The Ins and Outs of Ad Ops

The Guest

Angelina Eng is the VP of Measurement, Addressability, and Data Center at the Interactive Advertising Bureau. She’s worked at Morgan Stanley, Dentsu Aegis, has worked with small brands like General Mills, Time Warner Cable, and Kraft Foods, she curates an amazing newsletter on LinkedIn called “Angie’s Career Gazette,” and as if that wasn’t enough, she’s joined us today on the NinjaCat podcast to talk about the ins and outs of Ad Ops. 

Leading IAB's Data Initiatives

Angelina's current role at IAB involves heading the Measurement and Addressability Data Center. This position focuses on how data is used for targeting, attribution, and setting industry standards. With a 30-year career that evolved from media planning to data management, her work now emphasizes ad verification, viewability, attention metrics, and adapting to changes like the depreciation of cookies.

"I've been in the industry for 30 years," says Angelina. "And in that time, I veered towards media planning and buying and then data, pipelines, and making sense of the data chaos. The things I’m focused on now are attention metrics, cross-channel metrics, and newer solutions that are evolving, like AI, privacy sandbox and retail media.”

Current Trends in Marketing Data Analytics

Angelina highlighted a growing focus on data clean rooms and first-party data among agencies and media companies. However, she noted an over-reliance on deterministic data and stressed the importance of targeting unknown audiences and cohorts.

"First party data only gets you about 20% there to total addressable audience... AI is going to help... with known audiences and then leveraging data modeling towards unknown audiences. We need to find solutions to target audiences that rely less on cookies and identifiers and are more probabilistic and cohort driven, and I hope that we start seeing that soon.”

The Rise of Attention Metrics and the Challenges Ahead

She discussed the recent blossoming of attention metrics, including eye-tracking and biometrics. The industry is moving towards optimization based on data proxy signals like attention or engagement, though defining 'attention' remains a challenge.

"Attention metrics blossomed around Q4 of last year... but attention is difficult to define," admits Angelina. "We created a task force on attention, we have 300 participants, and we’re going through the process of really trying to determine what attention means and measurement requirements.”

Concerns and Strategies for a Post-Cookie World

Angelina expressed concerns about the future of marketing analytics in light of privacy regulations and the deprecation of cookies. She advised readiness for less event-level data and emphasized the importance of A/B testing and multi-variant testing.

"Be ready for less event-level data, and overlay datasets and variants," says Angelina. "What I am concerned about is that when things like privacy sandbox roll out and the regulations hit, that is the biggest risk."

Collaborations and Standards in Advertising

IAB, under Angelina's guidance, actively works with various stakeholders through committees, working groups, and task forces. These groups focus on developing products, standards, and playbooks, particularly in areas like retail media.

Data Quality and Integrity Recommendations

Angelina stressed the importance of adopting standards, marketing data integration, and enabling interoperability. She urged agencies and advertisers to push for these standards and for ad tech companies to seek accreditation for maintaining data quality.

"It’s all about adopting standards, and enabling interoperability," explains Angelina. "Too many walled gardens with platforms, too much grading of their own homework."

While Angelina’s work with the IAB is focused on the context of ads; where they’re seen, how they’re verified, served, and engaged with, when it comes to how much focus and research goes into the contents of ads, and what effectiveness means in this regard, she had some interesting things to say.

“I have seen thousands of ads over the years, and I can really only count on a handful of ads that are really compelling and effective. A large amount of ads aren’t bad, they just aren’t great. How does the role of creative execution play into effectiveness? It makes me wonder; are we moving to a world where we are making the publisher/platform accountable for attention and effectiveness, and not the ads themselves?"

"My point of view is we need to tread carefully, it’s a balance of both compelling content and placement," says Angelina. "This is a time for us to learn, allow for these platforms to evolve, and even partnering with these sites and publishers directly to understand how ads are being engaged with and how we can make that better going forward. My one piece of advice to agencies out there is, invest in your ad ops teams; don’t outsource this critical area because it will become increasingly important as these privacy changes hit in the near future.”

To hear about Angelina’s take on the importance of cross-channel data and the coming changes with privacy and targeting in the digital landscape, the IAB’s continuing focus on interoperability and standards in advertising, how traditional media planning can be paired with AI, and if Angelina is ok with pineapple on pizza, listen to the full interview at the links provided above and below. 

The Links

IAB
Angelina on LinkedIn

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