If you like Taking Inventory, do us a favor and give us a 5-star rating or review. It’s the best way to help support the podcast.
———
Jeffrey Mayer is the Managing Director, US, and Head of Product at DanAds, which is an industry leading provider of self-serve technology. They power fully automated, and white-labeled self-serve infrastructure that enables global media owners like Roku, Spotify, Paramount, Zillow, WSJ, and more to support advertisers interested in buying ad inventory through owned tools. During our conversation Jeffrey discusses the importance of self-service tools and their growth over the years, how publishers are using AI automation to drastically reduce costs, and the impact of ad platform fragmentation.
———
Connect with James and Daniel!
LinkedIn:
James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesborow/
Daniel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieldruger/
Twitter:
James: https://twitter.com/jamesborow
Daniel: https://twitter.com/ddruger
Subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.takinginventorypod.com/ and follow Taking Inventory on LinkedIn and Twitter!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Taking Inventory.
This week we've got Jeffrey Mayer, the head of product and
managing director at Dan Ads. He's here to talk to us about
what Dan Ads is, how it's helping publishers move to a
self-service ads environment, and talk about the proliferation
of self-service. Jeffrey, really excited to have
you on the pod today. Yeah.
Thanks for having me. Excited to speak with you guys
(00:22):
about it. Let's dive right in just to to
learn a little bit more about your background, your career
journey before we get into Dan Ads.
Yeah. So I guess this phase of my
career started in 2010 when I was in AD operations at
whitepage.com. That eventually led me to
becoming their Head of Programmatic.
(00:44):
And then after moving along fromthem, I went to Shazam and
SoundCloud, where I was also Head of Programmatic.
At each company. I've, you know, run the gamut
from direct sale, you know, direct media.
I'm running that strategic partnerships, brand
partnerships. And I also have some experience,
(01:04):
I'm working on SSP where I manage demand, partner strategy
and DSP integrations. Yeah.
So I kind of run the gamut in terms of my background in AD
tech and publishing. And in terms of, I guess maybe
just a level set for, for our listeners, can you kind of just,
you know, quickly kind of go over like what does Dan Ads do?
(01:25):
Like again, you know, I think toa lot of people in the industry,
it's sort of I think thought of as like if you want a
self-service tool, Dan Ads can basically build one for you.
Is that a a fair description? Would be great to kind of know
more about how you guys operate.Yeah, you know that that was the
the original product. So you know, Dan Ads at its core
is custom white label self-serveadvertising platform, but what
(01:48):
we really focus in on is the automation of delivering media
and that's through direct channel, not programmatic.
So when we think about programmatic being an RTB
mechanism of being in the bid stream, but what we're doing is
we're automating the delivery ofmedia through the ad server,
(02:08):
connecting all the pipes that publishers ad tech stack has.
So from the CRM to the OMS to the CMS system, we connect
everything on the ad server so that buyers can buy media
through our platform. And also publisher ad OPS teams
can utilize the platform for efficiencies in their own
(02:31):
workflow and sellers can use a platform for prospecting and
helping to manage their portfolio of clients or their
their media buys. And and are you guys the the AD
server or are you using an AD server in a lot of those cases?
Yeah. So we're not the ad server,
we're we're not making, we're not the decision engine.
(02:52):
So we are connecting into the publishers ad server or multiple
ad servers. So, you know, we can deliver
media, you know, across any ad format or media channels.
So it's not even ad serving thatwe connect into, but you know,
we support video display, audio,print media and non connected
(03:14):
products that are part of a media buy.
Interesting. And and along those lines, are
you guys also, once you set up the self-service tool for your,
your client, are you guys also an extension of the sales teams
or help with kind of go to market motions or is that you're
purely tech and kind of step away?
(03:36):
Yeah. But we are a technology company
and the fact that, you know, we're we're building this
platform on behalf of the publisher or, or the OR our
partner and they own the platform essentially it's their
platform, it's custom to them. They're responsible for, you
know, managing it in terms of like a go to market strategy.
But what we do is we help provide guidance in that, you
(03:57):
know, our client partnerships team works really closely with
our clients to help promote the platform.
You know what our best practicesare, what we've learned in the
past from other clients, what the strategies should be.
And each publisher that we work with is so unique because they
have different strategies. Some use our platforms strictly
(04:18):
as a small business advertising tool where small businesses can
go and book media, it's limited to a small budget.
Some publishers open our platform up to agencies and and
Holdenpowers in terms of their ability to book media through
the platform directly with the publisher.
Or some of our clients use it only as an internal OPS tool and
(04:41):
don't even expose it externally.So it's, you know, the
efficiency that they gain in AD operations and workflow that
that we help create. So a lot of different use case
for it. That's awesome.
And are you guys also and all these questions kind of come
just honestly from our experience at snap building the
self-service business there. So we're trying to think about
like kind of where like you guysstart and stop.
(05:04):
But are you guys are you guys also building like the bid
logic? Like if you know you want to
support like you know, second price auction and the goal is to
drive installs or video, are youguys building that as well on
behalf of the customer? Yeah, it's not so much that.
It's more like, let's say like you have a direct sold media
(05:25):
product which has, you know, you're buying on a campaign
basis, delivering a guaranteed amount of inventory.
So what we do is we build that order in our system and then we
push that order into the ad server.
So that becomes the campaign andall the line items that are
associated to it. So those deliver, you know, on a
(05:47):
standard, standard guaranteed tier, whichever the publisher
wants to put it on and it it delivers it in full.
On the programmatic side, we cansupport essentially programmatic
buying through the the interfaceas well where you could enter in
a bid and then instead of directing the order into the
(06:07):
publisher ad server, we're pushing that order into the
publishers DSP. So you know, essentially a buyer
can use it almost as like a self-serve DSP tool where
they're booking the media. We push it out into you know
anyone DSP that we integrate into and that could be an
audience extension by on top of what the publishers owned and
(06:29):
operated is. Yeah, Jeff, I I think looking at
The Client List on your website,which you guys are, you know,
very public about, you guys havesome really notable brands.
And I think some people may be even surprised to hear that like
they're using, they're partnering with a company like
like Dan Ads, I mean, Roku, for instance, Paramount Plus, which
was just announced in Spotify. And so how do you work with
(06:52):
maybe some of the larger scaled companies that also have in
house teams building, building similar tech?
And then, you know, maybe more of the traditional media like
The Wall Street Journal or New York Times that I don't think
anyone would be surprised that they're not building their own
self-service tool and and maybe partnering like, how do you work
with those types of companies differently?
So we, we really do have an amazing client base.
(07:14):
You know, that's one of our power houses.
And you know, we've been, you know, lucky in that they've seen
the, the true value and the, andthe true opportunity of what our
platform delivers. You know, there, there is a
difference between building a self-serve tool in house versus,
you know, working with a partnerlike us.
I think for one thing, if you'retrying to build it in house that
(07:35):
that's great. You know, you have a specific
use case for it, you figure it out, but you may not consider
some of the aspects of what needs to be implemented or
integrated into it. There's a lot of complexity
behind the the UI that controls all the aspects of the media by
and typically with an in house built platform, it launches
(07:57):
really great the first time and then there's no iteration on it.
There's no evolution of that platform and it's really
difficult for a lot of publishers to, you know, invest
in improving that that experience because they've kind
of locked in to where they've built.
What our platform offers is a lot more flexibility and
scalability. We have more component driven
(08:21):
pieces of our platform where thepublisher can select to use a
certain kind of a booking flow or you know, certain features
that we've built that they can'tbuild.
Like we've built our reporting into our platform, we've built a
creative manager into our platform, we've built the
billing aspect into our platformand connecting the pipe between
(08:44):
the sales force or other CRM system or you know another OMS
like we've made all those connection points.
So our platform out-of-the-box comes with 95% of what the
publisher would have built in house anyway.
So it's kind of a waste of theirdevelopment time and resources
(09:05):
to do it themselves when they own this platform anyway.
It is white label to them. Our name is really on it when we
deliver that end product. So when you're buying through
Roku, you're not going to see Dan Ads logo on there.
It's the Roku platform. The other benefit of what we
offer is we build features out of furious pace, really large
(09:27):
and really small features. And all those features are
provided to each one of our clients on our core platform.
So as I'm working on what I think is going to be a universal
solution in our UI that can thenbe delivered to each client
without having to ask us for custom development.
So we save a lot of time and resources there.
(09:49):
There are clients that do customdevelopment with us, but that's
a big part of the custom platform.
But at the end of the day, we'rereducing that dependency on
custom development by building these feature sets ourselves and
distributing them across our ourentire platform.
And you know, when you guys are out there in market kind of, you
(10:09):
know, pitching this, do you findlike again, we, we are like huge
proponents of self-service, kindof first self-service only if
you can get away with it. But do you find that, you know,
publishers are looking at it like this is an opportunity to
grow kind of more of like the tail and torso or this is an
(10:30):
opportunity for us to save on OpEx because it's more efficient
or a mix of both, like kind of where are we in the sort of
thought process right now of of most publishers?
Yeah, it it's, it's certainly been an evolution because, you
know, so if I take a step back when I was working at Shazam, we
had a lot of, you know, record labels that would send us, you
(10:52):
know, buys on the spot, you know, very small budgets, but
frequently promoting different artists.
So I needed a self-serve platform for that specific use
case. So that was specifically for our
record labels to buy media through Shazam and I onboarded
Dan Ads. So Dan Ads I was their first US
client in 2017 or whenever it was.
(11:15):
And, you know, the flexibility of what they built for me was
really unique, and the speed in which it was developed was
surprisingly fast for something that was custom.
So then after, you know, I left Shazam, I went to SoundCloud.
And then we had another use casefor it.
That was for artists to promote themselves by investing in their
(11:36):
own careers where they could promote a track on SoundCloud
and get more exposure, more plays, more fans.
So that was specifically that use case.
Some of our early adopter publishers were thinking this is
only a small business tool wherea small business would go in and
we get the long tail of ad spendwhen they would have an inbound
(11:58):
lead. And instead of doing the inbound
lead and we can't focus on it because it's too small of a
budget for our ad OPS team to manage it, just let them buy
through the self share platform.But that has completely
transitioned over the last couple years where our publisher
is seeing it as more of a business management tool for
their ad operations. So you could essentially put
(12:22):
100% of your advertising business into this platform and
operate it more efficiently thanyou could by going into five
different platforms to execute the same task.
Sellers can use our platform instead of being competing
against their jobs. It's a sales tool for them to
(12:42):
build proposals and to automate the the building of a media plan
that can be sent out to an advertiser for their approval.
And then they could book it right there or just buy it right
there through an invoice. So it's, it's really a tool set
that helps automate and create efficiencies and it it can be as
(13:06):
big as you want it. And that, I mean, that is
obviously there's, there's a tonof benefit for the publisher
then, right, that you've just described for the buyer side,
like as more and more self-service tools come out and
market and where does this end up for buyers?
Like at some point there are hundreds of these self-service
tools. Like what?
(13:26):
What's a buyer supposed to do with so many options out there
and individualized tools? Yeah, that that is going to be
like an inflection point where there become too many logins for
the advertiser to effectively buy.
But you know, when, when you think about like a self-serve
tool, So there, you know, you have your DSP where you could
(13:48):
buy, you know, programmatic media across the marketplace.
And you know, it's hit or miss in terms of what you get because
there's not always transparency in what you're buying.
You don't know if it's quality or low quality.
There seems like an endless amount of garbage out there.
But if you're already booking direct with Roku and you're
(14:11):
already, you know, that's part of your media buy, that's part
of your media strategy is to make a, a buy with Roku or
TripAdvisor or outdoor media or nine.
That's part of your strategy. Buy directly with the publisher
and that's your access point. So it's the same thing as, you
know, Facebook or or Google where they have their own
(14:32):
self-serve because it's their closed wall garden ecosystem.
You know, we're allowing publishers just to create the
same thing and to, you know, give access directly to their
inventory. And, and do you see a world
where you like stitch it all together and there's like a a
Dan Ads audience network or something like that?
(14:52):
Or do you think that's sort of defeats the purpose of maybe
some of the stuff you guys are working on?
We'd have to do it very carefully if we went that route.
You know, it's been something, you know, obviously we we've
spoken about, you know, one is we have to maintain that it's
premium, that it's not just the entire long tail of publisher
inventory that can access it. There had to be more controls
(15:14):
over it than your typical, you know, SSP or or TSP platform in
terms of would that ecosystem ecosystem consists of.
But I think, you know, we've spoken about maybe like an SSO
integration into our platforms, but we are also not a demand
(15:34):
partner. We're we, we don't have a demand
strategy. We're not going to agencies,
we're not going to advertisers and trying to sell our
publishers inventory on their behalf.
But that's not our role. So if we did build a marketplace
that's kind of the role that we'd have to take on.
And then with that creates channel conflict in terms of
(15:55):
sales. So we have to be really careful
in terms of threading that needle where we're not a
competitor to their own in housedirect sellers, but we can maybe
help boost or redirect programmatic budgets back to
direct. Because you know, when you think
about it, you know, programmaticwas the, the, the promise of
programmatic was automation, right?
(16:16):
And we built RTB around that automation.
And with it becomes a fragmentedenvironment with 20 different ad
tech layers that you have to manage and the complexity and
the frustration and the brand safety and the privacy issues
and everything you have to layerin the value of that media in
the 1st place. What we've been able to do is
(16:36):
basically be the the best SBO path for any buyer.
It is a direct relationship between the advertiser and the
publisher. There's no S chain, there's no
intermediary between us. We're just the tech layer that
the buyer can use to access the publisher inventory.
So when you think about that, that becomes the new automation
(16:59):
of what programmatic should havebeen in the 1st place.
It is that direct connection with publisher and no additional
layer on top of it. So you know we help our
publishers retain more revenue. The dollar that the advertiser
spends is a dollar that gets pushed into the ad server.
We're not taking a cut of that at that point.
So you know, it's more beneficial with the way that
(17:23):
automation technology is going to say, hey, what I was buying
programmatically, but this is also automation programmatic in
the fact that it is a direct connection is technology driven.
Everything you just described, Imean, again for for the
publisher, I mean they're savingon op X as these automations are
(17:45):
put in place. There is a, you know, a more
optimized supply path, right SPLand so they're they're removing
middle man, they're getting moredirect sold.
And so there's I would imagine an increase of revenue and a
decrease in cost for them. So if that's the case, you know,
we'd love you for you to confirmthat.
But also then how do you guys price with these customers?
(18:06):
Is it on the cost savings? Is it on the revenue generation?
Is it on a SAS fee? There's so many elements here
that that it seems like it couldbe.
Yeah. You know, so well with the cost
structure, let's talk about thatone first.
So like you know, we have our license fee and then we take
anywhere and you know, don't quote me on this because it's
commercial, but you know, anywhere between let's say like
(18:29):
you know, 1% to 5% of let's callit a Commission.
And that's based upon the fact that we're not reducing the
value of media that's gets pushed through the system.
So we're not devaluating that dollar, but the publisher pays
us based upon volume. And you know, we have different
(18:49):
agreements in place with different partners because
there's, you know, it's a different use case, there's a
different number of integrationsthat we're doing.
So a publisher that just has a single ad server is one cost,
while a publisher that has threead servers and ADMP and a
reporting connection that they want to make and an OMS, that's
a different cost. So it varies from partner to
(19:13):
partner. And then even when I, when I say
Commission, there is a volume component in it, but you know,
it could be based upon revenue, it could be based upon
impressions. We, we have flexible agreements
because we have to be flexible in how our platform works.
And then you're mentioning cost saving.
So with what our platform can do, you know, you know, simple
(19:35):
things like validating a creative to make sure that it
fits ad specs automatically. That reduces the amount of time
that son in AD operations has todo that manually.
And that efficiency gain can be equated to cost saving depending
upon, you know, how your platform's configured.
You know, this thing can reduce 8090% of the amount of manual
(19:58):
work that you have to do with each one of those different
steps in, in in trafficking media or managing your media or
building a strategy. So the single person in AD
operations. Instead of reducing headcount,
you exponentially increase theircapacity to do work.
And with that exponential increase, now they're
(20:20):
responsible for more revenue within our company and they can
take on more strategic tasks instead of working on Excel docs
that sort of nobody's purpose. Like, you know, there's a lot of
dumb work out there. Let's get rid of it.
Yeah, yeah, it makes total sense.
We like philosophically, it could not be more aligned, you
(20:40):
know, you know, one example you've talked about a few times
and obviously I think of it in the press, you know, is Roku and
then Paramount. But you know, CTV is a place
that, you know, I think, you know, especially given a lot of
our listeners are, are kind of from like the walled gardens,
the social network. CTV is kind of a new beast to
some extent. A lot of similarities, but a lot
of differences just because you're not, it's not inherently
(21:01):
like a direct response channel. I think it can be, but it's it's
just different in nature. Are there any like interesting
learnings you had just like building these because they are
kind of at the like frontier of like what a self-service CTV
look like for like an SMB? Yeah.
Just thought, you know, love to kind of get your point of view
on that. Yeah.
You know, there's a couple of different things.
(21:22):
I guess one is for that small business that can finally have
their ad shown on ATV side screen, that's huge for them.
You know, particularly like whenthey're, you know, trying to
reach their local market and being able to, you know, target
their audience, you know, on a really premium property, you
know, that was never available before for them.
(21:44):
You know, usually the budget, you know, budget minimums were
too high. And now with this technology,
you could reduce that budget minimum down to, you know,
whatever you want that there's there's no floor there.
So that's one way of opening up the opportunity for small
businesses to, you know, reach amore impactful ad format.
(22:06):
Then from a technical perspective, you know, CTV has
always had a problem programmatically in terms of who
the content owner is, right? You know, programmatically.
And there is no real true open marketplace for buyers to buy
unless you have that direct relationship with the owner of
(22:28):
the CTV app. So there's a lot of underserved
revenue opportunity there, whichour platform, you know, fills
the gap. So instead of trying to buy CTV
in a marketplace, buy directly with the the platform.
You'll get the scale and reach that you want anyway and and the
quality content that you're aligned with.
(22:49):
You know, one thing we we haven't talked about today, I
think it's important for, for listeners to understand that,
you know, Dan Ads is headquartered in Sweden, so it's
an international company. You opened up the US office, you
were the 1st US customer, but now have expanded kind of the US
presence. But a lot of advertisers, well a
lot of the advertisers and publishers want to be able to
(23:10):
buy a cross-border and also sella cross-border without
necessarily opening massive sales offices and things like
that. And so can you talk a little bit
about what it was like for you to open the Dan Eds office first
true presence in the US, but then how you work with
publishers on their international strategies
(23:30):
utilizing? Dan Eds Yeah, You know, so I I
wasn't the original New Yorker in the office that that goes to
our CIO Johan. So he was he was the first one
to actually open the physical USoffice.
But when he moved back to Sweden, that's when I came in to
be managing director and, you know, got a new office, larger
(23:51):
presence here in the US. And it's been, you know, really
exciting, you know, to have our footprint here, you know, to
have a team in place here and, you know, to be able to be on
the same time zone as 85% of ourclients anyway.
You know, the, the, the, the US is obviously the biggest market
for most companies. For us to have a strong presence
(24:12):
here is important as you know, as we grow and work with our
clients and you know, you know, make sure that we're always
available for them expanding globally.
Yes, we do. So our platform again is kind of
agnostic. Let's say we support any
currency, any media channel, anyadvertiser type, you know,
(24:34):
whether you want to pay the credit card or invoice or Google
Pay or Apple Pay, it's all in the system.
So when you want to open up thisplatform to a new country,
you're fully able and capable todo that.
We have clients in almost every continent right now.
We have a client in Africa, we have several in Australia and
(24:55):
New Zealand, several in Europe, several in the US and we have a
lot in Canada. So we've needed to work globally
and internationally that that's kind of like the whole point of
it, isn't it is to make sure that where I don't have
footprints or boots on the ground is I could still do
business in those areas. And then, you know, aside from,
(25:19):
you know, Global and CTV, you know, we always ask, you know, I
guess on this, like, where do you think sort of like the
future of of Dan ads is maybe more generally even like
self-serve advertising, but likecrystal ball, like what's,
what's this space look like fiveyears from now?
Yeah. You know, I, I, I think we're at
the, the start of the growth period for self-serve
(25:41):
advertising, which is surprisingthat, you know, Dan has been
around for 10 plus years. But I think that, you know, with
our presence in market, what we've been able to prove as, as
you know, a really important tool set for our clients.
Other people have taken notice and some have built their own,
some are, you know, working withour competitors.
(26:02):
But it, it's going to be an ongoing trend, particularly as
automation improves, as AI becomes more prevalent in making
immediate recommendations and creative generation or
generative creative, I should say.
But there are all these things happening all at once that
(26:27):
reduce time requirements and that makes self-serve
advertising larger. So I, I think that any publisher
out there or any technology platform out there that has an
audience that has advertisers should be thinking about
building or working with a company that provides this type
(26:48):
of automation because it is critical for your business and
your strategy, not only just fornow, but thinking ahead.
OK, we've gone through repetitive cycles of increased
decrease in headcount and you put your business at risk on
those down swings when you can'taccomplish the work that you
need to do. Automation tools like this help
(27:11):
protect you against that. And I think that those
fluctuations are going to happenmore frequently as we go forward
in the future. There'll be more ups and downs
happening a lot faster. So it it's a good thing to be
prepared for to align your entire organization around and
not just leave it to the one ad OPS lead to figure out.
(27:35):
It, this has to be a decision that comes down from your CEO,
your CRO, your CFO, your CMO, Make sure that you're all
aligned on understanding why do we need this tool?
How should we market it? How should we expose it?
What should we use it for? And at the end of the day, is it
(27:55):
a cost saving tool for us or is it a revenue driver for us or is
it both? I mean, I think we couldn't
agree more. As James said, we're just such
self-service kind of fans and and zealots, if I'm sure some
listeners would describe us as that for exactly the reasons you
described, right? The potential cost savings, the
ability to service new markets and get net new advertisers and
(28:18):
just kind of everything along the that path.
So yeah, I love that vision of the future that you just
described. But anyone interested in
learning more about, you know, Dan Ads and Dan ads kind of view
of of self-service for publishers and what it means for
the market? Where can they learn more about
about the company? You know, they, they come by my
apartment, I'll hang out with them or so they, you know, they
(28:42):
can visit us on LinkedIn, Dan ads, LinkedIn, or they can visit
danads.com or they can e-mail usdirectly at info@danads.com.
And, you know, happy to answer more questions about it.
You know, there's, there's, you know, a pretty strong passion
point for me. Again, like you, like I truly
believe in this technology And you know, we're here to help
(29:05):
beyond just grow our client base.
We want to educate the market. We want to understand what the
best practices are around building these tools or or
features or platforms. We want to make sure that
everybody's aligned in the industry and try not to create a
fragmented marketplace. That's the antithesis of what we
want to do, so reach out to us. That's great.
(29:27):
We'll we'll put the contact in the site in the show notes for
anyone wanting to learn more. Certainly think.
Along with your yeah apartment address.
Yeah, give us your address. Your.
Social Security your. Phone number, the whole thing.
But Jeffrey, thank you so much for coming on today, talking
through all that. Fascinating what you guys are
doing at Dan and so super excited.
Yeah. Appreciate and you know,
(29:48):
self-serve your night. Let's go.
No, but it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Welcome back to another episode of Taking Inventory.
This week we've got Jeffrey Mayer, the head of product and
managing director at Dan Ads. He's here to talk to us about
what Dan Ads is, how it's helping publishers move to a
self-service ads environment, and talk about the proliferation
of self-service. Jeffrey, really excited to have
you on the pod today. Yeah.
Thanks for having me. Excited to speak with you guys
(00:22):
about it. Let's dive right in just to to
learn a little bit more about your background, your career
journey before we get into Dan Ads.
Yeah. So I guess this phase of my
career started in 2010 when I was in AD operations at
whitepage.com. That eventually led me to
becoming their Head of Programmatic.
(00:44):
And then after moving along fromthem, I went to Shazam and
SoundCloud, where I was also Head of Programmatic.
At each company. I've, you know, run the gamut
from direct sale, you know, direct media.
I'm running that strategic partnerships, brand
partnerships. And I also have some experience,
(01:04):
I'm working on SSP where I manage demand, partner strategy
and DSP integrations. Yeah.
So I kind of run the gamut in terms of my background in AD
tech and publishing. And in terms of, I guess maybe
just a level set for, for our listeners, can you kind of just,
you know, quickly kind of go over like what does Dan Ads do?
(01:25):
Like again, you know, I think toa lot of people in the industry,
it's sort of I think thought of as like if you want a
self-service tool, Dan Ads can basically build one for you.
Is that a a fair description? Would be great to kind of know
more about how you guys operate.Yeah, you know that that was the
the original product. So you know, Dan Ads at its core
is custom white label self-serveadvertising platform, but what
(01:48):
we really focus in on is the automation of delivering media
and that's through direct channel, not programmatic.
So when we think about programmatic being an RTB
mechanism of being in the bid stream, but what we're doing is
we're automating the delivery ofmedia through the ad server,
(02:08):
connecting all the pipes that publishers ad tech stack has.
So from the CRM to the OMS to the CMS system, we connect
everything on the ad server so that buyers can buy media
through our platform. And also publisher ad OPS teams
can utilize the platform for efficiencies in their own
(02:31):
workflow and sellers can use a platform for prospecting and
helping to manage their portfolio of clients or their
their media buys. And and are you guys the the AD
server or are you using an AD server in a lot of those cases?
Yeah. So we're not the ad server,
we're we're not making, we're not the decision engine.
(02:52):
So we are connecting into the publishers ad server or multiple
ad servers. So, you know, we can deliver
media, you know, across any ad format or media channels.
So it's not even ad serving thatwe connect into, but you know,
we support video display, audio,print media and non connected
(03:14):
products that are part of a media buy.
Interesting. And and along those lines, are
you guys also, once you set up the self-service tool for your,
your client, are you guys also an extension of the sales teams
or help with kind of go to market motions or is that you're
purely tech and kind of step away?
(03:36):
Yeah. But we are a technology company
and the fact that, you know, we're we're building this
platform on behalf of the publisher or, or the OR our
partner and they own the platform essentially it's their
platform, it's custom to them. They're responsible for, you
know, managing it in terms of like a go to market strategy.
But what we do is we help provide guidance in that, you
(03:57):
know, our client partnerships team works really closely with
our clients to help promote the platform.
You know what our best practicesare, what we've learned in the
past from other clients, what the strategies should be.
And each publisher that we work with is so unique because they
have different strategies. Some use our platforms strictly
(04:18):
as a small business advertising tool where small businesses can
go and book media, it's limited to a small budget.
Some publishers open our platform up to agencies and and
Holdenpowers in terms of their ability to book media through
the platform directly with the publisher.
Or some of our clients use it only as an internal OPS tool and
(04:41):
don't even expose it externally.So it's, you know, the
efficiency that they gain in AD operations and workflow that
that we help create. So a lot of different use case
for it. That's awesome.
And are you guys also and all these questions kind of come
just honestly from our experience at snap building the
self-service business there. So we're trying to think about
like kind of where like you guysstart and stop.
(05:04):
But are you guys are you guys also building like the bid
logic? Like if you know you want to
support like you know, second price auction and the goal is to
drive installs or video, are youguys building that as well on
behalf of the customer? Yeah, it's not so much that.
It's more like, let's say like you have a direct sold media
(05:25):
product which has, you know, you're buying on a campaign
basis, delivering a guaranteed amount of inventory.
So what we do is we build that order in our system and then we
push that order into the ad server.
So that becomes the campaign andall the line items that are
associated to it. So those deliver, you know, on a
(05:47):
standard, standard guaranteed tier, whichever the publisher
wants to put it on and it it delivers it in full.
On the programmatic side, we cansupport essentially programmatic
buying through the the interfaceas well where you could enter in
a bid and then instead of directing the order into the
(06:07):
publisher ad server, we're pushing that order into the
publishers DSP. So you know, essentially a buyer
can use it almost as like a self-serve DSP tool where
they're booking the media. We push it out into you know
anyone DSP that we integrate into and that could be an
audience extension by on top of what the publishers owned and
(06:29):
operated is. Yeah, Jeff, I I think looking at
The Client List on your website,which you guys are, you know,
very public about, you guys havesome really notable brands.
And I think some people may be even surprised to hear that like
they're using, they're partnering with a company like
like Dan Ads, I mean, Roku, for instance, Paramount Plus, which
was just announced in Spotify. And so how do you work with
(06:52):
maybe some of the larger scaled companies that also have in
house teams building, building similar tech?
And then, you know, maybe more of the traditional media like
The Wall Street Journal or New York Times that I don't think
anyone would be surprised that they're not building their own
self-service tool and and maybe partnering like, how do you work
with those types of companies differently?
So we, we really do have an amazing client base.
(07:14):
You know, that's one of our power houses.
And you know, we've been, you know, lucky in that they've seen
the, the true value and the, andthe true opportunity of what our
platform delivers. You know, there, there is a
difference between building a self-serve tool in house versus,
you know, working with a partnerlike us.
I think for one thing, if you'retrying to build it in house that
(07:35):
that's great. You know, you have a specific
use case for it, you figure it out, but you may not consider
some of the aspects of what needs to be implemented or
integrated into it. There's a lot of complexity
behind the the UI that controls all the aspects of the media by
and typically with an in house built platform, it launches
(07:57):
really great the first time and then there's no iteration on it.
There's no evolution of that platform and it's really
difficult for a lot of publishers to, you know, invest
in improving that that experience because they've kind
of locked in to where they've built.
What our platform offers is a lot more flexibility and
scalability. We have more component driven
(08:21):
pieces of our platform where thepublisher can select to use a
certain kind of a booking flow or you know, certain features
that we've built that they can'tbuild.
Like we've built our reporting into our platform, we've built a
creative manager into our platform, we've built the
billing aspect into our platformand connecting the pipe between
(08:44):
the sales force or other CRM system or you know another OMS
like we've made all those connection points.
So our platform out-of-the-box comes with 95% of what the
publisher would have built in house anyway.
So it's kind of a waste of theirdevelopment time and resources
(09:05):
to do it themselves when they own this platform anyway.
It is white label to them. Our name is really on it when we
deliver that end product. So when you're buying through
Roku, you're not going to see Dan Ads logo on there.
It's the Roku platform. The other benefit of what we
offer is we build features out of furious pace, really large
(09:27):
and really small features. And all those features are
provided to each one of our clients on our core platform.
So as I'm working on what I think is going to be a universal
solution in our UI that can thenbe delivered to each client
without having to ask us for custom development.
So we save a lot of time and resources there.
(09:49):
There are clients that do customdevelopment with us, but that's
a big part of the custom platform.
But at the end of the day, we'rereducing that dependency on
custom development by building these feature sets ourselves and
distributing them across our ourentire platform.
And you know, when you guys are out there in market kind of, you
(10:09):
know, pitching this, do you findlike again, we, we are like huge
proponents of self-service, kindof first self-service only if
you can get away with it. But do you find that, you know,
publishers are looking at it like this is an opportunity to
grow kind of more of like the tail and torso or this is an
(10:30):
opportunity for us to save on OpEx because it's more efficient
or a mix of both, like kind of where are we in the sort of
thought process right now of of most publishers?
Yeah, it it's, it's certainly been an evolution because, you
know, so if I take a step back when I was working at Shazam, we
had a lot of, you know, record labels that would send us, you
(10:52):
know, buys on the spot, you know, very small budgets, but
frequently promoting different artists.
So I needed a self-serve platform for that specific use
case. So that was specifically for our
record labels to buy media through Shazam and I onboarded
Dan Ads. So Dan Ads I was their first US
client in 2017 or whenever it was.
(11:15):
And, you know, the flexibility of what they built for me was
really unique, and the speed in which it was developed was
surprisingly fast for something that was custom.
So then after, you know, I left Shazam, I went to SoundCloud.
And then we had another use casefor it.
That was for artists to promote themselves by investing in their
(11:36):
own careers where they could promote a track on SoundCloud
and get more exposure, more plays, more fans.
So that was specifically that use case.
Some of our early adopter publishers were thinking this is
only a small business tool wherea small business would go in and
we get the long tail of ad spendwhen they would have an inbound
(11:58):
lead. And instead of doing the inbound
lead and we can't focus on it because it's too small of a
budget for our ad OPS team to manage it, just let them buy
through the self share platform.But that has completely
transitioned over the last couple years where our publisher
is seeing it as more of a business management tool for
their ad operations. So you could essentially put
(12:22):
100% of your advertising business into this platform and
operate it more efficiently thanyou could by going into five
different platforms to execute the same task.
Sellers can use our platform instead of being competing
against their jobs. It's a sales tool for them to
(12:42):
build proposals and to automate the the building of a media plan
that can be sent out to an advertiser for their approval.
And then they could book it right there or just buy it right
there through an invoice. So it's, it's really a tool set
that helps automate and create efficiencies and it it can be as
(13:06):
big as you want it. And that, I mean, that is
obviously there's, there's a tonof benefit for the publisher
then, right, that you've just described for the buyer side,
like as more and more self-service tools come out and
market and where does this end up for buyers?
Like at some point there are hundreds of these self-service
tools. Like what?
(13:26):
What's a buyer supposed to do with so many options out there
and individualized tools? Yeah, that that is going to be
like an inflection point where there become too many logins for
the advertiser to effectively buy.
But you know, when, when you think about like a self-serve
tool, So there, you know, you have your DSP where you could
(13:48):
buy, you know, programmatic media across the marketplace.
And you know, it's hit or miss in terms of what you get because
there's not always transparency in what you're buying.
You don't know if it's quality or low quality.
There seems like an endless amount of garbage out there.
But if you're already booking direct with Roku and you're
(14:11):
already, you know, that's part of your media buy, that's part
of your media strategy is to make a, a buy with Roku or
TripAdvisor or outdoor media or nine.
That's part of your strategy. Buy directly with the publisher
and that's your access point. So it's the same thing as, you
know, Facebook or or Google where they have their own
(14:32):
self-serve because it's their closed wall garden ecosystem.
You know, we're allowing publishers just to create the
same thing and to, you know, give access directly to their
inventory. And, and do you see a world
where you like stitch it all together and there's like a a
Dan Ads audience network or something like that?
(14:52):
Or do you think that's sort of defeats the purpose of maybe
some of the stuff you guys are working on?
We'd have to do it very carefully if we went that route.
You know, it's been something, you know, obviously we we've
spoken about, you know, one is we have to maintain that it's
premium, that it's not just the entire long tail of publisher
inventory that can access it. There had to be more controls
(15:14):
over it than your typical, you know, SSP or or TSP platform in
terms of would that ecosystem ecosystem consists of.
But I think, you know, we've spoken about maybe like an SSO
integration into our platforms, but we are also not a demand
(15:34):
partner. We're we, we don't have a demand
strategy. We're not going to agencies,
we're not going to advertisers and trying to sell our
publishers inventory on their behalf.
But that's not our role. So if we did build a marketplace
that's kind of the role that we'd have to take on.
And then with that creates channel conflict in terms of
(15:55):
sales. So we have to be really careful
in terms of threading that needle where we're not a
competitor to their own in housedirect sellers, but we can maybe
help boost or redirect programmatic budgets back to
direct. Because you know, when you think
about it, you know, programmaticwas the, the, the promise of
programmatic was automation, right?
(16:16):
And we built RTB around that automation.
And with it becomes a fragmentedenvironment with 20 different ad
tech layers that you have to manage and the complexity and
the frustration and the brand safety and the privacy issues
and everything you have to layerin the value of that media in
the 1st place. What we've been able to do is
(16:36):
basically be the the best SBO path for any buyer.
It is a direct relationship between the advertiser and the
publisher. There's no S chain, there's no
intermediary between us. We're just the tech layer that
the buyer can use to access the publisher inventory.
So when you think about that, that becomes the new automation
(16:59):
of what programmatic should havebeen in the 1st place.
It is that direct connection with publisher and no additional
layer on top of it. So you know we help our
publishers retain more revenue. The dollar that the advertiser
spends is a dollar that gets pushed into the ad server.
We're not taking a cut of that at that point.
So you know, it's more beneficial with the way that
(17:23):
automation technology is going to say, hey, what I was buying
programmatically, but this is also automation programmatic in
the fact that it is a direct connection is technology driven.
Everything you just described, Imean, again for for the
publisher, I mean they're savingon op X as these automations are
(17:45):
put in place. There is a, you know, a more
optimized supply path, right SPLand so they're they're removing
middle man, they're getting moredirect sold.
And so there's I would imagine an increase of revenue and a
decrease in cost for them. So if that's the case, you know,
we'd love you for you to confirmthat.
But also then how do you guys price with these customers?
(18:06):
Is it on the cost savings? Is it on the revenue generation?
Is it on a SAS fee? There's so many elements here
that that it seems like it couldbe.
Yeah. You know, so well with the cost
structure, let's talk about thatone first.
So like you know, we have our license fee and then we take
anywhere and you know, don't quote me on this because it's
commercial, but you know, anywhere between let's say like
(18:29):
you know, 1% to 5% of let's callit a Commission.
And that's based upon the fact that we're not reducing the
value of media that's gets pushed through the system.
So we're not devaluating that dollar, but the publisher pays
us based upon volume. And you know, we have different
(18:49):
agreements in place with different partners because
there's, you know, it's a different use case, there's a
different number of integrationsthat we're doing.
So a publisher that just has a single ad server is one cost,
while a publisher that has threead servers and ADMP and a
reporting connection that they want to make and an OMS, that's
a different cost. So it varies from partner to
(19:13):
partner. And then even when I, when I say
Commission, there is a volume component in it, but you know,
it could be based upon revenue, it could be based upon
impressions. We, we have flexible agreements
because we have to be flexible in how our platform works.
And then you're mentioning cost saving.
So with what our platform can do, you know, you know, simple
(19:35):
things like validating a creative to make sure that it
fits ad specs automatically. That reduces the amount of time
that son in AD operations has todo that manually.
And that efficiency gain can be equated to cost saving depending
upon, you know, how your platform's configured.
You know, this thing can reduce 8090% of the amount of manual
(19:58):
work that you have to do with each one of those different
steps in, in in trafficking media or managing your media or
building a strategy. So the single person in AD
operations. Instead of reducing headcount,
you exponentially increase theircapacity to do work.
And with that exponential increase, now they're
(20:20):
responsible for more revenue within our company and they can
take on more strategic tasks instead of working on Excel docs
that sort of nobody's purpose. Like, you know, there's a lot of
dumb work out there. Let's get rid of it.
Yeah, yeah, it makes total sense.
We like philosophically, it could not be more aligned, you
(20:40):
know, you know, one example you've talked about a few times
and obviously I think of it in the press, you know, is Roku and
then Paramount. But you know, CTV is a place
that, you know, I think, you know, especially given a lot of
our listeners are, are kind of from like the walled gardens,
the social network. CTV is kind of a new beast to
some extent. A lot of similarities, but a lot
of differences just because you're not, it's not inherently
(21:01):
like a direct response channel. I think it can be, but it's it's
just different in nature. Are there any like interesting
learnings you had just like building these because they are
kind of at the like frontier of like what a self-service CTV
look like for like an SMB? Yeah.
Just thought, you know, love to kind of get your point of view
on that. Yeah.
You know, there's a couple of different things.
(21:22):
I guess one is for that small business that can finally have
their ad shown on ATV side screen, that's huge for them.
You know, particularly like whenthey're, you know, trying to
reach their local market and being able to, you know, target
their audience, you know, on a really premium property, you
know, that was never available before for them.
(21:44):
You know, usually the budget, you know, budget minimums were
too high. And now with this technology,
you could reduce that budget minimum down to, you know,
whatever you want that there's there's no floor there.
So that's one way of opening up the opportunity for small
businesses to, you know, reach amore impactful ad format.
(22:06):
Then from a technical perspective, you know, CTV has
always had a problem programmatically in terms of who
the content owner is, right? You know, programmatically.
And there is no real true open marketplace for buyers to buy
unless you have that direct relationship with the owner of
(22:28):
the CTV app. So there's a lot of underserved
revenue opportunity there, whichour platform, you know, fills
the gap. So instead of trying to buy CTV
in a marketplace, buy directly with the the platform.
You'll get the scale and reach that you want anyway and and the
quality content that you're aligned with.
(22:49):
You know, one thing we we haven't talked about today, I
think it's important for, for listeners to understand that,
you know, Dan Ads is headquartered in Sweden, so it's
an international company. You opened up the US office, you
were the 1st US customer, but now have expanded kind of the US
presence. But a lot of advertisers, well a
lot of the advertisers and publishers want to be able to
(23:10):
buy a cross-border and also sella cross-border without
necessarily opening massive sales offices and things like
that. And so can you talk a little bit
about what it was like for you to open the Dan Eds office first
true presence in the US, but then how you work with
publishers on their international strategies
(23:30):
utilizing? Dan Eds Yeah, You know, so I I
wasn't the original New Yorker in the office that that goes to
our CIO Johan. So he was he was the first one
to actually open the physical USoffice.
But when he moved back to Sweden, that's when I came in to
be managing director and, you know, got a new office, larger
(23:51):
presence here in the US. And it's been, you know, really
exciting, you know, to have our footprint here, you know, to
have a team in place here and, you know, to be able to be on
the same time zone as 85% of ourclients anyway.
You know, the, the, the, the US is obviously the biggest market
for most companies. For us to have a strong presence
(24:12):
here is important as you know, as we grow and work with our
clients and you know, you know, make sure that we're always
available for them expanding globally.
Yes, we do. So our platform again is kind of
agnostic. Let's say we support any
currency, any media channel, anyadvertiser type, you know,
(24:34):
whether you want to pay the credit card or invoice or Google
Pay or Apple Pay, it's all in the system.
So when you want to open up thisplatform to a new country,
you're fully able and capable todo that.
We have clients in almost every continent right now.
We have a client in Africa, we have several in Australia and
(24:55):
New Zealand, several in Europe, several in the US and we have a
lot in Canada. So we've needed to work globally
and internationally that that's kind of like the whole point of
it, isn't it is to make sure that where I don't have
footprints or boots on the ground is I could still do
business in those areas. And then, you know, aside from,
(25:19):
you know, Global and CTV, you know, we always ask, you know, I
guess on this, like, where do you think sort of like the
future of of Dan ads is maybe more generally even like
self-serve advertising, but likecrystal ball, like what's,
what's this space look like fiveyears from now?
Yeah. You know, I, I, I think we're at
the, the start of the growth period for self-serve
(25:41):
advertising, which is surprisingthat, you know, Dan has been
around for 10 plus years. But I think that, you know, with
our presence in market, what we've been able to prove as, as
you know, a really important tool set for our clients.
Other people have taken notice and some have built their own,
some are, you know, working withour competitors.
(26:02):
But it, it's going to be an ongoing trend, particularly as
automation improves, as AI becomes more prevalent in making
immediate recommendations and creative generation or
generative creative, I should say.
But there are all these things happening all at once that
(26:27):
reduce time requirements and that makes self-serve
advertising larger. So I, I think that any publisher
out there or any technology platform out there that has an
audience that has advertisers should be thinking about
building or working with a company that provides this type
(26:48):
of automation because it is critical for your business and
your strategy, not only just fornow, but thinking ahead.
OK, we've gone through repetitive cycles of increased
decrease in headcount and you put your business at risk on
those down swings when you can'taccomplish the work that you
need to do. Automation tools like this help
(27:11):
protect you against that. And I think that those
fluctuations are going to happenmore frequently as we go forward
in the future. There'll be more ups and downs
happening a lot faster. So it it's a good thing to be
prepared for to align your entire organization around and
not just leave it to the one ad OPS lead to figure out.
(27:35):
It, this has to be a decision that comes down from your CEO,
your CRO, your CFO, your CMO, Make sure that you're all
aligned on understanding why do we need this tool?
How should we market it? How should we expose it?
What should we use it for? And at the end of the day, is it
(27:55):
a cost saving tool for us or is it a revenue driver for us or is
it both? I mean, I think we couldn't
agree more. As James said, we're just such
self-service kind of fans and and zealots, if I'm sure some
listeners would describe us as that for exactly the reasons you
described, right? The potential cost savings, the
ability to service new markets and get net new advertisers and
(28:18):
just kind of everything along the that path.
So yeah, I love that vision of the future that you just
described. But anyone interested in
learning more about, you know, Dan Ads and Dan ads kind of view
of of self-service for publishers and what it means for
the market? Where can they learn more about
about the company? You know, they, they come by my
apartment, I'll hang out with them or so they, you know, they
(28:42):
can visit us on LinkedIn, Dan ads, LinkedIn, or they can visit
danads.com or they can e-mail usdirectly at info@danads.com.
And, you know, happy to answer more questions about it.
You know, there's, there's, you know, a pretty strong passion
point for me. Again, like you, like I truly
believe in this technology And you know, we're here to help
(29:05):
beyond just grow our client base.
We want to educate the market. We want to understand what the
best practices are around building these tools or or
features or platforms. We want to make sure that
everybody's aligned in the industry and try not to create a
fragmented marketplace. That's the antithesis of what we
want to do, so reach out to us. That's great.
(29:27):
We'll we'll put the contact in the site in the show notes for
anyone wanting to learn more. Certainly think.
Along with your yeah apartment address.
Yeah, give us your address. Your.
Social Security your. Phone number, the whole thing.
But Jeffrey, thank you so much for coming on today, talking
through all that. Fascinating what you guys are
doing at Dan and so super excited.
Yeah. Appreciate and you know,
(29:48):
self-serve your night. Let's go.
No, but it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.