1. Microsoft’s Move to Programmatic Real Results and Lessons Learned
Kelly Davidson, Director of Global Partnerships
2017 TAtech Programmatic Summit
Minneapolis, MN | June 1st, 2017

2. About Me Director of Global Partnerships at Microsoft
Manage Microsoft’s strategic partnership with AppNexus across 58 countries.
11 Years in Digital Advertising
Ad Ops at Disney
Sales Engineer at PointRoll
Director Technical Solutions at OpenX
Friends with Matt Plummer, VP Product at ZipRecruiter (previously OpenX)

3. Ulrik Krag Morrell’s Proverb

4. What is Microsoft Advertising?

5. Microsoft’s Ad Scale in 2015…

6. not profitable Our Ad Sales Motion: O&O Inventory: Reserved Sales
Prog. Sales
(MAX)
Search and User Profile Targeting
IAB Standard Ads
IAB Standard Ads
Search and User Profile Targeting
1st Party Tech Platform:
AdExpert
3rd Party Tech Platform:
AppNexus
1,000+ Employees
Local Sales Houses
Majority of Revenue
Declining YoY
Minority of Revenue
Growing YoY
50+ Employees
AppNexus Support
Reserved Buys
(Full Day Takeover &
Custom)
2nd Price Bidded Auction Ecosystem

7. Our AppNexus Partnership

8. Industry Trends

9. What if…
We took the most common Reserved assets and made them available through programmatic channels?
We trained our sales teams on selling programmatic and shifted relationships from Advertisers to Agencies/ATDs?
We used programmatic deals to bridge the delta in rates between reserved and programmatic to maintain revenue?
We embraced a Growth Mindset to experiment and move faster?

10. The Nordics Pilot
Created x-company proposal for pilot with Exec approval
Piloted shifting sales motion in Nordics with goal of 50% rev from programmatic (up from ~15%)
Trained small sales team, led by Ulrik, to focus on prog. & deals
7 month pilot, launched in Nov 2015 through May 2016

11. Flat 86% What We Learned… 55% Exceeded 50% rev goal Prog. offset Res.
Resource savings

12. What if… We applied the Nordics learnings globally?
We partnered for Display AdTech and Display Sales, leveraging AppNexus more?
We realized global cost savings, while preempting the rise of programmatic?
We could be profitable by quickly changing our business model?

13. So What Happened…?

14. Microsoft’s World Today
49 AppNexus Markets
AppNexus tech and AppNexus Microsoft Supply Evangelism Team (MSET)
MSET Playbook:
Find pickets of Premium Demand
Covert Reserved IO Demand
Increase Fill
Focus on relationships Across Agencies and ATDs
9 AOL markets
USA, Canada, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Japan.
AOL ONE Tech for reserved sales
AppNexus Tech for prog. Sales
100% AOL Sales Team (many Ex-MSFT)
2 Sales House markets
Australia/New Zealand and Mexico
On AppNexus, 100% programmatic
AOL-Represented
Not Represented
AppNexus Represented
Local Microsoft Sales Partner

15. Profitable! How Did It Go? 28% 3x 26% 43
We went from non-profitable to profitable!
28%
The amount of revenue we made from reserve (complete flip from 2015) 3x
The rate difference between deals and RTB
26%
YoY Programamtic Revenue growth on 4% volume increase 43
The number of people MSFT employs to run Display advertising

16. My Advice to You…
Have big, bold goals, but track progress with small wins along the way
Adopt a culture of constant experimentation and questioning the status quo
Play Devil’s advocate and take the seat of a buyer
Make sure you leverage the right partners and treat them like consultants

17. Snatch Your Eagle From the Sky!

18. Q&A