← AdTechGod Pod
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- [00:00]
Adtech God
A word from our sponsors. With the average person spending more than five hours a day on their phone, you have to ask yourself, what's your mobile strategy? Inmobi Advertising helps brands and publishers thrive in the modern mobile era with AI powered solutions to acquire, monetize and delight the right users at scale at each step in their journey. From a pioneering DSP built to accelerate app growth in a privacy first world to a leading exchange and SSP Forrester just named a mobile must have Inmobi Advertising has the tools to capture user attention on the most personal device. Check out their Spotlight series on the Advertising forum for key strategies to mobilize in 2025 and visit go.inmobi.com pod to learn more. Again, that's go.inmobi.com/pod in mobi driving Real Connections 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 the AdTech God Pod where we meet industry leaders from the CTV space. Today we have Inderpreet Sedu, the head of CTV platforms and ecosystems at Google. Enderpreet focuses on the media and entertainment, telco and fast verticals at Google. Interpret has spent over 13 years at Google working his way up from publisher consultant to where he is today. Prior to that he spent some time at Accenture. I'm super excited to have Inderpreet here. He is my first Google guest. Inderpreet, welcome to the Ad Tech godpod.
- [01:46]
Inderpreet Sedu
Longtime listener, first time caller, so I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.
- [01:50]
Adtech God
I also appreciate it. Thank you for being here and thank you to Google for having you as my guest and reprita start the same way every time. You've obviously been at Google a very long time. Google's making massive waves in the CTV space, which is incredible. I just released a recent report from Emarketer that shows Google YouTube viewership exceeding everything, social networks exceeding TV. So I'd love to dig into that a little bit later in the podcast. But how did you get into the space and how has it been through your journey at Google?
- [02:22]
Inderpreet Sedu
Yeah, thanks. And it's been not a straight line getting into the ad tech space. So as you mentioned, I started off at Accenture as a lot of recent graduates, at least at that time really didn't know what I wanted to do at that point. And my uncle at the he was an independent consultant, said hey, you should look into this consulting thing, especially when you're trying to figure out where do you want to Take your career. I came from a management business background with some computer science thrown in. Could have gone many different routes doing engineering, going into more business type roles, and Accenture gave me that opportunity to really find what are the kind of hard skills that I could develop and just as importantly the soft skills that I needed to work with folks from different backgrounds and different experience levels, functions, all these different things. And it was really a great experience to go through working in different industries, working with different companies, both from like the traditional side, and then eventually working for one of the largest E commerce partners and companies out there in the world. And that's actually how I kind of stumbled into the ad tech space where this E commerce partner was looking to third party advertising to bring additional revenue to fuel all the investments that they wanted to make. And what I found super exciting and just mind boggling at that time because at the moment I was just a consumer of the Internet, right? Utilizing it for education purposes, research and obviously entertainment and then realizing that hey, you could stick some HTML and some JS and CSS on a page and money rolls in from these advertisers looking to reach consumers with specific messaging and all these things. And that just got me really excited about this space and what it could do in terms of capturing users, but also getting an opportunity to support people who are putting out content or putting out services and using that money to help fund that useful experiences, whether it's to inform, educate, to help with purchases, all those different things. So actually met a lot of the Google Ad Manager team back then, called DoubleClick for Publishers team and working with them, getting to know the team, getting to know how they work in supporting publishers and just kind of open, empathetic and supportive way that they engage with customers or other companies. I really enjoyed that and I wanted to be a part of that. And I asked for a referral into for a publisher consultant role and that's kind of where I started off my ad tech adventure, at least in Google, working on the Google Ad Manager services team and then about eight, nine years ago made the pivot into the partnership side to kind of take my technical knowledge, industry knowledge, product knowledge and partner knowledge and kind of bring it all together from the partnership's perspective.
- [05:24]
Adtech God
How do you feel, you know, starting off in, you know, as a publisher consultant and then moving your way into kind of like a technical service lead? How do you feel that's helping you today with working with probably, well, not probably, definitely some of the largest companies in the U.S. you know, including, you know, Telcos and fast channels like major media companies. Do you feel that that foundation, even 13 years ago or 10 years ago, kind of helped you understand a publisher's perspective of what they're looking to do?
- [05:54]
Inderpreet Sedu
Absolutely. You know, working with a publisher during my time at Accenture, I got to understand the balancing act that a lot of publishers have to go in terms of how do you bring in advertising that is supportive and complementary to the user experience and provides value to that consumer without disrupting the experience. And I got to experience and talk to so many of the individual product owners for like the homepage, the search results page for my publisher, and understand the dynamics of the things that they look at in terms of when advertising comes on, how does it change the consumer behavior or the consumer's session in the experience? And it really gave me a rounded perspective of it's not just slap ads everywhere. And obviously this is the relatively early days of advertising and expect just money to roll in without impacting the user experience. And then when I became a publisher consultant and working on the front lines with my publishers, more so from obviously the DFP and Google Ad Manager side, that really became crystal clear. Right. Because they were implementing our product and seeing the, not just the technical delivery of ads, but working with us to say, hey, what's the right balance between the two? Right. Like how can I make scalable revenue while not sacrificing user experience or not achieving the user experience goals that that publisher had set out to do. And that really helped center how I approach working with publishers and anybody, which is centering on what is the ultimate experience that they're trying to create and what are the specific business metrics that they're trying to drive. Because at the end of the day, it's not just about how much advertising revenue that you drive. It's also how do you ensure that you're creating a differentiated experience. It's complementary, it's user forward and that gives users control. And that's kind of how it's shaped also like our product strategy on a lot of different things. So I always find that those, those needs between the publisher and how we approach things really lines up well.
- [08:02]
Adtech God
So you work with various media companies, obviously fast, which is a, which is a newer product. Right. So it's a newer solution in market, but with the more traditional media companies that are obviously leaning into streaming television and have been leaning in pretty strongly into streaming television, how are you feeling? They, they are in terms of being receptive to a new format, adaptive to new solutions in market, obviously buying Trends are changing, targeting capabilities are different. Do you feel that you, or Google in particular is, are able to hold their hand and provide them with the right type of solutions and guidance for them to really succeed in the streaming space because super competitive at this point?
- [08:47]
Inderpreet Sedu
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, so many folks are in a like storming and norming and forming phase and they're oscillating between all of that. I think everyone can feel that experience. Right. Where you're figuring out how best do I create an experience that consumers really enjoy. Right. And that they want to frequent and also help develop and scale a business and provide know an exchange of value between the different entities, an advertiser, a publisher and a user and all the folks in between. And for what we've been doing and what my team and I have been doing as part of like our ecosystems work is trying to reduce as much friction and create more interoperability with all these different solution providers in the streaming space who are coming up with new ways of creating ad formats, things that are complementary to the consumer experience. Right. Because it's not just about putting more 15s and 30s into sometimes very crowded ad breaks. Right. And making sure that that looks a very clean, seamless experience, which is very important and something that we do really well. But it's about how do you bring in new ideas like you mentioned, new formats, new ways of messaging consumers and giving them real control over what they see and not just in terms of, you know, how many ads that they see, what, but also what types of ads that they see, things that matter to them, but also finding new ways of engaging the consumer. Right. Obviously we've seen things around like pause ads and also bringing in, and this is something that's been really exciting for a lot of our publishers and our media companies is how do you bring in some of those like really interesting formats from traditional linear television, whether that's like the two by two squeeze box during a TV timeout. Nalbar. All these different things where you could, instead of putting in another 15 or 30 second AD, which sometimes gets in the way of the consumer getting back to what they really enjoy, which is the content, giving them an alternate way of getting certain advertising shown to them with some sort of call to action. And so we found a lot of our publishers very receptive to that. Now they come to us and say, hey, what's the lift? What do I need to do to make this happen? And so we've been building and partnering with a lot of third parties to say, hey, if you're working with this streaming provider or this third party SSI or you're working with Google. Dai we have these formats ready to go. And then the second question is, well, is there an agency or an advertiser who wants to advertise on those sides of things? So. And that's where we have a lot of great relationships with, you know, third party poll codes and a lot of those different folks who want to try those things and put some, you know, test budgets or investment budgets into it to see how they could operationalize that. Because I think if you talk to a linear buyer, they know how to buy a two by two squeeze back and some of these activatable solutions in linear. But now you get the digital people to understand that. So there's a lot of those sharing of best practices from both of those worlds and I firmly believe that they're coming together faster than people expect. And that's opening up like really fun and interesting conversations about how to create some of these new experiences that you know, again don't get in the way of a consumer and actually creates a really much better consumer experience for all of us. And you know, we're all viewers at the end of the day.
- [12:12]
Adtech God
You know, you mentioned two formats that I will. One format I love, which is the pause ad. It's just become my absolute favorite experience as a user in general. You know, you are going to pause your, your tv, it's normal, it's expected. But I love the interaction of it. I know that some will say they don't like it, others will say they like it or it's, you know, it's valuable. But for me it does create an impact. Maybe because I work in the industry, but when I pause my television and I see an ad with a QR code with a call to action, I'm like, this is great. It's, it's not intrusive, it's taking over the full screen. It's not interrupting my content because I interrupted it myself. And now, you know, it's, it's created a very clear call to action for me to, to do something or look up something. The other one that I love in terms of formats honestly is the ad selector. Not many people do it. I like the ad selector. I actually chase my remote control and try to find it right away and try to select the ad I want. And if I see the same ad, you know, the same evening. Thank you. Frequency capping. Like I try the other one, I try the other option, but I love it. I think that those are Two really great non intrusive formats that kind of give the user the control rather than give the, you know, the streaming company. The control gives me the option to pick what I want.
- [13:32]
Inderpreet Sedu
It's maybe dating myself. It's. Remember those books that said choose your own adventure like the character. You choose what the character is going to do next. I feel like it's the same kind of behavior where you're again to my earlier point, you're putting the user in control of their experience and that's always very powerful and something you can do with connected TV that you couldn't do with previous solutions.
- [13:53]
Adtech God
I also like how relevant the ads are to me. They are getting better. I think four years ago they weren't very relevant. I felt like they were just hitting me with whatever they wanted to hit me with whether I liked it or not. But I mentioned the other day, you know, I've seen a Chalice commercial, I've seen a Paramount Ad Manager commercial. I've seen basically every DSP that's spent on CTV so far, which is funny because they obviously have labeled me as someone that works in the industry. And it's great, it's totally relevant. I want to see it. So the relevance of the ads is improving, the interactions and the formats are improving. Now it's, I think more on the user side of, you know, where can you retain these users because growth has not stalled but you're starting to see a little bit of churn happening, people canceling and signing up something else. What are your thoughts on YouTube? I mean, YouTube's obviously scaling really quickly. There's been a lot of talk in market and recent research from emarketer that shows YouTube exceeding viewership over social networks and over, you know, traditional or linear television. What's your view on YouTube and their position in market? Obviously a very good one.
- [15:01]
Inderpreet Sedu
So I definitely won't talk about YouTube but from that perspective of the Google side of things, that's a separate team. But with that said, I can speak from a consumer perspective where, you know, YouTube is I guess part of my daily content diet, if you will, amongst many different sources of entertainment, infotainment and information. I kind of view all of this, different solutions out there and ways of accessing information and content through the kind of lens of a clock. Right when I, when I wake up in the morning, you know, I first thing I do is, and maybe that's not the most healthiest thing to do from a mental health perspective but pick up my phone and check threads and check a few things, check to See what ATG posted recently. And you know, I that that's part of my morning routine, right? And then I commute in on the train to San Francisco. Usually I'm watching some either downloaded content or most of my nine times out of ten listening to a podcast, right? Whether that's a podcast, that is a video format on YouTube or on my favorite podcast app, listen to the ATG podcast app. And then you know, during the course of the day, not really engaging with video, you know, because I got to got to work and engage with my colleagues and publishers and then same thing on the commute home, like I'm listening to content or watching a little bit of snippet content, watching some reels, watching some TikTok videos. But when I'm home, my key piece is I want to sit down with my family, enjoy watching Bob's Burgers on Hulu. That's our go to show as a family now, which it's funny because we always find a lot of similarities between our family and what we see on Bob's Burgers and highly recommend that show for preteen and teen families out there. It's very interesting. And then when kids go to bed, my wife and I just like to pick up and watch either current reality show that we're watching or big Below Deck fans. So if there's folks watching below deck, send me an email, I'd love to talk to you all about it. But then sometimes we don't know what we want to watch, right? And we'll fire up one of our fast services and watch old episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Like that's our go to show for when we don't know what we want to watch and we go back to some of the classics and you know, if my wife and I, so to speak, like we'll go, you know, say, hey, this funny YouTube video I saw or Instagram reel that I saw. So when I bring that up in the context of YouTube in the sense of it is part of my daily consumption habit and I connect with so many really great creators who are speaking to things that I care about, right? Which is tech, men's style, self development, all these different things. And that's definitely sports, a lot of sports. And it gives me that access to all these different content creators. But I'm also watching and listening to those types of similar creators, but from national providers, right? The big, big media companies and international media companies as well. And I'm choosing which method to do that. And so I always find it very interesting to get that experience across all these different distribution points and the context of where I'm at in my day, it changes and therefore my kind of solutions that I used to consume content changes as well.
- [18:22]
Adtech God
The best part for me when it comes to YouTube in particular is the sheer amount of content is incredible. I mean, everything from professional creator made to amateur creator made, long form, short form, even just audio that's been loaded onto YouTube content is endless and it's relevant. You know, obviously the suggestion engine understands what I like and what I view and what I want to view. And so the ability to just kind of keep you there, continuing to scroll through content, it's very sticky. Unlike, I think, a lot of the other streaming solutions, which, yes, it's, it's related to what you're currently watching and yes, they have hundreds of thousands of videos and availability to you, but it doesn't necessarily relate to my time of the day. I can't always watch a full 23 minute show. Sometimes I just have 10 minutes and want to scroll through lots of little clips. So it really does keep you sticky on YouTube because of just the sheer amount of volume, both professional and, you know, amateur that's there.
- [19:26]
Inderpreet Sedu
Yeah, it's a great point. And I think that a lot of streaming services are getting better at that recommendation. I think for me, the challenges like we talked about earlier, you know, married, have two kids, and some of our watching habits are very similar, some are very different. And it's interesting just to see the kind of recommendations that my household gets. And a lot of times they're spot on, a lot of times they're not. And so I think there's. That's definitely an area that needs some sort of standardization or some sort of differentiation here to help us understand, like you said, based off of the context of the day, if I'm watching late evening or early morning or it's a weekend and like my kids are here, what are the recommendations based off of our viewing habits and just the context of when we're watching and where we're watching?
- [20:17]
Adtech God
I'd like to focus a lot on positivity. I think it's part of what I like, keeps me happy, makes me sleep better at night. But what things in the industry are you really feeling positive about? There's obviously been a lot in the industry in regards to consolidation. A lot of M and A activity, again, that seems to be picking up. We're also talking about, you know, layoffs across various companies, both social and not social. But what are you really positive about in the industry that you think is going to be good for us in the Next, you know, 12 to 18.
- [20:47]
Inderpreet Sedu
Months, it's been challenging last few years, for sure. A lot of people have been impacted from changing strategies, focusing on revenue generation, all these things, sustainability, and trying to accelerate all this work. And it's led to some challenges on the people side of things. Right. And at the same time, it's gotten people more to have more focus. Right. On what are the things that make each of these media companies, ad tech providers, anyone in the streaming supply chain, if you will, what makes them different, what makes them unique, what's the end of the day value proposition that they're trying to go to market with. And I would say a lot of the work that we've been doing on the ecosystem side has been positive in the sense of working with companies who want to work better together. Right. It's not just about like, choose us and don't choose the other person. That's not the reality. Like, I think everybody brings something unique to the table and it's a matter of making sure everything just works well together. So the operator or the media company or whomever can make the most educated decision on who the right partners are to solve for and help them for enhancing what makes that company unique. Right. What's that unique value proposition there? And I think there's a much more stronger focus on like quality of content, quality of ads, and just overall quality of experience for consumers. So instead of just trying to push out new experiences and that may be substandard, simply to get content out there and monetize it as fast as possible, I think a lot of people are taking a step back and say, hey, there's such a fragmented attention span that we all as consumers have. How do we ensure that we're creating a strong differentiation that consumers want to engage with our brand or our content. And so as a consumer and a viewer, I think the experiences are getting better and people are doing a better job of bringing more quality content, quality experiences and not bogging it down too much and like I mentioned earlier, giving consumers more choice. So I feel very positive about the intentions of a lot of companies in terms of creating these really good experiences while balancing the need to drive revenue and keep costs in check so they can continue to do what they do best, which is to inform and entertain us.
- [23:14]
Adtech God
Great feedback. And really I have no comment because that was a fantastic answer. When we look at the industry and we look at career growth and you've obviously and rarely. Right. Not many people stay at the same company for as long as you've stayed at Google. Like that's not normal. Like most people, four or five years and they're out, they're changing jobs, they're shifting. So there's obviously something at Google that's kept you there. But for other people in the industry, what do you feel is the biggest thing for their career growth that can help them either stay at the same place for longer or educate themselves the right way or network the right way to see the same type of success in their career growth as you've had?
- [23:55]
Inderpreet Sedu
I think you already stated it for what I was going to say is the education side of it. And what I mean by that is one of the things that I've always appreciated about the culture at Google and even previously for the people that I worked with at Accenture is this focus on being transparent about when you don't know something and inviting the opportunity for others in the space to help you. Right. And I think there's one of those key things, especially when I was a consultant, there's a price tag on your head saying that partners paying Accenture or consulting company, whatever, X dollars an hour for your services and you're expected to come in with the knowledge. Right. And typically we do have that knowledge, but it's also knowing how to ask questions and being better educated, learning more, having what we've, you know, gone through so many development exercises about having a growth mindset. Right. Your knowledge isn't fixed. Your knowledge isn't a set amount of content or information that you can sustain. It's about learning and adjusting and seeing did my previous knowledge not really apply anymore? And that's been super helpful for me to be very inquisitive about how do things work? Why do you make decisions this way? Like what's your decision making framework? And that's been helpful for me to grow because then I learned something new about oh, they approach that problem in that way. If I run into that problem again, I have at least a framework I can review and remember to help me. And it's a lot of times help my publishers and my partners and my colleagues in the future. So I would always recommend people remain transparent and invite that opportunity to learn, to grow, but also to try and share when things do work well and most importantly, if not more importantly, when things don't go well. Right. I think that level of transparency is helpful because you're elevating everybody else's knowledge through your experiences, both positive and developmental. And the last bit, and one of the Key things is like, the spaces is starting to become more diverse, which I think is really, really great. And I think one of the challenges, at least for me initially, was a lot of imposter syndrome. Like, do, do I really belong in this space? Whether it's like talking to some key execs or internally, I always wanted to make sure that I felt that I belonged and I gave myself the courage to speak up, to really be a part of the discourse there. And also being in a leadership position, helping elevate other voices in the room who have great ideas and have great perspectives and making sure that they have the opportunity to invite them to have insights and share those experiences, because there will always be something unique and constructive with a lot of people, what they would bring to the table. So, you know, want to be empathetic and you want to be supporting of others as part of really working in a really supportive environment. And, you know, that's one of the reasons I stay where I'm at in terms of working at Google on the ad manager team, because everything is changing and everyone doesn't know everything and there's so much to learn. And as long as I'm learning and I'm growing, I'm really happy.
- [27:20]
Adtech God
One of the things that my dad says who doesn't listen to my podcast, thanks for not listening, dad. If you ever listen to this episode, is you don't know everything, but you have the right questions for everything. So don't ever assume that you know everything from A to Z. Just know that you can ask the right questions to figure it out. And as long as you live your life asking the right questions, you're going to figure out and learn so much more than you think. And that's really a big part of, you know, the ATG brand one is that imposter syndrome. I'm there every day. Sometimes I can't believe it. I consider myself knowledgeable, but not an expert. I learn from people such as yourself, Inderpreet, and others that come on the podcast. I learn from the interactions on the posts. I think it is a very good and healthy way to educate not only myself, but everybody else. Opinions matter. And there is a lot of very smart people in our industry that know a lot more than I do. So I really lean on the community for that.
- [28:14]
Inderpreet Sedu
Absolutely. Yeah. And one thing I would add is be kind to yourself, right? Like you said, you cannot have all the information at the right time. It's okay not knowing answers and keep that imposter syndrome monster at bay by just being kind to yourself and not expecting to have all the answers at that right time, but having the dedication and the approach to, you know, find those right answers. And that's how I've helped a lot of publishers is, you know, when I don't know the answer, you'll know that. But when I have an answer yet it's based on a lot of research and a lot of investigation and tapping into the hive minds and resources and colleagues that, you know, I think we all have access to that make our knowledge and our approach better.
- [28:58]
Adtech God
Leaning into the last question of the podcast, and I love the answers to this one, but why do you love ad tech so much? I can sense it when you talk. I know that you are very knowledgeable and you have a great network, but what really keeps you here in this industry and what makes you happy about it?
- [29:17]
Inderpreet Sedu
I'll go back to my point around learning and growing. No one's figured out this whole thing, right? It's everyone looks back at the display world and then the mobile app world and now the streaming world, and everything is constantly changing, right? Consumer habits are changing. How we become informed and entertained changes all the time. I look at how my kids consume content and I'm like, why do you do it that way? And we also recognize that there's so many content creators and producers and distributors who want to continue to keep doing those things, right? And it requires money and investment and resources. So being a part of an industry that can help fuel that and continue to have the entertainment and the information that really make, you know, life really special, right? Because it creates these cultural zeitgeist moments and creates common connection with people for so many different demographics. Right. Like the entertainment and information. I like to view it like it helps bring people together. Even though there's a lot of stuff that is very divisive and challenging out there. I like staying in this ad tech space because it creates that opportunity for everyone to succeed. And things are just constantly, like I said, shifting and breaking and built up again and breaking again. And it's just fun to go through that learning process and work with people who know a lot of different things inside and out. And I selfishly get to benefit from their experiences just as much as every anyone else can learn from my experiences as well. And I found that it's very such a unique space and it's a kind of a relatively tight knit community which is sort of hard to find these days, but it's something, it's a community I want to stay connected to.
- [31:09]
Adtech God
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you to Google. Thank you to you. I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy day now.
- [31:17]
Inderpreet Sedu
Thank you. I appreciate all the opportunities and keep the content coming because I love the levity that you bring to our industry.
- [31:25]
Adtech God
Thank you. Speak soon.
- [31:27]
Inderpreet Sedu
Thanks.
- [31:28]
Adtech God
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.