Setting up a programmatic buying strategy is proving to be complex and often involves multiple parties, making it tough for brands to grasp all the activities running in the background.

Singapore pay TV operator and broadband services provider, StarHub, is calling for more transparency in the market so marketers can have a clearer view of what is happening behind each bid.

In this joint Q&A with ExchangeWire, Oliver Chong, StarHub's assistant vice president of brand and marketing communications, and Germaine Ng Ferguson, StarHub's general manager for integrated solutions and analysis, also highlight the need for a common standard to facilitate cross-device attribution and solutions to address limitations in cookie-based audience data.

ExchangeWire: StarHub has a growing programmatic budget. Can you explain how and where you use programmatic in the organisation?

Oliver Chong: Most organisations do see the need to shift towards digital. Programmatic is just one of the many platforms we use as part of our digital engagement today. Programmatic is broadly used across the company's effort towards being more effective in our digital engagement, and we focus our programmatic activities around our performance marketing activities.

StarHub's Oliver Chong

What are some key benefits you've gained from programmatic?

Chong: Like all digital marketers, with the implementation of programmatic comes a huge repository of data, and this is a gold mine if marketers know how to use the data to their benefit. From profiling to retargeting efforts, the data provides insights that are meaningful and that add a level of precision when we engage in the digital space.

Conversely, what have been some disappointments and challenges you've experienced and are still experiencing with programmatic?

Chong: There is a lack of transparency. Programmatic can be a very complex setup and because of the complexity, as well as the number of different parties involved, it can be challenging for marketers to have a very clear and transparent view of the actual activities that go behind each bid.

As a marketer, what gaps do you see in the industry today that you would like addressed so your digital marketing strategy can be better supported?

Chong: From our experience, cross-device attribution is an area that we would like addressed. Today's consumers carry multiple devices, operate from different spaces, and engage with the brand on all these platforms. While there are some beta initiatives happening now on potential cross-device attribution, we would like to see a standard that can be used by the whole industry, so that learning can be shared.

StarHub's Germaine Ng Ferguson

How do you decide what kind of internal ad tech capabilities you think your organisation should build, rather than outsource to an agency or vendor?

Germaine Ng Ferguson: Protection of customers' data privacy, customer and marketing needs, as well as the involvement of complex technology infrastructure influence our decision on what we need to build internally. As an infocommunications company, we have various big data streams, including Return Path Data from TV set-top boxes, as well as mobile and broadband network data, that are collected and integrated with our customer database.

Such data is anonymised in a safe environment within an offline DMP before integration with ad tech vendors.

What opportunities, as well as challenges, have the DMPs brought about for StarHub?

Ng: Both our offline and online DMPs power StarHub's Smart Targeting solution. They provide us with a better understanding of our customers in delivering a better customer experience and relevant products, due to the in-depth insights generated. They also give us the ability to perform smarter, integrated audience targeting for our in-house marketing team and third-party advertisers.

With the speed at which digital ad tech is evolving, though, the challenge lies in keeping up with enhancing our DMPs with new technologies.

How else are you looking to improve your DMP?

Ng: We are countering the limitation of cookie-based audience syncing and collaboration with second- and third-party data for a more comprehensive end-to-end and cross-device attribution.

Apart from being a marketer, StarHub itself is a publisher. What are some key challenges it faces as a content provider, and how are you working to resolve these?

Ng: Customer experience is key for StarHub. Thus, balancing customer experience and digital ad monetisation is an art. Relying on multiple data sources helps us to understand when an experience is optimised, and not compromised, and this becomes vital. We also work with ad tech partners to allow us to maximise our advertising business through audience targeting, instead of heavily relying on our own content assets.

What ad tech capabilities do you hope to gain to better serve brands looking to tap StarHub's TV audience?

Ng: It would be good to be able to counter the limitation of cookie-based audience syncing and collaboration with second- and third-party data for a more comprehensive end-to-end and cross-device attribution.