C (3:30)

My first stint in on the agency side, I then pivoted into a bit of media sales and ultimately landed a role over at AOL, specifically@ad.com shortly after AOL acquired the company. That was kind of my first entry into ad tech. We were the largest network on the planet. For those of you who kind of remember back that far. It was an outstanding team. I had some of the best bosses I've ever had at that company. And it really kind of.

C (4:16)

Sorry, it really kind of fostered my, you know, curiosity about how this industry works and the evolution of it until to this day it's one of my greatest pleasures to, you know, kind of stay abreast of everything and kind of discuss.

C (4:35)

You know, all the changes in the evolution of ad tech in general.

C (4:40)

So from aol, like you said, I went over to.

C (4:47)

Media Math and had some stints at liferamp and a couple of startups in there as well. Very kind of varied background, but always within the ad tech arena for sure.

C (5:01)

I am now over at Media Go and we are a performance oriented DSP who's kind of found a lot of traction among the SMBs.

C (5:16)

It's a little bit about the company.

C (5:20)

And I've been there for a couple of years now.

A (5:23)

Interesting. So, Brad, I'm obviously familiar with Baidu, I'm familiar with MediaGo. We've chatted about it quite a bit through DMs and what it is that you guys do. As a general topic, SMBs continue to be a really big opportunity for a lot of companies. Specifically, I hear a lot about the opportunities for CTV when it comes to SMBs. So my, my question to you is, how are you seeing SMBs kind of leaning into Media Go? What are they looking for that's different than the big global national brands that may maybe looking with larger budgets and larger spend?

C (6:01)

Yeah, it's a really interesting question and.

C (6:05)

I think what kind of separates our Demand? It's, it's 100% unique. Like you're really not going to find this art demand anywhere else on the open web. What we found is these are advertisers and marketers who know the walled gardens really well. They advertise on Amazon, they advertise on Meta, TikTok, but they don't know Programmatic as well on the open web. So they kind of use us as our entry point into extending reach, finding new users. And it's been really beneficial for them and really kind of educational because there's a lot of hand holding as you know, there's the open web. Programmatic is a very complex ecosystem. So, you know, that's one of our challenges I think as a, as an industry overall, because the walled gardens, if you can say anything about them, they found a way to make it really easy to advertise.

C (7:11)

And that's something that I think we should constantly strive to enable for them. And I think that's why we found traction within the SMBs is that.

C (7:23)

You know, we've been able to build an engine that can quickly optimize and find those targeted users correctly or quickly and kind of extend that.

C (7:40)

Tam for them, if you will, outside of what they typically see in those wall cards.

A (7:45)

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A (8:19)

I feel the majority of platforms in general are focusing on kind of like the big players in the market, but the SMB market itself is, last time I heard was somewhere like almost 700 billion in advertising. Like it wasn't small like I wanted to. I'm throwing that number out there. I can't like please don't confirm it, but I do believe it was something like that. Like it was an absurd amount of spend. I'll probably google it after or you know, chatgpt it after it's recording. They have a ton of spend but they don't necessarily have the same capabilities and in house knowledge to do it. So you need to create this simple click a button, upload creative letter, rip type of platform or else you, you lose that spend and Meta gets it.

C (9:06)

So yeah, yeah, I think that's such a great point. I think last I saw it's 80 plus percent of Meta's advertising business, like the S and P category basically stood up that business and continues to, you know, be the main pipe of revenue for, for meta across the board. So it's really interesting. It's obviously a sizable business. I would love if we were that size. But it just kind of provides a massive opportunity in front of us.

A (9:38)

It is such a massive opportunity that a lot of ad tech companies are looking into the utilization of AI and how to simplify that UI for SMBs and what that means with, you know, sourcing supply and having creative tools and easier ui. Like there's just so much opportunity that lives in that SMB world and then AI seems to be making it easily accessible and able to build.

C (10:02)

I think the potential is there. I'm not quite sure if we're there yet, you know, as an industry across the board. But I do think that if you're looking at kind of simplifying an entry point into the open web, I think that AI probably has the largest potential in recent memory to enter, you know, allow that market to enter into a more sophisticated open web.

A (10:29)

Totally, totally. From your stance like I've, I've obviously engaged with you on Twitter. I see that you're active on LinkedIn. Business development is such an interesting job or a career that you take on because it's not as easy as maybe like a hit and go type of sales job. Like if can I say that, like it really is like relationship building. It's trust building. You have to build rapport before anyone even talks to you or even spends a penny with you. But you're so active on social. Has that helped you in like capturing new clients?

C (11:06)

You know, there's a couple of points on that. So I use in regards to social, I think LinkedIn and Twitter X are my two primary channels and I use them for different purposes. I use LinkedIn. I feel like LinkedIn's just become a personal marketing channel for everybody and that's primarily the way I have used it. I think recently I started posting more similar.

C (11:38)

You know, news oriented or hot topics within the industry that I'll comment on on LinkedIn. I actually had someone over at Pre Bid reach out and go, Brad, I'm getting most of my news from you on LinkedIn because of your posts, which I really kind of appreciate. I there's so much happening within the industry obviously, so I'm getting more engagement that way posting, you know, the some of the latest news issues within the industry on LinkedIn Twitter. I've always found like Twitter is less to me about marketing myself and I really use it more for discussion and education for myself. There is a smart, smart universe of people out there that are not so worried about, you know, how they're looking and they want to make sure their headshot looks perfect.

C (12:41)

And there's more meaningful, I think, discussion around ad tech with some of the smartest people in the industry. Some of that has changed recently with the takeover and, you know, new leadership over there. But if you can get past, you know, the content that you don't necessarily agree with and use it specifically for, you know, work and professional related discussions, I find it incredibly valuable.

A (13:10)

I agree with you. So I what I've done with my account because I was fed up with seeing the stuff I didn't want to see, and I feel like it's calmed down, but it could be because of all the blocks I have in place. So it's not that I necessarily block people. I block topics, I block words. So I'm not a very big political person overall. And so, like, I have all the political people blocked across the board. It doesn't matter where you are on that side, left, right, middle, whatever. I just block their names. So, I mean, I'll admit it here. I block rnc, I block dnc, I block presidents, former presidents, future presidents, political everything. I block it. And what that's done is it's created a feed filled with either everybody that talks in the advertising industry or memes. And so, like, my feed is very much so me at this point with some glitches here and there, but I've basically eliminated anything I don't want to look at. I just, I don't care much for politics, so for me, I just remove it.

C (14:08)

I don't. Yeah, I don't think you're the only one. I think a lot of people have taken that tactic for those exact reasons. And I think it's worthwhile. I do. I don't do that personally myself, but it's a great way to keep you focused. It's a great way not to go down the political rabbit hole that it's so easy to get caught up in. So, and again, it, to me, it allows you to kind of take advantage of more of the good that Twitter has to offer versus the noise.

A (14:42)

So I'll tell you my angle and then maybe you could share yours. So Twitter and LinkedIn, even threads, even Blue Sky, I've tried Blue Sky, I tried threads. It just didn't work as well for me. Do you find that you post differently, you share content differently? Are you finding that transferring over the same structure that you do on X is working on LinkedIn?

C (15:04)

Great question.

C (15:08)

I try to be consistent between the two. But I'd be lying to say I'm not more. If I'm not more conscious of what I write and how it's.

C (15:24)

What I write and the, and the structure of those sentences down to the wording on LinkedIn. Like, I. I'm more.

C (15:34)

I'm more concerned about how that gets surfaced on LinkedIn content, gets surfaced on LinkedIn than I am on Twitter, because I know I've seen the repercussions of people when they misword something or don't express themselves the way. Exactly. Or they're not articulate and what they're trying to say and they just get hounded, which is a distraction in itself for some reason. I think that happens more on LinkedIn than Twitter.

A (16:03)

It's funny. So you know that my LinkedIn account was deleted. So I had a LinkedIn account, had, I don't know, 20,000 something people. And then LinkedIn found that my real name. And I think I posted about this the other day. Like, my mom didn't name me ad tech and my last name is not God. And so they said you have to use your real name. They froze my account and I just kind of got it unlocked like a few hours ago temporarily. And then they're going to lock it back up and delete it, which is fine. They were super nice about it. Long story short, like, I actually transferred the same way I posted on Twitter, the same structure of questions, same formatting from Twitter onto LinkedIn. And initially on that account, I was seeing a ton of traction because people were generally looking for the convo. But I think it's different for you. Like, I think you also work for a company. This is. You are representing a company, so it might be a little bit different, but I was at one point just firing them off on LinkedIn the same way I was on Twitter, and it was crazy. It worked.

C (17:04)

That's awesome to hear. First of all, I'm shocked that your first surname is not ad tech Pod.

A (17:11)

Yeah, fantastic name.

C (17:13)

It really is someone's. It's a missed opportunity for the next mom out there.

C (17:20)

But that's really interesting. It kind of broke my heart that LinkedIn, you know, kind of put a stop to it because I still find the account, you know, very useful and I get a lot out of it, so it's unfortunate.

A (17:36)

Thank you. I mean, it's fine. I'm running it through a business account. It's the same. I mean, it doesn't perform as well, but it's still there. I did want to ask you a Couple questions. Because you are so dialed in and I think that there's only, you know, a few of us that are as dialed in and most of those conversations happen on Twitter, really more than LinkedIn. I think people are just more open to speaking their opinion there. What do you think is going to happen in 2026? Like, there's AI pressures, there's employment pressures, there's changes in the way buyers are buying, there's recessionary talks, if not already in one, inflation. Where do you think see things heading in 2026?

C (18:16)

Just overall, yeah, I feel like this is. This could be its own podcast for sure. And I think there's obviously a lot of opinions out there. I've been doing this for so long and I feel like I have. I've seen a lot of these ups and downs of the trends that are happening. I just posted earlier this week, I get that AI is different. I get that potential of the, the impact potential of AI is going to be almost unpredictable. Of the way that it impacts advertising and ad tech as a whole. I do think it's going to be hard to predict because there's more noise about it than actual.

C (19:12)

Substance. And I might like, irk a few people off saying that, but I think yes, AI is going to have an impact. Where that impact's going to be is going to be based entirely on.

C (19:29)

What ends up working. And I think it's too early to tell what those areas are. I think campaign optimization, even campaign creative, asset execution, those are natural fits. What I think is going to be more difficult is that campaign setup, audience targeting outside on the or within the open web.

C (19:58)

I think there's going to be a few hurdles that we're not quite there with.

C (20:06)

With regards to AI, but there's no, you know, arguing that it's probably, it's probably not. It's probably going to be the biggest thing that has happened to us as an industry since the advent of Programmatic. What's your, what's your take on that?

A (20:25)

I think we're in a hype cycle. So I think right now we're at like the peak of hype. I think we're going to start to come down from the hype aspect. Like, yes, I agree with you operationally and I think it's great. You know, I posted this for my 2026 predictions. I said I think Adopts is going to be one of the largest affected groups in 2026. And I also clarified that it doesn't mean layoffs, it means slowdown of hiring. If you can do the same job with five people, why would you scale to eight? If you do the same job at 20, why scale to 30? Like you're able to do a lot more from each user. It's removing a lot of those menial, repetitive tasks that a lot of ad operations has to do. It gives them a better strategic opportunity to work better with partners, to suggest better opportunities, et cetera. But I don't think the layoff piece will kick in. But I also think that like it's everywhere. Like I joke about it on my next episode, which is the one right after you. Like I talk about how everything is AI powered and it's almost reached a point where you have to say you're AI powered. If you're not, you're old school. And so people are AI powering everything they possibly do because they realize, well someone's going to say well what's your AI solution? And if you don't have it, they're like oh man, these guys are really outdated. And so it's, it's, yeah, everybody is doing it.

C (21:52)

Yeah, everybody's doing it. And I think, you know, there's a lot of companies that have been doing it. But I think it's important to separate machine learning from true AI and LLMs. I think it's an entirely different beast.

C (22:07)

But.

C (22:09)

I, yeah, I agree, like adopts feels like a natural fit. That's such a specialized skill set that I personally think.

C (22:19)

It'S going to take a while for AI to figure out. There's, I think some great companies out there, some great startups within adtech that are purposely focused on that one kind of being subject matter experts within the ad op situation and I'm riveted to watch how they impact that space. But I think it's going to be hard.

A (22:46)

Yeah, I think, I like to, I like to think that AI will impact anyone that works directly with a machine and less directly with other people. So like if you look at business development roles, client success roles, customer care, sure AI will help empower you with better data, better knowledge, better insights, better follow ups. But in the end like the conversation has to be human to human. Like I'm not going to just buy from a bot unless I'm just putting it in my shopping cart and moving on, but nothing we do in our industry is just add to shopping cart. Everything we do is integrations, conversations, benefits, you know, what does this do for my tech or my, or my ad spend? And so I think the sales and account management teams will probably be empowered by AI and I think that the ad ops teams will probably be impacted by AI. And that's just my, my perspective.

C (23:37)

It'll be interesting to say. See, I'll even take it a step further in that.

C (23:46)

BD and sales, I think, have a lot of similarities in that they hold those relationships. And those relationships, I think, are essential not when things go well, but when things go, you know, take an unexpected turn. And I've saved so many.

C (24:09)

Business relationships by having that interpersonal communication and relationship with clients and customers and partners that I feel otherwise, you know, we would have been shut down or, you know, that partnership would have dissolved if it weren't for having those personal relationships. So just to kind of, you know, reiterate what you were saying, BD sales, account management, I don't think that's going to be immediately impacted to your point. For that reason, where do you think.

A (24:46)

Is the biggest opportunity for 2026? And I could throw out some examples of things that I hear and you can tell me. I mean, I'm just, you know, ad hoc doing this. So AI is an opportunity. Measurement continues to be an opportunity. SMBs, like we discussed earlier, is an opportunity. I think that there's a massive opportunity with cable companies in 2026. That's my personal view. I think they're the sleeping beast. I think people are ignoring them.

C (25:10)

How so?

A (25:11)

I think that they think that they are dead. I think three years ago I probably would have agreed that it was going to be the demise. But what I'm seeing from various cable companies is how their legacy cable box businesses are slowly turning into streaming boxes. They continue to own the pipes. They have extremely unique data, they have massive footprints. And you can't run a Roku without cable. You can't run a Roku without Internet. And so the Internet service providers really, really have a lot of control if they're able to bring a solution to market that's attractive enough, modern enough, and cost efficient enough to scale. And some of them are doing that already, but that's my view.

C (25:53)

Yeah, it certainly tees up Netflix in a great position. Right. With the acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, I think to your point.

C (26:05)

They easily could be the next big powerhouse. Not so much because they have the pipes, but they now, you know, have tenfolded their content options and user base.

A (26:20)

I love that acquisition.

C (26:21)

Yeah, me too.

A (26:22)

Where do you think the opportunity is at from your perspective?

C (26:26)

I'll tell you, I think what I'm, I'm most excited about, just to add to your list, is actually AD cp and I'll Tell you why I've like I said, I come from the agency background where full service agencies were actually a thing. Not to date myself, but I was working on the account side and media planning side and.

C (26:51)

Hand in hand with the creative department. So we were drafting the account plan and media plan and creative brief kind of all under the same roof and everybody was really.

C (27:05)

Correlating together in developing that overall advertising and marketing plan. I missed those days and I think what happened, especially with ad tech and my biggest regret and I think a lot of publishers, specifically I spend more of my time on the sell side. On the publisher front, I think they would say the same. Programmatic has opened the doors and made advertising a lot more easier. But the two things that I think never gets mentioned within ad tech circles, which are I think the two biggest aspects of a successful advertising campaign are the message and the media.

C (27:50)

Everything gets lost in between. I said this the other day on Twitter too.

C (27:55)

And there's a few more than a few people that agreed with this. Like we hang our hat on data measurement outcomes, and rightly so. Digital is specialized and serves a great, great purpose more than any other media out there in that regard. But what we tend to forget is.

C (28:19)

Campaigns are only as marketing is only as good as the messaging that you are sending and the media that it's running next to. And if there's any hill I'm going to die on, that's probably the biggest one. Programmatic has kind of removed those two aspects from the conversation, which is really unfortunate. I think ADCP comes in and has the potential to reintroduce these components back into the conversation where they take a more meaningful position. And I'm actually kind of looking forward to that because we never talk about. We don't talk about it nearly as much as we should. And if, if we can reintroduce those components into digital advertising, I think it would only make for better outcomes, make for better measurement, and provide the lift that, you know, everybody is actually the programmatic promises.

A (29:25)

That was a great way to wrap up the podcast, by the way, because that was a great perspective. I wanted to thank you. I wanted to thank Media Go for having you as my guest. Thank you, man. I'm really looking forward to chatting with you more in the future. And, and thanks for always just being such a, such a great friend and great supporter.

C (29:42)

It's mutual Ed Tech God. I really appreciate the time and looking forward to 2026.

A (29:49)

Same here. Thank you, Brad.

C (29:51)

All right, cheers.

A (29:53)

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the AdTech Godpod a podcast for the people about the people. Stay connected with me for more insights, trends and interviews in the realm of ad tech. Don't miss out on the latest updates, so follow me on X Instagram and connect with me on LinkedIn. Don't forget ATG Slack community has insights, networking opportunities and jobs. Keep the conversation going and stay at the forefront of adtech innovation.