Why Publishers Are Enlisting Programmatic Ad Chiefs

By: Jack Marshall | Digiday

A new senior role is rapidly emerging at the top of digital publishers’ sales organizations: the programmatic czar.

Publishers initially approached programmatic advertising warily, concerned it would do little more than drive down their ad prices and further commoditize their inventory. That meant the role of figuring out programmatic was something farther down the food chain. That’s changed. Advertisers and agencies increasingly want to buy their media that way, and programmatic budgets are too large for publishers to ignore. That means bringing on a programmatic chief to figure out how to use programmatic not as something separate (and secondary) to direct sales but as an integral part of it.