‘We felt uncomfortable with the lack of control’: How DPG Media is reducing its reliance on Google ad tech

DPG Media is becoming a member of the likes of Axel Springer, Salon and Bloomberg in taking help abet watch over over how its media is monetized.
“We felt wretched with the lack of abet watch over we had over the spend coming into our network, which used to be on the Google platform,” acknowledged Stefan Havik, DPG Media’s chief digital officer. “We didn’t know who used to be procuring for or for what model because this so we changed our marketing stack.”
To pause this, the publisher no longer too long within the past rolled out its admire version of Google’s Ad Supervisor instrument, however with a more streamlined near.
Like its namesake, DPG Media’s Ad Supervisor functions equally to an ad switch, however with a special twist — now it’s the publisher that has declare abet watch over over which inventory is supplied to advertisers. And the greatest allotment? Advertisers can aquire it with out warning, with out Google or any assorted middlemen going within the near. Normally, they’d admire to fight by quiz of-aspect platforms and assorted ad tech distributors, however no longer anymore.
Then as soon as more, don’t mistake it for a in vogue quiz of-aspect platform (DSP). DPG Media’s Ad Supervisor doesn’t prioritize huge ticket safety or fraud controls.
In accordance to Havik, these points are more prevalent when procuring for by ad tech intermediaries quite than in the present day from publishers. He emphasised that after advertisers aquire commercials on their platform, they know precisely what they’re getting and where the commercials will seem.
In belief, this will likely quiet imply more of that money goes against displaying commercials — i.e. “working media” — than on things love ad tech prices and assorted charges. So let’s scream a marketer most critical to dispute on DPG Media’s inventory at €2.50, as an illustration. If the dispute used to be made by ad tech then they’d perchance admire to dispute more — scream €3.50, as an illustration — to be optimistic the publisher will get the €2.50 at least the ad tech prices were subtracted.
“We made our platform free so we don’t hold any prices,” acknowledged Havik. “And the cost that will get freed up from no longer having to be spent within the aged offer chain is left with the advertiser to resolve what they pause with it.”
Advertisers can quiet use their very admire just DSP to aquire commercials from DPG Media. They factual received’t be in a role to pause so for any of its personalized codecs nor will they be in a role to utilize the ad tech to aquire commercials with an alternative ID. As a replace, these advertisers must make use of DPG Media’s target audience records to accommodate its readers.
“From an identity level of view, the identity in our network is first accept together and is valid,” acknowledged Havik. “Ought to you aquire from our network [Ad Manager] then the identity of the target audience lasts so much longer than the in vogue week-long-length you’d accept at the same time as you used a DSP.”
This stance isn’t likely to exchange. Like assorted publishers, DPG Media doesn’t help picks to the third-accept together cookie it could perchance’t abet watch over. As Havik explained: “We don’t strengthen any of these universal ID solutions because we judge they’re no longer sustainable.”
There aren’t many publishers that can admire ample money to hold this stance. Refusing to work with these solutions near refusing the ad bucks that accept spent on the help of them. DPG Media, on the other hand, can pause so since it has a scale that alternative IDs don’t. Furthermore, DPG Media’s ad tech appears to plan properly against assorted ad tech distributors — at least in accordance to the early assessments.
For the final 365 days or so, the publisher has been working closed beta assessments with advertisers and agencies along with IPG’s Matterkind, Omnicom, Renaul, Decathlon, Accenture and Germany’s MediaMarkt. For the length of this time, the publisher acknowledged commercials supplied via the DPG Ad Supervisor had a 39 percent lower value per thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) and 43 percent lower value per conversion (CPA), when when compared with assorted established platforms.
“With performance up to three events better than the promoting campaign moderate, we arrange to manufacture relevant value for our customers within Ad Supervisor and exceed expectations,” acknowledged Tim Rowinkel, the programmatic director at OMD.
Attending to this level has been an extended and arduous uncoupling from Google. Since 2019, it has replaced Google Analytics with competitor Snowplow, constructed its admire platform for sharing its records, and moreover determined to decrease the amount of ad inventory it supplied within the open market where the value of commercials is optimistic in exact-time auctions.
“We’ve tried to level of curiosity on creating merchandise that will make our marketing work better, quite than focusing on doing what we are able to to extend margins or CPMs,” acknowledged Havik. “I don’t care about this stuff. I greatest care about making optimistic our network is performing properly, and competitively from an instantaneous response or branding level of view, versus Facebook and YouTube.”
It’s unsure if this is also persuasive sufficient to sway more advertisers to join the chase, as they tend to follow the established norms. Then as soon as more, if there’s ever a lawful time for them to embrace the imaginative and prescient of publishers love DPG Media, it’s now. As the exchange strikes shut to obstacles on third-accept together addressability, this will likely change into increasingly no longer easy for advertisers to fail to be conscious the strikes made by these publishers.
Whether right here’s sufficient to persuade more advertisers to apply suit remains to be considered. They’re no longer identified for deviating from the established squawk. That acknowledged, if they’ll aquire into what publishers love DPG Media are making an attempt to pause then now’s as correct a time as ever. The nearer the exchange will get to third-accept together addressability being throttled the more durable it’s going to be for advertisers to omit what these publishers are making an attempt to pause.
“This form of pass could perchance work, in particular with publishers that admire a properly-organized declare industry,” acknowledged Sasha Auzins, co-founder and chief running officer at media consulting industry Elaboration. “Integrations will most definitely be the predominant, how the platform connects into the programmatic ecosystem to boot to what segmentation skill is in-constructed. GAM is a full featured product, so the factor on which ingredients the DPG platform entails will most definitely be most critical.”
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