Microsoft’s Move to
Programmatic
Real Results and Lessons Learned
Kelly Davidson, Director of Global Partnerships
2017
2017TA
TAtech
TechProgrammatic
ProgrammaticSummit
Summit
Minneapolis, MN | June 1st, 2017
1
About Me
•
Director of Global Partnerships at Microsoft
•
Manage Microsoft’s strategic partnership
with AppNexus across 58 countries.
•
11 Years in Digital Advertising
•
Ad Ops at Disney
•
Sales Engineer at PointRoll
•
Director Technical Solutions at OpenX
•
Friends with Matt Plummer, VP Product at
ZipRecruiter (previously OpenX)
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Ulrik Krag Morrell’s Proverb
33
What is Microsoft Advertising?
44
Microsoft’s Ad Scale in 2015…
55
Our Ad Sales Motion: not profitable
66
Our AppNexus Partnership
77
Industry Trends
88
What if…
•
We took the most common Reserved
assets and made them available through
programmatic channels?
•
We trained our sales teams on selling
programmatic and shifted relationships
from Advertisers to Agencies/ATDs?
•
We used programmatic deals to bridge
the delta in rates between reserved and
programmatic to maintain revenue?
•
We embraced a Growth Mindset to
experiment and move faster?
99
The Nordics Pilot
• Created x-company proposal for pilot with Exec approval
• Piloted shifting sales motion in Nordics with goal of
50% rev from programmatic (up from ~15%)
• Trained small sales team, led by Ulrik, to focus on prog. & deals
• 7 month pilot, launched in Nov 2015 through May 2016
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What We Learned…
55%
Flat
86%
 Exceeded
50% rev goal
 Prog.
offset Res.
 Resource
savings
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What if…
•
We applied the Nordics learnings globally?
•
We partnered for Display AdTech and
Display Sales, leveraging AppNexus more?
•
We realized global cost savings, while
preempting the rise of programmatic?
•
We could be profitable by quickly changing
our business model?
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So What Happened…?
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Microsoft’s World Today
49 AppNexus Markets
AppNexus tech and AppNexus Microsoft
Supply Evangelism Team (MSET)
MSET Playbook:
1.
2.
9 AOL markets
3.
4.
USA, Canada, Brazil, United Kingdom,
France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Japan.
Find pickets of Premium
Demand
Covert Reserved IO
Demand
Increase Fill
Focus on relationships
Across Agencies and ATDs
AOL ONE Tech for reserved sales
AppNexus Tech for prog. Sales
100% AOL Sales Team (many Ex-MSFT)
2 Sales House markets
Australia/New Zealand and Mexico
On AppNexus, 100% programmatic
AOL-Represented
Not Represented
AppNexus Represented
Local Microsoft Sales Partner
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14
How Did It Go?
Profitable!
 We went from non-profitable to profitable!
28%
3x
26%
43
The amount of revenue we
made from reserve
(complete flip from 2015)
YoY Programamtic
Revenue growth on 4%
volume increase
The rate difference
between deals and RTB
The number of people
MSFT employs to run
Display advertising
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My Advice to You…
Have big, bold goals, but track progress with small wins along the way
Adopt a culture of constant experimentation and questioning the status quo
Play Devil’s advocate and take the seat of a buyer
Make sure you leverage the right partners and treat them like consultants
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Snatch Your Eagle From the Sky!
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Q&A
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