In the early days of programmatic, when publishers were trying
to sell extra inventory, sell rates were only 10% to 30%, she said.
"The challenge was in creating revenue that was meaningful. They
ultimately sold off too much inventory at too low a price."
Today, it's about getting back to quality inventory that reaches
the right people with the right messaging, agreed panelists.
"There was a time we had to sacrifice scale for quality. Now big
publishers like me don't need to do that anymore," said Jeremy
Randol, VP of programmatic sales strategy at Pandora. "2016 will be
the year of programmatic mobile. We've seen companies make strides
in defining cross-device [metrics]. DSPs are doing a better job.
And there's a migration toward more quality connections."
He said Pandora one and a half years ago hired people who could
make programmatic a mainstream sales tactic. His team has grown to
10 people.
Ms. Reed asked the group if in the next version of the
marketplace advertisers will be able to buy against a
cost-per-acquisition metric. Currently, most buying happens on a
CPM, or cost-per-thousand-impression metric.
"We'll sell against how effective the advertising is," said Mark
Zagorski, CEO of Nielsen's Exelate. "We're moving into a world
where everything is sold on a CPA basis."
"We'll get to a place where sellers can make some real money
again," added Ms. Reed. "We've been pushing media partners
down and down on these CPMs because we don't see it working. If we
can get to the conversion we want, and the metric of success we
want, I'm willing to pay more for that success metric."
