Should the Programmatic Trader role be made redundant? Time to embrace automation.
Originally posted on ExchangeWire - https://www.exchangewire.com/blog/2022/03/25/programmatic-trader-role-should-be-made-redundant-time-embrace-automation/
My good-friend and ex colleague Ben Downing wrote a?seminal and (at-the-time) controversial opinion piece ?nine years ago?on ExchangeWire to retire the planner/buyer role in media agencies. Ben wrote that programmatic would replace a lot of what a planner buyer did at the time – namely a tonne of admin – which is better managed by technologies, but the actual planning part of the role was of increasing value.
Ben was clearly very right in his opinion piece in 2013. In 2022 I’m here to claim that the Programmatic Trader is the modern-day Planner Buyer and that their roles should be redundant, but just how Ben asserted that planning capability was necessary, a trader’s capability is needed more than ever.
‘Do you know any good programmatic traders?’
A question asked many times over recent years – the skillset has been in high demand – why? Well programmatic traders understand the technologies, suppliers, and data which the?majority of ad budget ?is now spent through and owing to this high demand and short supply (because it’s a newish field relative to all other fields), salaries have rocketed.
As someone who used to be a programmatic trader, the role sounds glamorous. Telling your friends you’re a trader is pretty cool. The reality though, even in 2022, is that your time is often spent updating line item pacing, applying something manually in the DSP or fielding an annoying question from a client team member who thinks they know a lot.
What skills are now in demand if not a trader?
10% of a good trader is their ability to setup/adjust line items and field annoying questions (this can typically take 50% of their time). The other 90% is their analytical, technical & commercial ability - looking into data and observing trends that subsequently impact campaign spending. The challenge now is that a human can’t compete, for the most part, in the optimisation field vs the incredible advancements made by machine learning. Machines can compute 100s of variables for patterns 24/7, obviously a human cannot do this.
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What tasks does a trader fulfil?
Whenever I read or hear about a company who will use AI to replace human jobs, I roll my eyes. I’m sure many of you do the same – it sounds so fluffy – a narrative being spun out of some venture capital pitch deck.
It’s also, largely, rubbish. Machines will not replace humans, they will serve alongside them – but how exactly? I’ve listed a handful of programmatic trader tasks and split them by human and machine – this is to highlight how the two can work in harmony. Oftentimes the case won’t be binary, but this is for illustrative purposes only.
Human suited tasks
Machine suited tasks
Are humans doomed in digital media?
Absolutely not. I have a lot of friends who work in finance, an industry which is far more advanced in their application of machines yet according to the?US bureau of labour statistics ?the demand for people is increasing and finance will have 8% more roles between 2020 and 2030, as well as those roles demanding higher than ever salaries (above that of inflation). A large part of finance is growing & innovative (think fintech, crypto, digital in general etc.) – before you can use machines to help you, you need to create, explain/educate and sell it in the right way.
As Ben said, a programmatic approach can free you. This time it’s not of planner buyers it’s of programmatic traders – something which advertisers who are considering in-housing or restructuring their agency relationships should especially consider.
AI | Start Ups | Technology
2 年Great article, and totally agree Wayne - this is what we believe (though on the sell-side). In an industry that moves this quickly, the idea that a role remains static over this kind of timeframe is misplaced. I might even argue that there are even more tasks in your chart that are better automated...!
Partner, Advisor, Strategy - Driving Business Growth
2 年Great article my friend!
Director - Data, Technology and Product
2 年We need more people who understand the mechanics of programmatic. Traders are essential to this, understanding the ebs and flows, levers, boundaries etc. Through hiring experience it’s very clear that there is a very broad spectrum of people and capabilities that exist within the category of ‘AdTech experience’. Many can talk about programmatic at a surface level but struggle when it comes to conversations about how it actually works. Like most things the better someone understands as to how it works the more value they provide to a business.
FouAnalytics - "see Fou yourself" with better analytics
2 年Yes, as long as those bots (algos) have a human overlord and the human has analytics to see if the algo carried out what they were instructed to do/buy.
AI Solutions for Marketing
2 年As I commented yesterday. We need more programatic experts not less. The trader role needs to expand to be as much about plannning, technology (conversion APIs? Clean rooms), and measurement. If you just use vanilla AI you will struggle to run programmatic for the richest people in our country, Iphone users. When Ben wrote his piece, the media planner buyer was being superseeded by the trader. Today trading is moving forwards and changing rapidly. We need programmatic experts to lead us to a better future. So if the trader is redundant the programmatic practioner and all rounder (Including Facebook and Google) is a role that defines the strength of a marketing team in many ways.