OUR METHOD

HANDS-ON EXPERTISE

At the heart of AMG's operations is a director with a quarter century of experience with Asian media, including 13 years in digital media. He personally oversees the AMG ops team in the day-to-day delivery of each campaign. That means every campaign we serve benefits directly from his deep knowledge of the demographics, psychographics and geographical distribution of each segment of the US Asian population and the editorial and audience characteristics of each major site serving that population.

This level of hands-on digital campaign management and quality assurance is unique to AMG in an industry known for delegating the most skills-intensive, mission-critical tasks to the most junior staffers. By the time junior staffers begin acquiring some familiarity with the issues that arise in digital delivery, they are moved up and away. This expertise-destroying pattern has produced a knowledge and skills vacuum in digital campaign delivery.

DSPs: VINTAGE SCI-FI

The vacuum in expertise and skills created a digital advertising bottleneck. Rushing in to exploit the void were a swarm of techies with little knowledge of the digital media landscape or the realities of audience demographics or the nuances of editorial environments.

With their skill in building plausible interfaces and software algorithms, they regrouped networks around the concept of DSPs and programmatic buying. They urged advertisers to dispense with the complexities of demographics, digital media experience, working relationships with multiple publishers, real-time delivery monitoring, and the communication and technical skills required to correct delivery errors. Just log into the DSP and plug in the parameters to implement desired delivery.

This appealing illusion was possible to maintain as long as advertisers remained ignorant of how their orders are executed on the supply side. Not automatically, as the illusion would have, but by human beings with limited time, energy, audience, quality impressions, and knowledge of how to control digital delivery.

In short, the programmatic buying scheme is about as real as the spaceship controls seen in vintage sci-fi movies with myriad gauges, dials, switches and blinking lights. What's lacking are real linkages to the engines that power the spaceship.

The reality is that programmatic buys are only as good as the skill and integrity with which the orders are filled by human beings on the other side of the blinking lights. That includes the network clerks who describe and classify the hundreds of thousands of nameless sites that make up the networks feeding into DSPs, the operations persons at the publisher who decide where on page templates to paste the network's tags and how many impressions to assign to them, and, of course, the scammers who deliver billions of impressions per day from sites visited only by armies of unwittingly enslaved PCs scattered across the country.

MYTH OF PROGRAMMATIC BUYING

The concept of programmatic digital buying slams up against several intractable realities on the supply side:

1. The supply of quality ATF impressions viewable by the desirable consumers is limited;

2. Targeting algorithms are only as accurate as the self-serving classifications of sites and channels;

3. The positioning of banner tags onto page templates and the assignment of specific campaign banners to those positions are always done by human beings at the networks and publishers;

4. Algorithms can't take action to get those human ops teams to correct defective delivery with impressions that meet buy criteria; and

5. Automated delivery facilitates delivery of impressions from many nameless sites that inject impressions never seen by human beings.

DELIVERY INHERENTLY NON-AUTOMATABLE

In short, programmatic buying creates on the demand side the false illusion of automated efficiency of a process that is inherently non-automatable on the supply side for several crucial practical reasons: site descriptions, zone tag positioning and priority and allocation settings are all done by human beings.

Site description -- which is crucial to any meaningful programmatic or real-time buying -- remains under the control of the networks/DSPs. Because they are trying to sell as many impressions as possible at the highest possible rates, their site descriptions are highly euphemistic if not downright misleading. This is why so many programmatic buys are largely delivered to consumers who don't fit campaign target demographics or psychographics, or can't read the language used in the banner creatives.

Banner zone tag positioning on page templates -- which determines the visibility afforded to the banners placed in those zones -- must be done manually under direction of the editorial staff of publishers who, generally, would prefer to minimize their intrusiveness into editorial content. Thus, to the extent they can get away with it, they often try to place zone tags partially or entirely below the fold. A banner placed BTF receive about 28% of the visibility of an ATF banner.

Also, ops teams facing pressure to deliver more impressions often paste additional instances of the same zone tags, often several, far below the fold on page templates. They don't concern themselves with the fact that this frequently results in the same campaign banner being displayed multiple times on the same page load, for even greater detriment to campaign efficiency.

Finally, priority and impressions allocation to campaign or network banners is set manually by network and/or publisher ops teams. Often faced with competing demands from multiple campaigns, they are pressured to reduce the priority and allocation of some campaigns or even shift their placement down to BTF zones to accommodate fresh demands from more recent IO. This downgrading often happens during shift changes when any sense of accountability disappears.

For these reasons and more, DSPs or programmatic buys that purport to automate quality digital campaign delivery is inherently misleading. In reality, without 24/7 delivery management and error correction by a seasoned human QA team like AMG's, campaigns typically receive a fraction of the visibility purchased. There is no real remedy for the resulting inefficiency, especially as most campaigns are time-sensitive.

MYTH OF VERIFICATION LAYERS

The quality problems created by DSPs spawned another exploitable opportunity for techies: verification layers that purport to provide quality assurance by scanning pages and analysing every impression to ensure they meet specified criteria.

The flaw inherent in this automated QA scheme is apparent to anyone who has extensive experience with computer software and digital advertising.

To be seen banners must be served within a couple hundred milliseconds, then load into browsers within a second or two. Unfortunately, today's real-world network connections, PCs with clogged memory, overloaded browser and impatient consumers don't allow layers sophisticated enough to analyse reliably banner positioning, editorial content and context, whether the impression is being seen by a human or a botnet, whether a competitive brand is running a banner on the same page and how many other banners are cluttering the page.

That's why verification services limit their layers to algorithms that aren't robust enough to weed out bot impressions, evaluate editorial content or ascertain banner viewability reliably. This yawning abyss between the hype and reality of verification layers is currently costing publishers hundreds of billions of quality impressions spuriously blocked or flagged, not to mention more billions that fail to load and be logged due to layer-induced lag or glitches.

For example, one popular layer blocks for "Content" 100% of the pages of a leading Mandarin news site and 100% of the investment channel of another! Why? The algorithms can't distinguish between Chinese words and phrases used in the context of business or news from those used on hate or sex sites.

LAYERS DON'T CORRECT ERRORS

Another fundamental deficiency of layers is that they don't actually implement error correction, but merely generate reports flagging issues, real or imagined. Advertiser media teams are generally too busy to read the reports and even fewer take action to correct misdelivery.

The reality is that quality assurance is practical only for knowledgeable, aggressive ops teams capable of communicating specific fixes to publishers. That requires a degree of insight into digital delivery and technical expertise rare in the digital advertising marketplace.

ILLUSORY AUTOMATION FACILITATES FRAUD

Ironically, rather than providing protection, verification layers combine with programmatic buying to become another facilitator of impressions fraud.

The false sense of quality and security provided by verification services encourages advertisers to make programmatic buys of blind network impressions. Those networks always include a substantial percentage of botnet impressions. Meanwhile legitimate publishers lose billions of real impressions to spurious blocking or to makegoods based on spurious flagging by verification reports.

QUALITY SOLUTION

The realities of the supply side of digital delivery leaves only one sensible solution: buy only from well-known, respected publishers anxious to protect their reputation for integrity, then task an experienced QA team to monitor delivery and correct errors in real time.

The use of highly selective sitelists deny access to fraudsters who must operate under the cover of large networks of nameless, unverifiable sites. Using only quality publishers also eliminates the risk of impressions appearing on pages that violate a brand's editorial environment standards.

REAL VS. NOTIONAL DELIVERY

Only long experience in digital advertising teaches the most crucial lesson of all -- the vast gulf that separates real and notional delivery.

When an IO is issued, delivery is only notional, an abstraction of an idealized goal. Until that IO is backed up by 24/7 monitoring and error correction by a seasoned and motivated ops team that knows how to implement campaigns and correct all the inevitable errors, delivery remains notional.

Typically with programmatic buys and even with most direct buys, campaign delivery remains notional -- i.e. entirely based on blind faith that the IO will be correctly implemented and delivered through the many acts of human intervention that separate a buy and its delivery. In most cases, that blind faith is misplaced, resulting in advertisers pouring real money down the drain of notional delivery.

When does delivery become real? When a QA team like AMG's ensures correct implementation, continuous monitoring and real-time error correction so buy parameters are carried out through the loading of every impression into the correct ATF position in a browser viewed by an actual prospective consumer.

REAL COMMUNICATIONS FOR REAL ACCOUNTABILITY

AMG is structured top-to-bottom for efficient, intelligent human communications. This includes not only our constant communications with the ops teams at our publishing partners, but also with our clients.

Nothing is more frustrating than being confronted with an inscrutable user interface that is simply not programmed to address the issues you need addressing, then having to wait hours or days only to be contacted by a support person with no knowledge of your concerns. This practical lack of timely recourse causes many crucial concerns simply to be dropped or forgotten, to the detriment of campaign efficiency.

Of course this lack of efficient and robust channels of communication -- and the corresponding lack of accountability -- is one major problem of entrusting campaigns to DSPs. But similar communications problems also plague direct buys. Many publishers are simply not staffed to provide efficient communications by personnel who are intimately familiar with both the technical and business dimensions of your digital campaigns.

AMG entrusts its communications with both clients and partners only to intelligent, skilled communicators with deep knowledge of both technical and business dimensions of advertising campaigns. When you email or call one of us, you won't waste a minute of your precious time. Your concern will be understood and addressed promptly, often immediately, generally within an hour or two, by someone who knows exactly what you're talking about. We don't use beta-testing interfaces or know-nothing junior staffers for any of our communications! The result is efficiency, accountability and optimal campaign results.

AMG'S PUBLISHING PARTNERS

The first step in delivering quality impressions is buying only from respected publishing partners with reputations to protect. AMG's partners don't choose us, we choose them. And we're highly selective. We only work with the most respected news and business sites with quality editorial environment, desirable audience demographics, and demonstrated integrity in the impressions delivery process.

Unlike networks we don't rely on site self descriptions but on our own evaluation based on a dozen years of experience delivering campaigns to leading Asian digital publishers -- and seeing the results. AMG's partner list is highly exclusive. Networks and DSPs are highly inclusive. This difference is crucial in ensuring impressions quality and eliminating impressions fraud.

PREMIUM IMPRESSIONS AT FAIR RATES

AMG buys only premium ATF impressions. Unlike networks that pass on pennies on the dollar and serve whatever remnant impressions are linked to their tags, we pass on most of the advertising dollars to our partners so we can demand top ATF positions for our clients' banners. This business model is unique to AMG. The result is a three- to four-fold difference in effectiveness between our premium impressions and those of networks.

CUSTOM SITELISTS, TOTAL TRANSPARENCY

Unlike network buys, our clients know in advance exactly where their impressions will come from. We propose a custom sitelist based on campaign criteria and objectives. We provide screenshots soon after the campaign goes live. Our procedures ensure total transparency.

Life may be like a box of chocolates but digital campaign delivery needn't be!

SCALE FOR EFFICIENCY

About one hundred news and business sites attract substantial traffic from the affluent segment of US Asians. Our close working relationships with most of these sites allow AMG to deliver digital campaigns to each Asian population segment on a scale not achievable with direct buys to even the biggest individual publishers.

Collectively, these sites can deliver US-based consumers with $100K-plus HH incomes on a scale comparable to leading mainstream news sites like the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal.

FLEXIBILITY TO OPTIMIZE

By working closely with quality publishers over a broad range of campaigns, AMG has the leverage to shift impressions among sites to achieve optimal performance for each campaign. This degree of flexibility and efficiency is impossible with direct buys to a limited number of publishers.

ERRORS NEVER SLEEP

Errors never sleep, as digital advertising veterans well know. Actual impressions delivery on the supply side is ultimately controlled by human beings at every stage, contrary to the illusion of infallible automated fulfilment sought to be fostered by DSPs. Linking demand to supply requires a series of manual inputs and adjustments. Each step is fraught with potential for errors, even with the best of intentions on all sides.

Prominent among the reasons for errors is the fact that few organisations have seasoned ops teams. And typically impressions delivery devolves to staffers with limited experience with banner tags, server settings, geotargeting to US DMAs, priority settings, impressions allocations, impressions available within particular geotargets, correct positioning of banners for various buys, configurations required for rich media to display correctly.

The errors are compounded by irreconciliable demands from various campaigns, each calling for delivery that can't be satisfied from the limited pool. In the resulting confusion campaign delivery often slows to a trickle or is downgraded to BTF positions or even to positions far below all editorial content. Teams anxious to meet delivery alotments often stack multiple instances of the same banner on each page. Not uncommonly the geotargeting of regional campaigns is opened up to the entire nation, or worse. Placement errors often result in expandable banners being served into zones that don't allow expansion, or 300x250 banners served into 728x90 or 160x600 zones. It's not uncommon to see banners designed for one consumer segment delivered to another.

Some errors don't originate with the publishers or even the network. For example, a number of China-based companies use US-based proxy servers to provide China residents prohibited access to sites outside China. This generates substantial impressions on US-based Chinese sites, particularly in the SF DMA where most such proxies are located. Some servers log these proxy impressions as originating from the San Francisco DMA.

Unintended errors aren't the only hazard facing digital campaigns. They are often compounded by deliberate decisions on the part of network or publisher ops teams to shortchange some campaigns to meet the demands of others that placed the IO more recently or are paying an incrementally higher rate.

Naturally, the best impressions go to clients who send a steady stream of business at high rates while maintaining the most frequent and aggressive communications in real time. Consequently, leading Asian publishers regularly downgrade the placements of network banners or even direct buys to satisfy demands by AMG's quality assurance team.

24/7 ERROR CORRECTION

That's why AMG's ops team monitors the delivery of every campaign 24/7. We don't merely detect errors in real time; we correct them in real time as well. That's the most difficult and valuable part of the quality assurance AMG provides every campaign.

STRADDLING THE DATE LINE

Nearly 90% of visits by US Asians to Asian news and business sites are to sites operated by leading publishers based in Asia. Working efficiently with such sites requires the ability to communicate with ops teams during the business hours of cities spread across the other side of the International Date Line. 11 a.m. in Mumbai, for example, is 10:30 pm in Los Angeles and 1:30 a.m. in New York City. 3 pm in Taipei and Manila is midnight in L.A. and 3 a.m. in New York.

AMG's ops team works three shifts to maintain real-time communications with Asia-based publishers. This capability shortens the time for implementing changes or correcting errors to a few hours rather than the days or even weeks required by offices that only operate during US business hours. That kind of lag exacerbates the costly errors or inefficient delivery patterns that greatly diminishes a campaign's efficiency.

Without AMG's real-time communications across the date line, delivering campaigns to sites favored by a majority of US Asians can be cumbersome, if not downright impossible.

REAL-TIME ADSERVER

A key tool in AMG's quality assurance efforts is the real-time reporting provided by its adserver. It reports impressions and clicks at the end of each hour, unlike DFA and other major adserving systems in which reporting lags delivery by several hours. AMG's campaigns are often served using tags from DFA, Conversant and other third-party servers, but our ops team doesn't have to wait for their stale stats to check on the impact of each QA adjustment.

Working with reports delayed by several hours makes it impossible to coordinate corrective steps in real time with publishers across the date line. Having to wait three or four hours to see the impact of each adjustment on impressions and clicks can cost the loss of an entire day's worth of incorrect delivery. That kind of delay also creates a level of inertia that can kill the initiative needed to take corrective action.

Our server also gives our ops team the ability to drill down to a level of granularity not allowed by other major adserving systems. Our team can inspect a single hour of delivery by each site to each banner creative within each campaign geotarget. This capability allows AMG to isolate the precise source of errors and the precise impact of any delivery adjustment on impressions and clicks.

This capability to examine data at a hyper-granular level is also an unmatched tool for detecting and isolating suspicious impressions or clicks. Our team's familiarity with the hourly delivery patterns of all our partner sites within each geotarget lets them instantly spot irregularities likely to require corrective action. There is simply no place for bad impressions to hide on AMG's adserver.

CONTINUOUS AND REFLEXIVE OPTIMIZATION

Ultimately, the success or failure of digital campaigns turns on the response it produces. Optimizing that response is the goal toward which the AMG ops team strives at every stage of the delivery process, from the custom sitelist to tags implementation to 24/7 monitoring and error correction.

One additional factor separates AMG from every other digital media service: continuous optimization. Our ops team is empowered and motivated to use its knowledge of the media landscape and real-time delivery data to look for opportunities to improve CTR and engagement by making constant adjustments of impressions going to various sites, channels, units and placements.

We call this reflexive optimization -- a process that can only come about through deep knowledge of audience demographics, media characteristics, performance variations among units and creatives, and of course, constant monitoring of delivery and response. This process doesn't end until the campaign has been fully delivered. No other digital media organization is committed to this level of effort to optimize campaign results.

GOLD STANDARD IN DIGITAL DELIVERY

For these reasons, AMG produces the best results obtainable with any given set of campaign creatives. This relentless pursuit of optimal placements and error-free delivery has made AMG the gold standard by which both mainstream and ethnic marketers measure the full potential of their Asian digital campaigns.