Adjust’s Katie Madding is helping brands keep measuring their ads even as data dries up

Katie Madding, chief product officer, product and engineering, at Adjust, works at the heart of all the mobile advertising tech changes happening in the industry, from navigating Apple’s data rules to building for Google’s Privacy Sandbox. Adjust has had to reinvent how mobile app developers advertise and measure campaigns in this new privacy era, defined by the major platforms walling off access to data on consumers. Adjust works with brands such as Duolingo, Pret A Manger, Yelp and Acorn to provide measurement services at a time when it is getting harder to track basic campaign results such as app downloads. To overcome the challenges, Adjust is developing ad products, such as an incrementality measurement tool called Insights that Madding helped launch last year. “We’re using some totally new modeling techniques that have allowed us to, I would say, really democratize the data,” Madding said. “This is something that in the past was really only for companies with a huge budget to work with an agency or a research firm, or companies that had an extensive data science team internally that could do things like this,” Madding said. Adjust is also developing for Google’s post-cookie ad tech platform, Privacy Sandbox, which will affect desktop and mobile measurement. Adjust has regular meetings with Google teams to ensure that the platform supports measurement, especially when it hits Android devices, where app analytics are crucial. “We’ve seen that about 70% of the data that we would track normally was coming through with Google Privacy Sandbox.” Adjust also has branched out from mobile advertising to support app marketing within video game ecosystems and connected TVs, Madding said. See Ad Age’s Tech Power List honoring marketing leaders What is the biggest technological challenge facing your sector of advertising and technology, and why? Solving for three areas—privacy, measurement and optimization—is the biggest challenge but also the largest opportunity in our ecosystem. How are you preparing to overcome this challenge? We have invested heavily in data science, where new AI technologies are constantly evolving and allowing us to build accurate modeling faster than ever before. With some of our new solutions, we are now able to help marketers measure the effectiveness of offline channels, predict users’ lifetime value and deduce whether channels brought incremental lift. All of these solutions are powered by aggregated data, ensuring utmost user privacy while making insights actionable. What piece of technology could you absolutely not live without, besides your phone? Miro. Product people love whiteboarding and during COVID it became even more evident that we needed the ability to brainstorm in a collaborative but remote way. I have been using Miro since it was a “real-time board,” and I cannot emphasize how important this software is. In terms of addiction, I am probably creating one to two new boards a day. What’s your favorite blog, TikTok account, podcast or any must-follows in your media diet? The ReThinking podcast with Adam Grant. Every episode offers what I call “brain noodles” that I can immediately take and apply at Adjust. I am a bit biased, having gone to Wharton [Grant is a Wharton psychology professor], but I think understanding organizational psychology is the foundation of a successful business. I also enjoy the personal happiness nuggets that are key as a mom of three under 3. See Ad Age’s Tech Power List honoring marketing leaders

Adjust’s Katie Madding is helping brands keep measuring their ads even as data dries up

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