Eniro's Henriette Hoff on Display and Header Bidding across the Nordics.
“There have been several alternatives to Prebid available, but none of them have had the same impact on the market.”
Henriette Hoff is Head of Nordic Display Sales at Eniro. We spoke to Henriette about the current state of the display ad market and header bidding in Denmark and across the Nordics.
Can you please give us a quick introduction to your company, and role, for those who don’t already know you?
I work for Eniro as the person responsible for the overall display business. Eniro owns sites such as Krak.dk, Eniro.se and Gulesider.no. We are a commercial partner for publishers who don’t have their own sales department and therefore we have a large Nordic network. We also help advertisers to create the best possible solutions for their digital campaigns, with the help of our salespeople across all three countries.
Where do you want your organization to be in terms of display and video in a year from now?
We are constantly expanding our display network with more publishers who produce original video content in particular. We see a huge demand for both in-feed video, as well as pre-roll.
Our work involves constantly monitoring and improving performance and quality, from within our display network, so that buyers get the best possible results at all times.
Google has announced the sunsetting of the 3rd party cookie within the next two years. Does it put publishers in a stronger or weaker position?
I believe that by and large, this will put publishers in a stronger position down the road. Yes, it may impact revenue for a while, but then again it will make our 1st party data much more valuable in terms of targeting and pricing for the foreseeable future.
It could unfortunately put smaller publishers in a weaker position, if they do not have enough data volume to compete with the large competition. Particularly for those publishers who have a specific target audience or vertical, it will surely be an advantage.
When we look at programmatic guaranteed vs PMPs vs open market – what would you say are the strongest areas right now, and what kind of missing features could really make a difference in each?
As we are present across all of the Nordics, we see different trends in different countries. They all have an important role. In Sweden we see a tendency that programmatic guaranteed and PMPs are stronger, whereas in Denmark it’s the other way around.
What is your high level view on the state of header bidding and Prebid, both now and where it might get to in future?
Header bidding is here to stay. The Prebid technology has developed steadily, but rapidly. There have been several alternatives to Prebid available, but none of them have had the same impact on the market.
It was clear that the Prebid model, based on open source code, where many very skilled developers could contribute, was the way to go. This means that we have absolute confidence in the consistency of quality, and the product’s continued development for the future.
What was the major decision factor that made you choose Demand Manager as your Prebid management tool?
There were several things that had an impact - we were in a process where we were switching ad server provider, and that meant that our current header bidding solution needed to be reviewed.
We wanted to deepen our analytics capabilities, and Demand Manager fulfilled both the need for more control over the technical part of the implementation as well as ongoing support. It also provides the necessary tools for us to keep track of the ongoing health of all of our header bidding implementations.
What is your main expectation from Demand Manager?
We expect continuous development of the platform, which will obviously bring more revenue, but also make life easier for us maintenance-wise. There's a strong support team, where we feel prioritized, which is really important to us, as we have an entire partner network to maintain and constantly wish to provide the best possible service level.
In the business case for Demand Manager, is it the cost or the revenue side that is most influential?
That is, of course, a mixture of both. We are very focused on quality, and of course, that will involve cost if we want the best solutions for our partners and ourselves.
Like all companies, we also need to have a focus on cost, so it will always be crucial that revenue gains exceed that.
What sets Netric and Rubicon Project apart from other, similar firms you have worked with?
We have a very strong and close relationship with Netric.
We work with many large international partners, but as many are US and UK-based we are only a small client of theirs. As Netric is Nordic and based in Stockholm, our physical distance is not that great, which I think is the key to why the relationship with Netric and Rubicon works much more smoothly.
They have a stronger presence in the Nordics no doubt because of their ability to network and therefore can be even more proactive. We feel like we are not just one of many, but actually a valued partner.
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