Dmexco: En route to Cologne, not a Ben Folds song in sight

So Dmexco is coming up, and as an Adtech Exec I still find this to be the best trade show for cementing existing relationships and building new ones. Usually done whilst queuing for bratwurst of course.

This year I am looking forward to some key pieces all slotting together. 

GDPR will clearly be on the agenda and I am expecting much more in the way of discussing the impacts of this on the big walled gardens. I don’t think anyone in Adtech is prepared for the impact GDPR will have on the industry, however I am keen to hear some honest discussions take place over the state of the nation and, where possible, how various vendors are approaching consent – in particular SSPs.

My personal opinion is that GDPR is a good thing for location vendors and it will rapidly separate the industry’s leaders from followers. There is nothing to fear from unambiguous legislation and Blis is taking this very seriously.

Despite being one of the hot topics at last year’s Dmexco, the discussion and debates will continue around the rise of Header Bidding and its impact on mobile. To date, mobile has been immune from this scourge but this is changing as pre-bid goes mobile. The impact on SSPs and DSPs in the desktop display arena has been useful to watch from the sidelines but supply optimisation will become more important for mobile DSPs to work out both the most efficient buying route but also the most efficient internal processing methods – why process the same impression from a dozen SSPs?
I am expecting SSPs to be touting pre-bid mobile solutions in force at Dmexco. I am sceptical of the uniqueness of these to publishers and buyers and am busy working on my top three questions for vendors when this topic comes up.

M&A rumours go into overdrive at Dmexco. I am never sure why, perhaps it is the “I saw X huddled in a corner talking to Y”. The reason they were huddled is it is impossible to hear anything at the best of time. I suspect there will be deals – telcos increasingly becoming strategic partners with massive amounts of consumer data is the obvious candidate – but I am not brave enough to predict anything here. For what it is worth as a recap of recent Adtech M&A then Paul Gubbins’ recent post is a good read I expect at least half a dozen people to comment on M&A around AppNexus, or at a minimum mention a date for their IPO. Nothing to see here, the guys at AppNexus are doing just fine without this chat.

And then there is the ever-present hype around new technologies. AI was omnipresent at MWC and Dmexco last year, despite many Adtech “AI” propositions being vapourware based on basic algorithms. This year expect Blockchain to be the darling of the ball – will be fun poking holes in the hot air around this.

I shall be keeping a running scorecard but if I have missed anything, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

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