The Trade Desk's Philippa Snare on Solimar, Data Awakening and Facebook

The digital advertising sector is in constant flux, whether through new data regulations or major technology firms changing how they collect and use data to drive advertising. Amid all those changes, The Trade Desk (TD) is seeing ever-growing demand for its first-party data offering that is free from Google, Facebook or Apple’s ecosystems. It is the world’s largest data management platform (DMP), which offers third-party data, measurement and analytics insights. For almost a year and a half, former Facebook executive Philippa Snare has had a front seat to it all as leader of the European arm of the business as its svp for EMEA. (Previously, she was head of global business marketing for EMEA at the social media giant.) A dream of the digital industry The Trade Desk's latest product is Solimar, launched earlier this month after four years of development. It uses artificial intelligence designed to improve advertisers' brand safety and targeting abilities through digital channels. Meet the Women Working to Make Artificial Intelligence a More Equitable Space She describes the release of Solimar as “the most exciting thing” happening within the company, which projects Q2 revenue of between $259 million and $262 million. The product’s ability to use its AI to optimize and maximize campaigns to meet set goals is “a dream of the digital industry,” she said, adding that it is able to so do in a “digestible” and “user friendly” manner that prompts marketers mid-campaign and allows them to access the performance rather than relying on a software expert to keep them updated. The cookieless announcements have not really changed the path that we've been on.Philippa Snare, svp for EMEA, The Trade Desk The data used to train the AI, according to Snare, has been used iteratively, with the company’s platform running thousands of brand campaigns internationally while working alongside publishers and broadcasters to fill their inventory. “We've got this historic repository of data that enables us to have been running tests with different clients to optimize and show where those decision points are, and what ones are good for a machine to make the decision around or what ones are then important for marketers to feel like it needs to be exposed to make decisions around,” Snare explained, adding that testing has been essentially ongoing for the last decade, as The Trade Desk has operated. “The real testing on the new algorithms has been over the last six to 12 months so that we're refining those decision points, and then figuring out which ones the machine does best and which one a human does best.” She cites statistics that claimed the platform sees over 1 trillion ad opportunities each day, which works out at roughly 13 million ad opportunities a second. The growth in awareness of data's value With the industry experiencing a revolution when it comes to the collection and ownership of data, the latest being the rollout of Unified ID to replace the third party cookies that previously drove the placement of ads, Snare believes that the power over data is being placed back in the hands of consumers who have become more aware of how their personal information is being used. “The cookieless announcements have not really changed the path that we've been on,” she said. “What it has done [is] it has highlighted and given us a platform to talk more about an industrywide solution, while Google and Apple are sorting out their own stables. And then regardless of what's happening with Google… we're still going to be forging ahead with all of the partnerships that we've announced." Those partnerships include Walmart, Publicis Groupe and marketing cloud InMobi as companies look to bolster their access to, or ability to deliver, first-party data solutions, making them less dependent on the walled gardens while driving adoption of Unified ID. Google's Cookie Alternative FLoC Is Now Open to Third-Party Testing Snare remembers back to her days at Microsoft and the launch of Wallet, its mobile payment app retired in 2019, when enterprise and technology companies originally wanted to give consumers power over their own data. However, they didn’t realize why that was important at the time. It's just this amazing moment in time where everyone's on board. “One of the things that I was not expecting is how quickly that has changed, where now there is consumer awareness. … It’s not just with the younger generation. All generations now are very pertinently aware of how their data is being used and the quid pro quo of the internet,” she said about the pace of change. With influencers and the growth of TikTok especially, she sees a growing consumer understanding of the value of their data to platforms, and their demands to better control it. Snare quoted Microsoft founder Bill Gates' assertion that technology drives “the cycle of change” over a 20-year period, but argues that has now dropped to 10 years as today’s companies go from concept to iteration to market at a much faster pace. “Not only do you not have to explain what it is because consumers go, 'Yes, I want this,' but also broadcasters and anyone in the creative industry that relies on advertising to underpin their growth also want it, so it's just this amazing moment in time where everyone's on board,” she said. I'd love to see Facebook be able to take advantage of getting back to what their core purpose is. Facebook's lost focus Finally, as Facebook sees the departure of major executives—Snare included, alongside chief marketing officer Antonio Lucio, chief revenue officer David Fischer and vp of global business Carolyn Everson—she believes the company needs to refocus, after having gotten distracted by scale. “One of the best bits of being in a company like The Trade Desk is it's a small group of people who are underpinned by a really strong technology that's incredibly connected and driven by customers' feedback. And if you can keep that cycle going, then you won't get distracted by all of the other things when you get to become a very large company, like the external market pressures start putting on you," she said. "I'd love to see Facebook be able to take advantage of getting back to what their core purpose is and who their core customers are.” Facebook, Instagram to Invest $1B+ in Creators Through the End of 2022