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Limited knowledge still biggest obstacle to programmatic growth in China, says TubeMogul

Jeffery Zheng:

Jeffery Zheng: Clients who make programmatic decisions based on cost put brands at risk

Ad tech firm TubeMogul, which launched in China at the start of the year, has launched its first programmatic education programme in the market, saying that limited knowledge of the discipline is still the biggest hindrance to growth.

Talking to Mumbrella today, TubeMogul’s China MD Jeffery Zheng said that despite a brisk update in programmatic trading in Asia’s largest ad market, there was still a lot of educating to be done to get marketers up to speed on programmatic, and that transparency would prove a pivotal factor.

Zheng said: “At present, the biggest obstacle is the knowledge level within the local market. Many lump us [TubeMogul] in with other, local providers. However, we feel that most local providers are actually just ad networks – and they don’t offer the same level of transparency as we do both regionally and globally.”

“Market maturity and education both on our unique positioning and on the importance of transparency in the market will serve well to combat this,” he said.

On the biggest challenges TubeMogul faces in negotiating the complex China market, Zheng said: “Once again, education levels serve as the biggest challenge. In China (and Asia broadly) importance is often placed on cost as the initial driver when making decisions about what ads to buy and which software solution or platform to use – with the cheapest option being selected.”

“In Asia, you truly get what you pay for. If you make decisions based purely on cost, you run a very real risk of buying significant volumes of fraudulent or non-viewable traffic. Cost needs to be wrapped in with viewability, combatting ad fraud, brand safety and numerous other metrics to understand what the true cost of online ad buys really are,” he said.

Source: Magna Global

Source: Magna Global

Though China is the region’s largest ad market, its programmatic market is smaller than Japan’s, according to data from Magna Global, and less advanced than in Australia, the most sophisticated programmatic market in the region, noted TubeMogul’s Asia VP Susan Salop.

Programmatic in China is still in its “infancy”, she said, and though TubeMogul works with a number of international clients, bringing more local marketers on board could prove to be a challenge.

In the US, TubeMogul launched an ad campaign that highlighted the drawbacks of using walled gardens such as Google, but the company says it is too early in the Chinese market’s development to launch campaigns of a similar nature to trumpet the importance of using an independent DSP in this market.

TubeMogul has six staff in its office in Shanghai, and 50 in its engineering hub in Chengdu. Today, TubeMogul is holding its first seminar in Shanghai involving 50 agency and client executives to discuss how to use its software, best practice and the opportunities of programmatic.

 

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