Eyeota at ATS Singapore 2015

We had a blast at ATS Singapore on Monday, meeting the brightest minds in the ad tech business to chat about the latest trends and updates.

The morning started with the Women in Adtech breakfast panel hosted by ExchangeWire. The panel was moderated by Wendy Hogan, as panelists spoke about their experiences as a woman in adtech.

Kristina Prokop, Head of Operations & Co-Founder at Eyeota, second from left at the Women in Adtech breakfast panel.

Kristina Prokop, Head of Operations & Co-Founder at Eyeota, spoke about choosing environments where you have increased responsibilities and are able to expand your knowledge base.

She shared: “It is on our onus – not just as a woman - to build relationships in an international market. You need to building mutual respect and pick up the phone to build up key relationships with colleagues in other offices. It’s all about having a personal connection.”

The growth and promise of programmatic in APAC

Ciaran O’Kane, CEO and Rachel Smith, COO at ExchangeWire at the opening address of ATS Singapore.

Rachel Smith, COO at ExchangeWire, highlighted the findings of their latest website survey about the programmatic landscape in APAC.

The findings indicated that most respondents cited a lack of understanding, education and expertise as one of the major barriers to growth of programmatic.

While the market has grown hugely in APAC, there is still some way to go in terms of market maturity and tech readiness. 

Matt Harty, SVP, APAC at The Trade Desk.

Matt Harty, SVP, APAC at The Trade Desk spoke about the growth of programmatic in APAC – and how it makes up for a third of all digital advertising spend worldwide according to Emarketer.

He spoke about transparency as key to growing the programmatic industry, saying: “We want a free, open and transparent marketplace.”

Moderator Wendy Hogan with Janice Chan, Senior Director, Digital Marketing, Starwood; Germaine Ng Ferguson, General Manager, Integrated Solutions & Analysis, StarHub and Nicki Kenyon, VP Digital Marketing, APAC, Visa.

Marketers Janice Chan, Senior Director, Digital Marketing, Starwood; Germaine Ng Ferguson, General Manager, Integrated Solutions & Analysis, StarHub and Nicki Kenyon, VP Digital Marketing, APAC, Visa spoke about the digital marketing strategies in their respective businesses.

For Janice Chan at Starwood, a large portion of their budget is allocated to digital. There is a heavy focus on performance marketing with 80% of their budget dedicated to it, with 50% allocated to programmatic.

Nicki Kenyon from Visa shared that 40-50% of their budget was allocated to digital across the region – with programmatic taking up 0% in some markets, and 50% in others. This was testament to the wildly “disparate and diverse behaviour in Asia.”

Factoring in the uniqueness of each market

Kevin Tan, CEO at Eyeota, speaking as a panelist at The Application of Data in Programmatic at ATS Singapore.

Kevin Tan, CEO and Co-Founder at Eyeota, shared his thoughts on audience data as a panelist at The Application of Data in Programmatic.

Commenting on the need for the right data strategy, he said that audiences are different everywhere, and there is a need for marketers and media buyers to understand their local purchasing behavior.

“What we see across our business is that audiences are substantially different. Companies that take a one size fits all approach from a technology perspective are not taking into account what makes those audiences tick.”

There was some debate during the panel addressing the industry myth about third-party data versus first-party data.

As Tan explained: “A lot of data that was out there in the early stages of programmatic was not good quality data. Retargeting is not audience targeting. First-party data can be limiting and you need to augment it with good quality third-party data.

Summing it up, he added: “Third-party data is someone else’s first-party data.”