Evolving Careers in Programmatic Display Advertising with Andrea Policardi & Marino Gualano

[00:00:00] Marino Gualano: All right, thank you for being here. Andrea, this, today we speak about evolving careers in programmatic display advertising. I'm Marona Gualano, the founder of Tangoo. Tangoo is a digital programmatic agency working worldwide, founded in Italy, but, working very much, in worldwide in more than 40 countries.

And, Andrea Policardi is a partner of Page Executive and, a very good partner of ours when it comes to, you know, finding talent and growing talent. So, maybe, we can, you know, start by Andrea introducing himself, a few words, and I have a few questions to ask to you, Andrea, by the way.

[00:01:05] Andrea Policardi: Thank you.

Thank you, Marino, for your invitation and for your introduction. Yes, it's, it's me. I am a partner of Page Executive. So I am an headhunter. that means that I'm looking every day for talents and managers and directors. I am specialised within digital advertising since almost 15 years. my background is related to marketing and was a marketing manager before for a, a fast moving consumer company at C.

Johnson. And then I joined the page group on 2011 since from the beginning, specialising myself on advertising because it's my passion and landing today to deal with the executive profile of this industry. And, running, selection for the level that we have in our market here in Italy.

[00:02:02] Marino Gualano: Fantastic.

Thank you, Andrea. So we, we know a little bit more about you and, you know, we, it's always a struggle when we, we look for talent in our, you know, digital industry and programmatic, especially, and can you share the story of programmatic display as when, and who were the first people. players in this field.

[00:02:27] Andrea Policardi: Sure. Sure. Let me say that we are talking, we are doing programmatic things a lot of time in reality, but suddenly something happened in terms of, in terms of commercial proposition. Let me say, given for sure, the, you know, the strong personality of some, of some professional in our industry. And the first time that I had the research to run for a programmatic specialist, it was, 2012, when, when a big media agency, worldwide big media agency launched its first trading desk.

it was the first time that we heard about programmatic. Since that time, we were used to talk about real time bidding, maybe. So, you know, the inventory of the publisher that were weren't sold to, to the brands, and the bidding that you had of this inventory that wasn't sold. But the programmatic terms starts in 2012, with a strong media agency that launched a good proposition on that.

And then everything was boosted by this launch, the year after we see the first independent trading desk here in Italy. And, since from there we saw that we were, In front of a strong innovation within our market and within our planning. and basically, everything starts there in terms of selection and research of people that deal with programmatics.

So it's almost 15 years, let me say, Marino.

[00:04:17] Marino Gualano: Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, I, more or less, I, from my side, I follow the same, The same misery. And I've seen the first movers in the U. S. Who came a few years later in the U. K. And then a few years later again in Italy. but yeah, we were there that time real time beating and then programmatic.

But today, I mean, when we speak about programmatic specialists and managers, what do they do? And how do they roll contribute to successful campaigns? Andrea?

[00:04:55] Andrea Policardi: Well, let me say it depends because programmatic deal with a different aspect of the of the media and different areas and teams of people. First, firstly, we need, we need to say, it's the campaign management is the first area in terms of volumes of people that are there.

So campaign managers in programmatic and programmatic are basically, divided into Two groups. The first one is the demand side of the, of the job, which is the brands that needs to plan an advertisement, you know, looking at the target rather than the, you know, the, the dominion, or a specific publisher.

And then we have the supply part, which is the publisher one, and, and need to monetise the inventory. And make things happen in terms of availability of this inventory to address, an advertisement, message. So basically we are talking about people that, works every day on platform, optimise campaign, find the target and monitor the delivery, the performance of the campaign, looking at the audience.

and not at the publisher. As I, as I said before, this is the first big part of professionals that we have within the programmatic landscape. And this is the campaign ones. But what it's important to say, we have also some other kind of profiles that deal with programmatic, especially the technology one.

Let me say, well, here in Italy, we have not a lot, a lot of technology as an, as a quote, as a quarter. So mostly we have, we, we bring technology from abroad and, it's a, it's a commercial, mostly it's a commercial relationship, but some of, independent agency at trading desk are developing and has developed their own technology.

so we have also professional people that work within the uptech. To develop platform to exchange, advertising messages. Let me say, then we have the sales, the sales profile. so people that sell the inventory of the publisher, which is a very big part of the picture, and then we have the leadership, the leadership part.

So the, every, everyone, who is in charge of an agency. or an uptick company, let me say. And for them, dealing with product programmatic means, basically deals with clients, deals with the people management of the people, because it's crucial to have people and not to lose people within this market.

so the leadership, one, it's not, let me say an operational, way of working with the programmatic, but it's, another important part of the story.

[00:08:08] Marino Gualano: Yeah, absolutely. you know, it's, it's also tough, looking from, you know, this side where we usually grow like 40 percent year on year, we, we really are in search of new talent.

And only lately university and, you know, educational institutions that started to proper. You know, train, specific, specific role for, for, for programmatic people. And, you know, it's, it's interesting what you say, because, these people, and there's also a push for those who have to find their, their way in the educational system, those people are really, really very much requested.

Talking about masters, Andrea, in which kind of company do you find programmatic masters?

[00:09:08] Andrea Policardi: Yeah, for sure. Today we have a big offering about this profile. Mainly you will find them within the agency. The media agency are full of these teams. full of these people. It's quite different from 2012 when everybody was looking for a programmatic specialist, but we didn't have anyone that deals with programmatic in Italy.

And we start to move people from the search, from a Google search, basically, because, you know, the bidding system at the end is quite the same. So the technology was quite the same and it was easier to put people bringing from the search. Today we have, we have a specialised team, of professional within the agency, a big team, 50, 60, 70 people, within, within an agency that are dealing every day with programmatic.

And this is the first part, the first bulk, the most important bulk that you can target to find people that are working with. Then we have the SSP and the DSP. So the, the, the supply side and the demand side that I was mentioned before. Which are technology that deals within the agency and the brands and help, the planning to be more successful, for example.

or are specialised in some dedicated product. Let me say video advertising. Let me say rich media, for example. We have plenty of this kind of offering in Italy. And, you can find, people, very talented people within the, the DSP, the demand side platform, and the SSP, supply side platform, technical profile.

Very, very well prepared on this kind of business. And then we are the, the independent Trade Desk again, the independent traded desk, after, some years of, you know, struggling within the big company. are building a strong, strong team on this kind of planning and yeah, they are for sure a good, a good place if you want to find someone who is, you know, addicted to programmatic advertising.

[00:11:31] Marino Gualano: Yes. Yes. in fact, I, I noticed, you know, that a good strategy that our HR is, lately, use these to switch role. I mean, hiring people coming from the publisher side, for us to learn more on that word. And then after a while to put on the client side to be aware of what is the actual, you know, job that is the execution, that sometimes is very interesting also for a career path.

for those who start on one side or on one technology, you mentioned DSP, or SSP. It's a good, I have seen, very good cases of people who switch. And, you know, for them, the career changes. to, to grow a more wide understanding of the whole ecosystem, right? But speaking about specific role, Andrea, what are the key roles in programmatic advertising and, and, and the skills that are essential to become a master in programmatic display advertising?

[00:12:49] Andrea Policardi: Yeah. The first one is, as I said, as I said before, is the campaign manager. The campaign manager, I don't know if it's the most relevant, it depends on your point of view. For sure it's the most relevant in terms of volumes of people that are searching for this kind of profile. I think it's the most, it's the most, you know, the most, the most important one in terms of, research of data, specialised data that go for looking for this kind of profiles on the market.

Together with the sales, the sales part of the story that I said to you before, because they are less than the demand. so it's a, they are often, we are looking for these kinds of people, in our team. what about the skill? as far as skill is concerned, I would say it depends on, you know, we have a hard skill.

[00:13:53] Andrea Policardi: So we have technical skill. And we have soft skills on the other side. For sure, the art skill, the most important art skill is the knowledge of the technology, the technology that are, you know, involved in the planning of programmatic. The most important are the technology. I don't want to say any name in particular, but it's, you know, it's quite clear that Google, the programmatic advertising of Google is the most important one in terms of volumes, in terms of penetration.

also because you have a stack, for example, the V 360 of Google, you have campaign management, you have the audience there, you have the inventory, you have the insights, you have data, so for sure is the most important, in terms of distribution knowledge of these, the knowledge of these, platform, is important when, you know, when, when you have to, when you add the responsibility.

to drive a campaign of million of dollars, euros, it's important, you know, to be very, skilled on this kind of tools. the soft skills, the soft skills is basically, I think based on a, you know, it's a, it's a consequence of the technology side. So, you know, the most talented programmatic people are very keen to numbers.

they are analytical, people, they love to, you know, play with numbers, with Excel, with report, with data. so I would say it's the most important one in terms of mindset. Even if it's, you know, I think we have it within the industry, we have an opportunity here because, often, and this is a problem I think we, we, we, we try to fix every day, because if you are looking for a programmatic specialist, you know, often clients want to put, want to bring a programmatic specialist from a competitor And put it in or, or her in the organisation, but, you know, looking also at the, at the soft skills, could permit you, to, to, to, to, to base your selection, not only on, pragmatical capabilities, and technical skills, but, you know, to do some, to, to, to run a research based on also on soft skills.

And what is important in terms of culture, mindset of the people. and this is something that we, we are not, we have not fixed, yet. but I think it would be a good way for the future, to, you know, to boost the, to boost the selection and the hiring phase, which is very tough with this kind of, profiles.

[00:17:00] Marino Gualano: Mm-Hmm, . Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I totally agree. And, you know, I, I will say, as you mentioned before, Google is a very good base, to start. although for instance, in our experience, we do not absolutely limit to, to Google and the people coming here, maybe they are proficient in Google, you know, suite.

But then we are working with 17 different DSP. We're working digital out of home connected to be each of which has his own technology and independent trading desk or, or DSP and is good for those people to even compare the quality of the single technology. So it's very good as you say, to have a good base.

but then it's interesting also to, You know, a room around the other technology. And we didn't mention on purpose, Andrea, the AI, because everybody speaks about AI. But, you mentioned to me before people, who, who, who knows how to prompt AI would be facilitated, a bit compared to those who only learn that technology and the other thing I noticed, especially when we interact in, in, in hiring is that.

Is exactly as you say, the, the market is looking for sales, but where I see a very good, you know, escalation in revenues, when you have a customer successful manager who is not exactly selling, who is not exactly a campaign manager, but is that kind of professional speaks to the client. Collecting the issues, try to, you know, solve the issue, and sometimes, you know, scale, upsell, cross sell.

That is something which I really experienced from the people you sent to us. And, speaking about salaries and growth, by the way, Andrea, what potential growth and salary opportunities exist for professionals in, this specific programmatic display advertising field?

[00:19:13] Andrea Policardi: Well, on this side, we have a particular, you know, it's, it's quite a peculiar that because, because of the agency, because of the model is based on the agency, we have a completely, different path on what we say we saw on other, for example, retail, fast moving industrial sector.

based on that, we have a, we have this kind of a path at the beginning, people in programmatic earn a lot more than other people. Let me say that an entry level of programmatic is based on 28, 30 K. So 30, 000, euros per years as a gross salary. and after a couple of years of experience.

It's easy to say that talented people land to 38, 40. So it's very easy to, you know, to start a good career path in terms of remuneration. And then we have, you know, a sort of, a sort of, limitation. after this phase, it's easy to say people, Once became manager, not all of them became manager.

Okay. So, it's, it's difficult to continue to, to, to move on because of the competition of other people and the talent, the most talented one, grow, and also a good programmatic manager of 10 years of experience could lend to 70, 80, 000 per year gross salary. So it's a good, it's a good point of lending.

Yeah. But, you know, a few people arrive there, okay? Then we have the leadership, the leadership team, obviously. we can easily go far over 100k. but mostly I would say that programmatics is a very good chance for the beginning of a career, in terms of skill, in terms of curriculum, and in terms of remuneration.

Then you have to differentiate your career. Otherwise, the risk is to be too much specialised, you know, and the career path to grow with the professional growing, could be less easier than other profile that take other way for the career.

[00:21:46] Marino Gualano: Correct. Correct. I do absolutely agree. And, I think we are run out of time.

although we had a lot of, we, we could speak, really a lot more about this topic, but in case somebody wants to know, more about this, Andrea, where, where can people connect to you or where can you, can we find you?

[00:22:10] Andrea Policardi: I, it would be glad for me to, to get in touch with people. You can find obviously me on LinkedIn, Andrea Policardi, partner, page executive.

we can chat there, you know, and, get in touch, easily for a question or for, for a connection, and for a sharing of contents in general.

[00:22:33] Marino Gualano: Thank you, Andrea. We, I'm sure people will, will get in contact with you. And for those who wants to know more about Tangoo, you can, you know, find a form at Tangoomedia.com/events to learn a little bit more about Tangoo media. So thank you, Andrea. And, you know, hope we gave a good hands to, to our audience. Bye bye.

[00:23:00] Andrea Policardi: Thank you for the invitation. Thank you to you, Marino. It's

[00:23:02] Marino Gualano: a pleasure. My pleasure. My pleasure. Bye.