Agencies are being asked to solve bigger problems. That is the focus of From Media Buying to Commercial Intelligence, the first episode in our new three-part podcast mini series with IAB UK.
Clients want stronger outcomes, clearer commercial value and more useful insight from the data already available to them. At the same time, automation is changing how campaigns are planned and optimised, putting even more value on the ability to interpret what is happening and understand what it means.
Mobsta CEO David Graham joins Izzy Morris, Paid Social and Programmatic Lead at VodafoneThree, and Demos Flouri, Head of Addressable at Hearts United, to talk about what agencies and brands increasingly need from their data and technology partners. Hosted by James Chandler, CSO, IAB UK.
More data does not necessarily mean more useful intelligence.
Izzy summed up the challenge neatly:
“Where we're given a piece of data, it's right, what are we going to do with this?”
For Mobsta, that is increasingly where the interesting work sits.
Our intelligence brings together signals around real-world behaviour to help make sense of audiences, places and changing patterns. The value comes from turning those signals into something useful, whether that is informing an audience strategy, understanding a behavioural shift or giving an agency another perspective on a client challenge.
As David explains in the episode:
“They weren't just the same media brief where the decision's already been made. It was a much broader business challenge that we're trying to address and solve.”
It is a subtle but important shift. The starting point becomes the question that needs answering, rather than the data or channel available to answer it.
That matters because the agency role itself is changing.
Demos describes agencies as increasingly becoming:
“Fully fledged business partners... almost as a consultancy as well as a media partner.”
If the questions agencies are being asked are becoming more commercial, the partners around them need to be useful in that context too.
We are already seeing that in the briefs and questions coming into Mobsta. Sometimes the need is campaign activation. Sometimes it is understanding how a market is changing, how audiences are behaving or what is sitting behind a particular trend.
Mobsta is already supporting clients with commercial intelligence beyond traditional media, helping answer wider business questions that can be just as relevant to the CFO as they are to the CMO.
Our role is to use the signals and technology available to us to help partners get closer to an answer.
As David puts it:
“We know we have to be more valuable to you, more useful to you.”
The same change is happening in measurement.
Demos makes the point that clients increasingly want to know what activity actually means for their business:
“Clients want so much more now. They really want business outcomes.”
That does not make media metrics irrelevant. It means they increasingly need context.
Understanding who responded, how behaviours are changing and what other signals might help explain an outcome can create a much richer view of performance.
It is also why human interpretation remains so important. As technology and automation become more capable, the ability to ask the right questions, challenge the outputs and turn information into something actionable becomes more valuable, not less.
The conversation ends in a place that feels particularly relevant to how we work at Mobsta.
Test things. Ask questions. Challenge your partners. See what the data can tell you.
And if the answer is not available yet, keep pushing.
David sums up Mobsta's role simply:
“We should be a really useful partner to be able to help you with whatever challenge you have.”
For an industry with no shortage of data, usefulness is a good place to start.
Watch the full episode of From Media Buying to Commercial Intelligence on IAB UK's YouTube channel here or go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjky3pdZ4s
This is the first in a three-part IAB UK x Mobsta mini series. Each episode brings together a different Mobsta host and guest panel to explore a different application of audience and behavioural intelligence.