EP46 - Digital Advertising, a Mix of Technology and the Human Element with Ben Wise and Jeremy Freedman

Corby Fine: 0:44

I have spent the better part of the last 25 years working in an ever changing space. Digital marketing, digital advertising, digital transformation. The reality is, is that it's constantly redefining itself, and I think that's so much of what attracts me and people like me to the space is this constant. Need to learn to adapt, to update, to train. And that change is what drives me. It keeps me going. It gets me excited, but it also requires that you have partners and friends and colleagues in the space that can fill in the gaps and, and really create dialogue and help each other out. And that's something that I think this ecosystem has really, really fostered is. A great willingness for people to just help each other out because of the fact that so much change is just impossible for one individual to keep up with. And one of those organizations and groups of people that's really good at helping us out, uh, are those at Google. And I've had the opportunity and the privilege of working with so many great people in that organization over the years to innovate and do some really interesting things. And I love the fact that I've got not just one, but two people today that we can speak with. Exactly about the changing and evolving landscape of digital advertising and digital marketing. Ben Wise, head of programmatic media at Google Canada. 15 year industry veteran, again, like me, you know, we've been around a little bit, successive sales and leadership roles at Google. Currently leading the programmatic media space within the large agencies and brands across Canada. ultimately one of the gentlemen responsible for the future of media buying in this country and really laying the foundation and, and creating such great education and engagement across the space. Jeremy Friedman, head of programmatic media, agency site as well at Google Canada. most of the last decade, uh, and across his overall, career in the programmatic media space. different organizations, uh, many I've worked with in the past. But, currently Jeremy's leading a team of account execs and account managers really helping organizations understand how to take advantage of their programmatic efficiency, and really driving their, their strategies. So, guys, welcome to the podcast today.

Jeremy Freedman: 3:01

Yeah. Thanks for having us Corp.

Ben Wise: 3:02

I'd like you to come to all my meetings and introduce me, and that was great. Thanks.

Corby Fine: 3:06

It's rare that I get a chance to have, two people who are both respected in the space. And, and it's great because I think there's just so many questions that a lot of the people that I, I have in my audience, are constantly trying to answer. And I, I think the big one right now to maybe start off is, today's definition of digital advertising, there's so much going on around data, audiences, context, programmatic. What would you, or how would you currently define the space of digital advertising? What's in and maybe what's out of that definition?

Ben Wise: 3:42

Yeah, I, I love that question because I think it is something that has changed so much. Um, and honestly, I think if we stopped using the word digital before the word advertising, that might be a, a, a net benefit for the industry. For a long time, it was ads on websites and then we added in ads on phones and ads on tablets, and now it's also ads on billboards and ads on my earphones and ads on my TV screen. It's, it's pretty much everywhere and. This idea of digital advertising versus traditional advertising is two separate things. You know, I, I think we're kind of at an inflection point where, where they are no longer two separate things. And I think there are benefits of all of those formats and all of those channels. You, you have more ways to find your users than you ever did before, which is a great opportunity for advertisers. There's more technical capabilities in terms of better measurement, better audience targeting, better contextual targeting, which again, great opportunity for advertisers. Uh, but also presents challenges in terms in terms of the fragmentation as, as you were saying in the introduction, the, the challenges of keeping up with the fast moving industry, because there's so much in it now. I think digital advertising now is really just advertising all, all advertising nearly is, is digital except for, you know, the physical newspaper that my dad still reads.

Corby Fine: 4:56

It kind of aligns to this notion of do organizations really need a. Head of digital marketing or a chief digital officer because the legacy definition was very constrained and separated from other channels or types of marketing. But if we actually start to think about, it's just the way it is. Then to your point, you might be able to remove that individual word and and focus. But I guess the one line you said, which was very interesting to maybe elaborate on, is it's about finding people anywhere. And so when you talk about audio and you talk about consuming reading and video and images and all of these different assets, does that actually add complexity to the definition or does it simplify it?

Ben Wise: 5:45

I think it adds complexity to the tactics and the execution, but probably simplifies the definition. But I think, you know, going back definition, I what would be better to your point of like the chief digital officer is if that was the chief. Consumer or customer officer or the, the voice of the customer because, you know, as we were saying, it's really about finding users where they are. We have all of these channels and getting the right things in front of them, and getting rid of some of that kind of legacy way of thinking. we kind of divided the industry and a lot of companies kind of set up their teams around these technical things as opposed to the way that consumers operate. And I think that is something that we need to rethink.

Jeremy Freedman: 6:27

Yeah. I think also what's really neat about that is it sounds so complex with so many channels, with so many different places to find people, but that's exactly why programmatic was invented to simplify all of that. So 10 years ago when the programmatic space was really getting started, the problem it was trying to solve. Is that media planners, media buyers had to have so many different touchpoint with so many different publishers. And when programmatic came, and you know, a really simple definition of just buying media through the use of technology, and now that definition is expanded to include all of these other channels that Ben was mentioning over the years. The one I'm most excited for is ads within video games, and I think that that's gonna be a big thing within the next couple years, and I can think of how that's going to influence my own buying patterns.

Ben Wise: 7:11

buying patterns. of ads or buying patterns of,

Corby Fine: 7:14

of video games.

Ben Wise: 7:15

as a gamer.

Jeremy Freedman: 7:16

it, you know, play playing an NB 2K game and getting a courtside advertisement. Yeah, that's right.

Corby Fine: 7:21

so as the father of a 16-year-old video game semi addict, I'm not sure I like that. Is that gonna be something I have to worry about?

Jeremy Freedman: 7:31

Uh, you know, I think that it is just like watching any sports event. You know, in a hockey game, now you've got the digital boards behind the players as opposed to just those static images on a basketball court. You know, the ads that end up on the court aren't actually there. They're all just digital based, and I think that translating that into a virtual world is actually a really interesting experience. And it's not intrusive because it feels exactly like you're watching one of those sporting events. Now, the types of ads that get shown in the, in the way that your, you know, your 16-year-old son interacts with it. That's a really interesting rabbit hole of a question. But in terms of intrusiveness and versus nativity, I think that there's actually really nice synergies there, at least when you think of sports games.

Ben Wise: 8:13

Yeah, I, I think it's actually probably going to be an improvement. So you, if you've got all the ads on your, your games that you play on your phone, you know, when I'm playing Candy Crush or whatever, or my kids are playing Candy Crush, I swear it's not me. You know, you get this big interstitial and it, it's effective because it's right in my face, but it, it's not built into it in a more subtle, natural way. And so thinking of people who are consuming those ads is probably gonna be a much, much better experience for them than a lot of what they're used to growing up with. Games on phones now.

Corby Fine: 8:44

So I guess the big question then is, are we currently outta state in the market? Where the majority of the advertising opportunities that I would want to take advantage of as a chief marketing or chief advertising or chief customer officer, are they now technology enabled to the point where programmatic does cover all of those angles?

Jeremy Freedman: 9:06

I think it covers most of the angles. I think the last big one, and you know we're starting to see it a little bit, is around traditional TV advertising coming into the programmatic space. Obviously connected TV has has blown up the last couple years, and that's totally addressable by programmatic, but there aren't very commonly used ways of inserting programmatic ads onto traditional broadcasts. And I think that we've started to see that a little bit in the us. I'm sure it will be in Canada soon. And so I feel like that's kind of the last big whale, otherwise out of home, accessible through programmatic audio ads, accessible through programmatic, obviously connected tv, video display, mobile, all those other pieces.

Ben Wise: 9:47

Yeah, even the, the big giant screen in a movie theater, like the, the, the pre-roll ads for, uh, before a movie, those are, uh, becoming addressable through programmatic. So, and it, it literally is almost everything now.

Corby Fine: 10:01

So given the. Reach and findability of my audiences is now technically enabled through this programmatic ecosystem to pretty much any kind of deployment or screen or wherever. I wanna find how important now is the difference between data. So as an organization in terms of. Understanding my prospects, my targets, my customers, and leveraging that information within these programmatically enabled channels and platforms versus the creative and the message and the offer, and the more. I'll say, uh, wrong word, but traditional elements of advertising so data versus the pot of creative and messaging and context. What are you seeing in that sort of, uh, that space right now?

Jeremy Freedman: 10:51

I don't think it's an either or. I think it's really a combination of those two things that lead to success. Data, you know, for years has had a lot of hype behind it in the ability to find users where they are online, speak to specific customers. I. Um, that space is evolving rapidly with all of the changes to the ways browsers, allow cookie storage, privacy regulations around the world. So that is kind of one of the most, the most influx elements of, I think, the digital advertising industry. What's never changed all of this time though, is the importance of good creative. You could be speaking to somebody and it might be the exact right person for your customer, but if the message that you're giving them isn't the right message and it isn't being told in an entertaining or effective way, then you know it, it's just not gonna work. So I think that the crutch that people sometimes use is, okay, well we've got all of this amazing technology, gets us in the right places at the right time, and then we kind of forget the basics of. Okay, listen, the creative still has to be good. Uh, I still have to not want to skip that ad or I have to take notice of that ad. So I think it really is a combination of, as you said, what we might have called traditional elements and some of the technology based, pieces.

Ben Wise: 12:05

I, every few years I feel like there's a new study that looks at that exact question. So anywhere between, you know, 50 to 70% ish I've seen, um, that says, you know, the ROI or the impact of your marketing is, let's say 50%. Based on the creative message and the creative elements that you put in front of them. So regardless of how advanced your technology and your targeting and your measurement is, the creative element is always going to be essential. What I think is interesting though, is like moving forward, the more that we can build some of that technology and data and targeting and all that stuff that we do, and almost take for granted on the media side, but use that to better inform some of the creative. I think is a really big opportunity to make that other 50% on the creative side work even harder. Um, I think if you were to ask anybody that doesn't work in the industry, Hey, do you ever click on an ad? They'd all say, no. I'm, I'm perfectly capable of tuning out every ad I ever see yet. People in the industry know that that's obviously not true. Ads are seen, they're clicked on. They're impactful, but people don't think of them as ads because they're relevant and, and I think when you make a really good, relevant ad that's entertaining. Well targeted, well timed. I don't see it as an ad, as a user. I see it as just good content, and maybe I'll read the content. I'll click on the content and I'll be completely oblivious to the fact that I just clicked on an ad and continue thinking that. I never do.

Corby Fine: 13:27

So I'm gonna get to the relevant thing'cause I think that's an important word. But first I'm gonna bring in the hot topic of the day, which is really all about generative ai. And the reason that it makes sense to talk about now is you both just said something really interesting, which was this. Value of creative. Okay. Check. We all buy into the fact that the, the message, and if looked at as value add and as content, as entertaining and educating and in, you know, exciting is going to drive some sort of engagement. And at the same time, the more data and understanding of the prospect, the lead, the, the trigger points, right? So if you think about a future of the neuroscience knowledge of what makes people tick, mashed up with. The markers of identification of who they actually are at the other end of the machine. And I'm not talking like getting to creepy biometric stuff, but like having a good probability plus an understanding of what from a neurological perspective makes people tick. Now you're into this world of, oh, I got a lot of different ways to create this stuff, to engage with all of these different either individuals or small segments. One of the promises of generative AI is this ability to mass produce, mass create, and do things and more efficiently. So my question is, do we actually see the influx and the increased use of this kind of technology taking advantage of that mass amount of data, mass amount of channel distribution, therefore mass need for output? And who's doing it well? Like what? What is ethical legal? Relevant and actually working, and I don't know if you guys have any examples of that.

Jeremy Freedman: 15:14

I mean, I think that we're at a really big inflection point, and I think that right now a lot of the possibilities are a lot larger than the things that are actually. Happening in market. I think we're at the very beginning of this, and I think the way that you kind of broke that down, you know, if we rewound and did a five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, version of that, we'd be talking about dynamic creative, right? Changing our different creative messaging based on the user at the other end. And I think that what generative AI will allow us to do is just get so much better at that. Because as you said, we'll have mass produced creative mass variation. A lot less of the, of the kind of cumbersomeness of that process in the past that was such a barrier to entry for so many brands because of the lack of ability to get that many variations and also to pivot on the fly in terms of what was working and what wasn't.

Corby Fine: 16:04

So Ben, do you think that in that world of. Mass produced, automated, creative, tied to really deep knowledge of the individual. Are we as marketers actually in control of the marketing, or is this like a world of deep fakes where everything is essentially like kind of within the parameters of allowable messaging? So personalized. I'm, I, as a marketer, I'm out of control like this. Like I get political ads, that's a whole other thing. But if you're talking about a burger or a baby diaper, or dishwasher, soap. Is it deep fake or is it advertising if it's created automatically based on all these signals?

Ben Wise: 16:43

Yeah, it's, it's an interesting question. I, I think it's probably a ways from getting to that level yet. Let's say the medium term, the next few years, I think where we're at is AI is not going to replace the creative spark that humans can bring to advertising. That great idea that that core creative concept. The storytelling, that's still a uniquely human thing. 10 years from now, who knows? But right now, I would say that's still very much a, a uniquely human thing. Where AI comes in is then being able to take that creative genius from the human and figure out those little tweaks for, you know, a rainy day or a sunny day, or, you know, take that great idea from a TV ad, turn it into a horizontal or vertical ad for, for TikTok and, and a YouTube short. or take what are the best images out of that creative video to become your display ads or your social ads. Uh, and so I, I think, you know, and I think you mentioned this in the question of like, how will this impact the wild fragmentation of options? I think that makes it much more accessible to most advertisers because you can make a few assets based on your creative concept and turn them into the assets you need across everything. But it. Is still a long ways away from replacing that human element. so as an example, I actually, I, I write a monthly newsletter and I always, I do use Gemini and chat GPT to help me write it. it requires a lot of editing or I take my writing and I use it to do a little bit of editing and I'll pull out little, little bits here and there it is. And I'm not an exceptional writer by any means. It is still a ways from replacing me as a writer, let alone professional copywriters.

Corby Fine: 18:31

Yeah, I've been testing a bunch of different, uh, writing platforms and there there's no question you get different output, which means that in some regard it's good because it shows that there's sort of independence of thought in all of these different models. It's not like one thing trying to take over the world, but at the same time, uh, I also like that some of them. Like Grammarly for instance, are actually at a pro level, knowing their audience and knowing it's a student element. Still trying to have a lack of plagiarism won't even actually create things. It's just about editing. And so I do think you think it from the perspective of, am I looking to generate or am I looking to enhance, make better and personalize? Which kind of comes down to that next word. And we talked about before about relevance and yes, I do believe that. The ability to create something that's meaningful for me as an individual. There's a lot of different angles. There's a lot of different data. I might be responsive based on the TV show, I'm watching the YouTube show, I'm watching the book I'm reading, and it might just be in innate in me as to the values and the beliefs that I have, irrespective of what I'm doing, right. Sometimes while you're, while you're skiing, you're focused on skiing and you're aware of those things, and sometimes when you're watching a TV show, you're still thinking of skiing. So the question is, Is relevance kind of back, is it the hot word? We were so focused on granular data and very specifically constructed audiences for a while in the programmatic space. Where is relevance now and uh, over the next couple of years in terms of budgets? What are you seeing?

Ben Wise: 19:59

Yeah, that's a great question and I think relevance for a long time, I would say has kind of been king of, of advertising and but, but how you actually execute that has changed over time. So, you know, five or 10 years ago, maybe earlier days of programmatic, it was all this, this wonderful vision of all this data. I can hit you with the exact right thing, the exact right time, and I'm gonna fragment my audiences and segment so, so specifically that like, oh, when I catch a Honda Odyssey driver on a snowy day, that is also a Tuesday afternoon when the least play in Toronto and someone's within five kilometers of the Scotiabank arena. This is the message for them. that was really specific. You can't see'cause there's no video of a jar is firming his brow possibly because he hates the leaves. and, and to your point, I, I think maybe we got too granular in a way that probably didn't actually impact the results of the campaign. It's, it's, I think it's easy to say we should do this because we have the data that makes it capable to do that, but it doesn't necessarily make strategic sense. I would say over the last few years we've really seen a rise in. more guaranteed deals going through programmatic. and I think that is much more like contextually focused. Although, you know, the founding of Google search ads, that was all around contextual relevance. I, I think that the key for an advertiser marketer now is where do you find the balance between bringing that data, bringing the relevance or the contextual relevance of the moment, um, and what they're doing regardless of maybe all that data you have about them, but also applying some like. Human judgment and common sense that yes, I can segment this list of a million users down to this group of eight people that share these attributes, but is that gonna actually drive results? And I think that's one of the things I'm excited about AI is that it will or should figure out what are those things that actually impact the behavior and have direct causation to the output of your campaign. So it's easy for everyone says, oh, you know, when it's raining, you wanna advertise umbrellas.

Corby Fine: 22:04

Or food delivery services.

Ben Wise: 22:06

yeah, there there are a million things like that that may or may not be true when we just kind of use our gut instinct, which might be right half the time. Maybe that's generous. Uh, but we never have the analysis to, to back that up, and there's just too many factors out there. So we just randomly pick some, uh, and I think using more automation AI tools will get us to the point where. We can figure out what are those really driving factors behind performance. Um, and really lean into those and maybe ignore some of those other things that we thought might be relevant'cause they kind of make sense, but don't actually have any impact.

Corby Fine: 22:40

So Jeremy, I was more interested in your opinion before the Leaf thing, so I, I don't, no, I'm kidding.

Jeremy Freedman: 22:46

My parents are from Montreal. You know, I come by it honestly.

Corby Fine: 22:49

what, what's your take on the, the whole relevance factor? I.

Jeremy Freedman: 22:52

Yeah, I mean, I think that the thing that we've always talked about in the programmatic space, the, the, thing that's always been so fancy and, and highlighted and monopolized the conversation is, is you know, the audience targeting data story. But I really don't think that that was ever all a programmatic in a previous role. I, I ran education at Google and when I'd asked people for the definition of programmatic, inevitably it was, we've got a list of audiences and then we get target those audiences. The reality is contextual targeting has always been a giant piece of the programmatic space, and the tools have gotten better over the years. And so now when we're kind of at this really big change point in the industry with privacy, with cookie list, with all of that stuff coming, audience targeting isn't going to look like it did for the last 10 years. It already doesn't it, it's already changing. And when we go and we do these kind of privacy, are you ready for cookie deprecation sessions with customers? I'm always surprised by the variance in the way that people perceive what they're currently doing and how that matches up with reality. Really simple question to a brand or to an agency is, you know, what percentage of your ads right now do you think are running on remarketing? And you know, sometimes I've seen customers say, oh, probably about 80, 90%, and the answer has been six. Sometimes I've seen the inverse. But I think the reality of the situation is just like the first question, success in digital advertising success in programmatic is always about a combination of different things. And so now we're at a place where systems, DSPs buying platforms are intelligent enough to read a webpage and determine the context of that webpage. If I want to target pages that specifically mention the Maple Leaf, whether they're on a sports website or just an article about. You know, the worst hockey fans in Canada, I guess I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get some hate mail for that. Um, the tool is smart enough to figure that out, and that's still targeting an audience, but it's not targeting an audience list. And then also, you know, we're at this, as we said, inflection point on ai. AI's always been foundational and programmatic. One of the main things in programmatic has always been about helping the system understand what your goal is. Whether that's a cost per click, cost per conversion, a specific return on ad spend goal, and then having the system use its computer brain to optimize. And 10 years ago, when I was getting started in this space, or I guess 12 years ago now, you know, there was a lot of ego with us, ad ops people. We didn't want to turn on the ai, we wanted to do it ourselves. We thought that we were smarter than the computer. And I think, you know, a decade later, a decade plus later, I don't think that that's true anymore. I think the systems have gotten so much more intelligent. Human optimization really does pale in comparison.

Corby Fine: 25:35

It's well put. and I won't hold the hockey thing against you, but hate mail will definitely be coming. Um, so we talked a lot about the removal of the word digital. All of these channels are now enabled. We've got context, we've got audiences, we've got data. We've got AI capabilities to mass produce and target and build creative. We understand the value of both sides of the, the coin in terms of proper targeting and proper context. Everything needs to be relevant. Okay? So a new advertiser shows up at Google's door, not just for the free lunch and says to you, I have a hundred bucks. How am I supposed to think about distribution of that money in terms of percentages to technology, to data, to media itself, to learnings and insights? There's just so many options. Where do we start?

Jeremy Freedman: 26:29

I think the first question would be, what's the objective? It sounds really, really simple, but I think that there's always a risk with any technology of thinking that technology in itself is the answer, and it's not. It's a tool. It's meant to help you achieve whatever your objective is. So I think that that's the very first question off the bat, followed by what, what type of data does that advertiser have? What are the creative assets? Have they been built yet? Is that something that, you know, needs kind of prep work and strategy and advice? Or are we kind of ready to go? Are there any existing agreements with publishers or vendors? So we kind of go through that list and really try to understand what is somebody trying to achieve on our platform. I.

Ben Wise: 27:10

And then once we kind of have that side, I, I think, you know, going back to the original. Or, or one of the earlier questions around like chief Digital Officer, chief Customer Officer, I would ask a million questions to understand what they know about their consumer.'cause I think, you know, you have an objective and that needs to be grounded in what your consumer is looking for. What is the value you bring to your consumer? What are the behaviors? What do we know about your consumers? Um, and, and try to take that consumer centric view. so before we had any recommendations for anybody, we probably would've, you know, finished the free lunch, of just asking them questions. So, Corey, we're not gonna make you answer all those questions. We'll make a few assumptions, to keep things simple. So this podcast doesn't end up at like three hours long, which it could, let's say for the, for the sake of argument, we're, we're talking specific to programmatic and, and looking. Specifically in, you know, the DSP that we work on DV 360 at Google. so, you know, a little bit of our Google bias there, but you get what you get. Um, yeah, it does. We'd like to think so. Thank you Corey. Um, I think maybe we could take it like from two different angles.'cause a lot of advertisers will come and they'll have a, you know, a lower funnel, more performance oriented campaign, or sometimes they'll have a upper funnel, more kind of brand awareness type campaign. And let's, let's look at those two. Maybe a bit separately. Um, so if it's lower funnel, I think from a programmatic perspective, we're gonna be looking at a much heavier waiting on display than you would be on some other formats like video or audio or billboards or whatever. You know, as a starting point, I would say in and around 50, 60% as a starting point of that is gonna go towards display. And then I think you still want some other formats. I think understanding the interplay between, a mid. Funnel consideration tactic and upper funnel awareness tactic because that does flow down to, to getting users into the funnel who then purchase. and you know, if they had data history of what that looks like, you know, you'd go a little bit deeper into that. Um, I think within the world of display, there's all sorts of options. You know, lower funnel, I'd be really keen to use a lot of native ads. I think those, you know, we, we hear a lot of really positive feedback from our clients on how effective those are. on the lower funnel, again, a little bit dependent on what kind of assets you have. and then when you kind of get into that other, you know, 30 or 40%, start to think of, video action campaigns, skippable ads, things like that. Audio ads. I really like podcast ads. I think they really res, and I'm not just saying that'cause this is a podcast. I don't know. Do you sell ads on this? Do we? Um,

Corby Fine: 29:44

No, I do this out of the love of educating the market

Ben Wise: 29:46

uh, what a guy. Yeah,

Jeremy Freedman: 29:48

What a beautiful sentiment.

Ben Wise: 29:50

Until you hit a threshold, in which case we're talking monetization and we'll sell your ads all day, Corby. But I, I do think, you know, podcast ads from kind of that, that mid funnel perspective do really well. and then depending on how much you put into that, I would also consider maybe some more upper funnel awareness. again, depending on the, the size of that budget. then I would want to go a little bit deeper on what your measurement looks like. So are we measuring to, you know, is it number of acquisitions, is it a cost per acquisition, is it a return on ad spend? Um, depending on their data set up, I'd love to be a little more advanced than those types of things, which I'd say are probably more media metrics. But what is like a, a business metric of profitability or, or revenue that might be a little bit more important? Thinking of like the way this, of the CMO is gonna be looking at the business and can we set up. Some kind of customized bidding solutions, in the platform to help you optimize and measure towards, that more specific business outcome. so lots of different things we could do there. and then obviously what does that cadence look like on an ongoing basis to optimize, adjust, and tweak as you, as you go through the campaign?

Jeremy Freedman: 31:00

What's interesting about that is I bet you that that answer would look totally different in 12 to 18 months.'cause now that Google has products like P max and Demand Gen, a lot of that strategy work is starting to get offloaded into the system, into the ai, into the computer's algorithm to figure out budget allocation across these various channels. So I think that we're also seeing this kind of bifurcation in the industry. Where now there are tools to take all that complexity completely out of it for a fresh advertiser, for a small business, for a medium business. But we also still have tools that allow, you know, intense flexibility that Ben described for a more strategically, established customer.

Ben Wise: 31:40

Yeah. I think that's such an interesting link to the earlier part of the conversation of like the human element that can't be replaced by AI of. What is your, your brand about? What is your strategy? What's the creative idea? What do you know about your customer? And then when it comes to maybe some of those more data heavy pieces of like what is the right allocation? What is the, the bidding, how do we optimize that? Things that happen at a level of data that we are not capable of doing as humans. That's the kind of thing that moves over to the, to the machines and the ai, and you kind of get the best of both worlds. Bring those together, I think.

Corby Fine: 32:14

Unaided plug. I'm running our first p max campaign right now, so we can follow up on that later. But it is, uh, it is definitely allowing us as an organization and me as an advertiser to. To your point, simplify the amount of work I need to do and trust in the machine to some degree. Uh, and so far, so good. but we'll, we'll have a separate conversation on that. and I think the two things that I wanna highlight in all of that was, one, know your objective. Why are you even having this a hundred dollars allocation conversation and two. Be prepared to measure it at the end of the day. And again, measurement from the perspective of very explicit lead generation filled in a form, bought something all the way to more inferred, softer kind of measurement KPIs around brand lift and recognition and consideration. But I. You don't know why you're getting into something and you don't know what you're gonna actually tell your organization, your boss, your clients, your whoever, your investors. At the end of the day, you have a bigger problem. And the technology, to your point Jeremy, it's just technology. It's not gonna solve anything. so, you know, I really appreciate that it was very detailed and obviously clients are gonna talk to you in more specificity, and that five minute or 10 minute answer becomes much, much, much

Ben Wise: 33:24

yeah. yeah. And most clients aren't coming in saying, this is our first campaign. They've got all sorts of benchmark data, what's worked than it, and it's, it's much more about the ongoing tweaking and optimization and improvement for, for most people then kind of that blank slate. Although the blank slate is definitely a, a fun exercise to try.

Corby Fine: 33:41

Awesome. well, Jeremy Friedman, Ben Wise, both, in charge of programmatic within Google Canada, helping advertisers, marketers, agencies across the country really take full advantage of. All of the things we talked about today and, and again, over the next 12 to 18 months, a lot more to come. So thank you both for being with me and really appreciate your insights.

Jeremy Freedman: 34:01

Thanks so much for having us.

Ben Wise: 34:03

Thank you. Corgis is fun.