How important is a DMP in managing and leveraging data for automated display buys? Is it a necessary piece of the buy-side stack? One of the vendors offering a DMP solution in Europe is Lotame. ExchangeWire spoke to Chris Stark, Managing Director, Lotame UK, about the Lotame offering in Europe and the key role the data management platform can play in automated buying.

Can you give an overview of the Lotame offering in Europe?

CS: We’ve launched Lotame (as in ‘say hello to me’) in Europe in response to the rising awareness of the potential value in online data. Our offering, CrowdControl, best fits in the category of a ‘Data Management Platform’: it is a cookie-based software-as-a-service that empowers users to easily extract and activate internal and 3rd party audience-related data sets. The value proposition goes beyond the basic function of advertising. Data is proliferating rapidly in this atmosphere of ‘data-driven-ness’ and we hope to help make audience data management just another part of doing business for both publishers and marketers.

How does the Lotame DMP help media buyers manage and leverage their data?

CS: Media buying reflects step three of a four-step process of an online campaign:

(1) Develop audience and creatives
(2) Find the audience on inventory
(3) Decisioning / media buy
(4) Result

If we assume that inventory were unlimited then audience parameters are boundaries that define the inventory to purchase. In other words, audience is a key lever in the buy---even in the real world of finite/segmented inventory sources. ‘Spray-and-pray’ tactics are, I think, a manifestation of the dearth of data (and lack of transparency). As a healthy base of data emerges, the audience component of the basic buy will see much more traction.

Marketers will always be looking for better return on spend. Testing and trialing of audience (and creative) combinations is already the norm in the RTB world and I think we’ll see the same with any direct buys that don’t occur via an exchange. Bespoke is not the antithesis of scale. Particularly in smaller markets, campaigns will be a blend of audience/creative combinations (consider that Optimisation is simply another kind of audience data).

For the buyers of media, audiences become a focal point of their buy transactions—and thus an area of investment even as inventory prices fall. Media buyers will need to be thinking about the efficiency and transparency of their data buys. Lotame’s CrowdControl helps maintain data in a relevant and manageable format and gives buyers the tools to easily build infinite bespoke audiences to continually build what works best.

Is a DMP more than just a souped-up data warehousing solution?

CS: I’ve spoken to a number of companies on both the supply and demand side who already sit on some pretty impressive data warehouse infrastructure and yet they have difficulty activating this data online. I’ve heard this referred to as the ‘last-mile of data’. A DMP could be viewed as a sort of front-end of a data warehouse with a focus on creating usable information from the back-end data and activating it through analytics, monetisation, and other outputs like content delivery or eCRM.

What differentiates your offering from other vendors with a DMP solution?

CS: It’s fair to say that no one is sure of the value of data. Even in the US, we’ve been able to see reasonably different pricing of data across a few aggregators. A simple example is the relative value of demographic data. In some instances, it has been priced higher than interest data. Through other providers, the reverse is true. Naturally the source of each bit of data affects its value (perceived or real). In some ways, this disparity among aggregators is indicative that the market has a way to go in determining data value. I think it also illustrates a more important point: the reality that there isn’t an ‘end-state’ where data of type A will be more valuable than type B in an absolute sense. Rather that value is going to be fluid and variable.

I believe the term ‘Cold Start’ has been aptly used to describe the atmosphere where all sides sit and watch--unsure how to proceed—simply because they don’t know the value of data (1st party or 3rd party). Transparency and control must be in the hands of the data owners and data buyers to test and evaluate and learn how much audiences are worth. We believe in empowering our clients to take control of the data around them and drive toward determining that value.

To that end, Lotame’s CrowdControl helps clients understand their audiences in their own vocabulary. Raw, declared (not panel) data can organised according to a taxonomy specific to the client. Transparency of data sources and data types, as well as out-of-the-box affinity reporting lets users discover more about each audience, in real-time. The DMP also needs to be part of a client’s internal workflows without being disruptive. Audience management, insight, and import/export are possible in just a few mouse-clicks, so exploration and value-development is easy. Lotame also provides access to its ‘Co-Op’ of data providers who have opted to share data publicly or via bespoke relationships.

Ultimately CrowdControl is meant to be able to stand alone and be integrated into client tools/workflows. What probably most strongly differentiates us is the capacity to support creation of private data co-ops. Automated and self-service onboarding tools let clients assemble their own network of partners/providers and extract, manage, and activate the resulting collection of data.

How important is it to have a scalable data infrastructure behind your DSP solution? And what role should the DMP play in this area?

CS: As I’ve already mentioned, audience will be a focus of investment in online advertising. A scramble to aggregate audience data has already begun in the US and we can read about its beginnings here in Europe now as well. Audience segments will be made available through numerous channels in an effort to monetise and more players will enter the market offering 1st and 3rd party data. In the exploration (and creation) of value, it will be compelling to see as many pieces of data as possible. I think that any buying entity will benefit not simply from a large supply of data, but from an adaptable, rationalised and transparent supply of data. This is where the DMP should play a key role.

How would a typical media buyer work with the Lotame DMP solution?

CS: There are a few approaches that may be relevant. In many cases, Lotame is already working w/ DSPs such as Invite to offer pre-packaged segments from our Co-op of publishers. At the next level, a buyer might elect to sign up w/ Lotame and have a login to view, build, and buy audiences created by them directly on the DMP---these would need to be shared via offerings like RMX’s Audience Sharing function or through an agreement with a DSP. At the highest level of integration, a buyer might import and manage its own data and purchased-3rd-party data directly in the tool.