The Trade Desk is a technology company that empowers buyers of advertising.
The company – headquartered in Ventura, Califonia, with additional bases in Europe and the Asia Pacific – does this through a self-service, cloud-based platform ad buyers can create, manage, and optimise digital advertising campaigns across ad formats and devices.
Stephanie Famolaro is senior director of business development at The Trade Desk in Australia and New Zealand — her role centres around business and growth strategy, focusing on building agency and client relations.
Famolaro spoke to Mediaweek about getting started in the industry, the hot topic at the water cooler of The Trade Desk office and what the industry can expect from them in the year ahead.
Famolaro on working with The Trade Desk
Famolaro has been with The Trade Desk for almost six years, as senior director of business development for the past three years and director of business development for two years prior.
For her, one of the most rewarding parts of her role is developing high-performing teams, working together to solve complex challenges for our clients.
Famolaro also shared that as a personal mission, she hopes to change the perception of careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) as an intimidating, boring and male-dominated field.
“Whilst I have seen things improve, I still witness underrepresentation of women in a lot of the meetings I attend. I like to consider myself a huge advocate for women working in adtech and a big promoter of diversity and inclusion within the industry. I also have a passion for inspiring young leaders and love taking on mentoring positions as part of my work,” she added.
Famolaro on what makes The Trade Desk’s work stand out
Famolaro shared that The Trade Desk’s work stands out from the rest because of its passion for the open internet. While the term ‘open internet’ is nothing new, she explained that it refers to fast-growing digital channels such as BVOD, music/audio streaming, websites, mobile apps, blogs, and gaming.
“Aussies spend as much as 76% of their online time on it! It’s growing at such a lightning pace that brands are having to work extra hard to unleash its full potential. The Trade Desk was created as an independent, inventory-agnostic media-buying platform to help brands discover and reach new audiences across the open internet.
“The truth is that all the amazing online experiences that consumers have access to online — from trusted journalism to premium streaming TV — rely on advertising to fund their content. And, on the open internet where much of this content exists, we help advertisers make deliberate decisions by using data to figure out which ads they should buy and at what price, in millions of online ad auctions that take place every second,” she added.
What’s the buzz at The Trade Desk
When asked about the hot topic at the water cooler of The Trade Desk office, Famolaro shared that there are quite a few that are hot on the lips that they are actively working toward.
The first is the fast evolution of broadcast video on demand (BVOD). She said: “In the past decade, BVOD has come on leaps and bounds to the position it is in today, as we see more and more people changing the way they consume TV.
“BVOD not only enables brands access to premium inventory but also provides third-party measurement through independent verification partners to provide advertisers with transparent campaign metrics. It’s no wonder that it’s one of Australia’s fastest-growing advertising channels, with 10Play, 9Now and 7Plus leading the pack,” she added.
The second is retail data, which she said is set to be the new oil of the advertising industry. Famolaro explained: “It is based on actual transactions (such as shopping spend data, shopping cart content and even loyalty programme data).
“This means that marketers can now get closer to the Holy Grail of marketing and connect ad spend to real-world sales – something that wasn’t possible previously. In a world where marketers are facing restrictions around tracking customers’ behaviours online, retail data has become extremely valuable,” she added.
Rounding out the hot topics is what she called the largest focus of all at The Trade Desk, the building of a fair and open internet.
“This sees us supporting efforts to bring greater transparency and objectivity to the digital advertising ecosystem.
“We’re not interested in putting a wall up around ourselves like some of the massive tech companies out there, we’re interested in lifting all boats since we all benefit when the ecosystem improves,” Famolaro added.
What to expect from The Trade Desk in the year ahead
Looking to the year ahead and what the industry can expect from The Trade Desk, Famolaro shared that the company was focused on helping test identity solutions and build and activate their first-party data.
Famolaro noted that as advertisers increasingly embrace and explore a wide range of digital channels – such as BVOD, CTV, music, audio streaming and in-app experiences – there is an increasing demand for contemporary identity solutions that act as a new common currency of the open internet.
“That’s why we pioneered and created Unified ID 2.0, to be the best industry solution possible. In the coming year, we will help modern marketers test their campaigns using UID 2.0. For example, they can now compare different ad opportunities and act with precision while managing ad frequency across channels and devices,” she said.
Famolaro added that with the impending end of the post-cookie identity, advertisers are demanding addressable, audience-based solutions validated through first-party data.
“Our role is to help brands build and activate their first party data because this will be what moves the needle on addressability, so advertisers can reach more audiences with greater precision,” Famolaro said.
See also: Stephanie Famolaro: Why retail data is the new oil of the advertising industry
See also: Stephanie Famolaro: The elephant in the room in digital advertising — and why we need to talk about it
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Top image: Stephanie Famolaro