How Direct CTV Buys Become Programmatic Winners | David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising

Why CTV Still Feels Untrackable

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 0:44

We hear it all the time. Connected TV is the ultimate performance channel, that TV connected to the internet hanging on our living room walls. So, why are so many direct publisher buys still operating as untrackable black boxes? What actually happens to conversion rates when you give legacy TV networks the real-time feedback loops they need to optimize a campaign? On today's conversation, I sit down with David Nyurenberg, SVP of Digital at Intermedia Advertising. David takes us behind the scenes of three massive CTV projects that just scored not one, not two, not three, not four, but five finalist nominations at the upcoming Ad Exchanger Awards at Programmatic I.O. next Monday, September 28th in New York City. We discussed how closing the conversion loop with publishers like Tubi, NBCU, and Paramount turned direct buys into top performing tactics, how to pull off show-level CTV targeting without violating privacy, and why advertising against positive that is good local news is great for your bottom line. Make sure you subscribe to catch all of our weekly streaming media insights. Let's get right into the episode. David, I'm excited to talk about five distinct finalist nominations at the Ad Exchanger Awards coming up just next week at programmatic I.O. The gala is on the 28th. We're here talking, it's September 22nd, so just a few days away. Three projects, five finalists, and I want to unpack those, but maybe to set the stage. Who is InterMedia and what problem do you guys solve?

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 2:34

Always excited and happy to chat with you. So thanks for having me on. Uh two just little self-promotion year. In addition to the awards next week at Prog.IO, I'll also be speaking

Intermedia And Enforcing Supply Standards

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 2:46

at Prog.IO with my good friend Gary Guarnaccia, head of Ad Tech at Bayer. And we'll be uh talking about how a brand can run a best in class media practice with supply standards and also actually enforce those supply standards, ensure that their vendors are held accountable and that they don't pay for impressions that don't meet their quality standards. So me and Gary will go into what brands can do on that front.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 3:15

So can't miss. Make sure you're there. That's gonna be awesome. Gary, I've seen Gary speak, and obviously yourself, David. So that's gonna be uh an insightful session for sure.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 3:25

Uh I appreciate you giving me uh my self-promotion time, but let's let's chat. Let's uh let's get into it.

Direct Publisher Buys With Conversion Feedback

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 3:32

Yeah, let's do it. Let's break these down. So we're talking about three projects, five finalist uh award nominations here. Let's talk about the first project, which was direct publisher conversion optimization. You worked with Tubi, MBCU, and Paramount on this project. What was the problem? What were we trying to solve?

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 3:53

Yeah, absolutely. So in the CTV space, right, there's multiple ways to buy inventory. Obviously, you can buy programmatically through a DSP, you can buy and you can buy direct to pub. More advertisers buy direct to pub in the CTV space than I think the industry realizes for a variety of different reasons. One is efficiency, you get better rates when you go directly to the publisher, you're able to cut out middleman fees, tech fees. Additionally, many upfront buys are bought directly, obviously, and CTV is a big channel that is bought upfront. And then, in addition to all that as well, agencies have JBPs directly with the publisher, so they need to hit spend commitments. And for sure, I'd say when compared to uh displayed online video, CTV definitely has a more share of direct activations, also because there's so many less publishers to worry about. When you only have five to ten major CTV pubs to worry about, it is a lot easier to run a clean direct-to-pub campaign. And for many brands and agencies, it's not one or the other, but it it's it's it's a combo of both, uh making use of both. But of course, the challenge with direct buys where programmatic kind of has an advantage is in the measurement and optimization side of things, right? Usually measurement is owned by the brand, by the client, and the publisher has no visibility into what works and what isn't uh working from a conversion perspective. What slices of their inventory is actually driving performance, they don't have any of those inputs. So they can't optimize the media buys. So those direct buys are what I like to call dumb buys, right? They either work or they don't. It's a roll of the dice. And in CTB, especially, performance is so tricky. It's very challenging for a variety of reasons we won't get into here, but measurement and all and all that stuff in that area, it's expensive, right? So, like if it's the CPMs are not low. So you're gonna spend that money, it needs to perform. So not having that performance feedback loop in a direct buy often leads to, again, a flip of a coin of whether that direct buy will work or not. The challenge here was like, how do we close the loop? And that was the name of the case study, closing the loop. How do we close the loop from the publisher's side so that the publishers can actually measure performance against their media and then optimize their media directly without the need of an InterMediary layer, right?

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 6:29

So they're able to tell a better story to the advertiser. Hey, you bought this inventory directly from us as you have been for years, because that gives you the first pass at the best stuff. And here is how it's performed. Maybe that's been a trade-off too programmatic over the past few years of, hey, well, I don't have insight into how it performed, so I'm gonna activate programmatically because I'm able to create that feedback loop. This project specifically, you're able to now have that same feedback loop on a direct buy.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 7:03

Well, there's I think there's a few factors coming into play here. So, like historically, direct buys, right? They were measured on a reach objective, right? And you know, you would get your reach recording from the publisher, or you know, you would use a third party like Nielsen that both were aligned with. And that was it. Like reach is something that both sides could align on. You don't need to necessarily have advanced measurement for that. But the industry now is in love with outcomes, right? Everything's outcome this, outcome that.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 7:35

Tell me that it sold me something.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 7:37

Exactly. That DTC mid-market brand has become very attractive for many publishers and CTV companies, and they're going after them. And those brands demand performance. They measure everything based on sales, ROS, CPA, right? So for these CTV publishers, it's existential. How do we win money from you know the metas and the googles of the world and get all these advertisers who are now interested in CTV because CTV is the hot new channel, right? They're starting to invest in it. But like, how do we drive performance product? So, in all three cases, these are all relatively new products, all in beta, not publicized at the point of when we started working with them. In the case of NBC, we were the very first performance advertiser around whom they built their performance product around. So that was exciting. So we we literally helped these three publishers craft the future of their performance products, which I'm very proud of being able to uh play a small role in that. And in actual implementation, scope of implementation, it's actually not that complicated. They place the, they all have their own pixels, they place pixels on the site, and they're able to tie their media against the pixel based measurement. And that's really that. So it's like it's new in that these publishers are finally embracing and figuring out a way to meet the market in the moment, right? Meet the advertisers where they are and what they want. But the way they're doing it is still familiar and works with standard workflows of what we do, which you know, placing pixels is a standard part of the job. And I have my own spiel on pixels and why they're not the ideal way to measure CTV and outcomes and why we should probably move away from solely relying on pixels, but you know, we gotta start somewhere in this case.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 9:24

So we're gonna have to do a part two. We'll get that.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 9:28

We will have a whole measurement one. But you know, the great as you know, Sherry, on top of all this, was in a on a really big buy for a really big client with pretty much every single major publisher running, those three publisher tactics were the best performing tactics from a performance perspective across the entire buy.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 9:48

Wow. So it worked big advertiser, direct deals with these publishers. And what we found was that Tubi, MBCU, and Paramount performed best across the buy.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 10:03

Uh those tactics for those publishers, because those specific tactics were the only ones where that conversion loop was closed and the publishers and could optimize off of that. So, I mean, it just makes sense. It's a good incentive. But it just makes sense. Yeah. Like obviously, performance will be better when the publishers get the necessary signals and intelligence and data to be able to improve the buys, right? So CPMs were also efficient, right? Because of the dread by nature. We got performance, again, top performing tactics. So I'm excited. In all three instances, the hypothesis was proven out and the performance was seen.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 10:43

That project is a finalist for the best use of AI or technology by an agency, and also best use of data by an agency. Let's talk about the second project, which addressed go ahead.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 10:57

What really excites me is that legacy big network publishers are evolving their products and try at least trying to compete with the Googles and Meadows of the world and survive, right? And just it just goes to show that like I think there's something to say about the nature of how everything's gonna be a wall garden for the most part soon. Like they all have their own closed measurement ecosystems. These publishers already kind of operate like wall guardians in many ways. I think we're just gonna see that type of shift continue.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 11:28

Does does the solution that you just described, does that approach solve for that? Is is that ultimately the solution?

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 11:36

So, like in general, the big challenge with CTV, and I've only worked with performance advertisers for the past six years of my time in the CTV space. You get limited signals to optimize off of because every publisher is operates differently and shares out different levels of signals, right? There's not there's no form of standardization in that sense. And as a result, driving performance is hard. So, like consistently driving performance for advertisers in CTV, we want to talk about how CTV is a performance channel that's more spin and narrative than reality. We're all struggling behind the scenes over here, trying to get it done because advertisers have this perspective now and perception that CTV can be like Meta and Google, and it could drive performance just like those channels. And it's just not true. There's the dynamics are completely different, and the human mindset when they're interacting with those channels is also completely different. So, like, I'm excited because ultimately we need more efficient CTV pricing, we need more intelligent optimization from the publisher side. There's a lot of room to reduce middleman fees that don't ultimately drive value. So anything that gets the publishers to be smarter and better, I'm a fair.

Privacy Safe Show Level Optimization At Scale

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 12:50

So this one was the privacy-safe show level buying and optimization with Pier 39 and Pontiac Intelligence, a finalist for most innovative use of CTV technology and most innovative marketing campaign. Tell us about this one.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 13:05

So this project I've actually very proud of because I've been banging the drum when it comes to show level transparency for years now. I truly believe the lack of show level transparency holds our channel back from truly driving performance because how can you drive performance if you can't understand the content that drives performance and then buy more of that, right? So it's been a big gap. So it's one that I've been keen to try and solve for a couple years ago. Actually, this was what the first my first Ad Exchanger award was for. I developed the backdoor with Graystone and Pontiat into getting show level data by essentially four VMVPDs, which are linear broadcast streams ultimately, so it's it's a linear cable stream.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 13:54

Taking the metadata YouTube TV, that sort of thing.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 13:58

Yeah, yeah. So taking the metadata of the impression pre-bit of the zip code, the time of the day, the channel, and the network, because at least those guys they do share the channel now or slash network. But by matching up the channel network, zip code, and time of day, and then matching that back to a Graystown airings table of shows, basically TV guide, like we could deduce what the show was and then bid into that, right? That was good. It drove performance because what we did was we matched up the shows we knew worked well for us on the linear side and just bought those on CTV. And sure enough, they work great. It works on linear, it's gonna work on CTV, it's the same viewing experience. But the scale was limited, right? So, like you couldn't really scale this. The reason why the Pier 39 work excites me so much is because it hits scale, it relies on Pier 39's content ID, which they integrate directly with publishers, and they assign their unique content ID to the publishers that shows that's that's something that they just do as a service, right? The use case for that service generally has been more so for standardization, reporting, and and stuff like that. But I saw a use case for it of if we could just tie the random ID to outcomes, then we at least have a conversion signal to optimize. Like we don't know the name of the show because it's just a random ID. But you know what? I'm willing to give that up. I'm willing to give up the name of the show if I could at least just have an identifier to tie conversions to that could I could go after and buy more of to drive better performance.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 15:43

I don't know what it is, but I know it's this SKU, for example, and I know it drives conversions, so let me buy more of it.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 15:51

Right. That's exactly and like in the performance game, we definitely care where we're what we're buying and where we're delivering, for sure. But when it comes to the traditional reasons for why people care, like brand safety and stuff like that, that's much less of a concern. If it's good inventory that's real and it converts, we're gonna go after it and buy it because our job at the end of the day is to drive sales. So that's it. But we're gonna do what it takes to drive sales. So that was the trade-off, and sure enough, I needed Pier 39 to integrate with my buying platform. And naturally, when it comes to buying platforms that are flexible, provide you with engineering support, and work with you, not against you. No one's better than Pontiac and the engineering team led by Eric over there. So they work with Pier 39, they love the idea. They work with Pure 39 to integrate Pier 39 into their fire hose, into the data flow. And now the content ID would be would come through in the bitstream when an impression would come through for a publisher that Pier 39 was already integrated with, right? So the content ID would come through in the mobile data against that impression. But then we were able to tie conversions to those content IDs and then point the algo to go after that content IDs that overindex were conversions. And sure enough, that scaled and drove great performance.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 17:13

So

Positive News Outperforms With Contextual AI

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 17:13

I'm seeing a theme here: closing the loop. Closing the loop, better signal, making smarter decisions. The last project, a finalist for best use of technology by a publisher or media seller. This one you partnered with Spectrum Reach and Anokey AI. Good news is good for business. Tell us about that.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 17:36

Yeah, so this is another fun one. It's always vexed me that news, like the way we treat news, right? Like in the performance space, we as the HC, we buy tons of news. Like our advertisers love news because it is efficient and it performs. People that are watching news are tuned in and they typically tend to be older, and they typically tend to have money.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 17:59

How about that? So they're buying right an engaged audience with disposable income.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 18:05

Got it. So, and we buy news of all spectrums. Ultimately, we go where the audience is, right? But in this case, right, many advertisers still don't want to buy news, uh, especially on CTV, because it's much harder to restrict it for brand safety, right? Because in a display online video con world, you have keywords that you can use to deduce brand safety. In CTV, you don't have that. It's all moving sound and image, right? Well, enter a Nokia and their AI technology, they're able to identify the context of what's on the screen. And in this case, the implementation was can we segment news into two categories? News that's more, you know, brand safe, positive. Stuff like, you know, there's a you know Girl Scout cookie sale in your local neighborhood. Always good news. Always always good news. And then let's just say non-brass stuff that would be considered non-brand safe, like stuff on wars or stuff like stuff on wars.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 19:08

Negative stuff.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 19:09

Yeah, negative stuff, exactly. But at the same time, we still wanted to buy the negative stuff. But what we wanted to know is which performs better. Does the positive news perform better? Or does the negative news perform better? Sure enough, we we set up a scientific cast, split everything evenly, had a control line as well that was just all news together, like everything bundled together, audiences were deduplicated, and sure enough, the good news outperformed both the everything line and the bad news line. Wow. Cost per lead perspective. Ultimately it all performed, but positive news sentiment overperformed, which just again goes to show like you should be on news. And if you do have brand safety concerns with news, then there are now emerging solutions that can allow you to be on news in a way that aligns with your brand safety policy.

Where To Follow And Final Ask

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 20:10

David, thanks for taking us through three great projects. The winners will be unveiled next Monday at the Ad Exchange or Awards Gala, September 28th, during programmatic I.O. in New York City. If folks want to learn more about the work that you and your team do at Intermedia or follow you, connect with you, you're active on social media. Where should they go?

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 20:31

Yeah, I mean, you could go to im.agenc or you could also follow me on LinkedIn.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 20:36

Excellent. We'll link to that. So it's close by. We are going to be rooting for you. We hope that uh you return a good showing next week. And thank you for walking us through these three great projects, David.

David Nyurenberg, SVP Digital at InterMedia Advertising 20:48

Thanks so much, and always a pleasure.

Tim Rowe, State of Streaming 20:50

Absolutely. If you found this conversation to be helpful, please share it with a colleague or a client and start a conversation yourself today. We'll see you all next time.