← AdTechGod Pod
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- [00:00]
A
Market Live is coming up March 10th and 11th in New York City. With us some, just some of the brands and agencies that have registered thus far. And don't worry, we'll be doing several of these announcements with us. Bayer, BMO, Farmers Insurance, Electronic Arts, the Hershey Company, HP, Huntington Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Kenview, L', Oreal, MasterCard, NFL, PayPal, PepsiCo, Redfin, Synchrony, T Mobile, Verizon, Workday, Ah, agencies. Want to hear which agencies are going to be joining us? Assembly, Butler, Till, Canvas Worldwide, Kara, Choreograph, Kridera, Dentsu, Digitas, ipg, IPG Media Brands, Magnet, omd, PMG Publisher, Sapien, Razorfish, Wavemaker, WPP Media, and more. Can't wait to see you there. Go register now. Marketecturelive.com March 10th and 11th. You know what's wild? We spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on ads. But when it comes to building audiences for paid campaigns, we still put all our faith into native targeting. What if you could put your ads directly in front of your exact buyers? Vector reveals the actual names of people visiting your site, clicking your ads and researching your competitors, then lets you build ad audiences from them that you can push directly into LinkedIn, Google, Redd it, wherever. For those of us measured on pipeline and revenue, that's the difference between campaigns that generate opportunities and campaigns that just generate more questions. Take control of your ad audiences at Vector Co.
- [01:40]
B
Welcome to the AdTech Godpod, your window into the world of advertising technology and the people behind it. I'm your host, AdTech God. Welcome to the AdTech God Pod where we speak to the supply side leaders of our industry. Today's guest is Nathan Thomas. He's the principal at Thomas Media Consulting and previously worked at playwire for over 16 years. He led operations, programmatic sales, data, platform partnerships and more during his tenure there. He's extremely well versed on the supply side of the industry, which I'm genuinely always interested in. We've engaged a ton on social media. He even worked with us when he was at Playwire. So I'm really looking forward to to meeting him today. Nathan, welcome to the EdTech God Pod.
- [02:26]
C
Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here.
- [02:28]
B
Thanks for joining. I know the holiday season gets a little wild, so thank you for finding time to join me during this crazy holiday season.
- [02:36]
C
Absolutely.
- [02:37]
B
Question for you. You spent 16 years at a company that is a lot longer than most. I think. I've only had two guests that beat you. One was Jared Woleczynski at Paramount. He's been there for 22 years or something, mostly because of acquisitions. I would love, love to hear a couple of things of one, what got you to where you are today founding your, your consulting business and two, what kept you at Playwire for 16 years?
- [03:04]
C
Yeah, no thanks for that. I know it is a long time. Very grateful for. It was amazing. Yeah to step back a little bit. I was born and raised in Switzerland and I moved to Florida in 2008 which was a really bad time with the financial economy and everything going on. And I came from an academics advertising background, taught media economics at the University of Zurich. I knew I wanted to get into the kind of corporate advertising world and started applying places and I think I got exactly one interview and this company was with a Playwire at that point known as Entergy. And I think they were five people at the time and I was number six or so. And yeah, had that interview, got into Playwire and honestly was one of the best rides of my life or anything I could ask for on the career side because I was able to step into this ad tech startup that at that point was really a kind of a gaming ad network that then obviously over the course of the time morphed into a full fledged publisher monetization platform and all that that they are known as now. And what I really loved about it is that you come into this and we're talking 2008 at this point, we're talking the right media days, the Ad.com days and old ad servers like Microsoft Atlas and whatnot and really just was able to kind of learn this from the ground up. There was no tutorials, no blogs, no press, no just kind of like figure it out and with very limited resources and you're a really scrappy team. And then I led our kind of ad tech product innovations for a minute, then also stood up our data business. So I just really gained a really deep and wide ad tech knowledge, especially on the sell side, but also some on the on the media buying side. Since I did run the ad operations team and all that was just a really great ride. It was, it was phenomenal experience. Learned so much and yeah, after 16 years there kind of hit an end where like I, I could probably keep doing this forever. I could stay around, love the team, love the people, love the product. But you know, is there something else out there? So I decided to take a sabbatical, do a little personal things, some projects, Travel, family. After 16 years of a ad tech marathon if you will. And then yeah, early this year in January, I was like, okay, let me start reaching out to my network, look into for new positions. Kind of just really fell into this consulting world. This was not planned at all. So I got maybe the first client after a month. Like, hey, I don't have a role but I could use help with this. So as I'm sure I'll help you. So as I'm doing this, I don't know setting up an LLC and setting up a business bank account and I don't know what I'm doing and chat gpting invoices, how to do that anyhow. So fast forward now. I've been working with a multitude of clients across the sell side. Anything from publishers, ad tech platforms, SSPs, data providers, data sellers, digital out of home. And it's actually done something that I really enjoy. It allowed me to learn something more now even than what I've or not more. But maybe in addition to what I've already learned to play where I kind of branch out a little bit and love the industry. I'm always fired up or always thinking about ad tech. Talking about ad tech's kind of a disease. Maybe, I don't know. But anyhow.
- [06:49]
B
Now on the podcast, a word from our sponsors. This is ECH God and the 2026 IAB annual leadership meeting is where the digital media market aligns, bringing together the leaders who shape investment, innovation and growth across the ecosystem. It's a rare opportunity to build high value relationships, surface new revenue paths across AI, commerce and measurement, and stay ahead of the shifts redefining how business gets done. Be in the room where the year ahead takes shape. Join us in Palm Springs February 1st to 3rd and register at iab.com/alm. Use code ATG ALM 26 to save $500. Again, go to iab.comalm and use code ATG ALM 26 to Save yourself $500. You know, it's when I had more free time, I was like super active on Twitter and just would constantly post.
- [07:53]
C
Yeah.
- [07:53]
B
And the banter, the conversations that happen Even now on LinkedIn, like it's definitely more apparent on LinkedIn now than it was two years ago or three years ago. It is absolutely an addiction. And it's fun hearing people's opinions and how they reformat it depending on the platform. So X is pretty damn unhinged, pretty brutal.
- [08:12]
C
I take on X is great. Like you talk about X what you want, but I take on that is great.
- [08:17]
B
Look, I've learned to set filters. I block a ton of stuff. I block all politics. I block everything from rnc, dnc, president names, politician names, anything that I feel like I just don't want to read. My feed is majority ad tech and advertising at this point.
- [08:30]
C
I don't want to engage with anything else deliberately because I don't want to get sucked into the diagonal.
- [08:35]
B
Yeah, same, same. Yeah, I'm the same way. So I have a question. You worked there for 16 years, you ran publisher SSP data, you've worked across digital at home as a consultant. Now what have you seen that's changed the most in your tenure? Like the publishing space is I would say getting hammered a bit by LLMs. But what are you seeing has changed the most across the board in those 16 years?
- [09:00]
C
You know, I think maybe way back in the day, you know, if you were a publisher, I would say a small to medium sized publisher, maybe you could kind of get by by just like hey, I slapped adsense on here, maybe something else, I'll make it enough money, I can function. But now the industry got so complex that I mean think about anything from consent management and data collection and privacy laws and SSPs and DSPs and yield my whatever it is like is so complex. And at the same time the publishing industry in itself got so exponentially harder with the fragmentation of audiences. Like you mentioned, LLMs and AI a big threat to, I would say especially general interest publishers or kind of, yeah, do it yourself. How to do whatever if you're not a, if you don't have a really. Maybe I don't know if niche is the right word but if you don't have a captivated engaged audience that is coming deliberately to your property because they love your property and they love the community or whatever it is, I mean that's going to get real tough. And then obviously the whole constraints on monetization and ad tech tax and people taking chipping away at the dollar all the time and often I think an unfair treatment of publishers with a lopsided power on the demand side. Right. Where I mean it's always like hammering publishers on this is bad inventory quality, bad supply path, bad this, bad that. But whoever has really taken an advertiser or a DSP to task for wanting running malware, I cannot tell you how many times I hunt down redirect the pub site. It just doesn't happen because the dollar. Right. Power flows down the dollar line if you will. Right. And I don't know, that's just gotten exponentially harder I'd say.
- [11:02]
B
Yeah. It's also interesting on the supply side. It's Commoditized at this point especially it's starting to happen a bit on CTV. I've heard four or five months ago the rates had dropped, you know, maybe 30% from its peak. And now I'm hearing things like I can access some really premium connected television for eight bucks.
- [11:21]
C
Wow.
- [11:22]
B
And seven bucks direct. And as long as there's a large commitment or a relatively large commitment, the spend is there. When in 2019, 2020 it was like 30 bucks, 35 bucks. And it's, it's putting a ton of pressure on, I think a couple things. One is content is not getting any cheaper to acquire or create. I don't know if not more expensive. And at the same time it's like these publishers are like what do you want us to do? Like you want clean supply paths so you want us to eliminate all of our SSP partners and make a handful max. Then on top of it, you're pushing my prices down. My content cost is going up. I've now had to like incorporate subscription models so my users are upset and I'm increasing rates there because I can't get the money from advertising revenue. And it's, it's, it's so many pieces to it.
- [12:08]
C
I 100 agree.
- [12:09]
B
When you think about even the monetization of non connected television. I know you mentioned you dabble a bit in digital. Have a home. I've had the, the CEO of the O triple H on my podcast prior. How are you finding digital out of home supply in the space? Are you seeing that, you know, that's becoming a greater interest and better targeting? What have you seen evolve over the last year?
- [12:31]
C
Yeah, that's, I would say that's, that's a really interesting space. And like I said, I don't have like a, a really long experience in. It's only been recent and I, I'm really interested in it now because obviously and, and this actually reminds me back to even 20, 30 years ago like at, at the university studying like advertising mix like out of home. And before it was digital out of home was always a huge part of the industry. Nothing new technically. But digital at home obviously opens up a lot of opportunities and you know, I think there's some really unique engaging venues and areas to reach consumers in a, in an unobstructive, unobtrusive way. Right. Whereas you're, you're trying to watch a video and it's like boom, ad break. Like gotta watch it till I get forward where you know, if, if I'm in a golf cart and there's a tablet with an ad screen that has an ad next to the golf course layout. Doesn't really bother me as much. Right. Or maybe it's not as interruptive, if you will. Right. And you can do some really good targeting there, obviously with certain mechanisms, demographic location, this, that, obviously other data sources. The one thing I thought that really is a. As a supply guy that really kind of blew my mind is. But it makes sense, right? Like where we're so used to on the display side, hey, I had one ad request here was an impression done. But if you have a digital screen, you're trying to estimate like how many people see that screen. And that I found like, eye opening again. Everyone else has been in Zendaya's probably, duh, that's out of home. But like, I come from digital, you know, web. So it's like, oh, I have one ad loaded, one impression. Cool, right?
- [14:17]
B
Yeah. The multiplier game is. Is pretty crazy.
- [14:20]
C
Yeah.
- [14:21]
B
Like, I don't know, I'm just throwing out numbers. I don't know numbers, but like, you know, billboard in times square, like one impression is technically 2,500 eyeballs.
- [14:30]
C
Exactly.
- [14:30]
B
And this is crazy. So how do you bill me 2500? I'm like, wait, that's odd.
- [14:34]
C
Right? And the funny thing is then is that in some of those platforms, you then you put that multiplier in the platform on your screen and somehow I'm like, wow, this, like, wow. I wish I could go into my display SSP and said, oh, by the way, my impression is valued 10x or like, please multiply. My publishers would love that.
- [14:56]
B
I think that digital out of home for me and I've posted about this for my 2026 forecast and what I think was going to happen, it feels like it's constantly ignored in the digital space. Even though there's a lot of companies that are doing great things, even though it seems like they're on a very healthy growth trajectory, maybe not as much as Connected Television has been for the last four or five years, but still it's been healthy growth year over year. And I think the hardest part is the allocation of budgets from the brands. What does digital out of home look like, you know, compared to regular out of home? What is the creative look like? What does the attribution look like? I think those are all the questions people ask. So it keeps putting in this bucket of blind advertising. Like, we need to know what's happening. Where does it belong?
- [15:46]
C
Yeah, like, where does it belong? Right? Like, exactly. It reminds me very much of In a category that is near and dear to my heart, which is gaming in general. Right. Like where does gaming fit into, into the media mix? Because obviously in game advertising, right, you can run online video or display or wherever the platform on console or this or that. But is it its own thing versus display or video or is. Yeah, video is part of gaming. So it kind of reminds me sometimes with that a little bit just like, you know, especially when you have maybe rigid agency media plans, like, oh, we have budget for social online video and this, like where does it fit in? Like how does this work?
- [16:31]
B
Where do you think we're, we're heading for digital? Overall, the inventory and the traffic is dipping pretty aggressively across the web. The walled gardens in the traditional sense are continuing to either grow or hold on to what they have. We have some hedged gardens, but there's still a lot of data they don't pass along. And then now the open web debate, like what's, what's happening there? And like what are we, where are we heading with the sheer volume of traffic to these, I guess mid and long tail publishers in the future?
- [17:02]
C
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a, it's a really, really good point. And honestly pressing for our industry and like again, whatever you want to define the open web as because you know, back in the day, yeah you had this kind of symbiosis, if you will, of hey, I did a Google search, I found what I'm looking for. They scrape my data, they do the search revenue, but they also drive traffic for me. And in the beginning the social media platforms kind of did the same or similar with, you know, Facebook and when links out and all that kind of got shut down so that traffic is kind of drying up. And now, right, what's early data showing the 30, 40% drop once there's AI overviews or something like that. Don't quote me on the exact number, but I mean all this is hammering Long Tail General Link. Just like I said, maybe do it yourself things, whatever. Like I, when do you now go to a website that's like, I tell me how to do this, I never do that anymore. Now it's AI Hey, I need to build X, show me how. Boom, here it is. And that's a real problem. So, so I see there are huge problem for those publishers and we need to make sure that the content they produce is, is properly protected, monetized. I know there are, you know, LLM marketplaces coming on to like pay for content this, that, let's see where that goes. But I really think that environments that are kind of more, maybe leaned in more niche communities, those are going to thrive. And that's kind of brings you back for example to gaming. Right. Like you're never going to pass on like the gaming experience to like an LLM or so hey, go play this game for me. No, you want to do it, right. So you're going to, you're going to go into an in game environment or a web game or an app game or whatever. So those eyeballs are there, that ad inventory is there. That's probably going to get even better. And to be honest, gaming should already have a way higher market share than it does based on time consumption and media consumption and whatnot versus ctv, tv, movies, anything, right? Well, yeah, general web. I mean it's, it's tbd. How that's, that's gonna perform. Right.
- [19:20]
B
I think that's a good, a good way to say it. It's. For me it's a convenience of an LLM and getting the answers to my questions instantly without having to filter through a needle in a haystack. Like results page, where even the results page has gotten confusing. Now I feel my biggest challenges. How do I not get prompted with the AI answers on Google and why is this thing automatically expanding and what am I reading right now? I was actually just looking for a web page and I think Google is intentionally pushing you.
- [19:54]
C
Very true, very true. It kind of went the total opposite way. And I'm like, where's the search result?
- [19:59]
B
Like, like, like I just want a search result. Like I actually want to find the website.
- [20:03]
C
Yeah.
- [20:04]
B
But I think like.
- [20:05]
C
And I'll totally.
- [20:05]
B
Yeah, I think it'll be an interesting year ahead of us. I know there's a lot of creative solutions out there to try to, you know, keep people on page. We've talked a lot about user experience, we've talked a lot about improved data. We've talked a lot about improved monetization for the open web. I just, I just don't know. I just see where I go every day and I'm definitely on ChatGPT and Gemini significantly more than I am on Google search. There's no doubt about that.
- [20:33]
C
And there's probably like two or three websites that I visit on a, on a regular basis, if even.
- [20:39]
B
And you probably type in the URL, right?
- [20:42]
C
Yeah, exactly. I don't go through. Yeah.
- [20:44]
B
I'm the same way. I know where I go if I need to read the news or sports news or anything like that. I know exactly where I go.
- [20:50]
C
Yeah.
- [20:50]
B
And most of the time, honestly. It's on app. So I download an app and I load the app. I'm not searching for anything. Yeah, you worked across operations, you've worked across data platforms. Where do you think the data game is going in 2026? I had a conversation with Tony Katzor about that importance, especially when it comes to like AI powered web browsers and them taking over everything at this point. I can't recall the name, but there's, there's, I think two of them that are out right now. But where do you think the data piece is going and how is that going to improve or not improve in the coming few months?
- [21:28]
C
Yeah, also like a deep question to get into on the data side. I feel like the industry obviously was a little bit maybe derailed or taken hostage by the whole Google cookie apocalypse thing. And even though cookies aren't great and everyone hates them and they don't work well and there's a lot of problems with it, but it was kind of a total distraction, if you will, for the most part. A lot of resources getting sucked into that could have been probably spent elsewhere. But I do think as a publisher you really need to control your data and you need to know what's going on with your data. I think that's imperative at this point. You need to realize and understand not only who is scraping and who is accessing your data and how you can control it and what you want to allow, but also then more importantly probably what do you want to do with your own data. And I think that is really key because if, like you said, the supply path is so fragmented in so many different areas, this and that, and like publishers know their audience the best and they're the ones that really most equipped to, you know, do right by them and give them what they want and really foster a great ecosystem. And understanding what you have and what you know is key to then unlocking revenue opportunities. Be that by, you know, smarter content management that like keeps the users engaged and on the site, or you know, making audience segments in a, in a privacy friendly way that have a better ad experience, you know, if you want to, if you resell the data in some compliant way, etc. Etc. So I think it's highly important that publishers lean in there and do something with it and not let it yet again be taken out of their, you know, control. I would say like, that would kind of remind me of curation as well. Like why let other people curate your inventory? You as a publisher should be curating your inventory. You need to control that. Of course, if you want to allow someone to curate and that's kind of a business arrangement, that's great. But like, you know, now anyone can curate technically but don't want to go in the rabbit hole here because we're on the data topic. But that reminds me a lot.
- [23:48]
B
No, I mean, I think, I think the C word, I think the C word comes up a lot, you know, and I feel like I've been vocal about it. Like I still don't understand why anyone would do that. If you've had any sort of volume of traffic, why you would let anyone curate. I understand that sometimes resources are short. I understand that buyers want simplicity. I understand that the data piece and the accumulation of data from multiple publishers, all relevant. But I definitely wouldn't just want to hand over everything and say go ahead and go and sell it. Unless I was a five person shop just selling inventory. You've got the size and the teams. It's much better to package it up yourself based off of the RFP and then go to market with it. But it's an interesting product.
- [24:33]
C
I think that's something that agencies and other vendors in the space, when they work with somebody that does curation, they really need to ask like some of those questions, right? Like who are you and what is your position in the ecosystem? Right. Because anyone, Joe Schmo can sign up for a curation account, Anyone, right. And then sell it on. Now again, I'm not one of diminishing because I do see a lot of value in curation if it's done right, right. If sell side signals are properly applied that normally are not available in the bid request, not accessible through dsps, through QPS restrictions, and what else is out there? If you combine exclusive inventory with external inventory, if you combine exclusive inventory with exclusive data, et cetera, et cetera, yada yada yada, there are great use cases. But if it's a glorified, hey, I'm in the middle and I made a.
- [25:25]
B
Site list mean an ad network, like.
- [25:28]
C
Yeah, you're an ad network again.
- [25:29]
B
Yeah, it's an ad network, but actually.
- [25:31]
C
Maybe even, even worse because back in the day at least an ad would come to you, hey, I'll buy all your leftover traffic for $2 or something. Great. So there you go. Now it's like, well, I may or may not buy, I don't know, like, could be $5, could be a hundred, could be a thousand.
- [25:46]
B
Yeah, and I, I, I think that's where I'm confused. It was, it Was quite a hot topic. Was it like a year ago? Curation was everywhere. Companies rebranded. Yeah, like, like people were launching and announcing their curation products all the time. It was constantly in the press and I'm like, you're basically announcing an ad network product and then people are like, no, the data's different.
- [26:11]
C
It's totally different.
- [26:11]
B
No, no, no, this is so different. I'm like, so you're buying multiple sites, you're packaging it up and you're selling it. You cannot target by URL or domain or by bundle id. You've got to buy across all of them and the floor is whatever, five bucks and you're hoping you can get a bid at eight. That is literally an ad network. And I'm trying to figure out why this is suddenly like groundbreaking. But that's like, that's our industry.
- [26:38]
C
We do that stuff sometimes. Again, it has really great, it has a great opportunity to do something good if it's properly done and properly managed and honestly controlled by the right people. Again, close to the supply side. If not the publisher themselves.
- [26:53]
B
I think control and I think enriched. If it's not enriched.
- [26:57]
C
Sure.
- [26:58]
B
Like if you're not enriching it with additional data points and you're not enriching it with increased like audience, something like.
- [27:05]
C
That exclusive placement that you couldn't get otherwise. I don't know, whatever. It may be something.
- [27:10]
B
But yeah, if you're just arbitraging, that's just arbitrage. Let's just call it what it is. Where do you think things are heading in 2026? What do you think is going to be hot? What do you think is not going to be hot?
- [27:21]
C
I mean, I think we touched upon upon a couple of topics again already. But yeah, I mean obviously AI space is probably moving faster than anyone can read the articles. So obviously that's one to keep an eye on. Especially on like the maybe these better content licensing monetization deals for smaller pods or so that's something that probably would keep an eye on still the curation, the supply side kind of packaging of inventory or just general supply side sales of inventory? Like who are the intermediaries, how are they buying? How is that demand side accessing it? Is it still based on IDs? Is it based on contextual LLMs targeting mechanisms? And then I think one thing too, the data side, you know, I know there was like, oh, data is going to go like going to break because of the cookies and it's only going to be contextual. I'm exaggerating. It's not. But I think data targeting, data driven targeting and measurement is never going to go away as a need, a want and an ask. So to really properly solve that in a closed loop, from the supply to the demand side, with attribution on everything in between is key. And then maybe some more, you know, I want to see innovation happen again when it comes to maybe ad formats and things like, you know, beyond the display, banner. Let's get a little more creative here when it comes to online advertising, especially on, you know, mobile, mobile app and whatnot. So, yeah, a lot of areas to keep an eye on.
- [28:54]
B
There's a lot of movement. I try to block out the buzz, if that makes sense. So there's always a buzz. I feel like there's a new buzz every six months and that's okay. Like, I think sometimes the buzz turns into reality and sometimes the buzz just fizzles and it goes away and, or it's not as big of a deal as it is. But yeah, I agree. I'm, I, I'm trying to forecast. Not that I'm an expert, but I do have God in my last name. I've tried to like, forecast what I think is going to happen, but really, I'm just, I'm just, I'm guessing.
- [29:24]
C
Yeah, I mean, I'm also kind of curious. ADCP is super interesting to me. It's very early on. I love some of the demos and concepts I've seen, but still has a while to go, but could be, maybe if it leads to kind of an evolution of the OpenRTB and whatnot, that'd be a great thing.
- [29:46]
B
So I don't think it'll replace rtb, personally, I don't think it'll replace it. I think there's been some challenges in regards to the commercial aspects of it, the transactional, financial transactional side of it. I don't know. I'm not an expert in ad cp. I've tried to ask people what they think. When it was first announced, it was like, whoa, this is going to change the world. But it's now been six months, I think, and I really haven't heard much and so I'm curious to see where that all leads. But for now, I'm like everybody else. I'm just watching, seeing, like, do I have to learn something new now or can I just ignore this?
- [30:21]
C
Right, Exactly.
- [30:23]
B
Awesome. I wanted to thank you, Nathan, for being on the pod and honestly appreciate all your Support on Twitter, LinkedIn, everything. You've been a great anonymous friend and thank you. I appreciate everything.
- [30:34]
C
Absolutely. Thank you for all the work. It's been amazing to follow.
- [30:38]
B
Thank you. Speak soon.
- [30:39]
C
All right, sounds good.
- [30:41]
B
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 ad tech innovation.