Welcome And Q1 Preview

Ava Hinds 0:00

Hey everyone, I'm your host, Ava Hunt, and today we're getting radically candid with Michael Lieberman, our Vice President of Innovation here at Cognition. In this episode, we're recapping what the team has been building and where we're headed. We're talking about everything from our headless analytics tag and how it's changing the way we measure the whole customer journey to the work being done on the media execution side to help our team move faster for clients. We're also getting into the OEM program performance, cross-channel measurement, and what's next for DV360 and beyond. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at the innovation driving our platform forward, this is the episode for you. Enjoy. Thank you, Michael, for doing a Q1 recap with us. I'll let you introduce yourself and all that fun stuff.

Q1 Progress On Measurement And Execution

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Hi guys, my name is Michael Lieberman. I am VP of Innovation here at Cognition. And we will spend a bit of time chatting about Q1, what we've been working on, and really where we're going for Q2.

Ava Hinds 1:06

Yeah. So what was a Q1 recap of what have we accomplished this quarter? What are we looking towards for next quarter?

What Headless Analytics Tag Does

SPEAKER_00 1:12

So I think we've we've done a lot of work preparing and bringing things together. So what do I mean by that? We've got a couple of different components to our offering, a lot of pieces around the measurement side of the equation, execution side of the equation. We've shared and introduced, for example, hat to a lot of a lot of our client base and partners. And we've been preparing from a less seeing something on the UI side, getting that in order for more of our partners to take advantage of. Some of the examples of what we've done in Q1 is being able to share a lot of the measurement insights that are extracted with HAT via S3 to partners so that they can ingest into their own platforms. And we are working and have been working diligently on ensuring that we get even more data out of HAT so that it's available to clients. I think that's going to be something that we'll start seeing a lot of going into Q2. On the media execution side, we've been doing a lot of work to prepare and enable our team to more efficiently and effectively serve our clients and really execute faster. I think that's a big, a big part of what value we bring to our partners. So just making our team more efficient and effective on the managed side has been a big effort over the last quarter. Another piece that we've been working on to support our clients is, and specifically clients that are serving OEM programs and campaigns, is better manage and filter, gain insight into those programs that they are running, both from a reporting perspective and helping them get the data they need from the media that we're supporting execution on, in order to get that to the OEMs themselves. So a lot of that work has been done over the last quarter. And really just a lot of planning around how we are going to make our clients' lives easier in terms of getting the data that they need into cognition and then into their systems. So I'd say that that at a high level has been where a lot of the effort has been and will continue to be. Going into Q2 and Q3, I think another big part of what we've been doing is really enhancing our DV360 offering. So a lot of work has been done on that side of the equation. And we will continue to integrate and support many more platforms over the next several months.

Ava Hinds 3:56

Yeah. And then I know you talked about hot in the beginning. For those that don't know, what is Headless Analytics Tag?

Cross-Channel Measurement And HAT Growth

SPEAKER_00 4:03

So the Headless Analytics Tag is really what we leverage to provide the measurement capabilities that I think set us apart. It is comprised of two parts. One is the on-site tracking. So all the activity that happens on a dealer site. And then at the same time, the ability to pixel the creative that we are running so that we're able to connect an impression to any on-site activity. So let's let's use a real-world example to illustrate. I'm sitting on my couch, I am watching Amazon Prime. I see an ad for a particular vehicle or brand, vehicle brand OEM. And while I'm on the couch, I type into my little search box on my phone, that particular brand, I end up on the site. Now, traditionally, it's been very difficult for people to measure. We do have capabilities from our attribution tools to do that, impression to a conversion. But now we can actually stitch that through from I saw that impression, I was sitting on my couch, I searched on my phone, I came to site, I looked at five VDPs or a particular image or whatever it is that I've done on site through to filling out a form, for example. So much more direct relationship and connection and through that customer journey from the impression through to the uh the key on-site conversion events that that our clients are interested in.

Ava Hinds 5:29

Yeah, I know you've talked about how HAT's gonna grow. And Alex Bronker talked about it in a recent radically candid episode, how he believes that hat is gonna be the main focus of a lot. How do you think that's gonna grow over time?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

That's that's a great question. I I think that measurement and some of the capabilities that we bring to the table are going to be a bigger part of the focus. That's largely driven by our clients that are executing in different ways, some within our platform, some within the DSP directly. But at the end of the day, the biggest part is connecting that to those outcomes, right? So if we're taking an outcome-driven approach to running media or measuring that media, then key to that is is understanding how how that execution is resulting in the outcomes that that clients are looking for, both our agencies and then really their clients as well. So that that is core to everything that that that happens in the world of digital media, right? In our case, obviously, from a programmatic and a streaming perspective, that's one part. That's interesting in the sense that we are also now able to give our clients visibility into some of the other channels that they're running as well. So obviously, we have very strong capabilities around serving a streaming TV ad and then X, Y, and Z or Z, depending on which side of the board you're on. I'm in Canada here right now, how that how that streaming ad has influenced the customer journey. But we are our our hat capabilities and the tracking on site also give us visibility into how search is performing and how social and other channels are performing. So combining all those together is something that I think our clients are going to start leveraging more and more and more as as we share and introduce those capabilities to them.

Ava Hinds 7:24

Yeah. And what fun insights have you discovered from Hat recently?

SPEAKER_00 7:28

It's a good question because you know there's always that question of insights and this amorphous term insights and what do we find. I think one of the interesting things that we found in a story that that's always fun to kind of share is some of the visibility with uh some of the OEM programs that we've run in cases where you know somebody might be running something at tier three. And, you know, based on the example I gave you before, I'm sitting on my couch, I see an ad for a dealer, I end up going in and searching for the OEM because it's usually easier than typing, you know, the maybe the full dealership name. And maybe I the first thing that pops up is the OEM. So when we're able to connect and we've got visibility into OEM or or even tier two, it becomes interesting when you can kind of see the path of the intention of that ad was to get them to, you know, dealer one, but their path sometimes will go through the OEM before they get to dealer one. What we found is that generally everybody ends up going to where the ad wanted to drive them, but sometimes the paths are very unique in terms of how somebody gets there.

Ava Hinds 8:37

Yeah, and I know you've talked about the OEMs as well. And how do you see those programs growing in the future?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Well, I mean, I I think based on the way the um the industry works and and how OEM programs and heavy ups and so forth are sources for for a lot of the the media investments. I think that our ability to really roll those out and execute them quickly is something that I think our clients are seeing and and embracing. So I think setting us up to be able to be there to partner with our partners to help them execute on those and measure and and really go back to the funding sources was the OEM or tier two, and say, you know, here's the performance that we drove from the investment that you allocated with us. So I think performance is a big part of what will drive further growth there.

Ava Hinds 9:32

Sure. And then you brought up the EV360. What can we expect from that in the future with cognition?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

I think that our mission is is really to help and and measurement holistically, right? Obviously, a lot of the work that we've done in particular channels has kind of dictated where we really started the focus of hat as we introduced DV360 and and other channels. I think the idea of ensuring that we're able to provide measurement and insight across channels and within channels as we add, you know, specific support for for different, say DSPs is in the DV360 example, is something that I think clients will will see, leverage, and expect.

Ava Hinds 10:20

Since you're currently the vice president of innovation, what are you most excited for for next quarter and for the rest of the year and more years to come?

Closing Thoughts And Stay Tuned

SPEAKER_00 10:28

I think that there are a lot of interesting things that we're starting to work on. We've kind of laid out a vision of some of the things that we want to be able to provide to clients, things that we want to introduce to market that are new, fresh, and and leverage new technologies. I think that in the next little bit, as we expose more of the capabilities of HAT, specifically measurement from HAT, from the clean rooms. I think that what's becoming capable and the ability to execute on our vision at a pace that I think is unprecedented based on new technologies that are that are now at our disposal. I'm really excited for what we can introduce and at the speed at which we can introduce it. But at its core, I think a lot of a lot of the new insights that we're able to provide partners and clients through the melding of the hat measurement data, the execution data, and so forth is gonna be something that's that's really gonna be exciting to be working on. And then both to for our clients to help them go and sell more, right? I mean, at the end of the day, a big part of what our objectives are are to enable our partners to execute better and to drive outcomes that grow their business because inherently we grow as they grow. So I think a lot of the work that we're doing is gonna give them yet another another arrow that they could use to um to grow their their business and and leverage our technology for more for more growth and opportunity.

Ava Hinds 12:11

Well, thank you so much for going over Q1 product. Very exciting, what it has become and what will become. Do you have anything you want to leave off on?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Or no, I appreciate the time and uh people should look forward to to what we'll we'll start introducing in the next little bit. I think it's quite exciting.

Ava Hinds 12:30

I agree, and everyone can stay tuned. Well, thanks guys.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Bye, Eva. Thank you.