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On The Verge Of Convergence
00:42:29
Feels like we’ve been waiting for the convergence of ad tech and mar tech forever. But it’s finally starting to happen, and the time couldn’t be more ripe, says Heather Macaulay, president of product-focused consultancy MadTech.
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- [00:00]
Alison Schiff
Foreign.
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Heather McCauley
Welcome to Ad Exchanger Talks, the podcast devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that.
- [00:20]
Alison Schiff
Matter most to you. This episode is sponsored by the trade desk Edge Academy, the online learning platform designed to help marketers stay ahead in the evolving world of digital advertising. Check out their certifications, expanded course curriculum, and more, all led by the people who are shaping the world of ad tech. Enroll today for free at edgeacademy.thetradedesk.com I'm Alison Schiff. You're listening to the penultimate Ad Exchanger Talks episode of 2024, and my guest is Heather McCauley, president of MadTech, which calls itself a product focused consultancy. What does that mean? Heather will explain and will ask what's become an eternal question in our space. When the heck will the convergence of AdTech and MarTech actually finally happen? Heather's confident that we're on our way, but there's a heck of a lot of work to do and data silos are still very real. We'll dive in momentarily. But first, please allow me a quick plug for CTV Connect. Save the date. It's happening March 12th and 13th in New York City. Ad Exchanger is joining forces again with synopsys Ad Monsters and chief marketer to host a Can't Miss summit on all the key issues and opportunities in Connected TV. Learn more and register@ctvconnect.com hey Heather, welcome to the podcast.
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Heather McCauley
Thank you so much for having me, Allison.
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Alison Schiff
All right, so what is something about you that not a lot of other people already know or maybe something interesting that doesn't come up a lot in a business context?
- [02:04]
Heather McCauley
Absolutely. You know, I've told a couple of people in the industry about this and they get a kick out of my little hobby. So here it goes. When I moved from Manhattan to San Francisco, I was really homesick for the city. New York. Right. So my boyfriend at the time, he took me to Sonoma and Healdsburg on the weekends. Good man. He was. I ended up marrying him. But I was so intrigued with the, you know, the family owned really small wineries where someone would be behind the counter really educating us on wine, bringing us through a tasting. Right. Experience. And they were so passionate about it. I fell in love with, like, the storytelling aspect of it. And so I ended up being a wine club member at a lot of these small wineries. But part of the sales process, if you've been, is that you go to the wineries themselves and you pick up your wine and you taste it and then you bring your Wine home. But when I moved to Boston in Covid, you know, Covid hit and I just, I felt so sad for all these, like, small wineries that really relied on that direct to consumer aspect of their business because no one was picking up those wines anymore. They were losing that in person experience. So I actually toyed with the idea of opening up a tasting room in my little hometown of Newburyport. It's a lovely little coastal town that would be subsidized by these small wineries which they agreed to, to introduce people to the same, you know, wine tasting concept as it was on the west Coast. But I realized I would have to leave the industry and I would miss that too much. So instead I host my own little pop up wine tastings during, you know, family or neighborhood gatherings and different holidays where I really, you know, I get into character and I guide the family and some friends through a wine tasting, right where we go through whites and reds and I encourage them to order from the winery directly. But they all love it, right? They get to try wines they normally would never be able to try before. This year we, we learned what a fume Blanc was. So they know now not to be intimidated by that when they go to a restaurant. But it's my small way to kind of, you know, give back to those wineries and help them out and maybe I'll open a tasting room someday. But in the meantime, our Thanksgivings are a lot of fun.
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Alison Schiff
Cheers. I have no palate, but I really admire it and I like wine.
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Heather McCauley
Well, someday if I open this tasting, you can be my first customer.
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Alison Schiff
So when you're not hosting these very personal and bespoke tastings, you spend your time focused on advertising, ad tech, marketing, the convergence of all of those things. But I want to talk about your background for a bit first because you've spent lots of time in ad tech. VP of emerging solutions at PubMatic, head of revenue for Media at Publishers Clearinghouse, and then also head of Programmatic and Data Strategy there. There was a brief stint as a head of ads monetization at Zoom for three months in 2022, at the tail end of the pandemic. I am curious that. And now you're. You're president of MadTech for around two and a half years. We will talk about what MadTech is. But you were also an adjunct professor at NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies for around a decade, teaching mobile marketing and emerging media. I took a few writing classes years ago at NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies and they were a lot of fun. It was one. One was about personal essay writing and one was about humor writing. And one thing I really, I liked about these classes is that the instructors, they were living in the real world. They weren't career academics, they were working writers and editors. And there's nothing wrong obviously with being a career academic, but there's just a lot to be said for hands on experience and then imparting that. So do you think there's enough hands on instruction for people who study marketing in order to work in marketing, but also people who are already in the industry? I just wonder how, I don't know how prepared people are for this rapidly changing world. And I know that's a cliche, but I don't know how you even come up with a syllabus at the beginning of a semester that's still applicable by the end of the semester.
- [06:24]
Heather McCauley
Well, that's really it, right? So I was asked to teach that course, which was the third screen we called it at the time, which shows how early days kind of mobile it was. And first of all, it was difficult because I had a full time job plus a syllabus, plus a lot of those student teacher interactions throughout the day. But the syllabus changed every year, Alison, because things were happening so fast. And then programmatic entered the scene. But I think education is just so important across the board. And I've always loved educating clients, presenting to clients, and that's really why I was at NYU for so long. I think the education piece of this is so important. And one of the reasons I love this industry is because you never stop learning. Right? You brought up my background, which is interesting. I was at, you know, at this company called M Pocket before the iPhone came out. So really educating clients on, on mobile, big brands like McDonald's and Ford and they were like, can I have a case study? And I would say to them, you're the case study, right? You're the trailblazers here. And then I moved to New York in 2008 when the financial markets were just collapsing, right? And so I would, I had no agency experience, no sales experience, no agency contacts. And I would call on these clients and they would just want to hang up the phone on me because they had no budget for mobile. And I would call them and say, look, before you hang up, before you hang up, let me come in and just educate you on what's happening in mobile. Because someday one of the brands that you're representing, that cmo, is going to read about mobile in the Wall Street Journal and they're going to ask you a question and I want you to be informed. So if I come in and just teach you about mobile, that you prepared for that you'll be in a much better position when you do have that budget and when selfishly when you have that mobile budget, I would like you to give it to me. Right. And that worked. So I think that education piece is so important and that's why I love those years of teaching and Pubmatic. Yes, incredible experience. They're really kind of diving into Programmatic for the first time. Working with Bob Walzack who is now CEO of MadTech, so led the go to market efforts there for mobile and emerging media. Again, a lot of education there, working with PubMatic's teams that were already working with the demand and the supply side to upsell them on mobile and video and whatever came next. And then the publisher side of the business for seven years at Publishers Clearinghouse, we were definitely the underdog. Right. I started there, I guess it was a decade ago now and I was so attracted to that. The data assets and the value exchange that really powered the data asset around. Chance to win. Right. So the media and data side of it was really an afterthought, which became the focal point eventually of the company for good reason. So we launched private marketplace offerings, selling direct to agencies, performance side of the business, all of that. So it was a great experience. And you did bring up Zoom. So I'm happy to say a couple things on that because it's an interesting part of my resume for sure. But without getting into too many specifics, I will say this. I have a lot of empathy for anyone or a team that is trying to build an advertising monetization business inside a business that's core focus is not advertising. Generally speaking, when you're in a role like that, you want to be out in the market in some capacity, right. Exchanging ideas with customers. But you spend an overwhelming amount of time educating internally. There may have been assumptions made that you need to clarify. There's always a great deal of resources that you need to ring fence within the broader organization to really achieve your goals. And especially with the emphasis on data now, you can't have an advertising business without data. So all the privacy regulations that come with that, there needs to be buy in from so many different parts of the organization. So again, not saying anything confidential. It's well known that Zoom has an incredible amount of attention and engagement and a really powerful value exchange. So from an outside perspective it makes sense to say, okay, hey, let's monetize this attention engagement in a very thoughtful way. But I also think it's hard for a company that's first in its category to launch an advertising monetization effort. If you look at retail media, it makes sense that other retailers will follow in Walmart, in Target and CVS footsteps. It makes sense that, you know, Lyft is launching an ads business after uber success. But Microsoft Teams at the time wasn't launching, you know, an ads business. Right. So without going to too much, you know, I love the people and the culture there but you know, some things are just out of your control and I think you have to accept that when you enter an organization where advertising is not the focus. That's a risky undertaking. Right. But it's public facing information that after piloting that they decided to discontinue the program to really focus resources on areas of their business that they believed would drive the long term growth. But hopefully someday they'll revisit it, right?
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Alison Schiff
Well, everything is an ad network according to Eric Sufert, so eventually maybe they will. Okay, so MadTech, and speaking of being hands on, as we were, that that's your whole shtick, right? I mean the way I understand what MadTech is, you're a product focused consultancy, says it right on the tin. But what that means from a practical perspective is that you're helping clients, so brands, agencies, publishers with product strategy, product management, but also product development and then even product marketing, so pricing and positioning and all of that stuff and then all the way through to go to market and operationalizing whatever you've helped them create. So it's a real soup to nuts sort of thing. And you've got engineers, like 40 engineers or so that build stuff for clients. So it's not just doling out advice or making PowerPoints or talking about strategy, it's like getting in there and messing around with the code and building pipes. So I kind of think of you guys as plumbers. I mean that in a good way actually. So one like did I get that right? And then make it real for me. Like give me an example of what you would do for a brand that came to you and wanted to strategize but then also wanted to build something and put all those like data connections in place.
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Heather McCauley
Yeah. So I think you did a very great job communicating what MadTech is. Right. Which was really born out of that idea that organizations don't just need strategy, they need that hands on development. And you know, there's a lot of consultants that specialize in strategy. And I think that's great, but I've been on the other side of the house before. And so at one point it was, okay, here's the strategy, here's your hundred page deck to your point, Allison. And then my response was, okay, what do I do with this from here? Right. I don't have those data architects and engineers at my own organization. So what are we going to do here? So yes, we are a data focused, product focused consultancy where we, you know, serve as an extension of our clients product teams. So yes, we work with brands and publishers and platforms and agencies to solve those really complex product and data challenges. And I think to make that a little bit more tangible for you. A couple examples, I'll give you one. I think one of the biggest trends we're seeing right now is really sort of this overhaul in the martech stack. So a brand will come to us and say, look, I've invested in all of these platforms, but they aren't connecting or delivering on what I need. And I think that's a common theme that we're all seeing right now, that organizations are making significant investments in their martech and adtech stacks. Right? Not just financially, but resource wise as well. But so many of these tools remain underutilized. There was a stat that Gartner put out, I think late last year saying that companies are only using about 33% of their available martech capabilities. Right? So that's not a lot. So where we would come in is we would help conduct discovery projects to really evaluate that current state of your ad tech and martech stack. So providing partner selection, then helping optimize those platforms and then saying, okay, let's make you into a data mature organization, right, through data readiness, help you build that holistic view of the customer. Right? So another problem we might get is, hey, I want that 360 degree view of my customer, but my data is really fragmented and not actionable. Right? So helping transform raw data into a consumable data layer, right. That is designed to be easily accessed by the organization, which is really important for things like AI. But seamless data integration is what is the pattern and what we kept hearing in the market again and again and again, which is, you know, no platform can stand alone and that connectivity is so important and I think we take it for granted as an industry because it's not super sexy, right? But the connectivity piece is so important in bringing together these platforms to make all of this a reality across marketing and advertising, that holistic customer view, et cetera.
- [15:50]
Alison Schiff
So I want to ask you about something that came up during a conversation I had with Bob Walzack, CEO earlier this year. He was at Ramp up in February and he was like taken aback by the fact that a lot of advertisers and publishers and data providers are licensing new technologies to deal with cookie deprecation. And yes, like that was before Chrome said, nevermind, we're not fully deprecating third party cookies. But still, like companies need a post cookie strategy and technology all the same. But yeah, they're out there licensing all of these new systems, but there hasn't really been enough work done to make their data digestible and queryable and usable. So, you know, you have these brands and agencies and data providers, like wrapping a security blanket around themselves, but they haven't taken the steps they need to take, so they haven't built connections to manage their data. What's up with that? Like our brands and agencies and their partners getting better at this. I mean, that was earlier this year. Are they finally mapping and converting their data so it can pass between systems or are we kind of still where we were in February?
- [17:05]
Heather McCauley
We are still where we were in February. I have become so passionate about this topic of connectivity, which if you asked me three years ago, I couldn't believe how, how much this has changed. But I think I was saying we underestimate how important connectivity is, right? It's, it's not super sexy and it's not super essential and it's not about even martech to ad tech. It's about ad tech to ad tech and Martech to Martech. Because today we have marketers and publishers building martech stacks and ad tech stacks that are composed of so many different tools and apps and platforms. The average enterprise today actually uses over 120 tools within their MarTech stack, which includes ad tech. For the sake of argument here and now. You go back, Alison, to that stat I said earlier about how underutilized those platforms are, right? Which is not good for anyone. You have these composable stacks across ad Tech and MarTech, meaning we're just bringing pieces of things together. But now you have composable platforms within the stack, like a composable cdp. And no platform can stand alone and connectivity is so essential. So when we say connectivity, that's a really loaded term. So what do we mean by that? Right, we're talking about platform to platform connectivity across CDPs, clean rooms, data providers, DSPs, SSPs, the social platforms to unlock use cases like audience activation, enrichment, reporting and optimization. And it goes Back to APIs. Right. So you just mentioned like the shift, the market shift from third to first party. Whether third party cookies go away or not. This is where the industry is going. But that requires leveraging APIs to really enable that platform to platform communication versus the third party cookie syncs we used to rely on as an industry. So in the world of ad Tech and MarTech, the platforms rely on these APIs to really enable communication and share that data. So I like to think of them as the entry and exit points on a platform. Right. So almost like the doors. Right. But the APIs aren't, that's just not enough. Right. So imagine you have a door that leads somewhere, but no road or bridge to really take you to that end destination. And that's really the challenge that a lot of these organizations face today when trying to connect their platforms. And to take it a step further, most platforms don't just have one API to connect to another, like the trade desk for example. Right. They have APIs for first, second and third party data. They have their CAPI API for conversions. Their CRM API Experian has multiple APIs. So building the roads between the two APIs is a burden on the platforms. It's a burden on the brands if they try to build them directly. It takes engineering resources to actually build that road. But then to continuously maintain it is even harder. Right. We have to keep that connection running. Meta updates their API every month it breaks. You know, an engineer has to call another engineer off the soccer field to make sure that audience actually transfers. Right. So this is a really big industry problem. And I was, I've been spending more time in the quote unquote Martech world. And Scott Brinker recently said that 83% of buyers rank API coverage as a top priority when they're evaluating platforms. But only 17% of those organizations actually feel that their stack provides adequate API support. That's a really big problem. And that's where we built industry wide solution to that problem called MadConnect.
- [20:46]
Alison Schiff
Which is.
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Heather McCauley
Yeah, yes, just some suspense there for you. But MadConnect is really solving that challenge of platform to platform connectivity at scale. Right. So we kept hearing the market, we would say, what can we take off your product roadmap? And they would say it's the building and the maintaining of these integrations. So it addresses the critical pain point for AdTech and MarTech, not only of the operational burden of building the connectors, but maintaining those connectors. So we offer up to almost 100 now pre built API connectors where we connect to a platform like a CDP once and you can instantly be connected to a variety of different platforms. So think data providers and activation platforms like DSPs, SSPs, et cetera. And so really, it's helping clients maximize the value of their license platforms, and it's enabling those platforms to drive more usage and more engagement. And it's helping with that utilization problem that I kept talking about for the brand. So, again, everyone really wins.
- [21:51]
Alison Schiff
So I think that's a good spot for us to break and hear from our sponsor. But just as a little teaser for what's coming next, we're going to stick with this theme because there's a lot more to say about the convergence of adtech and Martech tech and the fact that it's just not happening. And we've been talking about it for about 10,000 years. So stick with us. I'm Alison Schiff, Managing editor of Ad Exchanger, and today I have Stephanie Patterick with me, GM of Editorial and Editor in Chief at the trade desk, where she leads the content strategy and execution. And she also has more than 20 years of experience in media and journalism. Stephanie, welcome.
- [22:41]
Stephanie Patterick
Alison. I admire your work. So happy to be here.
- [22:44]
Alison Schiff
Thank you very much. So what shifts or forces are driving the evolution of the ad tech industry? This is such a big question.
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Stephanie Patterick
It is a big one. And I think we're in a remarkable moment in time because we're really witnessing the maturation of the ad tech industry. And by that I mean, you know, just in my career as a, as an advertising journalist, I've seen programmatic go from this niche part of the ecosystem that transacted primarily in remnant inventory to a vital player that's supporting premium content. And I think that three forces are sparking this. It comes down to consumers, regulators, and innovators. And first, I think it's important to understand that more people are spending time on the open Internet than in walled gardens. So they're spending more time streaming shows, listening to podcasts, reading news. And second, the Department of Justice has really held Google's feet to the fire this year, and that has exposed the danger of black boxes. So everyone in the supply chain is being scrutinized and there's a pressure to add value, not just extract it. And all of this really represents a massive opportunity for innovation and for ad tech to keep evolving with quality content, supply path, efficiency, and really transparency for all parties at the fore.
- [24:09]
Alison Schiff
What is one piece of advice that you'd give to someone looking to take their career to the next Level.
- [24:16]
Stephanie Patterick
I love this question so much. Get outside of your own expertise to understand the big picture. I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make in their careers is to silo themselves within one area of expertise. And I want to be clear, specialization is valuable, but the more that you can get curious about what your stakeholders know and the deeper you understand how the entire media ecosystem works, I think the more brilliant you'll be at what you do. So don't be afraid to play the role of a reporter and ask the subject matter experts in your organization what they know. I think you'll be surprised at how generous people are with their knowledge.
- [24:54]
Alison Schiff
Advice for your career, advice for life. And how can the trade desk Edge Academy help a marketer with their career?
- [25:03]
Stephanie Patterick
We talk about transparency a lot in our industry, and one place where it's vital is education. At Edge, we have a strong belief that the more everybody understands programmatic, the healthier the whole ecosystem becomes. And we really believe that this knowledge is an advantage for anybody who's looking to grow their career or their business. And this goes for the cmo, the planner and the trader. Edge has served the advertising community for 11 years and it's evolving to stay ahead of the curve. So we've got new classes on timely topics like omnichannel advertising, connected tv, as well as foundational certifications like Trading Essentials and Marketing Foundations. So it's just a fun challenge to meet learners where they're at and help them navigate this space that changes, as you all know, literally every day.
- [25:56]
Alison Schiff
Stephanie, thank you for the insights and for the advice.
- [25:59]
Stephanie Patterick
It's been so fun to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [26:17]
Alison Schiff
All right, welcome back. And yeah, the convergence of AdTech and MarTech, the long awaited, long heralded, but alas, not yet real convergence of ad tech and Martek. So why have we been hearing about and talking about the convergence of AdTech and MarTech for at least the past decade, but it just hasn't come to fruition? Like, what is the holdup?
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Heather McCauley
Actually, I think the holdup has been. Well, first of all, I think it's good to really quickly, I think, talk through the definitions on paper.
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Stephanie Patterick
Right.
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Heather McCauley
I think we know what they are. But, you know, ad tech really focusing on like acquisition, right. The right message, the right person at the right time. We've heard all of that. And then Martech taking over from there. Right? Really focusing on the customer experience and the customer journey. But I actually think now that convergence is really starting to happen. I think there's some factors in terms of technology that prohibited them from converging as they are now. So I think there's three real key drivers which are accelerating that convergence. One being. This will really surprise you, the important role of first party data. Right, so first party data. Yeah.
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Alison Schiff
No one's ever mentioned first party data to me before.
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Heather McCauley
Can you believe this? This is revolutionary. But it's just been so critical for both sides, right? For the ad tech side, the martech side, we all want this 360 view of the customer or holistic view of the customer. And this is where it starts, right? Is having that direct relationship with the customer, being able to understand as much as we can about them and extracting that information, of course, in a privacy safe way. But now both sides are so reliant on first party data, right. We're not going to be able to rely on third party cookies or third party signals, right, Forever. The second being the rise of the cloud platform. So you have Snowflake talking about this a lot in market. So cloud based platforms like a Snowflake are really breaking down these data silos. They're allowing data to really flow seamlessly between teams. And before you had your organization's data would be in different parts of the organization, in different departments. But now with this new infrastructure, you're able to have unified data management for both marketing and advertising. So this is going to enable a very much more integrated approach across both ecosystems. And then last, it's the higher than ever, I think, customer expectations, right? So we all expect seamless, personalized experience across all touch points. I think the reality is we have a relationship with a brand across so many different channels because you think about, you know, the podcasts we listen to, we think about our email consumption, we think about watching, you know, consuming video on our phones, on our TVs, right? The print magazine, I love getting that J. Crew holiday catalog, right, That I can, I can flip through the pages of my coffee in the morning. Like we brands are touching us in so many different ways now, but we have higher than ever expectations of those brands. I'll give you an example. I bought these red sneakers. They're like, they look almost like ballet shoes, they're so cool. And I'm not going to say, you know, the name of the brand, but I bought them. And then three days later, I'm still seeing an email. Did you forget about us? And then I'm still seeing ads for that. And no, I didn't forget about you. I already bought you. And it's frustrating to me as a consumer and eventually of Course, you know, the brand caught up and asked me for review, but that showed a lot of, of connectivity between the two sides. Right. So I think now with the higher than ever consumer expectations, the rise of the cloud platforms, the important role of first party data, that convergence is starting to happen fast and it's solving for that. You know, I think that convergence will really solve for that fragmentation that has left marketers and consumers really frustrated. And of course, going back to connectivity, that's going to play a huge role in really bringing those two together.
- [30:25]
Alison Schiff
And regular consumers, people, human beings, they don't give two hoots. This is a family podcast, so I won't say anyway, they don't give two shits about why there are breakdowns in how different teams are communicating with them. So you know what's happening there, you understand what the breakdown is. You do this for a living. But someone who's just out there in the world listening to podcasts, maybe that's where they first heard about the shoes and then they see an ad or their friend mentions it or whatever, they finally buy it. They don't really want to know about the guts or what's happening in the background. And there are so many touch points now. There are so many ways to get in front of somebody and there's also such a thirst for data and follow ups and understanding why someone did what they did that it sets the stage to people off because you're going full bore at them all the time. And they just don't care why the breakdowns are happening. They don't want them to happen. They want it to be seamless. So, so it is really a ripe time for the convergence to happen because we're kind of on a, on a path to annoyance.
- [31:34]
Heather McCauley
That's right. I think it was Scott Brinker who said it. Customers will benchmark the greatest brand experience they had and they will subconsciously compare all their other experiences to that. And I think that's exactly what you were just saying, Allison, and that's happening today. So that's why that, you know that convergence needs to happen. To me and you, that just means there's like a communication breakdown or platform to platform breakdown when something like that happens. But to the average consumer it's just frustration and annoyance.
- [32:01]
Alison Schiff
And we've already talked a little bit about what has to happen for this to realistically happen and for there to be a more unified approach to marketing and advertising. But I want to really zero in on the point that it's not just about adopting new tools and technology like you can't just throw a CDP at it and then assume that you're good to go. Like you do need to understand how your data is flowing and to have a really efficient data management strategy. And I don't mean to like plug MadTech, but I know that's what you do. That is, that is really important. And as much as people talk about it, it doesn't seem to be happening yet. As much ink is spilled on that topic in the op ed pages of Ad Exchanger.
- [32:50]
Heather McCauley
That's right. And I go back to connectivity because it is about the platform. Obviously your data has to be organized and we talked about that, a consumable data layer and all of that. But I keep going back to how we're not looking at the connectivity problem in the right way because a lot of platforms will provide connectivity for their own ecosystem, but not beyond that. And so that's where here I am plugging MadConnect again. But it's the neutrality of the platform I think that is really interesting that we want to amplify connectivity for all of these platforms. So this is a table stake. This is not something that we should have to wake up and think about anymore. And your engineering team doesn't have to wake up and think about anymore. This needs to be a seamless way to transfer and normalize data as it goes from one platform to another. And being able to have a platform be plug and play and, and just plopped into your, you know, to your platform and had that source and destination platform communicate in a bidirectional way, that's going to be hugely important. And like I said, it's, it's Martech to ad tech, but it's also Ad tech to ad tech and Martech to Martech. I'll give you a real life example of someone using the platform today is Fetch Rewards. And if you're familiar with them, they're a rewards platform. They work with over, you know, 600 brands. They help these brands build direct relationships with their customers and they generate a lot of first party data through their rewards based app. So these audience are built from very deterministic retail agnostic purchase data and all that data is tied directly to the user. And so Fetch is collecting data at three different levels from the retailer, the brand and the sku. But they needed a way to activate this data right because there was no connection from the Fetch Fetch platform into activation platforms like the Trade desk, like social platforms from Meta. So being able to activate that and provide more use cases and unlock greater potential for Their clients unlock greater, you know, more usage for their platform was something that they're really happy about, we're really happy about, and their clients are as well. And I think that's a good example of the whole connectivity play. Right, which was easy just to plug and play and then start utilizing the platform in ways that it wasn't utilized before.
- [35:12]
Alison Schiff
So it's December and my inbox has been exploding with hot takes about 2025 predictions. Like, I cannot even tell you how many emails I've gotten with predictions. So I'm going to ask you for one. Do you think that 2025 will be the year of ad tech and Martech convergence finally?
- [35:35]
Heather McCauley
I don't believe that will be the year where we're just like all going, the lumascape and the martech Mac come together in a big way and all our conferences start merging. So all the MarTech folks come in to programmatic IO. But I think we'll get closer than ever. And I think it goes back to all the things we were talking about around the clouds, around the technology that's there now. There's really no excuse for us not to talk more and for the platforms to not communicate as seamlessly as they need to be. So I would say that it will be closer than ever, Alison, but I don't think we'll have that won't be the final version, I guess, of it, as you could say.
- [36:12]
Alison Schiff
So I guess people are still going to talk to me about Data silos in 2025. Can't escape it.
- [36:18]
Heather McCauley
I think we're going to have a little bit more to go. Yes.
- [36:20]
Alison Schiff
So we are coming to the end of the episode and we're also coming to the end of the year, which is crazy. I want to talk about New Year's resolutions. I know that New Year's resolutions are made to be broken, but putting that aside, I'm going to ask you for a few resolutions that you would attribute to different sectors of the ad industry. Like what they should be resolving to do in the year to come to make their lives better and just to make the industry better. So, brands, what should brands resolve to do in 2025 and. Or what should they resolve not to do anymore?
- [37:01]
Heather McCauley
I think brands should be demanding more of the platforms they're licensing. I think the underutilization of all the different platforms within the AdTech and MarTech stack, like that, we have to get better at that. And I think brands should lean on their platforms to say, you need to help me connect into other platforms. And that responsibility falls on you. I think that would take a lot off the brand's plate and it would actually help the platforms in the long run as well, unlock more use cases.
- [37:32]
Alison Schiff
What about publishers? What should publishers set as their New Year's resolution?
- [37:39]
Heather McCauley
I think publishers should continue to realize the power that they have, which is the direct relationship with the consumer, and continuing to try to refine and power that value exchange that they have and find ways to work more directly with the brands themselves. I think that's going to be really important as we continue to move into a first party world.
- [38:03]
Alison Schiff
I think publishers too, and I speak as a publisher, a small one, we should realize our own worth, right? I mean, we're creating content and we have engaged audiences to use every buzzword ever and that's a cool thing and it's not easy to do. So we, we deserve to puff out our chest a little bit.
- [38:24]
Heather McCauley
I completely agree with you.
- [38:26]
Alison Schiff
Long live publishers. Hopefully I love a job in 2025. Okay, and what about the ad industry writ large? Like if ad tech were to make a resolution OR 2 for 2025, what would it be or what would they be?
- [38:45]
Heather McCauley
I would say let's stop overcomplicating everything. I feel that.
- [38:49]
Alison Schiff
All right, go on.
- [38:50]
Heather McCauley
I mean, at the end of the day, as of right now anyway, we are humans selling to humans. And I feel that sometimes when I am, I'm talking to a platform or I'm visiting their website or reading their collateral, it is really hard to understand what they're doing, the problem they're solving for, and the value they're bringing to me. And so many platforms are trying to be so many different things. And so I feel like if we can just try to simplify our value as an industry and then individually, that platforms can help us better understand their unique value, it will go a long way.
- [39:27]
Alison Schiff
So this really speaks to me because, and I, I'm not asking every company out there to easily fit in a predefined Bucke, but I just want to express the pain that I feel sometimes when I'm writing a story about a company. I'm just trying to describe what they are like a mobile video ad platform. Simple, right? But then I'll get an email from that company like angry that I didn't describe them as an AI powered mobile video ad platform that also this and also that. I'm like, guys, please, like have some mercy.
- [39:57]
Heather McCauley
Yeah.
- [39:58]
Alison Schiff
So I just feel like it ties right back to what you were saying. If you're going to be everything to everyone, it's hard for people to understand what it is that you do. And it, to my mind, brings up the question of whether you do any one thing really well or if you're scattered.
- [40:15]
Heather McCauley
I completely agree. I hope the industry is listening, Allison.
- [40:18]
Alison Schiff
Me too. I really do hope the industry is listening to this podcast. That would be kind of a bummer if they weren't. So hello ad industry. Thank you for listening to Ad Exchanger talks this year. And then what about you personally? I mean, do you have a New year's resolution for 2025 you'd be willing to share with the the ad tech industry?
- [40:35]
Heather McCauley
Ah, well, I'm trying to simplify everything on our end from a MadTech and MadConnect perspective. So hopefully we'll see. We'll see more of that going into the new year. And I would like to have more patience with my three boys who I love dearly. But it's a lot. So I'm going to try to be more patient.
- [40:52]
Alison Schiff
I'm going to try to be more patient with my cat.
- [40:55]
Heather McCauley
Yes, patience is important, right?
- [40:58]
Alison Schiff
I'm going to try to write in a journal every day. I used to do that when I was in elementary school and high school and actually through college and then into my mid-20s. I would write almost every day. And I was at my mom's house recently in New Jersey and I was going through some of these old journals that I found, and it was amazing. I mean, stuff that I completely forgot about, stuff that I actually have no memory of. It doesn't even jog a memory, but it must have happened because it's there. It's a document of my life that is not recreatable unless you write it down in the moment. Some of your own life is just lost to you. So that's my resolution. Really.
- [41:34]
Heather McCauley
I love that. As an avid journal writer, I appreciate that it's very important and therapeutic.
- [41:40]
Alison Schiff
Well, here's to publishers knowing their value in 2025. And here's to efficient data management. Awesome. This episode is sponsored by the Trade Desk Edge Academy. Whether you're a seasoned programmatic pro or are just starting out in digital advertising, the Trade Desk Edge Academy's expert LED courses and certifications are here to help you stay relevant, ready and ahead of the curve. Enroll today for free. Free at edgeacademy.thetradesk.com.