Technology Spotlight
A conversation with Ryan Canty, General Manager of Adslot brought to you by Ultimate Asset.
What is Adslot’s elevator pitch?
Adslot’s mission is to automate the trading of forward guaranteed, premium digital display advertising. Our approach is fully transparent, gives buyers direct access to the best inventory available in the marketplace, and maximises dollar flow to the publishers and working media.
“Our platform is a single layer that connects both buyers and sellers in the same platform”
What business problem does Adslot solve?
The trading of forward guaranteed digital display media is manual and inefficient – still largely executed through email and excel spreadsheets. This inefficiency is a major business cost to both buyers and sellers.
What sets your company apart from competitors?
Our technology does not access inventory via the RTB Ecosystem. Instead, we connect buyers directly to the inventory via the publisher ad server API.
Who is your primary target audience? What are their needs and pain points?
On the sell-side, our primary target audience is premium publishers. In the UK, we work with ~80% of the market’s leading publishers.
On the buy-side we work with any buyers of premium digital display media which means buyers of all profiles – large agency groups, independent agencies as well as direct advertisers.
How does your company solve these need states of the audience and fill the gap in the market? What is the value you bring to them?
Our platform is a single layer that connects both buyers and sellers in the same platform whilst also, for the buyer, also aggregating supply across all of the premium publishers in any given market. This generates operational efficiencies of c.70% for both parties.
Describe your company culture.
Adslot’s key values are;
To be Authentic: “We are dedicated to fostering a community that is cared for and supported with transparency”
To be Inclusive: “We are a diverse collection of collaborative people unified by a sense of belonging, purpose and freedom of expression”
To be Visionary: “We are hungry to build innovative products of high value to our clients with unrestrained creativity”
To be Brave: “We are determined to achieve success, will rise when faced with adversity and uphold our core values without compromise”
What are the most common misconceptions about your business or sector within technology?
That buying programmatically delivers better outcomes than buying direct.
What are the most common misconceptions about your business or sector within technology?
That buying programmatically delivers better outcomes than buying direct.
What are some of the key consumer and industry macro and micro economic trends impacting your business?
On a macro-economic level, high inflation, high interest rates and low economic growth are putting pressure on businesses of all kinds. We are no exception.
Within the digital media industry specifically, the most significant one is the continued loss of the 3rd party cookie upon which addressability within the RTB ecosystem still largely relies.
Whist Google have publicly stated they will no longer be deprecating the 3rd party cookie, the trend is already underway and for many publishers this loss of signal is putting downward pressure on their revenues from programmatic channels.
At the same time, the continued dominance of the walled gardens and the emergence of retail media are putting further downward pressure on publisher revenues.
On the other side of the ledger, the number of demand sources that a publisher needs to service continues to proliferate.
As a result, all publishers are investing in their 1st party data assets, but more and more publishers are also looking to further innovate in the way they manage direct sales.
What are your predictions for next year?
Google will finally introduce their “new experience in Chrome” which lets users opt-out of 3rd party cookies. History suggests that, when given a choice, most will.
The loss of the 3rd party cookie could accelerate if the DoJ is successful in breaking up Google and forcing it to sell off Chrome. There are a lot of moving parts to this one and Google won’t gop down without a fight, so this may be wishful thinking on our part!
A conversation with Ryan Canty, General Manager, UK at Adslot.
Get in touch with Ryan via Ryan.canty@adslot.com
Technology spotlight is a series brought you by the team at Ultimate Asset. Our aim is to highlight brilliant technology across adtech & martech. From their elevator pitch, to the problem they are trying to solve, we hope you can take something new away from each interview. With over 50,000 new technology businesses incorporated in the UK each year, there will be something for everybody.
Ultimate Asset are a boutique global digital recruitment consultancy, specialisting in hires in adtech, martech, media owners, brands and media agencies. With over 18 years of recruitment heritage in media, we support businesses across the UK, Europe, Asia & North America.
Want to be part of the next Technology Spotlight? Get in touch with
Alex Swain, Managing Director via Alex@ultimateasset.com
