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AdTechGod Pod
Ep. 55 Xander Kotsatos discusses challenges and opportunities in CTV with AdTechGod
00:31:11
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- [00:01]
AdTech God
Welcome to the Ad Tech God Pod, your window into the world of advertising technology and the people behind it. I'm your host, AdTech God. Welcome to another episode of the AdTech God Pod, where we meet some of the industry's greatest sales leaders. We're excited to have a special guest, Xander Cutsados, the head of sales at Beeswax, a Comcast company. Xander is a proven leader in the sales space with a track record of success at top companies like Value Click and Rocket Fuel, which was eventually acquired by Seismic. Xander's experience and deep understanding of the buy side of adtech is really interesting to me, and I'm excited in hearing how his strategy for successfully selling a platform to the market has been. Xander, I'm excited to have you here. Welcome to the Ad Tech God Pod.
- [00:49]
Xander Cutsados
Atg. What is up?
- [00:51]
AdTech God
It is great to be here. Welcome, welcome. I'm happy to have you here. I'm super excited.
- [00:56]
Xander Cutsados
Me too. This is a real career highlight for me. So I don't know if you set out to do that when you started your account a couple years ago, but I've been looking forward to this all week.
- [01:06]
AdTech God
You know, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing. I'm still trying to figure it out. I just had, you know, I say it all the time. Eric Franci told me, you know, just ride the wave. And when I joined his podcast with Ari, and I kind of like, dropped off that recording and went, I don't even know what Wavy's talking about. Okay, I'm just going to run with it. And lo and behold, I'm now here, still doing it a couple years later.
- [01:31]
Xander Cutsados
No, absolutely, 100%. And I'm enjoying the new newsletter and love getting into my inbox twice a week. I read it every day.
- [01:38]
AdTech God
Love it, love it. So you have an awesome background, obviously. I know you worked with Ari Paparo. I know you were part of the Beeswax acquisition by Comcast, so you're now a Comcast company. But how did you get into the industry? What got you into ad tech?
- [01:54]
Xander Cutsados
Yeah, absolutely. So your boss is my old boss. So if you want any advice, we can. We can take that offline. But, you know, like, like everyone in the industry, when I could talk, I knew at that moment I wanted to be in programmatic advertising and in sales. So it's been a lifelong goal of mine. No, I joke. I fell into it, really. Like everybody else. I graduated during the recession from college and like, half of my class, I didn't have a postgraduate activity, so A buddy of mine and I, we actually really near graduation, we looked up when the alumni council was meeting and we put on blazers and then snuck into their reception. The fifth person I met offered me an internship and that was at an Omnicom owned agency in D.C. and I was doing PR. And so I don't know, we're going to get hopefully to some kind of advice to younger people. But the number one thing that I learned from that is just to show up, right? You lose or you miss all the shots you don't take, right? And so I did start my career in D.C. nPR and public affairs. I was really bad at it actually. So I churned out of that by the fall and I moved home into my parents basement essentially. And a friend of a friend was working for Commission Junction, which was an affiliate network at the time in Boston. I worked there for two years doing coupons and deals, learning how to do account management and all the different things in digital marketing. My girlfriend at the time, now my wife was with me in Boston and she said, hey, I got into grad school in New York, do you want to come? And I said sure. And so I asked for a transfer and CJ Commission Junction they said we don't have the same role in New York, but we're owned by a parent company, Value Click and we'll invite you to apply to the other divisions there. So I applied to mediaflex, which was the buy side ad server. I applied to Investopedia which was an O and O publisher. And I applied to Value Click Media which was the ad network and I chose Value Click Media. I love the team there. And what I didn't know at the time was I was the first east coast account manager. So they hired me and my boss and we just kind of grew from there. It was a wild time to be in the industry. It was 2012, it was the dawn of RTB. I remember that summer when we released our first quote unquote Trading desk. We had three SSPs which were AppNexus, Admeld and Rubicon, right? All of which got acquired or changed names, et cetera. But it was really fun because there was no AI based optimization at the time or if there was, it was very, very early. We were just trying things, I remember for a Coach Bags client we weren't performing. We were paid on a CPA and our best practice at the time was hey, we want to actually anti target the conversion pixel, right? If somebody buys, we don't want to target them again. And we weren't making money. And I went to my boss at the time, who actually still is at Epsilon, and said, hey, don't you think if we targeted people who already bought a bag, they might buy more? And he said, great, try it. And I tried it and lo and behold, it worked. Right? So it was this really fun time. All display, all desktop, just really trying things, seeing what worked. And it's just amazing to see where the industry has come since then.
- [05:17]
AdTech God
I mean, it's crazy because what you're saying is really a lot of the methodology we use today, you know, how do we retarget existing customers, how do we target consumers that maybe only buy this once every five years? So we're wasting our money. If you're a fan of luxury goods, if you're like my wife, like you can't get targeted enough by luxury brands, she loves it, she wants to see it, she wants to see it often and she'll go back and buy more whenever she can. So to remove her from that targeting list would actually be a mistake. So kind of recognizing that early on is actually pretty great.
- [05:50]
Xander Cutsados
Yeah, exactly. In our, you know, current taxonomy or nomenclature would be a first party intender or loyalty segment. Right. But at the time we thought, you know, this is transactional. So it's, it's those types of marketing insights that we were really just stumbling upon and as the industry has grown quite a bit have really been automated. So I left Value Click and went to Rocket Fuel and that's really my first foray into sales. And it was, it was great to have the operational background. And Rocket Fuel was an amazing place. Right? It was, had one of the best IPOs of 2013. I got there two weeks before the IPO. It really was a rocket ship. It was a classic first to market best product on the market early to real time bidding and programmatic natively. And in the same way it disrupted a lot of the ad networks, you know, over time it got disrupted. Right. And I had a lot of roles across product strategy and partnerships and sales there. But I was also doing a business school program at the time. And it was funny because in business school we learned about going public and then we went public and then we'd learn about acquiring company and we acquired X plus one. And then we'd learn about kind of a rebuilder turnaround when our revenue started going down. And then we'd learn about an acquisition when we got acquired by Seismic. And then, you know, Seismic eventually went bankrupt. It was, I was getting an MBA at the same time, but it Was amazing to see that and experience that in real time. I don't think there's any other better experience and I think I'm the first ex rocket fueler on this podcast. But I just want to shout out the entire team of people there because there were so many amazing people across sales analytics, you know, Ivy League, NBA types doing really, really great work. A lot of amazing engineers who have gone on to do really the second wave of, or third wave, whatever wave of artificial intelligence. We're in right now building LLMs for a lot of the, you know, the most recognized names. And it was a heady time to be in the industry and an amazing group of people in a moment in time. And I can say from my own personal experience in sales, it was a big company that had a lot of turnover in a short period of time. And it's meant that as someone really our core business is selling to other ad tech companies. It's been great to have so many contacts dispersed across the industry and people who I know and trust.
- [08:09]
AdTech God
Ditto. Been there. I've, I've worked at a couple companies where I feel like the turnover was, was there as well. But I feel like that really kind of helped me establish my network and the network, especially in the sales and business development side of things, is really important. One of the reasons why I started this podcast was thinking to myself, well, you know, I'm not going to troll the industry, I'm going to promote the industry. Number one, because I was kind of tired of the trolling and number two, I said if my identity ever leaks, I have the strongest network in this industry. But I never thought to myself this would become a full time gig. I just did it almost as like a security blanket. Like if something happens, I know everybody and if I know everybody, I can go get a sales job somewhere or business development job somewhere or a product job somewhere and just know the right people to go to. So creating that network from prior, you know, co workers and experiences is really key for your type of role.
- [09:04]
Xander Cutsados
Well, I know people have said it here before, but it's so easy to start an anonymous account and tear things down because you don't have that accountability. But it's been amazing the way that you've used your bullhorn to have, you know, interesting takes on the industry, but also really build people up, get people jobs, promote products you think are interesting. It's been a really nice I sleep.
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AdTech God
Better, I sleep better North Star.
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Xander Cutsados
But no, seriously, it's been a nice North Star for the industry. I think you know, when you weigh in, people pay attention. It really pushes positivity across the board.
- [09:39]
AdTech God
Thank you. Thank you. When you think about your time at, you know, Rocket Fuel or eventually Seismic and Value. Click. You mentioned a lot about case studies that you, you learned while you were, you know, getting your master's or while you were at school. But what do you think was the biggest milestone for you, the thing that really set you apart or gave you that vision that has changed your perspective on the industry or business altogether?
- [10:04]
Xander Cutsados
I think I kind of hinted at it a little bit, but it was really interesting to be at a place in such a short time period where I both felt like the disruptor and it was sort of like we can't hire fast enough to meet our demand and be in a defensive position. And I. So I think what I really learned and I mean whenever I get drinks with Rocket Fuel colleagues, it's like what really, you know, made it so that, you know, Zeta is doing great. Zeta acquired Rockfield. There's still a lot of good people from Rocket Fuel data and I see it in LinkedIn. They're, they're doing amazing things. Right. But Rocket Fuel has a standalone platform. What made it so that it didn't exist today in its form. And it's a combination of things. But ultimately change is always constant. And you know, if you're a first to market mover and you have really good margins, you have to be aware that the market's going to continue to move and you have to invest in the next thing and focus and leadership and all those things are really important to a strong business. And so, you know, it's not any one thing. But what I have noticed is that this industry changes nonstop and you have to be ready for whatever's coming next.
- [11:22]
AdTech God
Yeah, it changes a little too fast sometimes. I feel weird now that I do this full time and have been for quite some time, even though most people think it's only been two months, it's been significantly longer. It's hard to stay on top of industry trends and it's hard to stay on top of what could potentially happen tomorrow or even yesterday and how that impacts your business. Like even like the cookies going away then coming back, that kind of shifted a lot of companies strategies. Does this accelerate the deprecation of cookies or not? Does this mean that our targeting capabilities are improved or not? So I think just being on top of things is really important. And I think where you sit today, like at Comcast, at Beeswax, which is really an industry leader, what do you see in the market in terms of trends on the sell side of the business and how does that kind of impact the way your conversations change with prospects or clients?
- [12:19]
Xander Cutsados
Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, you know, I'm no longer at Rockfield or Valley Click. I'm at. Besides, today I lead sales for North America. And it's been really interesting going from an independent company, obviously Ari was the CEO, to getting acquired by Free Will and all the amazing things that are happening at Free Will across both the demand and the supply side. A lot of the conversations that I'm having with customers today, it's almost like when Google said, okay, we're not going to get rid of cookies, all those kind of frantic ID conversations that have been happening on again, off again for the better part of several years suddenly went away. And when I talk to customers, it's like, hey, hey, folks, you know, you're mostly buying CTV with us today. There were no cookies in CTV to begin with. Right. And so the big trend that I would say nobody's talking about is that cookie deprecation is out. But the problem of IP rotation is in because a lot of the MVPDs out there, we think of IP address as this consistent persistent identifier and this kind of household identifier that everybody can transact on. But the reality is there are multiple IP addresses in every household. Those get rotated a lot. Many times they're truncated. And so this persistent ID that we think exists really is not that persistent. So I think that's kind of going to be the next big hot button, especially as CTV continues to grow and household becomes more and more important. Where this idea of IP rotation and how do we solve this persistent identification.
- [13:57]
AdTech God
Across the board does, and I don't know this, does beeswax work with any partners to try to address this issue? Is there something in house that's being done or is this kind of like an industry trend and industry kind of challenge that everybody needs to look at and be aware of?
- [14:14]
Xander Cutsados
Yeah, exactly. So in March of last year, so it's been a little over a year, we released in beta something called the Free Will ID network. It's the type of thing where, you know, if I onboard my first party ID with Freewill and I want to use it across the supply side and I want to use across the demand side and across my ad serving business as well. Can I trust that these identifiers that are supposed to be persistent actually are? And so we put a tremendous amount of investment and on our side and we've had A number of different clients do this kind of custom access integration. To do that, it's really important, right, because in connected television, unlike in display or mobile or elsewhere in the ecosystem, you don't get nearly as much data in the bid stream from publishers. Right. Things like show and network level data are a little bit hard to come by unless it's a custom deal. So being able to do a first party data sync with a publisher asset and have that persistent and then be able to get that in a clean room is a really big deal. And we're leaning into that across the board.
- [15:19]
AdTech God
You know, coming from the sell side, understanding the buy side, the fact that kind of free will now encompasses both, and obviously ad serving in, in the middle, that kind of pieces it all together. What are you seeing in terms of how buyers are changing the way they buy connected TV inventory? Has there any been any major changes over the last, you know, 12, 24 months? Or do you see changes happening in the next, you know, 12 to 18 months that you think people should be aware of outside of these identifiers? I mean, are you seeing budgets shifting away more from, you know, open exchange into kind of like direct deals or private deals? What are you seeing on your end?
- [15:57]
Xander Cutsados
Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of everything you said, right? When you look at second half of last year, that was the first time in terms of supply that digital surpassed linear. What's interesting though is actually the growth in usage from a user standpoint is not that much where year over year on CTV somewhere between 10 and 20%, which we think of it as such, this explosive new avenue, right, with linear declining somewhat and CTV increasing. But really from a user standpoint, it is becoming more mature very quickly. What's really interesting though is that we observed over that same time period still I think 71% of video ad dollars are being spent in linear. So you have this interesting dichotomy where the users have moved, the eyeballs have shifted, but the money is still in linear because you know, buyers are slower than consumers and eventually the buyers and the purchasers and the advertisers will follow consumers. But what I've seen as that happens is number one, to your point, you have to be buying in private marketplace. Deals we see across, and this is just beeswax numbers across like display and mobile. Less than 25% of buys are done on a private marketplace basis. On CTV it's like 80%, right? And that is so that you know what you're buying, so that you have a direct relationship, so that you have some sort of bundle or one to one deal where you have exactly the inventory that you want. Right. Number two, we've actually seen across the free will marketplace a 76% increase year over year in audience target impressions as well. Right. So it's not just the inventory, it's the inventory plus the data and sort of the Venn diagram of that. But the third and probably the most important thing is that CTV has always been thought of either like a fries with that for digital or a secondary for linear. Right. Like these big linear buyers. This ecosystem that's been building and building since really like the 60s when color TV came out. Right. Today they have to be converged. So our buyers are asking for things like cross platform frequency capping and our ability to use set top box data to do that. Our buyers are asking for things like can I do upfronts programmatically? And can I frequency cap across that? We found that the absence of doing that, buyers lose about 20% reach when they do that. And number three is, can I actually do programmatic linear, Can I buy a linear impression programmatically? And it's close to real time as possible. And we have kind of a beta going with a couple publishers to do that as well. So we're really excited about all that. But that's the number one thing I would say for C2B. It's like the users are there. How do I connect it to what I'm doing today? And how do I, you know, invest more money in a smart way?
- [18:49]
AdTech God
How do you, how do you keep up on all this? Like, obviously free will releases, their, their white papers, like I feel like I tweet about this, I talk about this, I read about this 247 and you still highlighted things that I didn't know, which is great. So thank you. It gives me something to post about later. But like the user growth obviously is, has matured, but the ad spend is now shifting. Right. And so the ad spend is growing faster than user growth. Audience targeting, 76% growth is no joke either. Like that's massive. So it's obvious that the industry is changing the way they buy connected tv. And with those less signals, you know, we need better signals or better ways to kind of target against these users. But like how do you, how do you keep up? Like this is a lot.
- [19:29]
Xander Cutsados
I was going to say, I read your newsletter. That's how I keep up. No, seriously, I mean, I do listen to architecture. Yeah, it's fantastic every time it's out. Right. I do read your newsletters. In terms of industry specific stuff, that is my biggest channel. My second biggest channel is Ad Exchanger and everything they do. I like Ad Exchanger more from a publication standpoint, so whatever kind of news comes out of there. But the other thing I do is really more macro. It's listening to podcasts from kind of larger media tech business type releases and then kind of more general multipurpose. You know, I'm a big fan of the New York Times, for instance, et cetera. But I would say I, I live in Pennsylvania, but I spend a lot of time in New York. Most of my team is there and so I take the train up well this month, every single week. Right. And so I have a lot of time to consume things auditorially and I find that's actually the best method for me where I really internalize it and I'm able to, I don't want to say parrot it, but. But synthesize it with other information.
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AdTech God
Yeah, you've been working in ad tech, we want to call it that, ad tech for a really long time. You have fantastic experience. You obviously understand your own product really well. But is there anything in particular in the industry that keeps you up at night that bothers you or you feel like we should address right away and fix it? I'm always curious to hear what people think about. I like to say the good, the bad and the ugly about the industry.
- [21:04]
Xander Cutsados
Look, my entire career, I said I started with desktop display and then mobile happened. Well, actually really before mobile was desktop video. Right. Once Internet speeds got fast enough, and then mobile. And we've kind of always been going after this holy grail of the largest screen in the house and we're here and it's incredibly exciting. I guess in my mind, I always thought we would be somehow getting ads onto linear television. I didn't expect such an explosion of a streaming platform. I mean, the joke I like to tell is like, I don't think any of us envisioned a future where we have, you know, a cup of coffee or drink with a friend and go home and have to Google what platform it's on and then find out we don't have a subscription to watch it. Right. It almost seems like we had a solution and we're decoupling it and who knows what the future will look like there. But I guess my other question is sort of, you know, where do we go from here? Because we're getting so good at monetizing out of home screens and audio and video and all these emerging formats, but, you know, where is the next generation spending their time. Is it entirely social? Is it entirely, you know, a long walled garden? Long term, I do think there's a real place for great content, great long form video. You look at the uptick in people going to the movies again this summer and kind of the rebirth of the blockbuster. Is this, is this a cycle? Is this a fundamental shift? It keeps me up because I don't have the answer to that, but it is an interesting thing to think about. Right.
- [22:34]
AdTech God
I think you hit a couple of things that concern me is one is like just the fragmentation of finding content really annoys me, Xander. Like it's the one thing that really annoys me at this point. Yeah, I think I pay more than I paid for cable because I have everything from Paramount plus to Netflix to Amazon prime to Disney and I'm like, gosh, I don't even know what I'm paying anymore. It's just automatic charging my card every month. But I feel like I can't cancel because if I cancel and then the show comes out, I have to go back and sign up again. Which I guess no contracts is a nice thing. But at the same time, like I don't want to sit here and manage subscriptions every month. I wish we had a better way of doing it. I know some of the, like the VM VPDs offer a little bit more of that where like Sling tv I'm a big fan of personally and I subscribe to them just because it's easy. I add in the packages, I get most of the content I need and, and it's kind of like an old school kind of linear feel where I can watch what I want and it's every channel I want. But it is getting a little, a little frustrating to know where that content is. And I wish, I wish we would solve for that quickly.
- [23:40]
Xander Cutsados
Do you find you've changed your behavior not just between linear and digital, but between, let's call it long form video and social bite sized content or watching, you know, smaller bits on fast, et cetera. Or do you feel like you're still craving that long form video classic show experience?
- [23:59]
AdTech God
Look, I'm a fan of the Mayor's Kingstown. I'm a fan of a lot of the Paramount content. But you know, my kids are very much so involved with like Full House and Fuller House and all those shows. But that content isn't all in the same place. So some of it is on Netflix and some of it is on I think Paramount Plus. So if my kids want to flip between Full House And Fuller House, they have to jump to two different streaming apps now they have it memorized, but the reality is I don't. So having to watch almost the same show on two different streaming apps is a little bit annoying. But, yeah, I mean, I think for me it's. I want the simplicity of search. I feel like Roku, which is what I use, has made it a little bit of a better experience. Like you're able to search and see what it's there, but I don't think we're there just yet. Like, I still think the experience is a little bit, you know, fragmented in terms of how many subscriptions I need and where I need to go watch a show I don't always remember.
- [24:57]
Xander Cutsados
Yeah, I agreed. And again, that's what we just talked about in advertising on the convergence of the linear and digital experience. From a consumer standpoint, that's important too, right?
- [25:07]
AdTech God
Yeah. And look, I binge one streaming app at a time. Like, I'll go through all of Netflix for three months and watch everything they possibly have that I'm interested in. And then I kind of shift over to Paramount and watch everything there for the next three months until I run out of interesting content. But I watch a lot of long form. I think the clips wise is just social media posts and that for me is interesting. But at night when I want to sit down and relax, it's definitely long form.
- [25:38]
Xander Cutsados
Probably better for your mental health too. Turn off the phone. Right?
- [25:41]
AdTech God
I don't know. I'm still on it. Tweeting away. It's usually something I see that gives me an idea where I'm like, God, I hate this, or this is awesome. Love pause ads. We want more pause ads. It's usually comes from me watching tv. So we've talked about a lot of the trends and kind of your experience in the industry. What advice could you give to people that are maybe not ahead of sales, who are earlier on in their career doing sales at an ad tech company or want to enter the space? Like, what do you recommend they do to keep up to date and honestly just keep going and continuing to improve themselves and their knowledge so that they become better salespeople?
- [26:18]
Xander Cutsados
Sure, yeah, that's a great question. So, first of all, I mentor some students at the college I went to. And then also I have interns every summer. So one thing, by the way, that I don't think we talk about enough is the transition from high school to college. I think college has gotten pretty good at where you're like scheduled a lot and then not but we don't really talk a lot about how you have a lot of time at college, right, where your classes are pretty few and far between. You might have extracurriculars, but most of that works on you going back into the workforce. And I remember finding that incredibly draining and isolating. And so what I tell people in that position is like, look, you really only have to figure out three things in your 20s, or even not even in your 20s, but in life, right? And those three things are, what do you want to do, where do you want to do it? And who, if anybody, you want by your side while you do it. Because really the rest are just details, right? So what that means is, for me, what I tell everyone, especially my interns, is spend your younger years spending in your 20s, figuring out what you want to do and use processable elimination. Right? I think the most successful people tend to succeed slowly, but they fail fast. They use that fast failure to spend their time on much more valuable things, because time is your most valuable asset. The other thing I would tell them is that find what you're good at. You want to have a passion for something. You don't want to hate getting up in the morning. But at the end of the day, if you look at, you know, what is going to provide economic security for me and my family, what is going to give me the life I want. And if you end up good at that thing or you work really hard at that thing, that will start to give you a sense of fulfillment and you'll enjoy it, and it will give you the resources to spend pursuing your passions, whatever they are. And the third thing, you know, coming back to this from the beginning is like, no matter how smart or ambitious or talented you are, effort is the number one thing, right? You can control when you show up, how you show up, the attitude you bring. And a lot of life, I feel like, is just kind of being in the conversation, you know, hanging around the hoop, so to speak, and hoping to get a lucky bounce. I think macroeconomics will always trump individual performance. You know, Google has a lot of great people, but they've also been hired into a company that has done really well. Right. Whereas, you know, other companies have not. So I. That's kind of my number one thing, I would say.
- [28:47]
AdTech God
And what's the most important currency for people in the industry?
- [28:51]
Xander Cutsados
Yeah, what I would say is that trust is the most important currency in business. I actually have a friend and mentor who told me once that money is really just a currency of trust. And that really got me thinking. I find that the most successful people seek mentors and seek advocates. It's a complete trope. But most success is a we thing and not a me thing. And you need to build a coalition to be successful. I'm increasingly of the opinion that people get promoted internally because they are elected by their peers more than just someone who's their manager saying, you would be good at this, right? Similarly to the way I coach my sales team. You have a primary and secondary buyer, but there are other influencers and a champion internally that's going to get you the deal. It's the same thing in your career growth. There are lots of relationships, lots of people who can help you get where you are. And to that end, I mean, despite the hypergrowth, this industry is still small and really tightly knit. I think a lot of people have come on this pod and said that, but I would say never try to burn bridges. You know, I have plenty of regrets and things I wish I'd done differently in my career, but also the thing I love about this industry is the people. And I've been lucky enough to work with some amazing ones. Actually, the first and third person I ever hired 12 years ago still work with me, right? We haven't always worked together, we've been at different places, but we've worked across three different companies. I feel so lucky to have amazing work relationships like that. It's what makes this job what it is.
- [30:23]
AdTech God
That's incredible advice. And thank you again, Xander, for being here today. And thank you to Comcast and Beeswax for approving the invitation.
- [30:32]
Xander Cutsados
Thank you so much for having me.
- [30:33]
AdTech God
Awesome. Speak soon. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Ad Tech God Pod, a podcast for the people about the people that make ad tech great. Stay connected with me for more insights, trends and interviews in the realm of adtech. Don't miss out on our 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.