Guardian’s global revenue chief Tim Gentry outlines future of programmatic ahead of The Drum Digital Trading Awards

The main challenge facing programmatic is one of marketer trust. The WFA stated that 85 per cent of chief marketing officers have concerns about where their ads are appearing and ComScore estimates that around 30 per cent of online ads go unseen by consumers.

Marketers need to be sure they know what they are buying, and more work needs to happen to ensure this transparency – especially on impressions sold on open exchanges. Recent steps by AppNexus and others to combat this are to be applauded, but a solution to this problem – delivering quality and trust at scale – is what we need.

To what extent has transparency improved in the value chain over the past year?

The significant improvement has been in the transparency of debate, but non-disclosed models predominate and there’s still a divergent range of opinion regarding the circumstances in which they are more appropriate.

What could marketers be doing better to maximise on their programmatic investments?

Ensure the metrics that are being optimised to genuinely reflect business criteria. Marketers need to focus on the long term health of the brand, not just the short term return. By working more closely with premium programmatic environments they will be in a position to use the data to inform stronger programmatic and advertising strategies.

What’s the next big thing in programmatic trading?

I think we’ll see more collaboration and focus on the underlying drivers of premium value.

With direct response budgets becoming tapped out, to what extent can the progress in (linear) TV programmatic trading help shift brand budget into programmatic?

Diversity of programmatic media is one thing, with out of home and TV both making strides, but the key differentiator will be trusted availability of quality environments that brands need at scale.

To what extend should publishers pool their programmatic platforms to achieve greater scale for premium private marketplaces? What opportunities could be created?

Successful propositions in this space will need to provide genuine differentiation and be far more than aggregation.

How much progress has programmatic trading made in shedding its image of ‘remnant, cheap’ inventory?

Premium publishers have been leading the way in developing programmatic as more than just a ‘cherry-picking’ cheap inventory option. They know their audiences well and the data helps inform intelligent strategies. There is still a way to go for the industry as a whole, but at the Guardian we have been able to demonstrate the value of our progressive audience to both long and short term objectives in our case studies. This all goes to help programmatic shed that image – particularly with premium publishers.

What are the remaining barriers to marketers adopting programmatic trading?

I think the main barriers are trust and transparency for the industry as a whole – resolution of these issues will allow us to integrate trading methodologies into a holistic solution, and move our focus on from the technology to the benefit.

What are the next wave of opportunities programmatic trading can provide in the overall marketing landscape?

We’ll see programmatic evolving from real-time bidding to also deliver guaranteed volume fixed rate campaigns for those advertisers who see value in our audience and want to maintain a certain share of the voice on the Guardian. The role of auction-based models in these markets will become more about managing future positions on scarce resource than short term ‘cherry-picking’ and yield reduction.

What will you be looking for from entries during the judging stages?

Bravery, boldness, vision, entrepreneurship and integrity.

How did you get into digital trading/advertising industry?

I've been fortunate enough to spend the majority of my career at the Guardian, and old enough to have been in the industry exactly as long as the banner ad. These two things combined mean I've had the opportunity to be at the forefront of each and every wave of digital change in our business.

The deadline for The Drum Digital Trading Awards, in association with AppNexus, is 13 February.