Big agencies are gambling

Big agencies own big accounts. BBDO has FedEx, and Havas has IBM. Because they are big, they are often behind ad technologies. To catch up, they create contests for ad tech startups. They are “winner takes it all” type of competitions: whoever has the best campaigns performance, wins, and they get to work with them. What happens is, these small startups rush their engineering team to work against the clock and ship quick and dirty solutions. Whatever it takes to show better results (lower CPMs or CPAs.) The best-performing startup wins because of luck, more than intelligence. They didn’t have the time and energy to build the right software that will enable them to process massive amounts of data and extract meaningful insights. “If I active this ad between 9 and midnight, on iPads, to people playing games, it is more likely I will have users that will love my app and engage with it for at least one year.” Instead of judging the ad tech startups based on their software foundation, they are choosing them based on luck. They are gambling. The best ad tech startups won’t give you the lowest CPM or CPA. They can ingest your marketing data, analyze it, drive conclusions and tell you what’s working and what’s not. The ad technologies don’t replace your ad creatives, your message and your brand’s reputation, which has the most significant impact on your results.