Programmatic display advertising: Evolution, impact, and sustainability with Francois Roloff & Daniela Tiriticco

[00:00:00] Daniela Tiriticco: Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here today. I am Daniela Tiriticco, head of affiliates at Tangoo. Um, I have the pleasure to have here today, Francois.

[00:00:25] Francois Roloff: Pleasure to meet you, Daniela. Thanks for the kind intro. Yeah, Francois is my name. I am based in Berlin, Germany. I'm representing PYURE Sustainability Solutions, a company that helps advertisers as well as, um, publishers or ed tech companies measuring and reducing their CO2 footprint from any digital campaign, even, um, including forecasting, uh, leveraging the technology of impact plus made in Europe, GDPR compliant from scratch.

And hopefully implemented throughout our tech space, um, within the next two to three years to arrive at, uh, yeah, the carbon neutrality of, uh, digital advertising in the future.

[00:01:19] Daniela Tiriticco: Amazing. Amazing. Thanks

[00:01:21] Francois Roloff: for having us.

[00:01:22] Daniela Tiriticco: Thank you for being here today, Francois. Uh, so as you know, uh, today, uh, programmatics future impact and sustainability is our topic.

Uh, so I would like to make a few questions to Francois and understand a little bit more about this, uh, very important topic that programmatic is. And it's very, very important also for Tangoo. Uh, so, uh, Francois, in, uh, in what ways, uh, has, uh, programmatic display evolved, uh, over the years? Uh, what, what are these, uh, uh, tool advantages and disadvantages?

And what do you think are the Pros and cons of, uh, programmatic display.

[00:02:10] Francois Roloff: Good question. Thanks. First of all, I love programmatic advertising. I originate, uh, or my track record actually goes back to 28, 2008, when I believe programmatic really started, uh, you know, evolving, uh, also involving video, involving, um, mobile advertising.

And, uh, growing as a, let's say technological layer based on the open RTP protocol. Why do I love it? Because basically back then, when I started at Methodize programmatic was really tiny and we all had the issue of, um, yeah, semi and transparency of, uh, inventories at inventories and, um, a very complicated.

Handling of campaigns and ad types due to missing standardisation and so on. So this kind of standardisation and also democratising of, um, at trading digital at trading was a huge leap forward and a huge advancement for the whole advertising ecosystem, specifically in digital. And what we see today is that this has so much involved, um, and, and, and evils technically, um, To draw a small picture, maybe, um, back then in 2011, there was like 4, 000 players, companies worldwide doing digital advertising and monetisation for publishers.

If we look at that lumascape today, there is somewhat around 12, 000 companies. So it has, uh, well tripled even, even a bit more and it still, it still grows. So, so the market volume is still growing and that basically shows the inherent success and meaning of, of this part of the industry. And it provided additional insights and, uh, and, um, additional technology capabilities like better targeting audience definitions, transparency towards, um, media buying or at placement buying.

Um, and yeah, basically also the bidding, uh, as strategies that erodes, uh, from that arose from that. So super interesting technology, super. relevant, um, also movement in terms of digital advertising, but also, um, connected with some, some downsides, which we obviously talk about later.

[00:04:55] Daniela Tiriticco: Yeah, of course. I completely agree.

I mean, um, it's a landscape where it's very important to stay up to date and also things are changing very quickly and the play, the players are always, uh, more. So it's very important. And this is also one reason why, um, We are hosting this webinar today. Um, what are some, uh, uh, primary environmental challenges, uh, associated with, uh, this huge expansion of, uh, programmatic display advertising?

[00:05:29] Francois Roloff: I think it's, um, it's partially on, on everyone. Or any, any company being part, taking part in the digital advertising value chain, first of all, there's the advertisers that also do have an important role here because then being aware of a certain CO2 footprint or environmental impact of the advertising, um, activities is, is highly valuable because for now, or currently this is not very transparent.

So step one could be, or should be becoming aware of your brands or your companies, digital advertising, environmental impact, basically. And this is only a super positive thing to do because you just learn about inefficiencies. You learn where budget could be allocated more efficiently and you learn as a brand to actually take action.

on improving your brand's environmental impact with digital advertising. That's one thing, and it's not very costly. Actually, there are services around that support that at fairly, um, or comparably low cost, especially if we look at climate change, that will be much more expensive in the end anyway. And then, as I just said, there is not only the advertisers.

I mean, the responsibility is on everyone. Taking part in the advertising ecosystem. And so everyone actually has to look at its own shirt. If there is any, any, any spots that can be erased and inefficiencies that can be optimised. And then an absolute demand I think is necessary to, um, to answer to is bringing transparency to all of this.

So really opening the box, starting to understand, starting to measure, and then developing strategies to reduce your individual, your company's, um, GHG footprint. And lastly, as I just mentioned it already, there is this. Digital waste, meaning there is a lot of signals, a lot of bid requests that don't actually need to be sent because we're in programmatic and specifically looking at the publisher side or network side, we have arrived at a almost.

Incredibly strange structure and process complexity of digital trading, for example, one at placement on one website, uh, issuing an ad request when a visit happens. This ad request can be quadrupled 100 times until you actually have an impression. And this impression then has a super low single value. So you actually never arrive at monetising the true cost of the 100 times copied ad request.

And this kind of inefficiency, for example, can be mitigated or reduced by basically changing the way you You structure your maximum monetisation strategy. I mean, publishers are under high pressure. They are the most losing entities when it comes to, um, looking at the ad revenue or the ad budget of any given advertiser, the breakdown from advertiser apartment name to publish a website or publish a monetisation is comparably low.

So we probably arrived at somewhat between 30 to 50 percent of the ad dollars spent by an advertiser. In some cases, it's even worse. So I don't believe in putting the pressure only on one Um, entity within the chain, meaning the publisher or, um, the agency or the advertiser, um, I'm clearly, um, for a market wide approach, everyone taking responsibility, looking into its own tech stack and erasing step by step inefficiencies to arrive at a much less energy

um, consuming monetisation or advertising structure. That's basically one fundamental step and technology can help. Obviously I'm not here because I'm only, you know, wearing a nice hoodie, but because I'm representing PYURE and we do service that through cloud based software.

[00:10:31] Daniela Tiriticco: So, yeah, I, I agree with what you're saying.

It's very important to take immediate action and that each one. Takes action in order to not have bigger risks. So thank you very much for highlighting this, which is very, very important. Uh, how can, uh, then companies implement, because I think companies might be scared. Uh, Which, uh, steps they need to take in order to implement the sustainable practices, uh, without sacrifying, uh, performance.

[00:11:05] Francois Roloff: That's a really good point, because I fully understand and we at PYURE fully understand that there is this, um, let's say, common understanding of sustainability measures taken Impact negatively on my advertising targets or my strategy or the efficiency, but to be very frank, it's actually the opposite.

Because as I just said, the main issue and the main inefficiencies come from technology overhead. over distribution of ad offers or advertising opportunities through multi SSP strategies, for example. But that's not the problem itself. The problem is maintaining a certain hygiene within your tech stack and your multi SSP strategy.

That's actually one, one key element. And so If, if an editor, if an, um, publishing house would ask me or a company, a brand advertiser would ask me, okay, what measures, what steps can I take? The first answer I would do, I would give is don't stop. Don't do less doing less advertising. Doesn't really solve any problems.

It actually increases the problems because to do this sustainability transformation and to do it successfully. And at a. Good speed in terms of timing towards, let's say, 2030 or 2035 being minus 55 percent emission volume from digital advertising. The best steps to do are shaping transparency. So implementing the magnifying glass on your CO2 footprint from digital processes and advertising.

Second of all, become aware of where are. inefficiencies. For example, used creatives, creatives being used within programmatic advertising is not only display, but then there's also quite a huge chunk of video ads, most of them being measured on view through rates, for example. So optimising the creative itself by reducing its final weight.

Is one critical and very helpful step. And this doesn't even touch the quality of the creative. There is no visual difference between a three megabyte and a 2. 7 megabyte video file for a seven second video. But the effect on the energy savviness of this specific campaign is huge. So the creative impact alone can be up to 30%.

And then there is the targeting setup. For example. Um, if, if I, uh, intend to advertise. Uh, um, within an audience rather young on social platforms and so on, I should understand that the more G5 or LTE connectivity I have included in my media plan, the bigger, the carbon footprint of a given campaign will be.

So on this side, we can optimise quite a lot on the targeting setup, the creative itself. But then also on the device mix where an ad campaign is distributed. And so there is many levers and all of these levers can be shown through technology that actually is specified for calculating advertising CO2 footprints.

So basically, um, if you go along those steps for potential optimisations, you will at the end arrive at a minus 30, minus 50, minus 60 percent CO2 or emission volume for any given campaign.

[00:15:08] Daniela Tiriticco: Wow. This is so important. Thank you for also highlighting topics that at Tangoo we take care of, like maximising the efficiency.

And this is something that. We really tell our clients, you know, uh, in every conversation that is very important to rely for partners that can guarantee also that the efficiency of the campaigns are guaranteed. Also regarding the creativity, it is very, very interesting what you said. So thank you, Francois.

Um, last question, uh, since we spoke about, uh, technology and how technology can help, Uh, what role do, uh, software tools and technology, of course, play in, uh, in helping, uh, the programmatic advertising industry become more and more environmentally friendly?

[00:16:04] Francois Roloff: Well, obviously, using an Excel spreadsheet won't help a lot, even though it might save some, some energy. Um, but it will cost a lot of human resource and, uh, and brain. Um, so I'm not even sure if that can really, um, have a positive impact or environmentally, um, no, but honestly, there is, um, there's only one way to.

Become aware or shape and create transparency on that specific, um, um, emission frontier, let's say, and that can only be through software. Why? Because the let's say formulas, the calculation models to, um. Calculate as realistic as possible a given CO2 footprint or emission volume of an ad campaign or of an creative, uh, creative is highly complex.

You see, um, two major, um, approaches at this point, one originating from IAB, uh, France, the so called SRI framework, which already saw its second release end of last year. highly granular on all steps and entities within digital campaigns, distinguishing between direct and programmatic campaigns, distinguishing between video, SSP, multi SSP, and other approaches.

And also including, for example, rendering device life cycles, which is fairly interesting because if we talk about a mobile ad campaign, the rendering devices can be Very old and inefficient. They can be very new, like an iPhone pro, uh, iPhone 15 pro, but still had a huge energy consumption and a huge, or an average, um, uh, production footprint.

So there's elements we can optimise, which is the, um, the lifespan of a device. And there is things we cannot optimise or. for C in a calculation. And that's, for example, the production footprint of a, of a given device. But these models like the SRI framework from France that we have integrated in our impact plus software tool, um, is very complex and can only be really well, um, used at scale for multiple campaigns in parallel or multiple entities leveraging software.

So that's one reason. The other thing is there will be newer models, newer frameworks. Um, one example given as the GARM, G A R M, um, framework that has been released, um, June 18th, I believe it has been at least announced for release. And this one is even more complex because it doesn't only, um, Include digital media, but it also includes offline media.

And I think that's a very necessary next step to become aware, not only of the programmatic emission footprint and digital advertising footprint, but to have a much more realistic approach to it. The fun part about this. Actually is not looking too much at software and how to use it. But the fun fact about it is this is an industry where the optimisation of climate impact or environmental impact is so easy to change.

There is, I believe, no other industry where the change can be driven so easily by each entity, uh, as part of the value chain. Look at the shipping industry, look at the aviation industry, uh, you know, they really have to struggle to change their ways of servicing, to change fuels and everything. In digital, it's so easy.

We can actually tackle it right now, leveraging software, leveraging, uh, the extinction of inefficiencies and so on. And so that's what I really, um, enjoy about, uh, being part of this, uh, change process and this sustainability transformation, because I think we should play a A key role also as role models for other industries, inspiring, uh, with our positive energy, I mean, everything we do is communication and communication shouldn't be impacting our environment negatively, especially when it's not, when it's about advertising, right?

Advertising is about positive communication. So we should be the role models here.

[00:20:42] Daniela Tiriticco: Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. Well, thank you. Thank you, Francois, for covering up this very important topics. Uh, since, uh, I believe that people, uh, of course, would like to know more. Maybe if you can tell us, uh, how can people engage with your company and connect with you?

Uh, where, where can they do it? Like, can you give us some examples? Uh, some, uh, links, websites, how can they engage with you?

[00:21:13] Francois Roloff: Yeah. So if you want to reach out and learn more, I highly recommend, um, either visiting our website at www.PYURE.ai, like it's spelled here, p y u r e. ai. We are Berlin based and we leverage the technology of Impact Plus.

A company launched 2020 in France, working on this specific digital advertising and, um, uh, impact model since then. And I've been happily working with them efficiently also during my days at Methodize and I'm super happy that we were able to shape this pan European. collaboration tool to evangelise the market and help advertisers, publishers, and also at tech companies like DSPs and SSPs to start their path to reduced environmental impact of digital advertising.

[00:22:15] Daniela Tiriticco: Right. Thank you so much. I also invite people joining us today to, if they want to learn more about Tangoo, they can engage with us through our website, www.Tangoomedia.Com, or through our socials on LinkedIn. Uh, you can learn more about what we do and what we can do to improve each of our scene. Thank you so much, Francoise, again, for being with us today.

[00:22:45] Francois Roloff: Thank you so much, Daniela, for having me. It was a blast. Uh, hope to talk to you very soon and maybe see you at DMEXCO in Cologne in September and have a, have a wonderful summer and talk to you soon. Thank you for having me and PYURE and let's make the change happen.