33Across Blog | Programmatic News & Trends

Welcome to Friday! This week we’re featuring a member of our incredible sales team, Alex Ratajczyk. Recently promoted to Channel Sales Director, Alex is responsible for servicing our demand side platforms. He’s been with 33Across for over four years and a lot has changed within the industry since his start. Check out his thoughts on how programmatic advertising has changed, awesome qualities within great salespeople, and his skills behind the camera.

What was the buzz around the office last week? Brands doing more of their own programmatic, good news about Better Ads, and balancing short-term and long-term for publishers.  

1. Brands taking control of programmatic  

Brands are taking their programmatic efforts in-house. A recent survey by the ANA revealed that 25% of brands are choosing to do more programmatic buying. Prompted by worries of fraud and brand safety, some brands are taking complete control of where their ads show up. Data also plays a major part, brands want to see their customer data used more dynamically. Instead of going completely in-house, The Drum recommends that marketers seek a collaborative hybrid arrangement with agencies.

Welcome to Friday! As with most tech companies, our engineers play a major role in our company's success. One of our Senior Software Engineers Aparna Hegde, is no exception to that rule. Serving as a member of our high-performing engineering team, Aparna is responsible keeping 33Across’ technology at its very best. Learn more about her including why she decided to become an engineer, how a non-technical person can learn engineering, and what her favorite weekend day is!

We’re sure you’ve heard the news. Starting Thursday, February 15, Google will begin to block ads deemed intrusive by the Better Ads Coalition (CBA). After surveying over 25,000 Internet users, the CBA determined that some ad types including auto-play videos and takeovers fell below the threshold of consumer acceptability. This extensive research resulted in the Better Ads Standards.

What was the buzz around the office last week? Education courses on programmatic, tips to surviving programmatic in Q1, and what we can expect from ad tech in 2018.  

1. Programmatic education for all   

In an effort to deepen programmatic knowledge, the IAB is launching a training course to media professionals. Filling the education gap on the programmatic course offerings, this course is designed for media professionals at-large. With U.S. programmatic digital display ad spend expected to surpass $49 billion by 2019, this comes at no surprise.  MediaPost explains how the curriculum will focus on the history of programmatic, header bidding, and system processes. 

What was the buzz around the office last week? Local mobile ads are taking off in 2018, data delivery needs to happen faster, and what advertisers and publishers can look forward to with Google's upcoming ad-blocker.  

1. Local mobile ads will hit $19 billion in spend  

Get ready for local ads on your mobile devices to increase this year. According to a recent forecast pure-play mobile ad spend will hit $19 billion. Due to the ability to capture audiences of all types, mobile is becoming the preferred method of demographic targeting. MediaPost explains how Facebook and Instagram are expected to account for the bulk of the spend. 

We’re excited to kick off 2018 in a big way. 33Across is getting bigger and we’re growing in amazing ways. For the first Friday Fives of 2018 we are featuring one of our newest employees, Leroy Holland. Serving as our VP of Demand Sales, Leroy comes from a robust ad tech background and brings a wealth of experience and expertise to 33Across. Check out his views on what makes salespeople great, the role data will play in the future of programmatic advertising, and what he’s still wearing 10 years later.

What was the buzz around the office last week? Google wants to control your creative, redefining the definition of programmatic, and big programmatic plans for Netflix.  

1. Google offers to control ad creative  

Publishers can now give Google the power to control the creative direction of their online ads. In an effort to create ad units that perform on any given page, Google AdSense will scan web pages for the best placements. The technology even suggests the best font and style according to the feed. This is just another change from AdSense, MediaPost offers more of what we can expect from the platform in 2018.

What a year 2017 has been; we grew, learned, and had lots of fun.

What was the buzz around the office last week? The benefits and possibilities of header bidding, how first-price auctions work, and how independent agencies keep programmatic advertising going.  

1. What the future holds for header bidding  

Header bidding has revolutionized the way that programmatic advertising functions. Before the technology, only certain buyers had access to inventory while having no idea of what they were buying. With header bidding, transparency has been given within the ad tech ecosystem, allowing publishers to offer all of their inventory to buyers. eMarketer sat down with eBay’s director of product management to get his insights on the future of header bidding.