Dal Gill, global head of programmatic at Seedtag, chats to Mobile Marketing about the programmatic landscape and the opportunities that exist.

Mobile Marketing: Can you sum up how programmatic changed during 2019?
Dal Gill: While there has been a lot of noise about programmatic audio, out of home, tv in gaming advertising amongst others there is still a large portion of advertiser spend in the more traditional and scalable methods of digital advertising across mobile/desktop.

In terms of Seedtag, 2019 has been an important year. Over the last year we have really ramped up our programmatic footprint. Not only from a backend tech perspective but also from a demand perspective. On one hand we have ensured we have a completely agnostic offering which enables buyers to plug in seamlessly to our solutions. We don’t push the buyer in a certain direction, and they work with us how they see fit, that could be using their chosen DSP to running PMP or Programmatic Guaranteed. From a demand perspective, we are working more closely with brands as they want to try our new innovative solutions and run them at scale.

MM: Is the current programmatic market suited for ad tech providers?
DG: It is if you offer something different in market. Ad tech companies have had a lot of stick over the years for just re-packaging impressions and selling them off as something unique. My advice to marketers would be to always ask questions, what differentiates them from others. If you don’t understand the answer, then you know there is somewhat of a grey area. With Seedtag solutions the added value is obvious. In image inventory across publishers, we have one-to-one relationships with an in-house design team that creates beautiful creatives. Oh, and I forgot to mention we have our own proprietary contextual DMP.

MM: Would you say Seedtag solutions are intrusive?
DG: All ads are somewhat intrusive if they are not relevant to the user. Seedtag serves ads in highly contextually relevant areas (due to its DMP). Our solutions only load once the image is fully in view and above the fold and due to that we see high viewability scores. If the user does not want to see the ad they can simply scroll down the page and read the content of the article.

MM: How will programmatic develop during next year and beyond?
DG: Brands taking a greater interest in the ad tech space. Brands in 2019 have been busy buying companies in the ad tech and martech sectors. Walmart bought ad tech start up Polymorph Labs to serve more relevant ads to shoppers while Mastercard cut a deal for customer data platform SessionM.

You can also see a number of high-profile hires have also taken place so there is more programmatic and ad tech expertise in-house.

MM: What about the biggest opportunity for programmatic marketers?
DG: 5G will have a massive impact on the programmatic and advertising ecosystem overall. This will lead to more creativity on mobile as sites, apps and videos will load faster than ever before.

According to Cisco Visual networking index white paper globally video traffic will account for 82 per cent of traffic by 2022 and mobile video is the primary driver of digital video ad revenue according to eMarketer.

Better connectivity will also lead to even more data available to marketers and better real time targeting.

Seedtag was one of our sponsors for you recent Programmatic Lunch event. Through ‘in-image advertising’, it enables brands to integrate advertising into editorial images. The company’s technology is integrated with brands and publishers including P&G, Adidas, Audi, L’Oréal, Ikea, McDonald’s, Universal, Pernod Ricard, Forbes, Mundo Deportivo, Axel Springer, and many more.