In recent years, there has been a mass migration of media dollars to trading desks as advertising agencies expand their offering and brands bring media execution in-house. The move to trading desks is largely a cost-efficiency move on the part of brands who also seek greater volume and convenience. However, brands and advertisers are often times sacrificing performance, accuracy and overall advertising effectiveness with this move. And advertisers are now demanding improved control and transparency as they review and reset contracts and business models to achieve desired objectives. At the same time, agency trading desks still dominate programmatic, but many struggle with innovation and differentiation from other agencies. This has left the advertising industry with some critical unanswered questions about the long-term value of trading desks and how to best use them, which will be addressed in this panel. View More

Those questions are:
How might trading desk usage hurt overall advertising performance and effectiveness?
Is programmatic media now 100% commoditized?
How is the move to trading desks hurting advertising effectiveness and performance for brands? If so, what can they do about it?
How can agencies and brands innovate their trading desks?
How can brands best evaluate agency trading desks vs stand-alone adtech?
Should brands embrace alternatives to trading desks or rely more on third parties and ad tech partners to improve efficiencies? View Less