Window Effect ⏳📉When clients ask "I thought lift would be higher/lower, my 1st question back is what lookback window are you using?"One of the biggest factors in incremental lift measurement isn’t just the ad itself, it’s how long you wait to measure it. ✅ The shorter the lookback window, the higher the incremental lift. ✅ The longer the lookback window, the lower the lift. Why? Because marketing works, but so does time. At first, your test group (who saw the ad) is converting quickly, while your control group (who didn’t) hasn’t had time to act. But over time, some of the control group will naturally convert on their own, shrinking the perceived lift. Lookback Window Impact on Lift: 📅 Day 1: 🚀 Huge lift! The test group is converting immediately after seeing the ad, while the control group has barely moved. 📅 Day 7: 🔥 Still strong lift—marketing is driving action faster than natural conversions. 📅 Day 14: 📉 Lift starts to drop as some of the control group naturally converts. 📅 Day 30: ⏳ Lift is at its lowest, as many in the control group who would have converted anyway have now done so. What This Means for Marketers: 🔹 Short lookback windows (1-7 days) tend to overestimate lift because the control group hasn’t had time to convert. 🔹 Longer windows (14-30 days) give a more realistic picture but may undervalue short-term campaign impact. 🔹 The right lookback window depends on your product & buying cycle. A fast-moving CPG item might need a 7-day window, while a high-consideration purchase like a car or insurance policy might need 30+ days. Marketing accelerates conversions, but time naturally fills the gap. The key to accurate incrementality? Choosing a lookback window that reflects how real consumers behave. 🚀 #Incrementality #LiftAnalysis #MarketingMeasurement #AdTech #DigitalMarketing #GrowthMarketing #Attribution #MarketingAnalytics

Mark My Words: Contribution Will Be the Future of AdTech MeasurementWe’re wrapping up our beta offering, and the feedback has been phenomenal. It just makes sense.Take a look at the chart below—see how CTV is undervalued in traditional attribution models? Whether it’s Last Touch, First Touch, or Linear, they fail to capture the real impact of each channel. But Conversion Contribution? It tells a completely different story.The industry is evolving, and it's time for measurement to evolve with it. Much more to come on this. 🚀#AdTech #Attribution #CTV #MarketingMeasurement #ConversionContribution #AdTechAIFiles

The Best Marketers Have a Strategy for Moving Their Customers Through Each Phase of the Purchase CycleA long-time friend once shared an interesting insight about a global candy bar brand’s marketing strategy. Their mission wasn’t necessarily to get you to buy the candy bar at the cash register—but to get you to say no to it.Think about that for a second.Most of the products you walk by in a grocery store don’t even register in your mind. You don’t consciously think, “Should I buy this?” You just keep walking. But if a brand can move you from complete indifference to an active consideration, that’s already a huge win.And it all starts with awareness—because awareness all starts with your brand’s message.If people don’t know you exist, they’ll never consider you. If they don’t understand what makes you different, they won’t engage. The best marketers don’t just hope their audience will buy—they strategically move them through every phase of the purchase funnel, from awareness to consideration to conversion.And when it comes to building brand awareness, there’s no better tool than Connected TV (CTV). It puts your message in front of the right audience, at the right time, in a format that drives engagement and recall. If you want to start winning the battle for consideration, start by making sure your brand is seen and heard in the first place.#Marketing #CTV #BrandAwareness #Strategy #ConsumerBehavior

Viant often gets compared a lot to The Trade Desk. Yet the big things we're working on are so different... 🤔The Trade Desk:1. Scale2. Prep for Google Exit3. Promote & protect objectivity more4. Leverage supply and demand imbalance5. Make CTV most effective channel6. Audio best year ever7. Move 100% of clients to KoKai8. Change the way industry manages Deals9. AI10. Simplify Retail Offering11. Simplify TTD platform12. Use more data13. JBPs14. Grow Product Success15. Hire Sr. LeadershipViant Technology:1. CTV2. Addressability3. AI

Viant Technology 3/3/25 Q4 2024 Earnings call recap.Based solely based on the earnings transcript and suplemental earnings presentation available on Viant Technology's Investor Relations page.

Lift & Incrementality: Why Smaller Brands See Bigger Gains 🚀We constantly get asked for "Lift Benchmarks". One of the biggest misconceptions in marketing is assuming incrementality and lift are the same for every brand. But the truth is, the more nuanced the brand, the greater the potential lift (the more you REALLY need marketing).Let's break it down:If I launched "Steve's T-Shirt" company tomorrow (selling AdTech themed incrementally shirts ofcourse), a well-optimized campaign would yield 99%+ incremental lift. Why? Because nobody would know my brand (and maybe a little because most marketers are not yet "aware" of the value of incrementality quite yet - but that's beside the point) and therefore ain't nobody naturally going to my website or thinking about my product. Every new ad exposure has a higher chance of creating demand that wouldn't have existed otherwise.Now take Coca-Cola. No single campaign is going to double their market share—because everyone is already aware of the Coke brand. Their marketing is about maintaining share, reinforcing brand preference, and nudging consumption frequency. The lift would be tiny, but at their scale, even a 1% increase in sales is massive.✅ Smaller, niche brands? Expect bigger incremental lift from marketing—because you're actively creating new demand.✅ Mass-market, high-awareness brands? Gains are smaller but still meaningful—because the battle is for market share and retention.The key takeaway? Lift and incrementality aren't just about measuring campaign success; they tell you how much marketing actually matters for your business. Instead of chasing a generic benchmark, focus on:🔹 How much new demand your campaigns are actually driving🔹 Whether your budget is creating net-new customers or just capturing existing intent🔹 How different channels contribute to the bigger picture of your brand growthNot all lift is created equal—understanding YOUR brand's baseline is what separates good marketing from great marketing. 🚀#Marketing hashtag#Incrementality #LiftAnalysis #DigitalMarketing #AdTech #GrowthMarketing #Advertising #MarketingStrategy

CTR is the Most Misleading & Overused Metric in Marketing 🚨Just because someone clicked doesn't mean they were interested, and just because someone didn't click, it doesn't mean they weren't interested… for example:✅ Mobile ads almost always have a higher CTR than desktop/laptop. Looking at the last ~5B ad impressions across the Viant DSP, Mobile smartphones yield 27% higher CTR than desktop/laptops—not because they necessarily perform better, but because the ad takes up a larger percentage of the screen, and people are far more likely to have a "fat finger" moment.✅ Brand-building channels like CTV & Audio have 0% CTR but drive far more impact in awareness, consideration, and long-term growth.✅ Think about your own shopping habits: out of all the transactions you make each month, how many happen because you paused, clicked an ad, and then bought something? The reality is (in a DSP), it's less than 2%. Yet, I see marketers all to often basing a significant portion of their spend decisions solely on CTR 🤔🔍 Let's break it down:Imagine you're running two campaigns:1️⃣ A mobile display ad with a 2% CTR—but half the clicks are accidental due to ad size and screen placement.2️⃣ A Connected TV ad with a 0% CTR (it's kinda hard to click on an ad on your TV)—but it influenced thousands of future searches, site visits, and purchases.Which one actually drove new demand?💡 What Should Marketers Focus On Instead?✅ Incrementality: Did the ad actually influence behavior, or was the conversion happening anyway? (Use a Universal Pixel with multiple Events like page view, add to cart, and purchase to measure true outcomes.)✅ Revenue & LTV Impact: Are you acquiring high-value customers, or just paying for low-intent clicks?✅ Media Mix Effectiveness: Are you investing in channels that create demand—not just capturing it?If you're optimizing for clicks instead of business outcomes, you're leaving money on the table. Use your marketing dollars to build a BRAND, not to generate CLICKS, and watch your ROI 🚀#Marketing hashtag#DigitalMarketing #CTR #AdTech #GrowthMarketing #Advertising #PerformanceMarketing #MediaBuying #MarketingStrategy #CTV

I've seen it happen time and time again—marketers compare performance across one partner to the next, but when looking at incremental lift, things can often look too good to be true. Upon digging in, more times than not, the control group used in the incrementality test wasn't actually comparable.If you're running an incrementality test, choosing the right control group is critical. Pick the wrong one, and your lift results could be completely misleading.Let's take In-N-Out as an example. It's only in four states. If In-n-Out's marketing team ran a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) using people throughout the U.S. as the control group, of course, they'd see huge lift—because someone in Wisconsin, New York, or Florida is far less likely to walk into a Southern California location. But does that actually tell you if your marketing worked? No—it's just bad methodology.✅ The key to an accurate lift test? Your control group must be as SIMILAR as possible to your test group.The 3 Main Types of Control Groups & Their Trade-Offs1️⃣ Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) 🎯People are randomly assigned to test or control.Pros: The historical Gold standard for causal measurement, eliminates selection bias.Cons: If not carefully designed, can create control groups that aren't truly comparable (like our In-N-Out example).2️⃣ Public Service Announcement (PSA) Holdout 🎗️Instead of suppressing ads for the control group, they're shown a neutral PSA ad (like an anti-smoking campaign).Pros: Ensures the control group has a similar ad experience, avoiding exposure bias.Cons: Labor-intensive and financially expensive—you're allocating precious media spend to creative that isn't even your own. Plus, it doesn't perfectly isolate the ad's impact, since both groups are still being served media.3️⃣ Ghost Bidding 👻Fact: 80% of all auctions are lost—Ghost Bidding leverages the users who you've targeted but never won an ad.Pros: Keeps everything identical—same audience, same placements, same media dynamics. The new Gold standard. 🏅Cons: More complex to execute and requires demand-side platform (DSP) support & tech.Why Similarity in Control Groups Matters🔹 If your control group isn't exposed to the same purchase opportunities, your lift results will be artificially inflated.🔹 The closer your test and control groups are in demographics, geography, and behavior, the more reliable your incrementality results will be.🔹 The best approach depends on your campaign, but bad control groups = bad insights.If your control group isn't truly comparable to your test group, you're not measuring lift—you're measuring a flawed experiment. 🏆#Incrementality #LiftStudies #MarketingMeasurement #AdTech #DigitalMarketing #RCT #MarketingScience #Advertising #GrowthMarketing

Over the past decade, we've all witnessed a massive shift from Linear TV to Programmatic CTV. Here are the three biggest reasons I'm seeing as to why:1️⃣ Precision Targeting & Personalization 🎯Linear TV relies on broad demographic data, but CTV allows advertisers to leverage first-party data, behavioral insights, and real-time optimizations. This means more relevant ads delivered to the right audience at the right time—maximizing ROI.2️⃣ Better Measurement & Attribution 📊Unlike traditional TV, which relies on panel-based measurement, Programmatic CTV provides granular analytics on impressions, engagement, and conversions. Marketers can track performance in real time and tie ad spend directly to business outcomes (hello, closed-loop attribution!).3️⃣ Increased Flexibility, Cost Efficiency & Frequency Control 💰Linear TV requires upfront commitments and fixed placements, but CTV allows for dynamic budget adjustments, automated bidding, and real-time optimizations—ensuring every dollar works harder. Plus, with proper frequency capping, CTV prevents ad fatigue—so grandma doesn't have to see the same ad 100 times on her favorite channel.Only $63B annual Linear advertising dollars left for marketers to realize this and make the shift…#CTV #ProgrammaticAdvertising #Marketing #AdTech #DigitalMarketing #ConnectedTV

🚀 Fun Facts About Attribution & Ad Spend 🚀✅ Search, Social, & Display almost always attribute the MOST conversions & LOWEST CPA – but don't be fooled!✅ CTV (Connected TV) almost always drives the highest impact on awareness, consideration, AND highest incremental lift 📈 Why?🔍 Studies show that over half of Google searches come from consumers already intending to buy. Try typing "Chipotle" into your browser—it likely gets routed through a search engine (Google, Bing, etc.). Search gets the last touch credit, ignoring the channels that actually drove awareness and consideration.📲 Social media is great at serving ads for products you were already going to buy, but it doesn't capture what sparked that interest in the first place—again, getting last-touch credit.🖥️ Display ads have far more impressions than CTV, so there's simply a higher chance they appear last before a conversion. What Does This Mean for Marketers?🚨 Many marketers focus too much on basic metrics like CTR and CPA, while neglecting impact-driving channels like CTV & Audio. ⚖️ Last-touch attribution treats a 30-second ad on a 65-inch TV the same as a banner ad you scrolled past in 0.2 seconds on your phone. 💰 In 2024, marketers spent ~$132 BILLION on just Google Search & $160 BILLION on Meta's social media entities 🤔 It's time to rethink attribution and invest in channels that actually drive consumer behavior. 💡 #Marketing #Advertising #CTV #DigitalMarketing #Attribution #AdTech #GrowthMarketing #GoogleSearch #GoogleSEO #MetaMeasurement

Most marketers measure "performance", but are you measuring true impact? Incrementality measurement is the key to knowing whether your marketing efforts actually drive results—or if you're just paying for outcomes that would've happened anyway. For example, if McDonald's stopped advertising tomorrow, people would still go to McDonald's because it's lunch time and they are hungry. So, it begs the question, did the consumer go to McDonald's because they were influenced by marketing, or because they are hungry. Only through incrementality measurement can a true answer be derived.Here's why every marketer should be using it:🔹 Eliminate Wasted SpendAre your ads bringing in new customers, or just capturing those who were going to convert anyway? Incrementality testing helps you cut inefficiencies and reallocate budget to what really works.🔹 Prove Marketing's True ValueAttribution models can be misleading, but incrementality isolates cause and effect. This means you can confidently show leadership how much revenue your efforts actually generate.🔹 Optimize with ConfidenceInstead of relying on vanity metrics, incrementality tells you where to invest more, where to pull back, and how to scale profitably. No more guesswork—just data-driven decisions.In a world of rising ad costs and complex customer journeys, incrementality isn't a nice-to-have—it's a must.#marketing #growth #incrementality #attribution #digitalmarketing

🚀 Why Every Brand Marketer & Agency Needs AI Bidding in Their #DSP 🚀Think about it: Brand Marketers and Publishers priorities simply don't align.Brand Priorities:✅ Deliver the budget in full!✅ Maintain even pacing✅ Optimize reach & frequency✅ Target the right audience✅ Achieve performance outcomes✅ Ensure attribution & measurement✅ Get fair pricingPublisher Priorities:✅ Maximize revenue!Here's the problem: without AI Bidding, #publishers and #SSPs will gladly take your money—often due to overbidding.AI Bidding ensures smarter, data-driven bids that prevent wasted ad spend while still hitting performance goals. If you're not using it, you're leaving efficiency (and budget) on the table.#AdTech #ProgrammaticAdvertising #DigitalMarketing #AI #MarketingStrategy #Advertising hashtag #MediaBuying #MarTech #AIinMarketing hashtag #DataDrivenMarketing

Retargeting: The Illusion of "Performance" When escalations land on my desk for low or nonexistent incremental lift, the first thing that comes to mind is targeting settings. More often than not, the culprit is the same: Retargeting past purchasers.These campaigns always look great on the surface—high conversion rates, strong ROAS, glowing performance reports you proudly share with your boss or client direct. But when we measure incremental lift, it's a different story. Compared to its ghost bid control group (similar past purchasers audience who DIDN'T see your ad), retargeting past buyers rarely drives meaningful incremental impact.Why? Because it doesn't create demand—it simply takes credit for what was already going to happen. For example: Think about your weekly grocery run—you're already loyal to many brands. Whether you see an ad or not, you're still buying that same coffee, cereal, or detergent next week. The result? A campaign that looks great on paper but delivers zero real impact for the marketer.Retargeting Feels Effective, But Is It Really?✅ It inflates attribution – Retargeting claims credit for conversions that would have happened anyway.✅ It creates the illusion of success – High CTRs, strong conversion rates, and a killer ROAS—but is it actually growing revenue?✅ It diverts budget from true demand creation – Instead of funding campaigns that attract new customers, brands chase easy wins on a dashboard.When Does Retargeting Actually Make Sense?🔹 Re-engaging high-intent users – If someone browsed but didn't act (user page views & cart abandoners), a well-timed nudge can help.🔹 Shifting the strategy for existing customers – Instead of wasting budget "converting" past purchasers, use retargeting to push brand messaging, new product launches, or loyalty incentives.The Hard TruthMarketers, it's time for a reality check. ROAS and conversion rates don't mean a thing if your incremental lift is near zero.I get it—those numbers look good on a report. They make stakeholders happy. They make media buyers feel like they're winning. But if your campaign isn't driving true incremental revenue, you're just reallocating credit, not growing the business. Stop optimizing for vanity metrics. Start optimizing for the bottom line.The only metric that matters? Incremental lift. Because if your marketing isn't creating new demand, what's the point? 🚀#MarketingMeasurement #Incrementality #AdTech #Retargeting #DigitalMarketing #GrowthMarketing #Attribution #MediaBuying #MarketingStrategy

Title: Marketing Metrics That Matter: Incrementality & Attribution TruthsDescription:Not all performance metrics tell the real story. In this episode, I break down why incrementality should be your North Star, how misleading attribution inflates ROAS, and why true business growth comes from measuring real impact—not just nice-looking reports. If you’re focused on driving real results over vanity metrics, this one’s for you. #MarketingMeasurement #Incrementality #AI #AdTech #Attribution #GrowthMarketing #MarketingStrategyBased on LinkedIn and X postCredit to NotebookLM for creating incredible technology.