YOU AIN'T GONNA LEARN WHAT YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW

A Note About Change

Below is a copy of a note that was posted on our corporate site.   I wanted to post it here as well.  

 

News

A Note from Lotame Founder and CEO, Andy Monfried

August 16th, 2011

Colleagues, Clients, Partners & Friends,

Important, positive and, yes, inevitable change is underway at Lotame and I’m excited to share the news.

In 2006, I, along with a few former colleagues from Advertising.com, set out to create a technology that would revolutionize the way data was used to drive results for online publishers and marketers. While at the time we were unaware we were building the forerunner to what today is the data management platform (DMP), we knew we were on to something big.

As the technology evolved, we realized we needed a real world proving ground to road test our platform – aptly named Crowd Control. So we decided to build our own network, and thus, the Lotame Media Group (LMG) was born.

The network was a necessary and integral part of Lotame’s business.  It provided an effective way to refine Crowd Control and see firsthand what worked – and what didn’t.  I frequently likened LMG to a laboratory where bleeding edge scientists toiled towards synthesizing wonder drugs.  Our “laboratory” enabled us to distill Crowd Control – a formula that consistently drove and continues to drive stand out results for our brand clients and publisher partners.

In the five years since its inception, LMG has yielded two important things.  First, a superior technology and UI widely acknowledged as the best in the business.  And second, a certainty that the path on which we originally embarked was indeed the right one to have gone down.

Now, as is always the case with technology companies, our business has evolved, and it’s evolved beyond the need for the network. Over the coming months, we will be sunsetting LMG, eventually phasing it out entirely.  Shuttering LMG was difficult because it worked well for our clients and taught us a great deal about how to effectively manage data.  But I’m entirely confident I’ve made the right call as the decision enables us to renew our commitment to being the DMP by which all others are judged.

Bottom line, Crowd Control is the most robust platform with the best audience management technology, the most intuitive UI, the most advanced data monetization tools and the most relevant and actionable analytics.  Using Crowd Control publishers like Conde Nast can respond to more RFPs, differentiate their inventory with more advanced targeting and earn additional revenue from data sales.  Advertisers can better understand audiences and can target and retarget additional consumers of similar interests by leveraging comprehensive pre and post campaign insights.

My team and I stand ready to answer questions about how the most fully developed and most feature rich DMP, backed by the most experienced team in the business can support your marketing objectives.  Please let us know how we may be of service.

On behalf of everyone at Lotame in our offices around the country, thanks for your continued support.  I hope you share my enthusiasm about this important evolution of our business.

-Andy

 

Release Notes: Frontier of Transparency Part 2: "Exchange in a Box."

Our most recent release notes, coupled with a focused breakdown by James Curran, Lotame Director of Business Development -- on whats included in this release, and its benefit for publishers and marketers.   

(James note below) 

 ***********************************************

I figured this release we made is in the spirit Andy’s thirst for transparency, so I wanted to call attention to it. We’ve added features in our Crowd Control DMP that allows data buyers to pay for the data they can collect from publishers and third parties and in essence, become a data exchange themselves or instantly be a classic audience network.

I like to call it a “private data exchange in a box”, for lack of a better acronym.

One of the hot button issues in the data space today is “data leakage”, where a publisher may have third party code on their site that gathers data but they are not getting what might be the proper value trade off for the data that the third party is collecting through this code. Whether it be, higher CPMs on media, analytics, a “like” button, links back to their site, or just pure payment, some publishers are being told that they should be getting more than these offerings and their data is in effect, being “stolen”. Part of the issue is that there is a lack of ability for pubs to make a transaction and report for a data sale. This transaction issue is something data companies have been recently solving for publishers. Now, every DMP has the ability for a publisher to sell and track their data revenue.

But another reason why publishers aren’t being paid for these data leak points is because the buyers CAN’T pay them. Data buyers have no attribution technology; only the data exchanges and old 1.0 audience networks have this ability, so they’ve been able to lead the land grab in data aggregation.

Lotame is proud to release Direct Data Selling and Data Attribution features in our Data Management Platform. It allows any network of third parties to pay out its publishers for data in the same manner that the data exchanges or the audience networks do, through proper attribution and reporting.

So publishers, the burden for you to plug your data leakage is not ONLY on your shoulders now. Networks, agencies and advertisers, you now have the ability to pay for data you collect directly with publishers and at the same time, compete with the big “audience networks” or even the data exchanges themselves with your own aggregated data, that you properly collected with the transparent relationships you have with your publisher base.

See our release notes below and call our platform team for more information on Crowd Control.

James Curran

 

Many of the best ideas come from our customers. For Sprint 20, we took two customer ideas and turned them into new features. The two new features are Direct Data Selling and Self Categorized Data hierarchy. They're going to make life in data management a lot easier.

Direct Data Selling and Data Revenue Attribution

Direct Data Selling and Data Revenue Attribution allows companies to use audience data directly from their affiliate companies and attribute any revenue earned by the audience directly to the contributing affiliate. It essentially allows companies to set up their own Data Selling Network.

Companies can use audience data from their affiliates for audience creation.  The company tracks any revenue attributable to their individual affiliates. Crowd Control provides the capability to associate revenue earned directly to the audience that contributed the data. Based on the contract type agreement between the company and its individual affiliates, either revenue sharing or flat fee, Crowd Control will calculate revenue attributable to the individual company's data contribution. The revenue is tracked in financial reports, including the new Data Revenue by Audience report. 

Self Categorized Data Hierarchy: New Audience Builder Feature Customizes Category Taxonomy

Self Categorized Hierarchy provides customers with the ability to organize data collection, based on their custom taxonomy (e.g. Sitemap). After an initial setup at our end, and the appropriate placement of BCPs at the customer's end, Crowd Control automatically organizes the data collected.

Please contact your Lotame representative for more details.

There are two kinds of hierarchies:

Site Map: The Site Map hierarchy relates directly to the page hierarchy on a web site. You can target people by the pages they visit on your site. Basically, it's a new kind of category. You're targeting visitors by the specific pages on your site.

Figure 2: Site Map Hierarchy

Custom Taxonomy: This is a customer designed hierarchy. Clients can customize a hierarchy to include data they are most likely to use. It makes it easier for audience builders to find the data if they can go to a hierarchy that is focused on specific data. 

 Figure 3: Custom Taxonomy

 

Craig Connell on, "What Makes Lotame Different"

 

Lotame's Director of Engineering wrote an awesome piece about working at our company, and what makes this experience unique.   It could be looked at as a "self-serving" piece, or misconstrued in some other way.  This could not be further from the truth.   The bottom line for me - and many of our people @Lotame -- is that this Wiki internal note below (and people like Craig) are the reason I started a business -- namely to spend my time doing what I enjoy, around people who are amazingly gifted -- in a effort to create value.    When I look back on this experience many years from now, this type of "influence on me" is what I will remember most.  The gratification, and thankfulness I want to shower upon our team of people is tremendous.  Craig, thanks for working here, and thanks for putting into words the true value of any company....and most of all, our company.  

*below is an internal note, that Craig posted today in our internal corp Wiki site for employees only* 

 

My Thoughts on What Makes Lotame Different

2-17-10 -  by Craig Connell

 

I spent some time last night thinking about what makes Lotame different. There are two different ways of thinking about this question - to illustrate this, I'll ask you to think about Lotame and our products as a product box that you might find at best buy or your local software retailer. There is the glossy outside of the box that highlights all the great features that should be contained inside the box, and then there is the actual contents of the box.

Those bullet points and features that you find outside the box are the technical points that may initially draw someone to the product. The packaging and the differentiation in the feature set is what draws the eye of the potential buyer. This is equivalent to our feature set - the way we package audiences, the profile report, ability to buy and sell in the platform, etc. All of the really cool stuff our product does.

Inside the box is where you find the things that relate to customer experience - How well does the product work? Does it deliver on the features the packaging described? Does the company answer your questions and support you? Is the company invested in you as a customer ... are they your partner?

I'll leave it to others to compare our glossy box to those of our competitors, and instead I'll focus on what is inside the box. While I think that we have a good bit of growing and improving to do (who doesn't), I think we have a fantastically solid base for the customer experience inside the box. These are some of the things that I think differentiate us (or can) in customer relationships that will not only encourage people to want to keep and extend their relationship with Lotame, but also encourage others to "pick up the box" on word of mouth alone.

• We hire smart, passionate people who work together as a team. This may seem like a small, insignificant thing - doesn't everyone try to hire smart people? Yes, but you might be surprised (or maybe not) at how little effort some companies put into hiring people and how little attention they pay to cultural fit and ability to collaborate with a team. Certainly within Technology, we work very hard to find people who are not only smart, but who fit our culture and can work together. We don't want to hire people who are just strong performers, we want to hire people who are strong 'collaborators'. Everyone has seen it, when a company hires that person that is the best at what they do ... but they can't work with anyone. You spend more time placating this usually high maintenance person, who everyone wants to keep their distance from because his ego gets in the way of working with the team. We don't hire those folks. We want a team that, even when there are stressors, is able to hang in there together to get the work done as a unit. My sense is that that is the way that we hire in general, looking for good strong people who are team players. In all my years working (I'm older than some of you probably think!) I have never worked in a company where all of the business lines of the company work so well together and have come to count on the support of each other. This is good for us internally, but it is also good for the customer. It means that they are much more likely to have an experience where the various departments and people are working together to answer their question or solve their problem.

• We are very transparent, both inside and out. What you see is what you get from Lotame. We are very upfront and honest with our employees with regards to company direction and status, both good and bad. We are also very honest with our customers. If we don't do something, or we aren't the best solution for their problem, we generally tell them. Again, within Technology we work to be as transparent as possible to the rest of the company. We publish release notes, don't hide problems / bugs, and we try to be very clear about what we are working on and how long it will take us. We are working with the rest of the company to offer that transparency outside as well. We are working on some plans to get a version of our release notes out there for the rest of the world to see and we have a plan for improving the RSS widget within Crowd Control to not just regurgitate Lotame news, but to inform users of new features or issues they might encounter. If we are upfront and honest about what we do, even about the bad, it reflects well on us and shows the customer that they can count on us for honest answers.

• We are looking to build relationships, not a customer list. This is apparent from the direction of the Board and our focus on the customers on the platform side. You may be impressed when you look at a customer list that this company or that company shows you, but ask them how many of them you can call and talk to. I remember sitting in a meeting with a vendor who told me about all of the great relationships they had and pulled out this big long list of customers. Well, I happened to know the CTOs at some of those "happy" customers, and let me tell you - they were not very good references. When I did ask for a reference list, it was much smaller than the customer list - and none of the people I talked to were on it. Lesson? At the end of the day, every customer can be, and is, a reference for someone else, whether we use them as a reference or not. That reference may be internal to them, it may be someone they know, or it may be a random call from someone who heard we were working with them. We should treat every customer as if we expect them to be a reference. Even the customers who leave us can serve as an important reference. If they tell someone else that we didn't do exactly what they want or what they needed, but we were honest, open, and treated them with respect, it will serve us well.

• We are looking to build a brand and a company instead of focusing on being bought or going public. Sure, it might be great to get a "big pay day" and get bought by someone else or go public. The investors certainly hope in the long run for one of those two outcomes, but companies that focus on solely on that as their strategy are long on what is outside of the box and short on substance. The people who suffer for that are the customers. They get sucked into what may look like a great product, but the company is so focused on acquiring new customers and being noticed by someone else that they rarely pay attention to the customers they have. They hope to have executed on their exit strategy before they have to worry about references or silly things like customer satisfaction. Focus on building the Lotame brand and building a good solid company is good for our customers. It makes them feel better that we care about the long term, and to do that we need to worry about what they want and need, and that we will be there for them.

• We are willing to help people, even if it doesn't add to our bottom line right at that moment.Sometimes when we are interacting with our customers or partners we hear about struggles they are having. Sometimes we can do things to directly help them with those struggles through our products, and sometimes it is just advice. This is what being a partner with someone is all about, it isn't always about some upsell. The more we do to show people that we have their best interests at heart, the more they will come to us first when they need solutions we can provide. Just the other day we noticed that Evidon (you may know them as Better Advertising) is using the same technology that we are for their Help / Documentation system. When we were on that site we noticed that it looked they might be having some problems with configuring the software (based on our own experiences with similar problems.) We fired off an e-mail and asked them if they were having a problem and if they were interested in how we solved it. They were in fact having a problem and were very happy to receive our advice ... we sent them some code they could use to resolve their issue. Did this result in a sale? Did it add to the bottom line? Not in the short term it didn't, but it did show Evidon that we are interested in helping them be successful too and that may pay dividends down the line in our partnership with them.

So, as I said, we have a great solid base to work from ... much more than many other companies out there. But we can be even better.

We need to build this idea of customer support more completely into our DNA. If we want Lotame to continue to grow exponentially, we need to be a company that is part of the decision making and execution process for our partners and customers - not a point solution. To this point on the Audience side of the business, Agencies have been able to use us for a point in time, get a report from us, and walk away. There is little incentive for them to come back to us, not even if we perform well for them. What we want is to make the information and service that we provide to them part of their daily lives. This is particularly true on the Audience side with direct sales and on the platform side (and applicable to the Agencies on the Audience side as well). If we gain an understanding the processes that companies use, then we can help them improve those processes or results with our services. Asking questions, gaining an understanding of how and why they do what they do, explaining to them best practices that we have seen - those are the things that will get us the information on what our customers really need. The most valuable information comes from putting yourself in their shoes and understanding what they are trying to accomplish and why. Without the why, we may build the wrong thing that really isn't useful to them. We may build some glossy new feature that no one uses, when all the really wanted was an Audience Cheat Sheet (See the Audience tab in CC).

My commitment to all of you is that Technology will strive to ask you (our internal customers) questions, trying to understand your needs and points of frustration. We will participate in as many sales meeting / calls and customer events as well that we can so that we can not only hear customer desires and concerns first hand, but we can show that our company is focused on providing the customer a place where they can be heard. We will use all of that knowledge to continue to build the best product out there with a kick-ass UI, great features, and an overall good product experience. On top of that, we will strive to give you the best customer support possible, answering your questions, showing and telling you about new features, and listening closely to your new ideas and concerns as we can. The best place for the inside the box experience to start is in our own house. We are inside the box!

 

Lotame Release Notes, The Frontier of Transparency *

 

Our Tech and Product Team is doing so much GREAT building -- that I thought it was time to share some of our accomplishments, and things we've released into our technology.   I love transparency.   Being transparent can be a blessing and a curse.  I am choosing to share and be transparent, because I truly believe we have the best engineers, developers, DBA's and UI people in digital media.   I'm not sure of too many companies willing to share their "release notes" with the world.  (for both competititors and enemies to see)......

Recent Release notes are below.  I LOVE this stuff.  (it's not for everyone) -- but, it is for people who want to better understand the cutting edge features of data management - and the differentiation of technologies, and the people that build them.   

Andy 

(thanks to Craig Connell for his blessing, and his wisdom in publicizing this) 

***************************

We at Lotame put great emphasis on our agility - our ability not only to quickly respond to customer and potential customer requests, but to also bring new innovation to the market at a rapid pace. Central to this ability is the agile process our entire company utilizes to design and implement new features and fix any missteps we might have made along the way (bugs). We push new functionality in the products every two weeks, sometimes big and new, sometimes small, but always improving.

The sampling of release notes below from our last two releases, both in February, provide some insight into how we keep the company moving, keep the product fresh, and keep our customers happy.  Make sure to check back in two weeks if you want to even more insight into how quickly we innovate, as we will post our full set of release notes for that release with some exiting new features!

What’s New in Audience Builder: Sort Categories by Unique Size, Filter Categories with Zero Uniques, and a New List

Here’s what’s new in the Audience Builder:

The My Uniques and w/ 3^rd Party columns are now sortable

Users can sort the categories by largest to smallest based on their uniques totals. This makes it easier to see categories that have strong unique totals. You can also sort the columns so that the categories with the lowest totals appear at the top.

Hide Categories with Zero Uniques

• Hide rows where "My Data" has 0 Uniques: Users can hide My Data categories that have zero uniques. This is useful if the user wants to build an audience with just their own categories and doesn’t want to see categories with zero uniques. When you select this option, category rows with zero uniques for My Data will disappear, even if the categories have 3^rd Party uniques.

• Hide rows where "3^rd Party" has 0 Uniques: Users can hide 3^rd party categories that have zero uniques. This is useful if a user wants to add just 3^rd party data categories but is not interested in adding categories that have collected zero uniques. They’re probably not interested in adding categories that have no uniques. When you select this option, category rows with zero third party uniques will disappear even if there are uniques for My Data.   

The New Advanced Options List

We’ve placed the Hide options together with two pre-existing options into the Advanced Options list. This alleviates congestion on the page and provides easy access to the options. In the Advanced Options List you’ll find the two Hide check boxes and the “Overlap Enabled” and “Filter Publisher” options.

But….Please Note: For the sake of clarity, we’ve changed “Overlap Enabled” to “Enable Overlap” and “Filter Publisher” to “Audience Belongs to”. We have not changed any of the functionality. “Enable Overlap” still turns on/off the overlap feature. “Audience Belongs to” still reveals the data owned by the selected publisher. We changed the name because some users mistakenly thought that when they selected a publisher and purchased data, they were buying data from only the selected publisher.

  
Figure 1: The new Audience Builder Advanced option list.

Where is the Advanced Options list? Audiences>Find an Audience>Make Changes tab.

The “Not” Option: Users Can Exclude Genders in the Audience Builder

Excluding data points is another way for users to refine their audiences. They can keep the Audience Builder from targeting people who match the audience’s data but who have an interest, action, etc. that you don’t want to target. It’s also called the “Not” Option, as in match people who show an interest in alcohol unless they are underage.  

Up until now, users could exclude only categories, age ranges, and locations. Now we’ve added the option to genders.   What the heck, you say?  Why would I want to do that?  Can’t I just omit the genders I don’t want to target?  Great question, my Lotamite friend, now read on…

This example comes from Robert Jones, the originator of the request to “Not” gender.  

“ I'm currently working on some research that shows that around 6% of our profiles have 2+ genders and 12% have 2+ ages. I've noticed in the new builder that age and gender data can't be "not"-ed like other data types, which makes it impossible to separate out these profiles (by selecting "Male" AND NOT "Female") when we need absolute precision.  I believe this would really help us on campaigns like the upcoming XXXXXX campaign (which has to be targeted to women over 18) and alcohol campaigns, which have very strict targeting criteria.

Payout Contracts for Data Selling Publishers

The Data Payout feature allows Lotame to create payout contracts for publishers who sell data through Crowd Control. This feature determines the share of data selling revenue that the publisher and Lotame receive.

For each publisher contract, we can configure the payout method for a given date range. There are two payout methods:  

• Revenue Share Percentage: The percentage of data selling revenue that the publisher earns during a given time period. We can also include a monthly minimum payout. A monthly minimum guarantees the publisher will receive a specified payout amount if their calculated payout is less than the monthly minimum. If this happens, an automatic adjustment is added to their payout to bring the payout up to the minimum.  
• Flat Fee: A fixed payout amount that the publisher will receive regardless of its data selling activity. If either the start or end dates are mid month, Crowd Control prorates the payout.  

The data payout contracts are integrated with the updated Data Revenue Financial reports (released in Sprint 17) where you can track revenue, adjustments, and payout data.

Note: The publisher's payout is either the monthly minimum or the sum of the internal and external payouts, whichever is greater.

Manual Adjustments can be added to fix the payouts retroactively.

Estimated Adjustments in Financial Reports

The Estimated Adjustment to Payouts section shows the estimated automatic adjustments for publishers who have a payout minimum as part of their revenue share contract.

• The Estimated Amount is the Monthly Minimum Payout minus the Payout Earned So Far this Month. The estimates are based on the figures as of the last date shown in the financial report.

You can see the Estimated Adjustments at the bottom of the View Data By Day and View Data By Publisher reports.

Visibility: Applying Optimus Rules to Publishers

The new Optimus Visibility feature allows Lotame to automatically apply Optimus rules to groups of publishers. Up until now, in order to apply rules, Lotame had to manually add a chosen rule to each member separately. Now, we can automatically set up members with rules, thus reducing the labor intensive process.

Two things must happen before rules are applied to a publisher:

Lotame must apply the visibility setting to the rule.

There are two simple settings:

• Network: This setting allows us to give a publisher’s Optimus rules to members of its networks.
• Global: This setting allows Lotame to apply rules to all members. New members will benefit because they can automatically begin using the rules.

A third setting, Client, means that the rule is used only by the publisher and is not applied to other members.

Figure 2: Optimus Rules window (new Visibility list is circled).

Where do I set up Visibility Settings? Admin>Client List>Find Client>Edit Content Based Rules icon .

Publishers Must be Opted-In

Publishers are not opted in by default. If you want to apply Optimus Visibility to a publisher, you must select one or both of the check boxes circled below. Go to Admin>Client List>Find Client>Click Edit icon> Create/Edit Client tab.  

Figure 3: Opt-In Options (new opt in options are circled).

 

My Own Private Club *

"Honey, please go back to sleep."

This is a familiar refrain.  I hear it from my wife at the same exact time, nearly every single night.

2:32am.

Some people wake up at different moments in their sleep patterns. 

My precise "Groundhog Night" moment, collides into my psyche at, 2:32am.

I'm up.

I flip on my little alarm clock radio (keeping it super low) and have it tuned to 880 AM, so I can listen to "traffic and weather together on the 8's" over and over.

I can tell you what's happening on the Grand Central Parkway, the Throgs Neck Bridge, or if need be -- we can get crazy and talk about overnight repair work, on any major highway.

The weather report is also valuable -- as it prepares me for what shoes to wear.

This routine for me starts at 2:32am, and lasts for about 2-3 hours, every single night.

Why?

Why am I awakened?  Why 2:32am? 

I think I've figured part of it out.

You see, by all major accounts - my life has been pretty darn good.  Other than a few major scares, I believe that the totality of my existence has been, above average -- in regards to how I've been able to avoid major "personal stresses."

Healthy kids, good marriage, financially stable, not currently in a psyche ward, not on any kind of "mood/happiness" medicines......you see .....no major trauma.

So, why am I up at 2:32am?

I'm up at 2:32am, because my mind is wandering on business, and what's going to happen.....

Some things I can control -- but the issues that get me up at 2:32am are the mindbending questions, that I cant control. 

(Disclosure moment - @Lotame, we've exceeded our revenue and margin goals for the last 2 years.  My team has built a multi million dollar revenue business, with hundreds of happy clients, and we employ over 70 people currently, on our way to over 100 this year.....so, this post is NOT about anything but my thoughts, and feelings on "what gets and keeps me up at night.")

Issues that CAN BE, and CANNOT be controlled --- or more directly "understanding the precise challenge, and coming up with the correct decision/response."

I pride myself on making decisions.  One thing (I'm hopeful of) is that the one of the things people cannot say about me (and there is plenty of other things that can be said that are not as positive as this) is that I don't make decisions. 

If given a choice, good data, and some relevant guidance --- I WILL MAKE A DECISION.  I've known people that procrastinate, want to "sleep on it" -- will wait for consensus, and worst of all -- do nothing.

Not me.  Work with me, and you will get an answer --- a decision, feedback.

But, that comes with a price.

And, I pay it. 

The price for me, is a mindblowing, steady, consistent and tortuous gnawing -- at precisely, 2:32am.

Some questions that get me rattled:

1) Did we make the offer to the correct candidate?

2) Did we do everything we could to win that business, and present ourselves correctly in that new, 6 or 7 figure pitch?

3) Did we articulate correctly what we can do, and CANNOT do, to a new customer of our platform?

4) Are we sharing enough data and learning with our product management, and technology team to build the most dynamic features into our platform?

5) Can our sales team be doing more, and getting more deals?

6) Can I, AS THE LEADER, THE MANAGER, THE VOICE OF OUR COMPANY -- CAN I BE DOING MORE TO INSURE OUR SUCCESS? 

And, more often than not, out of all the others -- it's #6 that gnaws, cajols, and like a woodpecker next to my bed, gets my soul up at 2:32am.

Can I, AS THE LEADER, THE MANAGER, THE VOICE OF OUR COMPANY -- CAN I BE DOING MORE TO INSURE OUR SUCCESS?

I hit replay on conversations, that I BOTH -- DID, and DID'NT HAVE.

I replay instances where I made decisions, and when I did not make the right one.

Hundreds of daily interactions, in person, email, phone, text, IM -- all go through the filter of my life, at 2:32am.

Why am I writing this?  Why am I writing this -- am I sharing with the world that, getting up at 2:32am is abnormal -- is it weird, crazy, and worst yet -- portray a glimpse of my insecurity to the world, that this guy - gets up at 2:32am?

You betcha.

Being honest, with our people, and our clients is the most important trait we have.  It's one of the most integral parts of any company, before technology, mission, and value -- it's who you are, and what you are made of.

We do not have it all figured out, not by a longshot.  The odds makers can tell you better than I could the statistic of failed businesses -- and the rate of success/failure...it's staggering and humbling.  The chips are stacked against almost all small businesses before they ever open their doors......

We are not perfect.  We have a ways to go.

But, 2:32 is my place.  It's my place to think.  It's my place to review, to contemplate, -- and to hear "traffic and weather together on the 8's."

I will worry when I no longer get up at 2:32am.

That will be a sure sign, that it is time to move onto other challenges.

That has not happened yet, but I may be slowly transferring some of my anxiety, and ideas, and unanswered issues to those around me --- to bring them into the hallowed, 2:32am club.

"Honey, please go back to sleep."

"I'm trying dear, I'm trying......"

 

 

 

 

High and Tight

“What are you going to do if the ball is hit TO YOU?”

 

A coach named BO, yelling that continuously from behind the dugout fence.

 

This was a popular refrain growing up.  When I was playing baseball, the mantra of coaches, parents, and teammates, seemed to be the same….

 

“What are you going to do if the ball is hit TO YOU?”

 

Runners on 1^st and 3^rd, one out.   I am playing shortstop.

 

Now, there are quite a few possibilities that can happen, if the ball is hit to me…..it depends on the speed of the ball, where the runners are when I field it…..and, a few others.

 

But, the focus (and message) was on being prepared, and focused.

 

It wasn’t about the physical aspects of the game, it was on the mental side.   It was a coach telling his players to think about what they would do – what will you do with THE BALL, if it is hit to you.

 

What a lesson.

 

So many of these little tidbits of learnings happen when we are young, and we don’t even know that there is a valuable nugget of experience for our future, right in front of our eyes….

 

“ANDY – WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO IF THE BALL IS HIT TO YOU?”

 

 

In business, for most – the ball is hit to each of us, on a daily basis.   

 

But what happens when the ball is being hit to us, and the people around us are not on the same page – and worse yet, our teammates don’t have gloves, bats, or the mindset to play like us?

 

The people “around us” I am referring to could be co-workers, they could be peers --- but for many companies, they are the PROSPECTS you are trying to sell. 

 

In our world of digital media, the people “around us” I refer to are Advertising Agencies. 

 

Last week, John Ebberts of Adexchanger, asked me for my predications on 2011.   I kept it short and sweet.

 

“Major advertisers will begin the process of looking towards smaller, more nimble agencies, who are heavy in engineering, and creative talent – and less reliant on media planning and buying.  2011 will be the beginning of the trend of "smaller independent shops" taking away significant business from larger more established agencies and holding companies.”

 

 

Today in Digiday,  DJ Edgerton writes:

 

“For the most part, the typical agency business model still resembles a walled society in which the leadership continues to steadfastly defend its desire for omnipotent control over all facets of client services. In the days of push-messaging, this ability to control the message was paramount to client success and winning new business.

Those days are fading fast. The effectiveness and efficiency of this model are slipping away amid a convergence of forces from both sides of the table. Consumers are demanding greater transparency in their relationships with brands, while brand marketers face a critical mandate to evolve their strategies to stay ahead of new consumption models and consumer demands. The drive toward a two-way conversation has left most closed-loop agencies scrambling to figure out where they fit in.

As technology evolves at a breakneck pace, most traditional agencies find it virtually impossible to maintain the necessary skill set and agility inside the “castle” of a large holding company environment. This sluggish pace inherently makes it difficult to stay on the forefront of innovation. Even the most adroit agencies have a tough time achieving and maintaining expertise in all emergent technologies.”

 

 

Many vendors are selling into situations where the client cannot readily answer, “What are you going to do if the ball is hit to you?”

 

 

Big companies are going through the motions. They will tell you they know the world is changing……but the true question is, are they prepared to react to the change?

 

Did travel agents know the internet would effectively end their business?

Did the Yellow Pages Book see that more local queries and lookups are done on Google, and monetized --- and not done in a book?  (When was the last time you used the Yellow Pages book?)

Did AT&T move fast enough to understand how rapidly technology would change their long distance business?

 

 

I don’t know the precise answer to all of these questions of changes, but I do know that the ground rules have been altered, and they are changing so drastically that consumers and customers  --- are not going back.

 

As a prime example, at Lotame we have relied heavily on agency sales.  We have a team of dedicated professionals that sell agencies on our offering.   In 2009, nearly 80% of our revenue came from agencies.  In 2010, that changed to closer to 55%.   It is more than a trend, it's an alarm bell ringing in my head.

 

At the end of every campaign we run we put together a comprehensive report, and send it back to the advertising agency that gave us the business.  It is chock full of data and important insight – that can really show how much (or little) their advertising with Lotame moved a few key metrics.  The reports are typically anywhere from 3-10 pages long and completely customized. 

Here are 2 examples of learnings derived from a motorcycle and a technology company. 

 

Motorcycles

For a major American motorcycle manufacturer, a year-long campaign to drive Awareness and Purchase Intent was accompanied by a year’s worth of custom research and study, detailing who in their audience of Male 25+ motorcycle enthusiasts responded positively to the campaign and how the interests, actions, and attributes in the profiles of those men affected how they responded to campaign ads. That same study provides detailed insight—such as data showing that Men with interests in Business content were the most likely to change their minds about buying a motorcycle after seeing campaign ads—into how the campaign findings can be leveraged to improve next year’s campaign.

 

Technology

For one of the world’s largest technology companies, a promotion-based campaign targeted to Teachers and Parents showed new insight into how particular attitudes towards children affected campaign response—such as showing that teachers who did not want children of their own were less likely to participate in the campaign promotion—provided valuable knowledge for future campaigns.

 

What have we discovered in the past year?

 

That these valuable insights that we shared with our agency partners, were typically NOT shared with their clients. 

 

Why?

 

We covered off on key metrics, had kick off calls – and established what the success metrics and goals were.

 

Why would an agency NOT include data (or worse yet, in some cases our brand name) back to the client?

 

This has come to light for us, as we attend conferences, visit direct clients – and continue to grow.  We are getting an opportunity to meet and talk to the clients, and tell our story of -- "working on their business."

 

Here is what we’ve heard: (after we give a copy of the report we DID FOR THEIR BRAND to them)

 

“You sent this report to my agency, I have never seen it….?”

 

“I am sure pieces of this data were in the summary I received from the agency, but this is a great in depth analysis”

 

“Please send these reports to me directly. I shared this internally and it was tremendously valuable..”

 

“This type of report helps me build a case to acquire more money for digital advertising – and away from print and direct mail. I wish I had this when we were doing our 2011 budgets!”

 

Are agencies not equipped?

 

Do they not have the bat and gloves to understand what to do, “when the ball is hit to them?”

 

I fear not.  I think they WANT TO.  But, it’s a combination of talent, mission, control and NOT embracing change – that has led to this situation. 

I understand that agencies own the relationship.  They are tasked with filtering information and determining what's important, and whats not -- when it comes deciding what data to ask a client to digest. 

Agencies are launching trading desks and platforms to manage media buying and selling.  They want to own more of the digital landscape.

 

And, they should.

But my hope for 2011 is that Agencies ask for more than a response to an RFP. Ask for more than the latest "out of the box idea" -- ask from the publishing partners, more than "what's your Comscore index/rating."

Clients demand state of the art analytics and research.

Here are some questions that agencies should ask publishers as part of the planning process:

1) Will you dedicate a research person to analyze our data post campaign?

2) What success metrics will you judge and report on? (and optimize)

3) Can you run an "in banner" campaign for a short question/survey to judge lift on your inventory?  (not a 20 question survey)

4) Will you use 3rd party data to target, and if so -- what companies?

Business is changing.

We know agencies understand, and hopefully that trickles down to the planner, director and supervisor level.

"What are you going to do if the ball is hit to you?"

It's in play. 

Do you have a helmet, glove, and bat?

"Put me in coach....I'm ready to play."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trends On My Carpet

 

“We need you to run the campaign for 2 weeks, please send us an IO, name your price, and get the campaign live asap.” 

 

I’ve heard this line before – and I knew it wasn’t kosher.

 

“Listen, do me a favor, my client has deep pockets, and if the campaign works --- WE HAVE UNLIMITED BUDGET to spend money with you.”

 

Now I know what I’m dealing with.

 

When anyone (and I’m not sure why this happens in online media more than anywhere I’ve ever been) says this line (regarding unlimited budget)……it’s time to, head for the hills.

 

My response at this point is,  “No problem.  We can have the campaign live by the end of the day.  I am sending you our wiring instructions, and as soon as you wire $250,000 into our bank account, I will have the campaign live within an hour. “

 

“Ugggh, let me get back to you…….”

 

I heard this TWICE this week.  Now mind you, I’m not sure if this signifies that a bubble is back, or if there are new players in our industry…….but -- trust me this is NOT a good signal.   I only had one of these types of calls in the past 12 months – and, now to get 2 in the same week…….well, that might signify a distressing trend.

 

I bet on trends.  I live on instinct, reading people, and situations…..in a way that I think is not typical.   I surround myself with analytical minds – people that think DIFFERENTLY than I do.  It has served me well.   You see, I know my weaknesses – and I’m smart enough to hire, and promote people who help me……to “round out” my deficiencies. 

 

I know when to bring issues to my team, and when not to.  These issues are not warranted to share with our sales team. 

 

But, the question arises for me – when do I share information with my team on “instinct and gut feel” about trends I see, so that I’m not a distraction --- or worse yet, a raving lunatic resembling Nostradamus? 

 

Our business of digital media is changing rapidly.  In a client meeting yesterday, the client said to me, “we cant keep up with the pace of change, and if we don’t keep up – we are in tremendous fear of falling so far behind our competitors --- it’s a catch 22, and we are making a bet to go with you, because we are going to HEDGE that you will keep us cutting edge.”  

 

Yet, I’m not sure that’s ENOUGH of a reason to go with us, to deploy our technology, and to use us.   You chose us, because of what? 

 

Did I do a good enough job selling our benefits, or is the client working with us, BECAUSE they are afraid of falling behind their competitors?  

 

Is it a compelling enough message that -- our prospects will turn into customers,  and will eventually sign on the dotted line, out of FEAR, rather than a business necessity?

 

Is this a trend,  and should I promote it?  Is FEAR a message that I want to be associated with? 

 

Now, this is where it gets tricky around instinct, and going with my gut.

 

Do I share this with our sales and marketing team?  Do I tell them about this interesting feedback, and compelling reason on why we closed this deal?

 

Will I become a distraction if our sales staff is out there pounding the payment, getting decent traction, (you could always be doing better) will I --  HELP our HURT what’s happening with our teams…..?

 

Will I confuse people?  

 

I’ve chosen to confuse.   I will err on the side of sharing. 

 

Trends, things I see in the marketplace, and feedback I get from customers NEED to be shared immediately.  They have become part of the culture.   They are part of our fabric .  It has helped us refine and define our products.  I’m hoping it is part of our secret sauce of success.  

 

Compartmentalized ideas, are like cold eggs.  They look good, but if no one eats them – they just sit there. 

 

I want to share with our team that the “unlimited budget days” are back.  Each of them, will get calls --- and I want them to NOT waste their time on them.

 

But, I won’t. 

 

Some things they need to learn on their own.  Some trends need to be picked up by individuals, rather than groups.

 

In 2007 Mark Zuckerberg turned down $1 Billion from Yahoo.  His company is now reportedly worth $35 billion.

 

A few weeks ago Groupon turned down between $5-6 Billon from Google.   Many of my friends said, “I can’t believe that Groupon turned down that deal, are they stupid?”  

 

My response was, “They (Groupon) have less than 1% market penetration and will do between $1-2 Billion in revenue this year, Google would have gotten a steal at $6 Billion – as that is 2-3X revenue…”

 

Cliff Lee turns down the Yankees, and a larger contract to play for the Phillies. 

 

In our business, our international revenue is taking off.   We are going to do more revenue overseas in Q4, than we have done in the first 3 quarters of 2010 combined, for our international business.  (not domestic)

 

Some trends are obvious, some are in the public eye – but, some need to be pieced together, like the improvisational weaving of a Turkish carpet.

 

And, I’m riding this carpet into 2011……with a smile.

Riffing on Distance, Part One

 

"Friendship is the diminishing of space between people."

I love that sentence.  It is a money quote from a book I just finished.  Its from Keith Richards, in his autobiography, "Life." He was talking about his various relationships with his band mates. 

I've done a poor job at maintaining good friends, and strong friendships.  My last 10 years of life, have been a collection of amazing experiences in the sphere of company building, and living comfortably with my immediate family. 

The sacrifice has been at the expense of the collection and bonding with my friends,  both old and new. 

"You are a mile wide, and an inch deep."

Yes I am.  When it comes to connections and acquaintances (and even family) I've failed miserably at the game of maintenance......and for that I cannot apologize.  I can commit to change, but it was a conscious choice that I made.

When does it change?

It changes now. 

Gratitude is defined as the "The state of being grateful; thankfulness."

Our company (Lotame) is filled with GREAT people.  We've got scientists, comedians, bar owners, fantasy football commissioners, ski patrol members, wine experts, accomplished playrights, cave divers, and MANY musicians, among our team...... 

I am constantly amazed by the sheer talent, and true passion that people around each of us possess, and we may not even be aware of it.   I think my term, and commitment to change - is around 2 key phrases, "awareness and gratitude."

Going back in time and repairing some friendships that I may have damaged in the past is not in the cards for me at this time.  It's a job that I will have to wait to do. (and maybe write a book about it, the way that Walter Green has done,  its called "This is the Moment"  -- and I'm reading it now.)

Walter's book is described this way:

This transformative work is about to take you on one man’s extraordinary journey of gratitude. Over the course of a year, Walter Green traveled throughout the United States (and even abroad) to visit 44 of the people who have significantly impacted his life at various stages—be it as a young man trying to find his way in the world, a businessman building his career and family, or a man who sold his company and found new meaning in mentoring and philanthropy. During these visits, Walter conveyed his profound gratitude in a purposeful and explicit way. He wanted to tell these men and women how much they mattered to him before anyone’s health or life was compromised and the opportunity was missed.

In this inspirational gem of a book, not only will you accompany Walter on his gratitude journey, but you’ll also find yourself greatly moved by all that resulted from these powerful encounters. And as you read, you’ll acquire the tools to create meaningful conversations with your own “road-changers,” no matter what your age or life circumstance. These individuals could be family members, friends, teachers, colleagues, counselors, or any number of others who have influenced you. Your expressions of appreciation will undoubtedly enrich your relationships with them . . . and will provide you with amazing insights into your own life as well.

I am reading this book now.....and completely in awe of Walter.  He inspired this concept for me -- of going public with my "friendship deficit disorder" - as a way of communicating what I WILL change........the question is when?

This past year, we lost my father in law.  John Klauber.  John was an enormous figure in my life, (and the lives of his wife, 3 daughters and 7 grandchildren).....

I never got to adequately tell him, just how much he meant to me.....and how I respected his accomplishments, his commitment to service --- and, his life.

He was my father-in law, and my friend. 

So, from time to time I will digress on this blog, and do a personal deep dive, or someone close to me....a friend, a co-worker, or a client.   I will archive my relationship with them, and let them "riff" on their uniqueness, in this world of vanilla ice cream......and Disney channel sameness.

I will try my best to diminish the space between me, and some key people.....and might even do it on this blog.

Rock on.

 

 

 

 

 

The Space Between Me

"So, when are you going to blog again?"

My tepid response, "I'm overwhelmed, simply put -- I'm lazy, and I never know what to write.....what to share, and what NOT to share."

"Just be yourself..."

"Ok, I will try, but first - I should lay out what I feel I would like the blog to evolve into....and SHARE."

You see, blogging is awesome.  It is a release.  It allows you to "yell into a canyon."  When constraints are removed, (and you feel like you can write about nearly anything important to you, without ramifications or backlash by peers, clients, or acquaintances) it is the equivalent of a therapeutic, "brain massage."

But, it is also HARD WORK.

I have friends (like Fred Wilson) who blog every day.  They pour their hearts out, and share wisdom and knowledge beyond anything I could ever imagine. 

I'm not that smart.  I can't write about the inner workings of much.....

I can share my thoughts on:

1) building a company

2) people

3) my passion in photography 

4) challenges to a business- and wins

5) pricing products and scaling a company 

6) identifying things I see that are RIGHT, and WRONG

#6 gets me in trouble.  I'm not shy.  But, opinions can get people in trouble, and alienate, and damage relationships.

In an effort to protect my company,  and protect people who have put their trust in me, I choose to do much less of #6 - and much more of #1-5.

So, here goes....and, thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

The Evolution of Our Business at Lotame

Lotame Goes Beyond Targeting

When we started Lotame a few years ago, our objective was to help publishers, agencies and marketers make sense of a seismic shift that was taking place in the way that all of us consume media. No longer were we passive consumers, merely being entertained by content—advances in technology (as well as other factors) made it so that we WERE the content.

This was an eye opening time for me and the rest of my founding team at Lotame.

We went to market with our proprietary technology, Crowd Control.

The idea was that we would revolutionize the ad network model by adding a layer of “social data” (this is how we refer to the data garnered from the various behaviors we anonymously track in social networks) on top of current audience segmentation models.

Our approach proved to be very successful.

As we were serving billions of impressions for our clients and partners we realized something; many of the advertisers that we worked with were just as interested in the data coming out of campaigns, as the clicks that were coming from the campaigns.

This was an “ah-ha” moment for me, and over time Lotame began to expand its offerings beyond what we had originally set out to do. My gut was telling me, the more value we can provide for our clients, the more we can move beyond what anyone else was doing in the space.

The more agencies and publishers became enamored with our ability help them learn about their audience, the more we sought to provide tools to help them do so. We even went to so far as to form strategic partnerships with various companies that could provide deeper insights for our clients. On a parallel path, we begin to partner with rich media vendors that could help our clients provide unique experiences within social networks. In no way were we gunning to becoming a creative shop; we just wanted to provide our clients with whatever it took to achieve success.

I began to the see the nature of our company shaping up to look something like this:

Lotame was becoming a true platform for agencies, publishers and marketers. A platform that went beyond what our competitors were currently doing. We felt we kept going beyond what the industry expected from a company that once focused on targeting audiences in social spaces. The word “beyond” seemed to come up so often in reference to the way we worked, we decided to make it our war cry, “Beyond Targeting”.

Since we introduced the notion of Beyond Targeting, people have been asking me what it means --  and I have to be honest; Due to my improvisational nature (hat tip to Jerome Garcia) I  found myself responding differently to the question each time – “What is BEYOND TARGETING after all?"

The fact is, we started as a company that focused on one thing -- and managed to put together a team with so much heart, and so much talent -- that we always seem to go beyond what is expected.

 

*We went beyond targeting by providing clients actionable consumer insights.

*We went beyond targeting when we decided to help our clients deliver appropriate messages in social spaces.

*We went beyond targeting when we created a platform that allows our agency partners to build custom audiences.

So long as I am at the helm of this company, going beyond the expectations of our clients - will be the rule, not the exception.

It is true that Lotame is a company rooted in technology but we have grown to be so much more. We have grown into an advertising platform, a trusted partner for publishers, and an extension of both agency and marketing teams.

Our ability to go beyond is what really makes Lotame successful. I would like to thank my team, my family, and all of our wonderful partners and clients—we could not have gone beyond targeting without you.

 

Our mission statement at Lotame is quite simple. 

“To continuously challenge the conventional wisdom of the world of advertising (catalyzing it’s evolution) through technology, innovation, creativity, and PASSION.”

Rock on. 

Andy Monfried