How Programmatic Advertising is Transforming the Digital Landscape

Transcript

Jeff Bullas

00:00:06 - 00:01:09

Hi, welcome to The Jeff Bullas Show. Today I have with me, Mary Ann Pruitt. Now, Mary Ann Pruitt is actually dialing in from Anchorage, Alaska. So, now a little bit about, if you don't know where Alaska is, it's right next to Russia, okay, it's just across the Bering Strait. But don't worry about that, she's safe at the moment, we believe. So look, a little bit about Mary Ann, she is the CEO and President of Mosaic Media, a collection of media buying experts and creative strategist who negotiate, purchase and monitor advertising space and airtime. She's here today to share some marketing wisdom gleaned from her extensive career in media strategy and by the way, we only bring wise people on the show. And she's got this marketing wisdom gleaned from her extensive career in media strategy and how it relates to the ever evolving climate of media. Welcome to the show, it's great to have you here.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:01:09 - 00:01:12

Thanks Jeff for having me on. I'm excited for the conversation.

Jeff Bullas

00:01:13 - 00:01:38

So Mary Ann, my opening question is, and a lot of entrepreneurs or wannabe entrepreneurs, I'm always curious about what got you into media and advertising? So where did this come from? Was it at college, you had a few drinks one night, someone said go and do advertising media and start a company or how else did it happen? So tell me.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:01:38 - 00:02:55

I think I always had a love for marketing as a whole and really it's fascinating. I mean, I started as a graphic designer before the digital age. So you're actually drawing and you're actually having to roll film and use film and having to use things in design, totally different and then being able to actually scan in a picture and digitizing it and using it in that sense. So I actually started on the design side but when I got into college, I fell in love with marketing and economics together and that was where I started to fall in love with numbers and seeing data and data telling us a story where I got into media. It is funny a random friend who said he worked in TV and he goes ‘hey, this job would be great for you’ and we were at dinner with friends and he said this job would be perfect for him. I was like why not? So that's where I started my TV career and that's when I started my media career and from there I fell in love with media, I fell in love with overall everything that went with it but the data and once I realized all this economic study that I had done and marketing together all of these things. That's what media is now, especially today it is a lot of data sets that we are studying and analyzing and data always tells us a story. So really I guess my true love for media really came from my love for data.

Jeff Bullas

00:02:56 - 00:03:12

Well okay, so welcome to the world of enormous data in 2020. Yeah, so you nearly didn't make it into the studio to record this today because you've got a snowstorm happening.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:03:12 - 00:03:14

Yes, we are having quite the snowstorm in Anchorage, yes.

Jeff Bullas

00:03:14 - 00:03:24

So in Australia we talk about snow and inches. In Alaska, they talk about it in feet.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:03:24 - 00:03:30

Its days like today, yes. Yes, we do.

Jeff Bullas

00:03:30 - 00:03:47

So I'm very thankful that you basically dive through the storm and came up here despite that and you had a snowmobile, we had a snowplow and just following in front of you to get through here.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:03:47 - 00:03:57

My SUV really worked well. But yes getting here was, you know, it's always a challenge, right. You never know but leave it to the imagination a little bit. Just think about it. Me shoveling my whole way here, why not.

Jeff Bullas

00:03:57 - 00:04:00

Don't ruin a good story with the truth, come on.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:04:00 - 00:04:03

Okay, okay I'll work on it.

Jeff Bullas

00:04:04 - 00:04:15

Okay, so you started getting involved in the media. So where was your first gig? Did you start the company? Did you got way with someone?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:04:15 - 00:05:18

Yeah, no. So when I started the agency, that was my first agency work I had ever done, I had never done anything outside of my own but I worked for some of the large corporations in media for a while before then on the placement and on the ad side and that's where, you know, I really fell in love with ads, I fell in love with ad placement, paid media and then went from there of, you know what, I think there's a lot more that I can bring to the table with this and decided to go out and start an agency and with that, you know, you learn so many things when you go out on your own. First, you learn how strong you are and the decisions that you have to make to be able to go out on your own, but then you also, you know, you learn everything from running a business. It's not just that yeah, I can do the advertising side really well, okay, but can I do the business side really well? And that's probably my favorite part that I've learned over the last 11 years is the part of what I've learned on the business side and I love that part of the job, that's my favorite part of the job.

Jeff Bullas

00:05:18 - 00:05:24

Essentially becoming an entrepreneur is actually a lesson in personal growth.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:05:25 - 00:06:28

It is absolutely, and you know, and a key thing with that is I think entrepreneurs were naturally that way and we've always had a mindset of being entrepreneurial and we talk ourselves out of it a lot until we finally take that leap of faith. It's scary to get out and now I think in today's world, it's not as scary as it was but it's a little easier to be an entrepreneur, I look at generationally speaking, they are younger generations now, are more excited to think about starting businesses or more into that a little bit more and they have that faith a little bit younger than we did, but I was able, you know, when you do it, it is a lesson in everything that you as that self, that what, who am I made of? What am I able to do? What am I able to do? What decisions can I make? Digging deep in there. And entrepreneurs, we have that, we've always had that instinct of starting businesses of seeing how things can operate and see how we love to learn, we love to do things differently, we don't like to get bored. I genuinely think that entrepreneurs are a unique breed.

Jeff Bullas

00:06:28 - 00:06:39

I think they are. And I think the other thing that's not given enough credit for is the creativity that's behind becoming an entrepreneur.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:06:39 - 00:07:18

Yeah, absolutely. No matter what kind of entrepreneurial venture you're going into, you have to be creative in multiple ways, you have to be able to think, you have to solve problems on the regular and you have to find solutions to the problems. I often like to say, I'm a solutions finder, not a problem solver, I’m a solution finder, we're gonna find that solution, we're gonna figure out how it's gonna work, we're gonna make it happen, no is not an answer I like to take and it's okay, let's get this done, let's figure out how that is going to be. And I think most entrepreneurs have that natural instinct internally to be able to do, to solve those problems and to be able to have those solution seeking skills.

Jeff Bullas

00:07:18 - 00:07:26

And the other thing about entrepreneur is taking the idea and then they create something,

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:07:26 - 00:07:29

Yes, absolutely, always.

Jeff Bullas

00:07:29 - 00:07:40

It might be a product or a service and my latest favorite quote is from Seth Godin, he says ‘it doesn't count until you share.’

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:07:40 - 00:08:12

Yep, and in today's world, I feel that so many people are scared of sharing those things and scared of stepping out into it. And I'm a big believer in collaboration and in partnership and how do you work, you know, companies working together and partnering together as opposed to just seeing everybody as your competition or just as opposed to seeing everybody as a challenge to you, how can we all collaborate together? And I believe that's that next layer of sharing that we, as entrepreneurs should do.

Jeff Bullas

00:08:12 - 00:09:10

I totally agree. I think there's much more power in collaboration and working together to, you know, it raises all boats and I think that competition is overrated frankly and we quite often get lost in competition for getting that to just be you and create a product that becomes compelling and has your voice around it because then it becomes authentic and true.

Now I have, I want to go back to the future, as in I want to go back to when you got into media and put a time stamp on that because that will give us some relevance in terms of what we're going to talk about shortly, which is trends and how the pandemic has changed almost everything, sort of. So when did you get into media and advertising?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:09:10 - 00:09:44

So when I got into marketing, it was the late 90s, really getting into media was the early 2000s. So when I got into media, we're talking TV radio print and outdoor and you know, traditional platforms, print was huge still. Print was something that was like everybody still got their daily newspaper and you know, it's that type of consumption of media and all my word over 20 years later how it's changed, how it has evolved. It's been quite the journey to see how everything has shifted and changed.

Jeff Bullas

00:09:44 - 00:09:56

I know, so today's millennials and those who may be younger than 40, I wouldn't even ever read a newspaper or a piece of paper as in a newspaper.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:09:57 - 00:10:46

And what's interesting that we saw during the pandemic was we did see traditional formats make a comeback and more of the consumption of news and information, right. And so we saw younger generations consuming news, which they weren't before, they were not really actually consuming news, but they changed how they were consuming news. So they're changing it where they're not reading the physical newspaper they are now, they are making sure they're paying attention more online and they're paying attention to, they're more local news than they ever had before because they really wanted to know what was happening in their backyard. They wanted to know what local accounts we're going to be, what local guidelines were. And so we saw this consumption of younger behavior and we saw a comeback with radio too with that. So we saw, you know, TV news, print news, it was just consumed in a different way, in a different format.

Jeff Bullas

00:10:46 - 00:11:46

Something that slightly disturbs me is and it was raised quite a few years ago because I was asked how many, we all get a lot of, how many people are actually consuming news or getting their news from social media. And I went so, and I'm a little bit older than a millennial, okay, and it's like, okay, so almost all the millions and everyone under 40 whatever are consuming their news from social media. I'm going, that's really bloody scary, it is so scary because that just drives cognitive bias up. It just puts you in a bubble and you just gets tighter and tighter and tighter and then you are an absolute target for any, you know, basically schemes. It's just really, really scary.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:11:46 - 00:13:29

I think in today's world we can target based on your interest so we can target things based on what you're interested in hearing. We can target whether that be the news, whether that be the ad sets we're able to target. Now, social has changed over the last few years, last couple of years more than anything with regulations and various things of ad spend and frankly I don't like to use social as a targeting tool like we used to be able to because of the changes that Facebook specifically, LinkedIn you can still do a lot of targeting. Twitter, there's still some targeting there too but Facebook now is more of a brand tool as opposed to a targeting tool. We're not able to target the same level as we used to be able to. but that's when you should be looking at programmatic and targeting programmatically which is just a bidding process based on the persona and the individual that you're trying to target. But yes, you're absolutely right that in today's world we are able to target information more than we ever have been and so on the ad spend side and we are looking at it as a brand that's a huge opportunity that we've never been able to do. And this is something that is new technology and it's changing every day and it's something for us like our team is literally every day. I told a new client yesterday, I said well we're gonna send over all the capabilities of what we're able to do. However, know that this changes every day. We're able to add new things every day because programmatically you're able to add new things but it makes it scary. Are there those that maybe are abusing that power to be able to target? It's possible for sure.

Jeff Bullas

00:13:29 - 00:13:32

Well, I think it's the bad actors that are using that.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:13:32 - 00:13:58

I like to say that the majority of people are the good people, right. And there's always the bad actors that spoil it for everyone. But it is such a tool that can be used in such a positive way and to make such a positive difference. And we really all of us as marketers and all of us as advertisers and brands should be looking at it in that manner as opposed to using it in the other targeting like.

Jeff Bullas

00:13:58 - 00:14:20

Yeah, I totally agree. Look, I was incredibly positive about social media when I started my blog in 2009, which is basically me starting to write very badly because I hadn't really written much since I left university. So like I've written but you know, right.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:14:19 - 00:14:21

I know, I understand.

Jeff Bullas

00:14:21 - 00:15:45

But back then it was like social media was just this wild west, the algorithms actually hadn't even been invented then. 2013-2014 Facebook started bringing algorithms because it went public and it stopped, it removed almost overnight, well over a little while, people's ability to reach their audience had built such as their followers. So it's been a really interesting journey for me in the last 13 years to observe the media landscape, social media landscape, the digital marketing landscape, the online entrepreneur landscape, which is where I'm leaning more into these days. So before we dive into, because I'm really curious about how the pandemic has changed marketing, advertising media, maybe even life, we can get into something interesting called life. And so, but before you do that, I don't understand programmatic advertising. So I am now putting you on the spot. Okay, Mary Ann, tell me what programmatic advertising is.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:15:45 - 00:19:12

And you're not the only one. It has been a, I would say that this is the wild west of today and this is where the people are headed. And they've been there. If you're not on the programmatic bandwagon yet, you should be looking at it, find a good partner in it. I preach all day long about a vendor versus a partner and find a good partner. There are companies like ours that partner with you that know how to use it well, take the mystery out of it for you because that's probably that's the biggest thing. There's a lot of mystery about it because it's new and it's different and frankly, I think people do that on purpose so that they can make it easy, you know, easier for you to buy onto it. But in reality find a good partner that can help you because it is very specialized.

So programmatic advertising, it's just an automated form of ad placement. That's all it is. And if I like to bring it down to the most simple line possible, okay. In history before programmatic, anytime we would buy any media, it would go through an RFP process or go through a process where I'd reach a rep and I find out, okay, what can I do? What is going to be the price? What’s my rate card? What's the information I need to, I put my spots and I put all my goals and a plan and I put it together and I send it in an order. Now, what programmatic does is it makes it automated. And if you think of it in that sense. So before I would actually go to a website or I'd go to a public, let's say it's the Wall Street Journal, I would go to the Wall Street Journal and I'd get what's the rate card to be online. What's the rate card to be in the publication? What's the rate card of where we need to be? Now, I can go and I can programmatically bid and automate that to bid to be on that website based on the individual and the persona in which I'm targeting. So if I'm targeting a business person, you know, I'm talking to the C suite executive level, financial, I get as deep as I possibly can. I can see then, okay, the data sets of where are they gonna be? They're gonna be on the Wall Street Journal now. It's an automated bidding process as opposed to me having to pick up the phone and having to call a rep and get a rate card, okay. I did that process and I'm there but I'm not wasting dollars in the sense that I know where my audience is based on data sets that we have, right. And that's the other part, programmatic brings in all the artificial intelligence and it brings in that bidding process. And it makes it this part where I'm looking at targeting a persona in an individual, not just a demographic, but an individual based on the certain habits that they have and I'm reaching them where they are and that's what and I'm bidding it in that process. So before, when I first started in the media, media was a demographic. What is your demographic? Oh, it's 18-50 for adults 18-54 years old. I'm not gonna reach the 18 year old the same way I am with the 54 year old and the fact that we ever thought we were. But that's where we went abroad. We went very broad because that's the only way we can measure media. We used to only measure media by diaries, literally physical diaries that still exist today, that we would fill out where people consuming media, that is it. Now, we know where people are consuming media because they get online and we have all this data available to us to know where they are. And so it's different now, now it's who is my ideal customer and then where am I targeting to find them? And it's building a persona of that ideal customer as opposed to just a broad demographic that I'm going after.

Jeff Bullas

00:19:13 - 00:19:20

Okay, so that makes a lot more sense to me then because programmatic was problematic because I didn't understand it.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:19:20 - 00:19:39

Yeah, I think of it this way the websites put up an impression up for bid and you know, it's putting it out for auction. I'm bidding on it and I'm getting that impression. So I'm buying the impression as opposed to having to call her up. What's the rate card? Okay, I'll be on the homepage that works great. Here you go.

Jeff Bullas

00:19:39 - 00:20:27

So, there's something like Facebook advertising and the thing about digital media it is has become so splintered. So you almost like, you can only be a specialist in one platform almost, right? Like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, it just goes on and on and on. So with programmatic, do you need to use, obviously, I need to use a platform that is connected to all the media or as much media as possible. So what are some of the programmatic media platforms that you use or is that a black box or secret women's business or something? I don't know. But tell us about that.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:20:27 - 00:21:00

It is called a DSP, which is a Demand Side Platform and what you want is a partner that has a direct seat on a DSP. Because you can get vendors that, we hear TV vendors, we hear other vendors out there that are using a DSP, but they're like three or four layers separated, maybe, even two or three layers separated. So you're not getting that hands on direct seat of bidding and it costs a lot and there are minimums to be a seat and to be a direct seat.

Jeff Bullas

00:21:00 - 00:21:02

So DSP, again, tell me what that is.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:21:02 - 00:21:05

It is a Demand Side Platform.

Jeff Bullas

00:21:05 - 00:21:10

Demand sight?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:21:11 - 00:22:26

Side, S-I-D-E. And you're using that, that is what you're bidding on. And you want somebody who has a direct seat. There are multiple DSPs out there and each of them serve something different and how they do it. But there, I mean, there's a lot of great tools out there. But what it takes is if you are going to actually be a direct seat that takes a lot of investment on your part. So if you're a small brand, you can go to a vendor and you can get the programmatic bidding, you're not gonna get as much spend, you're not gonna get the best quality CPM necessarily, you're not gonna get somebody who's looking and optimizing everything on the regular, you're gonna get more of a set it and forget it type of mentality. But if you find a partner that has that direct seat and I'm trying more and more, I'm educating brands on find a partner that has a direct seat on a DSP. Ask those things, ask those things of, are you a direct seat? And that will help with multiple ways for you when you are trying to bid your ad spend, but work with them on it. Like you're giving a budget, you're looking at who you're targeting. That person is a direct seat and they're able to then optimize bid, do everything on your behalf if they are a true partner for you.

Jeff Bullas

00:22:27 - 00:22:30

So that sounds very complex.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:22:30 - 00:23:11

It can, it is, I mean, it takes, it's a big investment, we got into it very early and it was something that, okay, this is a concentration, this is where we're gonna go and it's a large investment to do, it's a, you know, an entrepreneurial leap of faith of can we do this? And you do it, and when you do it, it really does make that difference. But the good news is for brands that can't afford to put millions into it. What do you do? You find that partner that has invested in it. Our business model is to work with people who don't have the money to invest millions of dollars into putting that together.

Jeff Bullas

00:23:11 - 00:23:19

So someone wants to do that programmatic, you're basically, if you've got a direct seat, is that how it works?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:23:20 - 00:23:20

Yup, yup.

Jeff Bullas

00:23:20 - 00:23:21

Okay and you then.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:23:21 - 00:23:45

You come to a partner like us that, you know, like our company that would then help you if you don't have the millions to spend. So you come to us with our volume and we help you, then we just bid on your behalf. We do that for you, we help you, we come up with a strategy for you. You don't, you no longer have to be the expert in it anymore. You find that true digital partner to help you in it.

Jeff Bullas

00:23:45 - 00:24:04

So that begs another question too. So why use programmatic advertising instead of just, okay, I've got skills in the house. We can do Facebook advertising, right? Why should I go and do programmatic advertising versus Facebook advertising?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:24:05 - 00:25:45

So Facebook is very brand driven and programmatic, you're gaining a wider audience with narrowing your audience down. You're narrowing who you actually are trying to target. You can get as narrow as you possibly want. It's easier to test your advice, it's easier to see. And Facebook and social media absolutely have its place. We do that too. We do the social platforms. We have traditional experts, we have social experts, we have Google experts, and then we have our programmatic team as well. So, we do all of those and every single one of them has a role and it's a matter of what your goal is. If you are looking at overall brand recognition,now that's when you're using Facebook and you're not necessarily looking at targeting. Programmatic is a targeting tool where you want to target the individual in which you want to serve your ad to. This is your, you know, your audience really well. I do speak all the time of, know your audience and then get to know them a little bit more. And why? Because that's how we target in today's world. If, when I started my career over 20 years ago, if we would have been able to have this capability of targeting, it's amazing what we could have been able to do, right? And now I look at it and think, okay, it's right here in our fingertips and not enough people take advantage of it, they know about it. They know you can target, but you're not keeping up on the trends. Again, another reason why you want a good partner. The partners are usually staying up on trends. We are, every day doing our research. Where do we use Facebook and social? And where do we use programmatic? Where are the goals with it? Because both of them all have their place and they have their strengths, we just have to use them to their strengths.

Jeff Bullas

00:25:46 - 00:27:23

That's awesome. So, now if I'm going to launch a new product, alright, we have got the ability to capture data. So, what I'm gonna start with this question, where I'm going with this question is if I'm going to launch a product, I need to go and test the messaging, I need to test headlines, I need to test the sales funnel. So with programmatic and what you guys do, how do you go about that? Like in other words, you want to go and do a low cost test and I want to maybe get 5-7% click through on an ad. Okay, you know what, one or two, maybe 5-7? If you get above that, it's looking good. And I'll be interested in what you think is a good click through rate based upon test. So how do you go about testing? That's one question. And what's a good click through rate? And there's a third question, which is what sort of budget do you need? Because if I'm sure, I don't know what you're talking about, what budget do you need to test without breaking the bank, alright. Because, okay, so once you find what works and what doesn't and it's, and marketing today is just an ongoing evolution and growth of tweaking. Getting another 1%, another 2% because the data, how to measure all that. So tell us about a list of three questions, you might have forgotten the first one.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:27:23 - 00:31:43

I think the answer to all of them is it depends, right? So, but when you are looking, so if you're doing testing programmatic, you can do in social and programmatic, you're able to do AB testing and you're able to look at different assets and testing like click through rates, it depends on what your goal is gonna be, right. And it's gonna vary because maybe you are doing more impression based as opposed to click based and overall, you have to take a step back and say, okay, what is my goal of the campaign? Where am I going with this? What are my KPIs that I'm actually looking for? I want to know what my performance indicators are ahead of time, define those ahead of time so that you can look at and go, okay, this is, if my goal is clicks then I'm gonna want to push for a higher click through rate. If my goal is impressions, I'm going to want to push for a higher impression. So when you're looking at a strategy of a new brand launch, there's a few things, there's testing you can do before you launch your brand, right? So you're gonna want to actually look at that and test the market, test your audience of, okay, I'm about to do a new brand launch, there's tons of research that you have to put into that. Whether it's social listening, whether it's AB testing, it could be a total brand change as a whole, that you're changing a name, you're changing, you know, who knows? And that is something that has to be tested ahead of time and you're more getting a sampling of what the market feels, what the market is thinking about the current brand, what the market is thinking and hungry maybe for a new line out of that current brand or a new change as a whole. So you've got your testing that you can do ahead of time and then you've got your testing that you can do once you do launch two and that's more on the performance on each ad set. What creative is gonna work better, what creative is getting, what are key performance indicators are, what are those KPIs, what ads are performing best to those. Am I getting more clicks out of ad set A or am I getting more clicks out of ad set B if that's what my goal is. And that's what I have to actually look at, is look at the whole, what am I looking for, what is the goal of the campaign and then test my, test it for that. So I'm testing, if it's a new brand launch your testing ahead of time, you have to test ahead of time to kind of get an idea of what the market is even hungry for and then when you go into market and, okay, we see that the hungry, the market is hungry for this X and we're going down it, we're going down that path. Okay, now I'm gonna test that ad set to see exactly to get what I need. If it's an e-commerce launch and I need sales through the roof and I'm having to look, okay, right out of the gate, I need to increase sales and I have a ton of inventory. Then I'm gonna have to get rid of. Then I'm gonna be looking at click through rate because that's gonna get me straight into sales funnel, right? That's gonna get me straight into there and I'm gonna see where I need to go and that acquisition line. So that's where I want to look at. If it's just, hey, I'm launching this, I'm trying to get hype, I'm trying to get brand recognition, I'm trying to get the name out there, I don't have a ton of inventory yet. Then I'm gonna look at a goal of impressions as opposed to clicks because I want the name out there as much as possible. I want to get my audience to see this new name.

So really, the answer to all three is, it depends. It depends on what you're looking for in that goal, but when it comes to budget testing is not as expensive as you would think. You're gonna want to have a few $1000 that you're gonna put into it. If you're a smaller brand don't go, you know what, programmatic is not for me, social is not for me because a lot of times people have gone to social because it is a more affordable platform. Programmatic can be affordable as well, It depends on what you're targeting. You cannot target Times Square with $1000 nor should you want to. But there are places that you can target and you can look, okay, this is what I want to make sure that I'm doing, this is the geo that I want to target. This is the demographic that I wanna target and the persona that I want to target. And I can test my brand with this persona and it doesn't have to be an astronomic million dollar budget. It does not always have to be that. And I think, you know, a lot of times brands walk away and they go, you know what, I just can't afford all this digital, I just can't afford it. Well really there's always a form of budget that you can't afford. You just have to look and see, okay, what are my goals with this? And I may not bite off a huge chunk of the apple at once. I'm gonna nibble that apple as much as I can.

Jeff Bullas

00:31:44 - 00:31:53

So bigger brands of launching a new product are going to be happier with impressions because they're gonna bucket load of money, right?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:31:53 - 00:31:54

Yep, yep.

Jeff Bullas

00:31:54 - 00:31:57

Well, small and medium businesses are going to make every penny count, right?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:31:57 - 00:32:40

They're going to care about every penny. But that's why programmatic is an option for anyone of any size, of any company of any size. And there's always a media option for you. And that is the amazing thing in today's world is that now we have all of these tools that if you have any form of brand, you should be looking at paid media. We have all of these tools available to us now where, like I said, when I started, we didn't, we were limited and you only, you had to spend so much money to get your frequency up so people would even know who you were so that your ad spend wasn't completely ruined or wasted. And now in today's world it can all work together and you can come up with a budget friendly options.

Jeff Bullas

00:32:41 - 00:32:53

So, what's great about measuring advertising with the data we now have rather than the bullshit TV advertising which we had right?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:32:54 - 00:33:11

Yes. I remember starting in my career and there was a sales manager on our floor and a customer had asked him, well, how do I know it's working? And he goes, because your cash register is ringing and I will never forget that and it was always like, I just want to vomit.

Jeff Bullas

00:33:11 - 00:33:12

That’s right, exactly.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:33:12 - 00:33:21

Right. Like it just feels like car salesman like, and not that there's anything wrong with car sales. I'm just saying it just felt smarmy and with that.

Jeff Bullas

00:33:21 - 00:33:27

Be very very very afraid of a man in a suit.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:33:27 - 00:34:40

Exactly. It just feels and, you know, it's the kind of conversation like I'm done. I'm good. Okay thanks. But in reality what you do want to look at now in today's world, we have so many tracking tools that we can use. We can tell what people are doing on the website now. We can track what are people, where, what sites are they, what pages are they on? What are they doing while they're there? How long they were there? What are they reading the most? I mean we have so many tools now and that data tells us a story to tell that, you know, I'm gonna go back to where the beginning of this interview started of my love for data. Data tells a story of where people are headed and where people are saying if you start to see more multiple numbers of people hanging out on a certain page on your website longer than any other page that's telling you a story that is telling you something there, there's an action that can be taken there. There's something else that can be done. So the amazing thing in today's world is that we're all being tracked. The scary thing is we're all being tracked. But at the same time let's use that as marketers to our advantage to be able to get the information that we want on our customers and to be able to then make our brands even better to serve them even better.

Jeff Bullas

00:34:41 - 00:35:59

Exactly. So we're talking about data. So let's lean into dashboards, data dashboards, okay. Because you've got all this data and you got to try and get it from here, there, there, over there and it's confusing. Okay, so, alright, so number one, I've got impressions, I've got clicks, I now have leads. Now I have sales, I'm just breaking it down to the most basic right, okay. So we need to know where that data is coming from something which is paid working or is referral working. I have a website that gets millions of views a year and I find that drives a lot of referral traffic for free and by time and investment by creating content versus advertising, and the other thing about referral traffic coming from a trusted source, which is your website versus paid, which is cold traffic. So we have one traffics from your list, it's from your website where people, hopefully no one trusts you advertising is, no one knows who the hell you are, right. It's cold traffic, right?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:35:59 - 00:37:22

Unless you're using your data in a good way and you're collecting data and retargeting and if someone's coming in from the warm side and it's because of all the content and the amazing things that you're developing on your site, you need to be then retargeting them afterwards. So it is, if we're gonna talk data, let's talk about first party data. Let's talk about what it is for you to own data on your customer now and to collect that information as they are coming to your website from either a warm source or cold source. Either way you should be then retargeting them. They are clicking there to go to your website for a reason and that is then data and its prime there right there and you don't want to scare them off. You want to make sure that you're nurturing that relationship, right? So you just give, you have to give them friendly reminders in it. You have to make sure that they know where you are and it is a but through the warm source of it they are there retarget them. It's okay to retarget them after. That's then where you can make the hot lead coming in from content that you developed with the cold lead of ads. That's where it's gonna make it nice and warm and it's gonna work, you're gonna work them together. Those ad sides of, okay, I'm gonna retarget now that's an ad set that's fine and that's paid media but you need to do those things and those tools to use those data to actually help you overall in your brand and what you're trying to accomplish.

Jeff Bullas

00:37:23 - 00:37:27

So you bring paid media in, you bring referral traffic in warm traffic.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:37:28 - 00:37:28

They all work together, yep.

Jeff Bullas

00:37:28 - 00:38:12

Yeah, exactly. So basically by bringing cold traffic in start to get a little bit hot and bothered as in warm, nicely hot and bothered, you know, it's like dating really. So the reality is, they both work together. No that's, what I've heard in some of your dispatches. So let's talk data dashboards then. So do you help people create those? Do you provide resources or tell them where to go to do that? Because at the end of the day we've got so much data but it needs to be distilled otherwise it's just confusing.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:38:12 - 00:40:18

It can be very confusing and that is probably raw data is very overwhelming and confusing. Again to me, like, and this is something that I just advise all the time is finding that partner that can help you with it. So the tools that we use, we actually have a dashboard that we use and that we customize for each customer. So each brand that comes to us, whether it's an agency, we work with a lot with ad agencies to be their media department or if you are a brand direct and you're an in house marketing team and we work with you will develop that dashboard and it's gonna change based on what you're the goals of each campaign and the goals of each client. So like an agency that comes to us with dozens of clients. We're going to have a different dashboard for each client. We're gonna have a different set up for it, right? But you're going to pull in the information that's gonna be the most important because you're right, trying to process data can be so overwhelming and so, okay, what is this telling me? And it's then the interpretation of it. So we like to help with that interpretation. That is something that is on our end. We do a lot of, okay, what does this mean? Now it's the next step and that is where it's so important to find that partner, not just that vendor that's giving you the service that, you know, yeah, they can do it. But finding a partner that then helps you in that interpretation to make your investment every dollar you spend in ad sets or doing anything and paid space is an investment and you want to get a return on that investment. So you want to make sure that you have a partner that is helping you get every piece back into that of how, okay, what does this mean? How do I interpret this data? So I'm not overwhelmed by it. And, okay, because I can be overwhelmed by so many different things instead of telling me I have no idea I have seen people who don't have a partner go, I have no idea what this means, I have no idea what any of it means. I have no idea what this, how, you know, okay, my ad performed well, what does that mean? And how do I interpret it from there. So it is really important to find those partners and find people to work with on that front that can actually help you interpret your own data.

Jeff Bullas

00:40:18 - 00:40:24

So did you create your own, build your own dashboard technology?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:40:24 - 00:40:53

Kind of a combination of both. We went through a long journey of finding, okay, what's gonna be the best and yes, then we went through and we created, we can partner ourselves that then helped us develop it. And then that's what we did and, and it's an investment in it. But that's what we do is we're data people and we're working in all media space. What we needed was a dashboard that can pull in all your media and tell you exactly based on all metrics, what are we meeting and what are we not?

Jeff Bullas

00:40:54 - 00:41:08

And I don't think I can stress enough how important a data dashboard is as an online company and guess what? Almost everyone now is an online data company one way or the other.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:41:09 - 00:41:13

Absolutely. And we all have data that we need to be tracking. We all do.

Jeff Bullas

00:41:13 - 00:41:28

Exactly. So we've gotta understand programmatic advertising a lot more, which is great. We're talking about data, which is important when testing, which is really, really important because everyone says, oh, I've got a great idea. It's going to work.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:41:29 - 00:42:00

Test it out. You have to because we all may think it's a great idea. The marketplace may not be ready for it or the marketplace may not want it or you never know the other part of it too. On that end of testing, who are your competitors and go do the research on it. Those are other research tools. When you find a good partner for us, we do analysis of your competitive spend. What are your competitors spending? What, how many competitors do you have out there that are bidding for that same ad space but also for the same dollars to be spent. That's also a big part of your testing.

Jeff Bullas

00:42:01 - 00:42:22

Yeah, I'd love to quote by Mike Tyson about, yeah, everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face and that applies totally also to a product. It's like I have a great product but the market is going to punch you in the face.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:42:22 - 00:42:26

The market can be a real, real, real rude reminder of reality.

Jeff Bullas

00:42:27 - 00:42:47

That's right. So, you've created your own agency which has, you know, really, really clever, well thought out digital programmatic and traditional and programmatic does also use traditional. Is that correct?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:42:47 - 00:42:59

Absolutely more and more. And so we talk about trends and where it's headed. Programmatic will be heavy and traditional and that's where we're going eventually, where you will be going into a bidding process for the traditional platforms as well.

Jeff Bullas

00:42:59 - 00:43:06

Right. So what you're saying is programmatic is much better at targeting than Facebook?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:43:06 - 00:43:38

It has become a better targeting tool than Facebook because Facebook with privacies and everything changed. Facebook used to be phenomenal and targeting and exactly that and that's exactly the point, right. At any point the market will hit in the face and that's exactly what happened where it changed them significantly. It is still a very, very good platform, it is still a strong platform for your ad sales, but you need to use it for its strength. You're not using it for targeting anymore.

Jeff Bullas

00:43:38 - 00:44:12

Right. It was Apple decided to stop providing through privacy, opt in, opt out and I believe the numbers I've heard is that the bottom line impact on Facebook by privacy implementation from Apple's IOS 12.3, it might have been, I'm not sure, hit Facebook's advertising spend by $10 billion.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:44:12 - 00:44:23

Yeah, and it is a, like I said, you still use it for its strength. Use it for its strengths and it's just not the targeting tool that it used to be. It's just not.

Jeff Bullas

00:44:23 - 00:44:54

Exactly, and this is what's fascinating about the trends. Okay, so last question because I realize you've got to get home before the snowstorm of two feet. So, the pandemic has accelerated change. Remote work is just one thing; how we live is part of that. So how has the pandemic changed the advertising industry and where you're playing?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:44:54 - 00:48:20

Well, that could be a whole hour interview by itself. So I'll give a few quick synopsis of it because it really is, it's one of those things now that I speak on the most is probably the generational break out of what we saw in consumption habits change. So really, truly what we saw right out of the gate is a huge evolution of social and online platforms for our older generations. This was an evolution that probably either way wouldn't have taken place in their lives and or it would have taken a good 10 to 15 years depending on age group. So we're talking baby boomers and older that overnight they were already kind of online, they were already doing some social media, but literally overnight they became huge consumers of online data and online information. That's when we saw them starting to stream, this was a generation that was still traditional in their television, they were not streaming yet, then we saw them starting to stream, we started seeing them consume media in a different format, so that is a habit that was created. On the other spectrum and the other end of this, we saw the younger generations and I hinted at this earlier, the younger generation starting to consume media that was traditional, but yet on an online platform. So we started to see these younger generations where they were actually tuning into radio and they were listening to radio, they were listening to things because they wanted to know what was happening in their backyard. We see this when huge events happen and catastrophic events happen. We see habits change. 9/11 in the US, we saw morning news actually increased significantly. And why do we see morning news increased significantly was because consumers wanted to know the world that I went to bed to isn't the same world that I'm waking up to. So we saw this huge increase in the morning news. Now in the pandemic, fast forward, the big difference in the pandemic is it lasted so long and it's lasted so long that our habits were, they have become rock solid concrete. These are true, genuine long term habits now that we are having and we are seeing long term change in that consumption behavior you're talking about, you know, you're talking to remote work, you're talking online consumption at an all time high that we got used to every day, we over consume information when we're in a form of panic, that's what humans do. We over consume information. We over consumed information for so long we've never stopped. We're at this high level of consumption of media, of information, of data. We're at this high level and we haven't brought it back down meaning our minds and our brains are still used to this and because we consumed it for so long like that we're used to that dopamine high of being online all the time. So what we're seeing is an over-consumption is now becoming the new norm. So these changes in these habits are that people are consuming media of course at an all time high, but now it actually allows for targeting to be better for the information that we have on individuals to be stronger, everything to be used in a positive light, in a positive way for brands. But humans as a whole worldwide are consuming more information than they ever have before, and we have to find that strategy of how to do it and correctly target them with it. It could be a whole hour episode, just to be honest.

Jeff Bullas

00:48:21 - 00:48:41

Okay, so let me sum it up in a very simple way, as much as I possibly can. So media consumption has gone through the roof. So now we're going to work out how to use that media consumption to actually break through the noise because there's actually more noise now.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:48:41 - 00:49:11

Yes, and yep, that's exactly right, So if you aren't using targeting tools to break through the noise, if you aren't using certain ways and getting to know who your actual consumer is, your product, you need to, you need to invest in that, and I'm not saying invest millions, I'm saying invest into that to get to know your customer better, but then get to know how to target them better, and that's a really important place because right now you have to break through the noise more than you ever have.

Jeff Bullas

00:49:11 - 00:49:20

And you gonna talk to, you could talk to the people that, you don't want to know what everyone, you just want those that actually.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:49:20 - 00:49:20

Your customer.

Jeff Bullas

00:49:20 - 00:49:47

Your customer. In other words, if you pissed a few people off on the way, it really doesn't matter. You just want to talk to your customer and Kevin Kelly put out a famous, I think 2007 post, which is 1000 true fans. We're all trying to find our fans, which is our customers and then we need to serve them and that's where it gets rather fun and exciting, so.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:49:47 - 00:49:48

Exactly, that's exactly right.

Jeff Bullas

00:49:48 - 00:50:25

So to sum it up and I'm gonna put on the spot a little bit here, what's the top two or three tips in terms of someone who's going to launch a new product or wants to sell a product? You can choose whichever you like. So using your strategy, what you've learned along the way since in the last 20 plus years, what are the top tips to succeed at using advertising to get new customers? What are the top tips?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:50:25 - 00:51:58

Okay, so number one, no matter whether this is a new brand or if this is an existing brand get to know your customer better, get to know who they are and then get to know them a little bit more and the targeting data that you have know that it's okay to use that and be able to do it, but you've got to get to know them because and combine the first and the third party data together, use tools that are out there to be able to do that, but get to know your customer very well, get to know them at that level of what are their habits, what do they do outside of just buying your product, get to know them. Then the next thing is build a plan around that customer, build a plan of what you're looking at and who that is. Don't be afraid to try something new. It's okay to venture out into something different, it's okay to venture out where your customer is, remember, you may not be your target audience and that's a key thing you want to venture to, where your target audience is, not where you are, where your target audience is. And then number three, build as you're building this plan, have the correct KPIs of what you want to have your goal after that so that you have this three step plan of if you're following it and I go, okay, this is what I want. Do I want impressions or do I want clicks and sales, identify that at the very, very beginning and as you go through this process, you'll be able to see, okay, that's why most ads, ad campaigns they can fail because they don't clearly identify what their KPIs are at the very beginning, identify that at the beginning. So get to know your audience, build your plan around your audience, not you. And then identify those KPIs right at the very beginning.

Jeff Bullas

00:51:59 - 00:52:00

That's awesome.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:52:00 - 00:52:08

Well, thank you. I try to help and, you know what, be helpful. That's the thing in today's world, it is okay to just be helpful to people.

Jeff Bullas

00:52:08 - 00:52:21

So there's three tips. Okay, and which is very executable, which is what we're trying to look for. So Mary Ann, thank you very much for coming on The Jeff Bullas Show.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:52:21 - 00:52:23

Thank you for having me Jeff. It was a blast.

Jeff Bullas

00:52:23 - 00:52:31

It was, it was fun. And I hope you get home safely. If I hear about someone died in the storm and was turned up frozen.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:52:32 - 00:52:33

I'll be good.

Jeff Bullas

00:52:33 - 00:52:34

Yeah. I know you can make it.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:52:34 - 00:52:36

I’m a pretty woman, I'll make it through. I’ll be okay.

Jeff Bullas

00:52:36 - 00:52:38

Yeah.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:52:38 - 00:52:39

I'm a fighter.

Jeff Bullas

00:52:39 - 00:52:43

Yes. Right, Well you're from New Jersey, is that correct?

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:52:43 - 00:52:44

Originally from New Jersey, yes.

Jeff Bullas

00:52:44 - 00:52:47

I've heard they're a tough breed.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:52:47 - 00:52:52

Yes, we are. You can take the girl out in New Jersey but you can't take the New Jersey out of the girl, that's for sure.

Jeff Bullas

00:52:53 - 00:53:24

And I can hear, I can detect the accent as well, which is really awesome. So thank you very much, Mary Ann, it's been an absolute honor to have you on the show. I always learn something from incredible people that I've talked to around the world and you're one of those that reveals their expertise and shared it openly and honestly with listeners and viewers. And I've learned a lot today, so thank you very much.

Mary Ann Pruitt

00:53:25 - 00:53:26

Thank you for having me.