Ep. 63 Building Ad Tech with Mark McEachran from Yieldmo

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary: Ep. 63 – Building Ad Tech with Mark McEachern from Yieldmo

Introduction

In Episode 63 of the AdTechGod Pod, host AdTech God engages in a compelling conversation with Mark McEachern, Senior Vice President of Product Management Platform at Yieldmo. Mark brings a wealth of experience from prominent roles at companies like Rakuten, Rubicon Project, and Nexstar, offering listeners invaluable insights into the dynamic and evolving landscape of advertising technology.

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1. Mark McEachern’s Journey into AdTech

Mark begins by reflecting on his early career, emphasizing the transformation of product roles within the ad tech industry:

“Building the SSP at Rubicon, I think, transformed my career.”
— Mark McEachern ([03:33])

He recounts his initial foray into ad tech during his time at L90 in the late 1990s and early 2000s, where he worked closely with Frank Adante, the founder of Rubicon Project. This partnership was instrumental in shaping his career trajectory, highlighting the importance of aligning with visionary leaders in the industry.

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2. The Art and Motivation Behind Building AdTech Products

Mark delves into what drives him to build and innovate within ad tech. He likens the process to achieving a "sweet spot," drawing a parallel with hitting a hole-in-one in golf:

“It's like hitting that sweet spot and that's why I golf. And that you hit that sweet spot. And that's why I do the job.”
— Mark McEachern ([04:55])

This analogy underscores the satisfaction he derives from transforming ideas into impactful products. AdTech God relates by sharing experiences of building a media company, emphasizing the challenges and rewards of creating something meaningful from the ground up.

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3. Evolution of Yieldmo and Industry Trends

Discussing his tenure at Rubicon Project and his current role at Yieldmo, Mark highlights the significant shifts in the industry:

“Built something that was transformative to that company. It went from an ad network optimization company to a supply side platform company.”
— Mark McEachern ([07:45])

At Yieldmo, he observes the expansion of exchange capabilities, integrating diverse product offerings for both buyers and sellers. This evolution reflects the industry's response to the increasingly blurred lines between demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs).

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4. Blurring Lines Between Buy-Side and Sell-Side Platforms

The conversation shifts to the impact of header bidding on the ad tech ecosystem. Mark explains how this innovation has catalyzed competition and innovation among exchanges and SSPs:

“Exchanges and SSPs have to now kind of go to buyers and say, it's more attractive to buy through our pipes.”
— Mark McEachern ([10:55])

This shift has necessitated enhanced product offerings to attract buyers, leading to a more dynamic and competitive marketplace.

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5. Transparency and Fee Structures in AdTech

Addressing the perennial issue of transparency, Mark discusses the challenges surrounding fee structures:

“It used to be a little more transparent... But then once everybody switched to first price auction, you gotta shave off your margin in the stream.”
— Mark McEachern ([13:06])

He highlights how the transition to first-price auctions has complicated fee disclosures between publishers and SSPs, making transparency a critical yet challenging aspect of the industry.

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6. Product Innovation: AI, Identity, and Privacy

Mark outlines Yieldmo’s strategic focus on leveraging AI and unique datasets to differentiate their offerings. He underscores the complexities of navigating identity and privacy in an era of stringent regulations:

“There's just, there's new laws coming on the books... anticipating and being ready for what comes next.”
— Mark McEachern ([15:26])

Yieldmo is proactively adapting its infrastructure to comply with evolving regulations like GDPR and various state-level consent laws in the U.S., ensuring resilience against future legislative changes.

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7. Future Growth Areas: Cross-Media and Household Targeting

Looking ahead, Mark identifies cross-media advertising and household-level targeting as pivotal growth areas over the next 12 to 18 months:

“Now my cable box is not a cable box anymore. It's an Android device that streams... we can balance your campaign spend across all of them from one or two or three different platforms.”
— Mark McEachern ([16:51])

He envisions a unified approach to campaign management across diverse digital media types, enhancing the efficiency and reach of marketing strategies.

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8. Navigating the Regulatory Landscape

Mark emphasizes the importance of proactive compliance and industry collaboration to navigate the complex regulatory environment:

“If you build in that direction, I don't think the government's going to come in and close the door on a now $1 trillion industry.”
— Mark McEachern ([20:45])

He advocates for embedding consent and opt-out mechanisms into emerging media platforms, drawing parallels with existing frameworks to ensure compliance and maintain industry growth.

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9. Reflections on the Deprecation of Cookies

In a candid reflection, Mark expresses his preference for the continued use of cookies, acknowledging their simplicity and effectiveness:

“I wouldn't have killed off the cookie. The cookie, I really like the cookie.”
— Mark McEachern ([22:56])

He laments the removal of cookies, recognizing the challenges it poses for tracking and targeting within the ad tech ecosystem.

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with mutual appreciation between AdTech God and Mark McEachern. Mark’s insights into product development, industry trends, and future growth areas provide a comprehensive understanding of the current and future state of advertising technology. His perspectives underscore the importance of innovation, adaptability, and proactive compliance in navigating the complexities of the ad tech landscape.

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Notable Quotes:

• On Header Bidding’s Impact:

  “Exchanges and SSPs have to now kind of go to buyers and say, it's more attractive to buy through our pipes.”
  — Mark McEachern ([10:55])

• On Product Motivation:

  “That's why I do the job. You drop an idea in front of a team... and then you get to the end of that and you're like, I remember when that was a conversation around a coffee table or a coffee shop with three people.”
  — Mark McEachern ([05:58])

• On Market Innovation:

  “The boundaries are definitely getting fuzzy.”
  — Mark McEachern ([07:16])

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This episode of the AdTechGod Pod offers a deep dive into the intricacies of building and managing ad tech products, the evolving dynamics between different platform sides, and the strategic foresight required to thrive in a rapidly changing industry.

Transcript

[Jeremy Bloom]

Oh, hello. I'm Jeremy Bloom, co founder of marketexture. And has anyone told you how chaotic our industry really is? It is absolute chaos. It's never been harder to predict the future of advertising than now. Cookies are going away. AI is knocking on the door. Regulatory oversight is shifting. Consumers are changing the ways we receive content on an hourly basis. So let's cover these topics together. We welcome you to join us at our first Market Live conference where we're bringing together the smartest folks in advertising to talk about the chaotic nature and how to prepare. Join us on March 17th in New York City. Please go to Marketurelive.com and register now.

[AdTech God]

Welcome to the Ad Tech 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, your Google go to for conversations with top product leaders in advertising. On today's episode, we're joined by Mark McEachern, Senior Vice President, Product Management Platform at Yieldmo. Mark's background is impressive, having worked in product for many years, including a resume packed with some of the industry's leading companies like Rakuten, Rubicon Project, and nexstar. Mark, I'm happy to have you here. Welcome to the AdTech GodPod.

[Mark McEachern]

It's been my dream to be on your podcast, so thank you for having me.

[AdTech God]

I'm glad I can make your dream come true. And thanks for all your engagement online, all the messaging and conversations we've had in the past. I really appreciate people like you, Mark.

[Mark McEachern]

Who, you know, I appreciate characters in play, in the market. I mean, your moniker, your character has been so much fun. I mean, you and Digital Chadvertising are two of my favorites out there.

[AdTech God]

Yeah, Digital Chadvertising is, I guess, a friend, even though I don't know who he is and he doesn't know who I am. But we message each other all the time. Mark, you. You work in product, and you've worked in product for many years. I'd love to hear about how you got into your role today and, you know, what led you to work in advertising tech overall.

[Mark McEachern]

Yeah, I don't recall when product became a thing in ad tech. I know I was doing director work, I was directing an engineering team, and there was no sort of product role. When I was working at L90 back in, like, the early 2000s, late 1990s, that was probably my first big, big role in ad tech, working for Frank Adante, who coincidentally founded Rubicon Project as well. And that's where I got my first real, like, product title. So what was that? 2009, is that right?

[AdTech God]

A long time Mark.

[Mark McEachern]

That wasn't even the beginning. 2009. And that was, that was a huge move for me. And I, I shake it up. I just sold my business. I moved to LA and sort of met with Frank out in Santa Monica Pier. Kind of got the job over a pitcher of margaritas because I went to school with him. He, he and I went to the same university. Known him for, you know, since any of my college friends. It's been quite a long time and sort of like, you know, they, they have these, like, through your bell cow, these people in the industry that you kind of, you're, you're affiliated with, and you kind of follow them around a lot of times from job to job. Frank's been a bell cow for me. Dr. Neil Richter has been another bell cow. I've followed him to Rakuten, for example. I followed Neil over there. And I'm always kind of keeping an eye on where he's gone. He's keeping an eye on where I'm going. So you have these people that sort of. You just sort of like, you vibe with them and you go work with them this space, and you just have a lot of fun. Building the SSP at Rubicon, I think, transformed my career.

[AdTech God]

Why do you think that is, though? Because, I mean, there's a few people in the industry that I would follow, and there's a few people in the industry that I'm very close friends with. And if they, you know, picked up the phone and called me and said, join, probably join. I mean, if I wasn't doing this. But why do you think that is that, that you find yourself wanting to work with these people so closely? Again, it.

[Mark McEachern]

Yeah, it's funny. I've, I've worked with a lot of people. I mean, I look at my LinkedIn and it's, it's thousands of connections, and there's probably 25 where I would say, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna follow that one around. And they do, they take big swings in a lot of cases. Like, Frank took big swings, Neil takes big swings. And I'm like, okay, you're gonna take a big swing. I want to be a part of something big. It reduces the risk of going someplace new like, oh, you're gonna take a big swing wherever you go. And that's, that's been a lot of fun. I'm gonna go do that with you and have a good time doing it.

[AdTech God]

You mentioned. Just a minute. Ago that you like to go build stuff. And as someone who's kind of building something, right, Like a media company with Ari and Jeremy, like, there is a lot of fun behind it. There's a lot of work, a lot more than I ever thought. But it's also really satisfying to build something out from scratch or from the early days. What about. I guess the building part keeps you motivated to keep building because this is a part of your role, really, part of your job is to just keep building.

[Mark McEachern]

It is the everyday. It's the everyday. And, you know, some of it is mundane. Some of it is like, oh, it's tweak this setting or make a checkbox to do something that's, you know, you used to have to submit a ticket to get done. Some of that, you know, you. That. That keeps the wheels on the bus. And then every now and again, you come across something that's like, that could be transformative. It's like hitting that hole in one on the golf course, right? You're like, like. Or that big swig. Like eight out of ten times. I'm. I'm slicing or hooking, but, like, every now and again, I just. I just hit the sweet spot and. And I'm like, that's why I golf. And that, that, that you hit that sweet spot. And that's why I do the job. You. You drop an idea in front of a team and you say, what about this? And then in a lot of cases, it takes years, but then you get to the end of that and you're like, I remember when that was a conversation at a table with three dudes, and we built this $10 million, billion dollar. Like, we're in the billions now, right? You look at the value of these companies, right? They're the billions of dollars. You're like, that was once a conversation around a coffee table or, you know, at a coffee shop with three people.

[AdTech God]

That's. I mean, yeah, that's like the ultimate, like, satisfaction of seeing where, where you've started from and where you end up. I mean, I could imagine. I've never built anything per se, except for. For this, which really started from a meme account, which. Which is so funny because just did it for fun. But now we're here. You're right. It's like every time I look back at what's been done, I'm like, I can't believe I did that much. It's been a lot of work, a lot of hours, but totally satisfying as a builder.

[Mark McEachern]

Yeah. I've followed your career with Great enthusiasm.

[AdTech God]

Yeah, you have. I mean it's funny, we've interacted a lot and it's pretty crazy. Like keeps adapting, keeps changing. You know, I keep pivoting and seeing what works out there. I've become a lot more like measurement focused in terms of like what I'm doing and how I see, you know, results and what is and what isn't working. But it's really a flywheel now. You know, one product led into another which led into another. Each one promotes each other and it's just overall just trying to build a bigger and bigger and bigger following with more and more products.

[Mark McEachern]

And I love the flywheel analogy. I look at like building exchanges and SSPs. You're building a marketplace and once you get buyers and sellers in there and you've, you've created this, you've crafted the thing that like that draws them in and then the wheels going. So you've got money now, you've got resources now, you can kind of build on to the next thing. And some companies like the trade desk who, and they took their flywheel and.

[AdTech God]

Just it's, each one feeds the other and you know, the more money you generate, the more you can invest. The more you can invest, the more product, the more account management, the more biz dev people. You just see this thing grow. It's a fun thing to experience. So you've, you've worked at Rakuten, Rubicon Project, you're now at Yieldmo. Which one of those roles do you feel? I mean, it could be where you're at now or in the past was the most satisfying. Like the one where you look back and you go, holy crap, I can't believe I was part of that. Pretty awesome.

[Mark McEachern]

I would say, you know, bookending the, the Rubicon Project experience was amazing. It was hard, it was painful at times and brutal at times, but ultimately incredibly satisfying. You know, built of something that was transformative to that company. It went from an ad network optimization company to a supply side platform company. And you know, the, the overnight success, it took two or three years to actually, you know, eclipse the, the revenue stream from one to the other. And that was ridiculously satisfying. And now to see where it has gone with that tech, that was amazing. I worked at Rakuten for a bit and I worked at Nexar for a bit and those were good jobs, but they weren't that. But I think where I'm at now with Yieldmo, this feels like that back then where I've, I've got like this, this you Know, we've had this exchange, we're fixing the things, we're entering a new market. We're building kind of the next level of product offerings that, from an exchange or SSP that need to happen, you know. And you're seeing the shift. People are looking to these companies now, buyers are looking to these companies now, more so than they ever have before. Like agencies are working with the exchanges more so than they have before. So the market is definitely in flux from the DSPS sps and nobody's writing out the buy side platforms. That's where you manage your campaigns, frequency caps and all that stuff.

[AdTech God]

Right.

[Mark McEachern]

But the feature set of an exchange is expanding. It's, it's definitely the, the, we're pushing the boundaries out of what used to be like, oh, we're just, we're just supply curation company now. We're. No, we have, we have product offerings for buyers, we have product offerings, we have different integrations with data partners. It's, it's very, very fluid now. And I'm, and all the market's kind of responding to that too. Like there's lots of like the DSPs are now like kind of operating. They're building direct paths to supply. The boundaries are getting fuzzy. Right? The boundaries are definitely getting fuzzy. And you're like, okay, how do we maximize that for today and for the future? And this is like these are the big problems to solve. And I'm, that's exciting. And I'm like, okay. And I've been here three years now, a little more than three years at Yield Mill. Just like I, I see it, I see the sort of, the glow and like the people's, you know, people's warm little hearts are like excited about the work they're doing. It's really wonderful. I'm having a great time here.

[AdTech God]

We've seen kind of the buy side and sell side, I guess borders get a little foggy for sure between the two. Do you feel that considering you're an exchange that this is something that you're going to continue leaning into as a, as a strategy? Do you think like my opinions are like, if you're supply side platform, you're working primarily with publishers, your key focus is to, you know, optimize yield, generate revenue, try to do the best you can in delivering the best user experience. And then on the other side, you know, on the DSP side, you know, your focus is to complete the campaign, deliver in full target and back out to some sort of roi. Yeah, it gets foggy with who you prioritize And I think that's why sometimes I'm a little bit, I wouldn't say against it, but I'm kind of like, okay, who are you focusing on? The publisher? Are you focusing on the advertisers? KPIs. I think that's why I'm a little bit of a standoffish when it comes to it.

[Mark McEachern]

Yeah. The seeds for what's happening now were planted when header bidding came about. And before header bidding, you definitely had the bifurcation between buy side and sell side platform. Because each SSP effectively had exclusive access to that subset of inventory. They could service that publisher exclusively. They didn't have to worry about trying to draw buyers to the inventory because there was a competitive operation out there in the same space that offered the same inventory. Now with header bidding, everybody, like you can have five or six partners on the, on the supply side that have the access to the same inventory. So exchanges and SSPs have to now kind of go to buyers and say, it's more attractive to buy through our pipes. Like, how do I draw that in? I need to craft product offerings to draw that in, to draw those monies to through our pipes versus one of, one of the other exchanges. Right. That ultimately why we're in this space. We are now. I can't go back in time. I can't put. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. And I think what's interesting is that it is pushing everyone to innovate where they might have sat on their laurels before. Like if we left it, we left it as is. I think the market would be a little less interesting. You, you'd have buyer side platforms and sell side platform. You had, you'd have the healthy tension of, you know, maximizing yield versus maximizing reach and efficiency. Right. And that, that was it. That's still a healthy tension, but now it's almost a healthy tension within each company. Right. So we, we at yieldmo, like we're looking at this like, what's reasonable margin to take for the services we're offering? And that's, that's a conversation we have inside and we have representatives from both sides and there is tension there. And I think that's healthy because it will ultimately lead to more efficient markets on both sides.

[AdTech God]

Yeah. And I think, I think the transparency with both teams is very different when you're in one company too. You know, there's a lot of questions when you work at an ssp. How much, how many fees the buy side is taking or how much fees supply side is taking because none of it's transparent. Nobody knows. Right? You know, a trade desk doesn't know what percentage an SSP like Magnite or an SSP like Free Will would take.

[Mark McEachern]

Right? It used to be a little more transparent. Like publishers used to have agreements with the SSPs fixed margin and it was all in the bill and that was, you know, a lot of it was second price auction based. So like everybody played reasonably fair. But then once everybody switched to first price auction, you know, you gotta shave off your margin in the stream.

[AdTech God]

What do you think is the most challenging for you though on the product side? Yieldmo is obviously innovating and building. I saw you guys won some, some award for AI in what, 2022 or 2021. Before AI was cool in everybody's sales pitch. Now it's in everybody's sales pitch on everybody's website. What do you think is the biggest challenge for you having to innovate and scale with so much competition in the market and so many changes kind of coming here and there.

[Mark McEachern]

Yieldmo has I guess somewhat of a unique dataset and I don't want to go too much into the weeds on that. There's some interesting secret sauce within our walls that is a little bit unique in the market and we're now really leaning into some of that stuff and building product on top of it, which is great. And it's product that's now really resonating with the market. So I think from a challenges perspective I feel good about like our premium offerings. I feel good about what we're going to market with in front of buyers and sellers. We've got some strong offerings on both sides. In my role I focus on a lot of like identity and privacy and things like that. And like it's been a swirl, it's been a lot of, there's just, there's all the like, you know, there's, there's new laws coming on the books, right? There's those new laws in the States which is a big mess in the us there's challenges to laws in, in Europe which is now refining the scope of gdpr, which is all good. That's one of the better things coming out is like we're getting, we're getting narrower in terms of like the, how fuzzy the edges are of that, of that law. I think that's, that's good to get that clarity and appreciate all those companies that are taking to task in, in GDPR land because they're really, they're really helping out the industry and Appreciate all those, those folks just clarifying that stuff. For me, that's the hard part of like anticipating and being ready for what comes next and hedging the bets, hedging the bets on the infrastructure to make sure that that yieldmost platform will weather whatever happens. You know, when, when the cookie goes away or when legislation hits some particular privacy related thing.

[AdTech God]

Right. I would imagine. Because that's actually one of my questions later on where I ask you, you know, working in product, like how challenging is privacy? Because the regulation is changing and it's vague because a lot of these policies aren't necessarily written by people that work in ad tech.

[Mark McEachern]

Yeah.

[AdTech God]

So then we have to figure out and decipher what they're saying and try to apply that to our products so we comply. Yes, there's compliance companies out there that help you do this or integrate with your products. But I mean it's tough. I mean privacy is probably one of the biggest topics I hear in the market along with, with identity. I feel like is, is probably a huge challenge for product people.

[Mark McEachern]

Yeah, there's, there's regulation. Right. There's gdpr, there's the US Consent efforts state by state. There's even higher level stuff going on that can impact the advertising ecosystem. And then there's also like what the platforms are doing. They're competing on a privacy front to their customer and it's very different than regulation. So you can't just focus on one versus the other. Yes. Lots of legal stuff, avoid litigation, rule number one. But then also like what are the platforms doing and how are they evolving.

[AdTech God]

From where you sit on the product side? Where do you feel the most growth is going to happen next 12, 18 months? I'd love to hear that. I'd love to hear your opinion on where you think where all the growth is coming from as an industry. Not necessarily yieldmo, but as an industry overall.

[Mark McEachern]

I think there's big opportunities now in anything cross media and I've sort of been waiting for this moment in time. You had the web and it came online and it was all digital, all digital advertising. And then you had the mobile apps and then suddenly SDK shut up and those became digital advertising. And then you had streaming radio. Right. Spotify and, and, and whatnot. And now all of radio has a digital advertising component and you're getting adoption. Right. Users are, are streaming more than they're listening to terrestrial kind of a thing. And now streaming television. Right. Ctv again, we're seeing digital advertising now taking over which, you know, traditional advertising. I, I, the Companies where like, do we want to try and put programmatic into the cable box and. Absolutely not. No, we do not. But now my cable box is not a cable box anymore. It's, it's a Android device that streams. The cable box I have in my house is another streaming device. It's like a fire stick. And then you have out of home, you know, traditional print type on banners, you know, and now that's becoming digital. So all of these things you can now operate programmatically and there's opportunity there to, you know, bring all that into a buy side platform, bring all that into a sell side platform. Now you've got every piece of media you could ever want. You can balance your campaign spend across all of them from one or two or three different platforms. Like that's what I've been waiting for. And here we are finally, right? We're, we're now where I wanted to be 10 years ago. I think that's going to be very interesting. The other thing that's coming, this is mostly driven by ctv, but partially by out of home and maybe a little bit by radio. We've made massive investments over the last 20 years in doing one to one marketing. My one ad curated for one individual user on their personal device. And I feel like even with the threats to identity, we're well established that stuff works really well. Even with the threats to identity, we can still do a pretty good job there. We've got alternative IDs and so on and so forth. You can still generally reach the person you're trying to reach with your marketing message, regulation and platforming notwithstanding. So we're going to go back to the household and I think a lot of these digital platforms like in the ad tech space are going to retool to now come and build up like, okay, we got the individual, we've got that locked down now. We're going to rebuild and train the marketer, the digital traders to operate at the household level. Because now we've got CTV and now we've got individuals with their personal devices feeding the learning machine that then feeds the CTV ads. I think that is the other thing that's going to start happening. We're going to have household targeting is going to be probably big in the next 12 months.

[AdTech God]

That's actually great feedback and that was a great answer with the household and household targeting and really changing the mindset of marketers. You know, a lot of times innovation starts and then the, the actual rollout and implementation of new ways to buy takes time. This happens always in, in whatever product you roll out that's innovative and you, it's, you know, check out this new tool, check out this new product and then there's some lag time behind it. Do you think with, with the need to adjust the way marketers buy and, and the requirements done in regulation or in the market, do you think that adoption will happen a lot faster than maybe without regulation? Because we have a whole government change happening, right? We have lots of changes happening and I'm wondering like you know, does that play a role and what type of laws roll out in the next three, four, five months or are these, you know, regulatory body is going to continue as is to continue to do what they're doing without much change. And I think that's where I, I'm a little bit confused as to what could happen in the next six months.

[Mark McEachern]

I feel like government is slow, laws are slow and I've seen this, you know, gdpr, it's just barely now getting into ctd. I think we should be more looking at as an industry, as individuals, as, as companies given what is the law on the web. You need consent or you need opt out capabilities on the web. Let's see if we can insert the same frameworks into the new media types. Can we craft CTV apps with the capabilities to opt out of advertising and app. You know Apple's done it, right? Ask app not to track they've done it. It's on my Apple tv that stuff. I think there's some forward looking kind of thing there says you know, and Apple oversteps, right? They go beyond what the law requires of them. But at least like you know, if you're, if you're a Roku out there or if you're a trade desk with their new streaming operating system, build it in like have some forethought even though there's no laws around it, like there's, there's precedent. You can point over here and say well it's, it's going to be similar to this. So let's, let's make sure to, to adhere to that. I think if you, if you build in that direction, I don't think the government's going to come in and close the door on a, on a now $1 trillion industry.

[AdTech God]

Yeah, I don't think so either. I don't think so. I've just always wondered with, with you know, a new change happening how that'll impact the industry and I don't like lose sleep over it or anything but I just, you know, I'm curious Like, you know, what happens if, if, you know, FTC changes, if, if state or federal laws change, when, remember, in the end, like, this is a four year cycle that we go through and lots of changes happen, but they don't necessarily get implemented either. So it could be like, hey, we're going to do this. And four years later, everybody changes. Say, you know what, scratch that off the list, we don't want to do it anymore. And then they're back at it another four years after that start to pick back up.

[Mark McEachern]

We all weathered gdpr. There's enough, there's enough people in the space that have been like, okay, we made it through that. I think, I think we'll be all right. I think we'll be all right.

[AdTech God]

If there was one thing in the industry that you could change, what would that be? Mark?

[Mark McEachern]

Oh boy. You know, I don't want to belabor the point. I wouldn't have killed off the cookie. The cookie, I really like the cookie.

[AdTech God]

I mean the cookie was just easy.

[Mark McEachern]

It had a good run, man.

[AdTech God]

30 years had a long run. Yeah, I haven't seen any recent research on it and how things are going to change, you know, with the new, I guess, is it the op in messaging that's going to be in Chrome?

[Mark McEachern]

Yeah, I think they, they, they had a meeting a couple, you know, a bit ago. They're crafting the, they're crafting the verbiage and we'll see what it looks like. Presumably sometime in 2025.

[AdTech God]

Yeah, I think it'll accelerate. I think the, the verbiage will be very much so opt out.

[Mark McEachern]

Hopefully they use a dark pattern.

[AdTech God]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm hoping everybody's ready. It seems like there's, there's a lot of solutions out there that are, that are prepared now. You know, I think it's one thing working with a small subset of clients and working with the entire open Internet, but we'll see how everybody adjusts and grows from there. All right, well, Mark, that actually, that brings us to the end of the conversation. So I really wanted to thank you and thank you to yieldmo for having you here. I really appreciate your time.

[Mark McEachern]

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

[AdTech God]

Thank you. 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.