InMobi's Anne Frisbie on Ad Automation and Programmatic Trends

Your Name:Anne Frisbie    

Your Company:InMobi

Your Title:Senior Vice President, Global Brand and Programmatic

SEARS: What do you read to keep up with politics, art and culture?

FRISBIE: My husband is a political junkie and overall news junkie.  I live with him and I literally know way more than I even want to know.

SEARS: What do you read to keep up with friends?  

FRISBIE: In all honesty, my husband runs my social life, too.  But, I love digital media mainly because of how many friends I have in the industry. To keep up with them I use LinkedIn.  For my passion in books, I am an active community member on Goodreads and I keep up with all my book friends there.  For everything else, I use Facebook or text messaging.

SEARS: What do you read to keep up with the advertising technology industry?

FRISBIE: One major source is the content that all my friends in the industry post on LinkedIn.

SEARS: What’s your favorite commercial of all time?

FRISBIE: AT&T ads with Milana Vayntrub -- a name I have no idea how to pronounce. I love them.  She has the quirkiest fun personality. I actually look forward to them.  Her descriptions of what 50% more data means with the pretzel or what rollover ads mean and her interactions with folks who come into the AT&T store just crack me up.

SEARS: Describe your company’s business and where it leverages ad automation.

FRISBIE: 70% of business is performance and 30% is brand.  We namely use automation with Rubicon on the brand side for our agency business.  It still makes up a minority of that business but it is a growing area.  We are focused on using PMPs (part of Rubicon’s orders offering). That drives 30% of our total programmatic revenue. We expect that to go up to closer to 50%.

SEARS: With regards to advertising automation, what are the three biggest trends you expect to impact the industry in 2016?

FRISBIE:

1. In app device ID driven audiences
2. Rich Media for in app mobile programmatic buying so that banners can be expandables
3. In app mobile video - major

SEARS: With regards to advertising automation, what are the three most overblown topics that you wish would just go away?

FRISBIE: Negativity around agencies; it really drives me crazy.  We have so many strong partnerships with agencies, and they play a critical role in marketing.  It is ridiculous to believe that every company and every brand that does marketing is going to bring in-house all media buying, strategy and creative creation and not use agencies for any services.  But sometimes, I feel like that is what people want to predict.

SEARS: In relation to ad automation, what are InMobi’s three biggest initiatives for 2016?

FRISBIE:

1. InMobi Audience Personas and Data Partnerships
2. Rich Media
3. Video

SEARS: Tell us about your first party data strategy.  Do you currently have a DMP (data management platform) for your first party data?

FRISBIE: First party data focus for InMobi Audience Personas which is used for 90% of our brand business; custom look-alike segments for our performance clients; data partnerships with buyers.

SEARS: Do you compensate your salespeople for every dollar sold, regardless if the media is sold via insertion order (IO) manually or via an automated channel? Please choose one:

1. Our salespeople are compensated on every dollar sold -- manual, orders and auction.
2. Our salespeople are compensated on manual and orders only. They are not compensated for advertisers sold via auction.
3. Our salespeople are not compensated on sales made via our automated channel.

FRISBIE: No. 2

SEARS: What are signs that a media owner is savvy about ad automation?

FRISBIE: My focus on whether folks are savvy for in app buying versus ad automation. 

SEARS: If you could go to the airport right now with friends or family and fly anywhere in the world for vacation, who would you take and where would you go?

FRISBIE: Turkey. My entire family, except for the dog. My husband speaks fluent Turkish and I have never been to Turkey.

SEARS: If you could create an endowment to fund any existing non-profit you designated, what lucky non-profit organization would that be?

FRISBIE: Planned Parenthood

SEARS: What is your favorite restaurant in the world?

FRISBIE: Right now, I am obsessed with a hole in the wall ramen noodle place in New York on 52^nd street called Totto Ramen. I am a big part of the Yelp community that fights to say that Totto Ramen is the best ramen noodle place in New York City.  So far I can’t find a better ramen noodle place, [not even] in the San Francisco bay area.

SEARS: Thanks, Anne!

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