Jonathan Mendez’s Post

Great summary from Jonathan Mendez regarding the marketing ecosystem reset we are all trying to figure out.  Thought I would share with my network and pile on with some additional thoughts below… It’s about time that ad-tech and mar-tech come together.   They share the same customers and sell the same products after all.  Brands investing in retail media advertising should expect synergy with their in-store merchandising, pricing, and promotion marketing investments.  I think the shoppers expect more synergy and consistency too. Unfortunately, first-party customer data and media touchpoints are fragmenting at an unprecedented pace, sparked by consumer privacy demands and commercial financial motivations.  New data process silos are far outpacing consolidations.  More retailer and media walled gardens, each with unique data definitions and platforms.  Fewer universal ids and categorization standards to use as common denominators.  More media formats and targeting methods build (e.g. contextual, privacy sandbox, etc.).  Less direct data access and granular visibility.  A seemingly endless number of dots to connect and square pegs to plug into round holes.  Any ambitions to converge the ad-tech and mar-tech enterprise in a meaningful way must first figure out how to systemically link, map, and model data connections between this fragmented ecosystem and the brand advertiser’s command center.   I do not think the industry has fully come to grips with this fragmented wiring challenge, probably because it is still relatively new, and people are still in the middle of processes masking the complexities.  What will happen when we take away project funding, remove the people, ramp up the scale, and turn up the speed?   Surely any spaghetti wiring will spark and overheat.   This situation requires a marketing and advertising savvy ‘electrician’ who can proactively design data strategies, leverage master data management disciplines, and create data taxonomies that enable insights, learning, and actions to seamlessly flow bi-directionally between all your partners and platforms.   CDPs and their variants are likely part of the solution, but the challenge of connecting data and actions across several marketing platforms goes well beyond digital people and device ids.  Centrally orchestrating all your marketing activities across this massively fragmented ecosystem will require similar proactive management of disparate product identifiers, store numbers, media sites, content classifications, product categorizations, geographies, measurement metrics, etc. This is a pivotal time for our industry.  I believe the winners and losers will be determined by those who feel forced to mitigate these industry risks and those who seize these opportunities to make the marketing industry better.  

Great summary from Jonathan Mendez regarding the marketing ecosystem reset we are all trying to figure out.  Thought I would share with my network and pile on with some additional thoughts below… It’s about time that ad-tech and mar-tech come together.   They share the same customers and sell the same products after all.  Brands investing in retail media advertising should expect synergy with their in-store merchandising, pricing, and promotion marketing investments.  I think the shoppers expect more synergy and consistency too. Unfortunately, first-party customer data and media touchpoints are fragmenting at an unprecedented pace, sparked by consumer privacy demands and commercial financial motivations.  New data process silos are far outpacing consolidations.  More retailer and media walled gardens, each with unique data definitions and platforms.  Fewer universal ids and categorization standards to use as common denominators.  More media formats and targeting methods build (e.g. contextual, privacy sandbox, etc.).  Less direct data access and granular visibility.  A seemingly endless number of dots to connect and square pegs to plug into round holes.  Any ambitions to converge the ad-tech and mar-tech enterprise in a meaningful way must first figure out how to systemically link, map, and model data connections between this fragmented ecosystem and the brand advertiser’s command center.   I do not think the industry has fully come to grips with this fragmented wiring challenge, probably because it is still relatively new, and people are still in the middle of processes masking the complexities.  What will happen when we take away project funding, remove the people,

Cloud investment in AdTech has been a big topic for a while now, but 2023 was when most in the industry took the most substantial steps in digital transformation. If we learned anything this year it's that cloud costs must be balanced with scaling value creation, otherwise, digital transformation ends up becoming severely limited by the scope of whatever the previous frameworks' limitations were. #AdTech #Innovation #DigitalTransformation

Check out the spectacular article on Cloud for Marketing trends for 2024 by James Hercher. "Interoperability" will be the buzzword of choice for the new year. In the coming era of attention to Privacy and 3PCD, brands, data providers and platforms better be able to speak the language of cloud connections. Composable CDPs, anyone? https://lnkd.in/g_s__7Q5

NEWS: Viant data is now accessible as a service in Google Cloud Data Clean Room environments. This integration allows for the transfer of privacy-safe, first-party data from Google Cloud to the Viant Data Platform, improving targeting and measurement in our DSP. Read more about it below! #googlecloud #googlecloudpartners

A staggering 28% of the overall cloud expenses are wasted. Take control of your cloud spend today with Impetus’ AI-powered Cloud Cost Optimizer. Get in touch with us to reduce your overall cloud expenses by up to 40%. Know more: https://bit.ly/3QAyAl2 #CloudCostOptimizer #CloudInvestment #FinOps #DevOps

How do smaller companies compete with large corporations, especially when it comes to marketing? For many businesses, it all comes down to the tech you deploy and implement. During 2023, we saw companies flocking to the idea of cloud computing to support their advertising campaigns. Why? Because of an increase in privacy, AI, and the deification of data clean rooms. #AdTech #CloudComputing

ICYMI: Privacy Sandbox testing reveals challenges for publishers in a cookieless future: Privacy Sandbox testing by Index Exchange reveals challenges for publishers in a cookieless future, including reduced revenue, limited format support, and potential bias towards large cloud providers.

Monitor, track, and optimize cloud costs across multiple platforms with Impetus’ AI-powered cloud cost optimization solution. Get out-of-the-box insights and intelligent analytics on cloud usage across teams, accounts, and business units – all in one place. Learn more: https://bit.ly/45ENdJa #CloudCostOptimization #CloudInvestment #FinOps #CloudEconomics 

Privacy Sandbox testing reveals challenges for publishers in a cookieless future: Privacy Sandbox testing by Index Exchange reveals challenges for publishers in a cookieless future, including reduced revenue, limited format support, and potential bias towards large cloud providers.