Michael Barrett, CEO of AdMeld and John Trimble, CRO of Pandora sat down to discuss strategy, their vision for the market, the challenges of the current economy, and more. digiday:DAILY is pleased to share highlights from their conversation.


Michael Barrett: Tell me about your experience at Pandora thus far. How has the revenue strategy evolved since you’ve come on board?

John Trimble: We have been on a very strong trajectory in the market this year with audience growth and revenue.  Our position as the market leader in the internet radio space, with a
compelling multi-platform offering (display/mobile/audio) has allowed us to leverage deep user engagement to create targeted value in a tough economy.  Our strategy is continually evolving based on our increased growth of audience across platform and delivering the right solutions for our advertisers.
 

MB: It’s clear that mobile is an increasingly important part of your business. How far along is it to being a substantial portion of your ad revenues against display and audio ads?

JT: As the marketplace itself, it is a significant piece of our growth story.  It has felt like mobile was a “nice to have” portion of the ad mix that suffered a bit in a rough year. That said, we are working with the ad market to leverage our mobile platform as a key component of the 2010 planning process.  The combination of our ability to deliver against 18-34’s  with targeted high impact mobile, our scale and the strategic ability to support it cross platform is resonating well with our partners.

MB: When it comes to your display ad inventory, are you seeing the same signs of a market recovery that others are reporting?

JT: I am not sure how you are defining “recovery” but we have been able to power through based on a few key factors mentioned above: 1) highly engaged audience 2) ability to tightly target audience segments with display and reinforce the messaging with both audio and mobile 3) a premium ad offering delivering a larger canvas for brands to convey their value proposition

MB: Where does yield optimization fit in your revenue strategy? By what metrics do you judge the success of using these kinds of tools?

JT: We monitor our yield very closely -- on a daily basis. We’re constantly working on ways we can drive more value for our customers, which usually results in higher yields. Whether it’s through offering deeper targeting, more impactful ad units, or optimizing our inventory allocation, we’re looking to increase results for our partners and earn higher rates for our ad inventory. AdMeld’s technology is effective at optimizing our discretionary ad inventory across a variety of networks. In Q209, the system generated a 95% increase in our discretionary yields and also saved us valuable time from an operations perspective.  

MB: AdMeld spends a lot of time working with publishers to create an optimal portfolio of ad network partners. What best practices can you recommend to other publishers looking to evaluate these relationships?

JT: Increasing the yields on our discretionary inventory is going to be at the top of the list, but that’s just the starting point. The fill rate is also an integral part of the equation, since redirects tend to cause discrepancies and lower yields, and your platform helps us manage this very well.
We’re also very selective when it comes to the quality of advertisers that run on our site, so we spend a lot of time upfront to understand which type of advertisers a network partner would bring to the table, and what their value proposition is to the advertiser.

We look for partners that will complement the way we work with advertisers directly, and not cause confusion in the market. Lastly, we partner with companies that have the resources to provide an account manager that understands our business and communicates regularly to keep improving the partnership.

MB: There’s a lot of talk about the increasing importance of data exchanges in helping publishers segment and monetize their inventory. What is Pandora doing on this front?

JT: All of Pandora’s users have registered with our site, so we have a good amount of data on our audience. Approximately 80% of all our advertisers leverage this data for targeting. As some agencies are asking for deeper levels of targeting, we want to have solutions in place to meet those needs. With that said, we’re currently evaluating different options on how we could further segment our audience.
MB: What’s on the horizon for Pandora in 2010?

JT: Great question, the broad focus will continue being the balancing of delivering the best user experience with a quality environment for advertisers to engage.  On the advertising side of the house, you will see us work to leverage our increasing audience and our unique engagement to create first to market opportunities across each of the platforms. To that, we will also focus on new market segments like Latin and Family, new ad treatments in mobile and audio and continue to enhance the display environment.