Navigating Programmatic DOOH: Insights from Jason Eckerling on Programmatic Publisher Strategies

00:00 Tim Rowe Jason, it's been a long time coming on this one. I think when we initially started talking about this idea was at this point, probably four or five months ago and with as much attention as digital out of home is getting with as much attention as as retail media is getting specifically using programmatic pipes to access the inventory launch campaigns. I don't know that there's really a better time than now to have that conversation. So, what do you say? Ready to do this? Yeah, let's do it. Awesome. Alright, so for folks that don't know, you were a co-founder of a company called Billboard. It was an online marketplace by all accounts. I just know what other people told me. You guys said has a pretty great technology and something that we'll talk about later on in this conversation, the relevancy of a hot deals marketplace, especially in in the current market environment that we're in but why is programmatic digital out of home so relevant right now in the marketing conversation? What do you think?

00:59 Jason Eckerling  Yeah, I mean the biggest thing for the relevancy is that more and more media is being pushed on the channel and more and more agencies are pushing dollars through their through their DSP partners. It's stream. It streams lines, budgets, teams pushing more that way. It's from an agency standpoint, a buyer standpoint. That's one of the big reasons and frankly, it's easier and you know, out of home has notoriously has long cancellation policies and all that all that stuff that make it make it a little bit harder. So in unstable environments and uncertain economic times, it makes it makes perfect sense to push more and more to programmatic and have the flexibility there and that was one of the biggest benefits of COVID that you saw in the industry was the rise of programmatic a lot due to that just because you know, uncertainty movement patterns change. No one's driving to work. All that stuff made it

02:03 Tim Rowe much more effective to use programmatic but it's you credited really that the shift to an omni-channel marketing approach as as leading the way and then really programmatic digital out of home being the the beneficiary of a trickle down from that. What's leading the omni-channel push is it the iOS fourteen five walled gardens? Everything's harder. What's like what's kind of the driving force behind that? Do

02:31 Jason Eckerling you think it's it's it's agencies. It's agency economics agency economics. You know that's there where they're gonna make their money less overhead and easier activations that that'll not to mention all the benefits you get from an omni-channel platform and be able to pull everything together and look at a whole campaign whole holistically not that individual point solution DSP's don't have their place and they they absolutely do and the specialists who are who are working with those they absolutely have their place but as more and more goes on the channels, that's just they have greater budgets that they move dollars around. CTV is incredibly expensive and clients are gonna need diversify and and find other channels. So ultimately that will lead to a benefit for at home ballpark like CTV CPM's what what kind of range are we talking about? Oh gosh. I'm not don't have a good answer on that one. I think they're very great really definitely a lot more than at

03:34 Tim Rowe home. I'll get I'll just come back and just like that. Let me come back to it. That makes sense and when we were talking last, you kinda drew the distinction between the programmatic teams and the out of home teams and they each have their own budgets and ideally the the programmatic team is going to you know consult with the out of home team when doing programmatic out of home but there's there's very much a divide between the team buying programmatic digital out of home at large from a big agency perspective and the team that's executing traditional out of home as we know it. Can you describe that that relationship just what that looks like inside of of an agency so so folks can

04:21 Jason Eckerling understand what's what's really what's really interesting it is very different at every agency and every and different within certain agencies within the same whole whole whole co. So from a publisher standpoint a sales standpoint if I like these conversations recently, it's incredibly challenging that you don't just have a salesperson who's gonna go call on kinetic or public publicist or report whatnot. You need to now call on digital teams, programmatic teams, planning team should always strategy team should always have been called on but now it's people can activate different ways. So from holding company worlds, they can go through an out of home team. They can go through the programmatic team might be able to do it themselves. Sometimes programmatic team might need to consult with the out of home team where they should be. There's political things going back and forth. So there's all these different things. So it's even harder for publishers to sell in and figure out how to sell in because they need to talk to this person. They need to talk to this person. So and so might have more money for it but then they might get mad and they might fight over it. So in every agency in HoldQ is different of how they activate. Some have it figured out. Some you know, some it's still kind of a free for all of who controls it and who controls

05:37 Tim Rowe digital out of home dollars. How much I'm sure the out of home teams are obviously buying digital out of home but do you have a sense of or could you maybe just for again for the context because the audience is so driven from the business development community of out of home, can you give us an idea the out of home specialist teams that are buying digital out of home? Are they buying a lot of programmatic? Are they are they doing programmatic in the same way when we talk about programmatic, it's this digital dynamic delivery of impressions to an audience and we're mostly talking about programmatic online teams that are just trying to serve impressions to an audience. How much programmatic buying is actually

06:26 Jason Eckerling being done by out of home specialists? It's still quite I mean compared to I don't have a number I would say compared to digital out of home. So like what program what they're spending programmatically versus what they're buying digitally direct. So like a short time spirit. I don't know but like you know the program numbers still sitting 6% you know whatever that latest latest latest number is right now. It's probably going to be around be around that same real low low percentage out of all their digital spend. It's hard to say like if you're buying you know if you're coke or someone and you're buying you have a traditional campaign going you might not you have a buy with larger billboards. You're not going to exclude necessarily digital billboards if you have a direct contract with that publisher that that vendor but everything else digital you might it just starts to make sense to do some of that programmatic and there's you know there are companies out there and agencies out there who will all right they're going to do all their direct stuff whether it's digital billboards and that they'll do all that direct but everything else all the play space stuff till this buy it programmatically they'll do it for point solution and there are people who do that so it's

07:40 Tim Rowe hard to say it goes both ways and every agency is different. So for a digital network let's say let's say somebody who's got inventory and they want to they want to sell it they want to make it available to to brands to these agencies. How do you how do you manage that? How do you manage that sales conversation and all those elements and and then of course I'm sure it comes down to let's say you got the meeting and you got to all those people you still got to be available on whatever DSP however they're buying it you still have to be

08:14 Jason Eckerling available. There's a lot that goes into this. Yeah and most I mean most the big SSP is out there you know place exchange start they're comparable from a media standpoint at this point there is you know there really isn't anything out there. They're little new networks popping up whoever gets on what first and things like that but they're pretty comfortable from a publisher standpoint at least in the US everyone's growing differently internationally and where they're putting their focus and whatnot but in the US it's pretty comfortable so then becomes how the buyer wants to activate and what DSP they're using whether it's trade desk, Vistar, HiveStack, TV360 and whatnot so or Yahoo even so you can re-utilize use any of those DSP any of those SSPs in those DSPs so it just becomes a you know factor what they're buying but from a pub standpoint it's got it is it's at the point where it's like each agency within a hold co needs their own sales strategy like they're all operating so differently and if how they're activated program out of home that you need to have a different approach for each one because the same one is just not going to work for kinetic or rapport or this or that they're just

09:30 Tim Rowe operating all differently now. Okay so with that being said it's obviously it's complex we'll just say it's complex so say you are one of those digital networks what would be your advice to them is that is the juice worth the squeeze of going through all of that is it just make yourself known and do great marketing how do you differentiate as a publisher in

09:58 Jason Eckerling that landscape? So you know for one you need to be in with the out of home teams like there's whether they the not on team wants to buy you direct your programmatic that's fine but they are the knowledge experts at the agency so you need to be in with them starting something new and not being in with them is you know you're never long road to climb they are if even if you get to a planning team or a digital team and it's something new most likely they're going to go back to an expert just to see what's going on with this is this stuff true you know are they are they talking you know is it legit and whatnot so you need to get in with those teams you need to be in with those teams and then figuring out you know if you're going after certain account you got to figure out how they're activating how they're buying who's controlling the dollars is it the planning team that's going to control dollars and decide to go to the out of home team or digital or programmatic team so you know it's a lot of like work you know if you're in if you're a new network coming in it's a lot of like work to get in with the agencies and you know it is easier first to get in with an out of home team just because it is one you know it's one place and they will work on lots of accounts versus versus a planning team that might be on one or two accounts.

11:15 Tim Rowe Flipping this on its head a little bit we've talked about the big brands the national presence and really I think most folks would agree that kind of national sets the tempo for what's happening and trickling down to the local markets and right everything is kind of in that chain programmatic at the local level. It's not necessarily something that we've seen or talked a lot about. I've I've I remember sitting in a sales office in Eastern Pennsylvania when I was at Adams and the the mention of programmatic had a lot of senior sales reps kind of terrified like what my two million dollar account is going to go buy all this stuff on the internet and I'm going to be out of a job. Where does programmatic stand

12:01 Jason Eckerling locally? It's I mean it's it's still it's still slow and even it's still it's still slow but I think there is such a big long tail potential there for it to grow like you know when I think of it is like you look at tier two and tier three auto like for them you know those guys spend how much money on local news TV news the last time you watch that but it's like you know how easy will it be for them to be all right we can start targeting okay every screen around our dealer and every screen around our competitor deal dealers and do it whenever we want and whatever time of day and whatever triggers or whatever we want to do might pay a little bit more but also that's a lot less overhead than doing this all directly and you only see you know you only see things like that just doing billboards and TV and things like that but it's really to expand that footprint and and really do that so when you start to see things like that in utilizing a lot more of the digital media and a lot of more of that place based media that is around locally in in the suburbs and outside the cities that's when I think you'll start to see that shift as you get into easier easier ways for them to buy whether it's local news out local news if they're starting to add on and be in by things like that or resell programmatic as an option or it's more other companies who specialize in more local regional stuff and not necessarily national advertisers doing that when you start to see that I think you'll start to see the long tail and it's just going to be slower and you know but I think eventually it'll get there and I think that'll be you know a big one for the industry.

13:37 Tim Rowe It's and thank you for using the automotive example there that's that's that's where I come from I come from the the car business ironically and I gosh what a testimony to exactly that of the tier three automotive dealer I mean as recently as 2019 average dealer that I worked with was spending twenty to thirty thousand dollars a month on TV on television and some of that budget should be going to out of home of course and some of that budget should be going to programmatic digital out of home specifically whether that was the average dealer so this was 2019 so if my data is you know dated then you can you can just chalk it up to that's a little bit old information but at that time I was working with twelve different dealer groups and had about a seven million dollar book of business so the average dealer was spending around around fifty thousand dollars a month on television direct mail Facebook Google email marketing right that was kind of the the average budget for a dealer at that time zero out of home I didn't buy out of home until well after that stop in my career it wasn't it wasn't until further down the road that I was even exposed to out of home and that was specifically working with tier three automotive dealers who have really nice healthy budgets it would seem like there's an opportunity for the like communication and and and leadership from an industry standpoint with the local agencies the agencies that maybe specialize in automotive do you see anything do you see anyone

15:12 Jason Eckerling tapping into that I haven't seen it yet but I'm imagining it's happened and also look the past two or three three years sure but nothing's out so I don't want to advertise when I get a car there's no clicks there so I think is that dynamic changes and you know especially as more EVs come in next year and things like that there's going to be the potential for and you know you get out of the the inventory issues and you know once that sorts of when that flips hopefully soon I think you'll start to see a little bit more funnily that

15:50 Tim Rowe way from tier two and two three what do you see let's let's look into our crystal ball a little bit we can see some of it coming Q four Q one set up end of this year twenty twenty three twenty twenty four there's not a lot going on in the entertainment space there is a lot going on the political space what do you see as far as the tides coming in and coming

16:10 Jason Eckerling out I mean with entertainment it's entertainment a lot of people's biggest category at least you know the the big guys but what entertainment was doing was interesting is they were entertainment has started tapping a programmatic in markets they typically hadn't bought big in before and they were using that to supplement what they do in New York and Chicago and pretty much just top couple markets they would do to promote movies and things and now what they were doing they were tapping a programmatic to use that in other markets they were still doing their big stuff in those markets but in their perms you know all that stuff with the strikes going on Q four you know all that stuff's done and dusted so you you know that stuff will be that are coming into next year especially with content and shows that are turned out a lot faster than movies all that's you know all that becomes into question you've got lots of firms got lots of available inventory depending on how long the strike goes on for you know it makes it a lot of opportunity for people like last minute deals and you know the money's and adquicks and other things like that of like all right there's opportunity there because there's me all this prime inventory that there's not going to be any entertainment

17:24 Tim Rowe for double click into that the the hot that I didn't mean to cut you off there but the hot deals that was something you did

17:34 Jason Eckerling in a past life yes so we started billboarder so billboarder we started in 2015 to 2015 so similar to other out of home startups I the guys who started who I came on board with I was initially just helping them out similar story total of different careers or totally different industries and they got out of home because they had to buy billboard for something they were they were doing and saw the process of trying to deal with that for the first time and not knowing anything and like this is ridiculous so then they you know had this idea to develop billboarder I came on to help them and join and joined early on what we did is we built out of last minute deals marketplace so we'd work with vendors we'd get last minute deals we were based in Chicago and we worked with a lot of the bigger startups in Chicago cameo raise spot hero is one of our bigger earlier earlier ones really to get new advertisers really startups who had good funding who were ready for that consumer push to do out of home campaigns and get last minute deals and prime and prime inventory which working on the local on the local side you're able to do a lot of ebbs and flows in that based on how the market conditions are some of those years were softer than others because you know it was hot for national advertisers others it was it wasn't but when you see these up and coming brands or up and coming startups I should say who are getting out there and they can get on premium you know high profile River North boards in Chicago or in San Francisco on the heart of San Francisco for a lot less than what national advertisers are going to do that you know that that was a good story there. And you see that similar opportunity right now. I think coming into next year depending on what happens with the entertainment industry absolutely you know if there's if there's if entertainment slows down and they're depending on how long the story goes for that's a lot of unsold premium inventory or perms that people will want to

19:42 Tim Rowe get out of sure at some point right there's going to be a backlog here and it's it's going to happen at some point we're just not sure when it's going to happen. We'll be

19:52 Jason Eckerling catching up but I can't I mean who knows because it's going to

19:54 Tim Rowe go on more than two months who knows but and with political obviously we're coming fever pitch into political season perhaps there's a windfall on that political comes in and

20:04 Jason Eckerling picks us up yeah political can pick up some of it but also if a lot of the political advertising also that comes in is very it becomes more localized so you don't generally see the politicals on the big premium stuff that comes in where where you could see much bigger discounting on then hey here's a four thousand dollar billboard on a on a suburban road in Pennsylvania or whatever coming outside Philadelphia or whatever that is give it a little you know discount but they're not going to go below whatever it is but there's still political definitely can make up some of it but everyone's planning for political to be big anyway so

20:46 Tim Rowe Right right right we still have to find we have to find something to fill in for the piece we didn't plan for

20:54 Jason Eckerling everyone wants political money up front too because no one wants to take on a campaign and then valid they they're out money's gone and that's it so sure we're all political up payment

21:04 Tim Rowe up front oh and you've got political rate card too so I guess he can't be like cutting side deals yeah oh yeah all right all right we haven't solved uh I guess we didn't solve

21:15 Jason Eckerling that piece yet but um it's someone's figuring it out for political but people have to work through like the payment terms on that right on the side of it some of the think through that is there there was you know there was political coming in um but even I would say um what I don't I feel like I saw more it was less candidate specific and more initiative focused okay so when it's initiative focused going through programmatic one it's not candidate specific so the uh people are more willing to take different payment terms then they were if it's candidate specific um and things like that so um I've seen more initiatives and voting

21:52 Tim Rowe initiatives and whatnot come through um great direction for for somebody out there that's uh interested in developing more opportunities in the political space there you go don't don't uh don't spend as much time with the candidates look for those look for those opportunities and causes and organizations that want to be involved yeah with with the last three years obviously being an accelerant to programmatic digital out of home data measurement all of these things what was maybe the biggest surprise in your mind from the past what is it 36 months or so since uh since the

22:31 Jason Eckerling world changed um I think the biggest surprise is I mean agencies are slow to are slow to adopt um but I think I think it's I would I would want to see more more growth and more jumping in and I think that's just it's been hard and harder for agencies and I think I think what the industry has to do is make it super easy for measurement and we're getting we're getting there and there's more measurement but really tying all the pieces together um and really making it so everything from Omni Channel world like it's easy there's not extra hoops to go through like it should just be easy are we doing this campaign we know exactly how it's going to tie in with everything else we're doing um and I think having agencies know how to do that and I don't think we're quite there yet with DSPs and whatnot but being able to really show true ROI and we're getting there and we're doing that and people are absolutely doing that and there's a lot of companies doing it um but making it super easy um and making it so it's a no-brainer for agencies like okay we're doing this we know we know how how this is going to work with the rest of the campaign um and that's where I think things need to go to really um prove out the impact like what I would like to see is you know publishers working together because out of home um out of home in and of itself um oh okay this retail network grocery network we saw this much um sales lift we can do that great but you know what works even better this plus billboards plus something else is really what's going to drive the needle it's not just this retail campaign and being able to for the industry to showcase studies and things like that why a plus b plus c is going to equal x um versus just c equals this well what was going on um people to come together to start doing that is

24:24 Tim Rowe I think will be big for the industry shameless plug you can go to the o h insider.com subscribe for the email list and in exchange for you signing up for the email list I will send you five of my personal favorite case studies I've ever worked on five more coming behind that so uh Jason had no idea that I had that one there in the quiver but thank you for the perfect setup on that alright that was the last three years in review what are you most excited about next twelve

24:55 Jason Eckerling eighteen months what are you most excited about um I think seeing the seeing that come to fruition really is like being able to see see how easy out of home measurement can tie to the rest of the rest of everything else you're doing and making that seamless like that that's what's going to move the needle for agencies that's when that's going to be the that's going to be the big shift um whether it's in in dsp like with the trade desk or whatnot and really that omnichannel piece like just be no no brainer how does out of home affect that like everything else we're doing that that's that's the big shift that and I would say um wanting to see that longer local regional piece get into programmatic any thoughts on the media math story that was that kind of came out of nowhere um that was I mean they've had trouble for a while but yeah yeah I mean it's um you know there's a lot of shuffling going on um I'm not I'm not as well versed into what was going what was going on there but um you know the small the smaller dsp's are running up to polias and um you know they're getting a huge chunk of the the huge chunk of the business and there's a lot there's there's less room for the others um but yeah they had I don't know enough about it really to talk intelligently about

26:16 Tim Rowe twitter definitely seemed upset and surprised and uh and that's my that's my general barometer for yeah for these three years. I was definitely surprised like well but out of nowhere RKO yeah just gone just that fast. I think that there's a story in that and that is we see that you know we see some of the consolidation of Domney, Kubian right and how this how this starts to roll up like either you're gonna be consolidated or you're probably just gonna get run over. Yeah I don't know what it all means. I don't know what you think on the Domney Kubian thing. I don't know enough about that one to

26:53 Jason Eckerling really comment. I just think there's gonna be more of it. Yeah I feel that one like I didn't know enough about Kubian from saying right um I feel like it's I feel like it's interesting um where I was sitting though it's like there's just a couple players right now both not meaningful and like a Domney. I mean a Domney was doing well and I think a Domney was had a stake in this and and I would say in the regional um in regional like national like they definitely did and there is we there was money coming in from them um you know pretty good where where their foot is they had a few big accounts but with brand with brand direct but I don't know I don't know that there's there's a lot of players and it's you're right. It's gonna get consolidated like it it just has to you don't

27:42 Tim Rowe need that many DSPs out there for so I got my popcorn. Jason how do folks get in touch with you maybe the what have you been up to the last few months you've been doing consulting work you've been helping networks get online you've been kind of behind the scenes what have you been up to

27:59 Jason Eckerling and how do folks get in touch uh yeah that's basically what uh basically what I've been doing um helping out a few networks um uh start start their uh start the sale start their sales help them get navigate the out of home world uh that they're in um can hit me up on like thank you but that's uh that's kind of what I've been doing the past few months uh it's been uh been

28:19 Tim Rowe good awesome well we will make sure to uh include your linked in so that folks can connect with you thank you for sharing as much as you have not just on this episode but uh as a friend and over these past few months as we prepared for this so I could have been uh could have been more excited to do to do this with you and think that we've got some really special here for the audience absolutely likewise it's always uh it's always good chatting thanks Jason have you found this to be helpful please share with somebody who could benefit as always make sure to smash that subscribe button we'll see y'all next time