The last few years in the ad tech space have been tumultuous, to say the least. We’ve gone from the outright banning of certain reward requirements in the advertising “value exchange” space, to allies becoming threats via acquisitions, and now face a second wave of doom to advertising identifiers that some strategies completely rely on. Companies find themselves scrambling to pivot, building to accommodate the new realities they face, and looking for products that will lead them to safe harbor and success. I’d like to take a step back and share my perspective - one that includes a key driver often overlooked when designing a valuable product. Let's talk about people, not about features. I’ve worked with the FairBid product since 2019 when the SDK had been rebuilt from the ground up, incorporating the best of experienced, complementary technology pieces. It was an exciting time, working with a product that was ready for new development that didn’t have to work around legacy issues or outdated pieces of code.
Partnership as an Obligation
Throughout this time, I have had conversations directly with clients and prospects and have really gotten to know our users. Every app developer, publisher, and monetization manager has a story and I’ve been listening - serving as a sounding board. I feel their pain, excitement, concerns, and their wins as we grow together. Getting to know clients and realizing my work’s impact has made human connection the highlight of my work.These honest relationships reveal a lot about what clients thought they needed versus what would actually alleviate their pain points with monetization. I’ve learned about the burden ad monetization operations can bring and hear the need for a platform that is transparent and trustworthy. Clients seek a product that will bring stability alongside innovation in a constantly evolving market.
With a backpack full of stories, I have my work cut out for me. Mediation clients want a simplified system that performs but is also flexible enough to still have control over the settings that can fine-tune performance. Aside from the obvious "platform that brings revenue," a partnership is the number one thing we owe to our clients.A partnership to me is no less important than any product feature. It starts from the very first day we meet - getting to know one another and truly listening. From there, we walk together through integration, mediation setup, and ongoing optimization to achieve their goals (and beyond). I always look forward to these calls and meetings where we share each company's roadmaps and visions. It's fun to see where the two align and how we can inspire each other to build.
One of the things I'm most excited about is how dynamic this work is. Industry trends and boundaries shift - the scope of a planned feature may change over time, yielding a solution that I couldn't expect on day one. In parallel, I get to work with a diverse set of people externally when building these partnerships. This wide variation in teams and apps I work with - ranging in both size and type - promises a constant challenge that I’m thrilled to face each day.
Impactful Development
Another passion I have is measurability, led by the question “How did what we build impact the bottom line for our clients?” The follow-up to product management is a quantifiable way to understand whether what we built was worth it. Like a monetization manager’s optimization workflow, I make a hypothesis, run the experiment (or in my case, build the feature), and measure the outcome. Combining the quantitative and qualitative feedback directly from our clients, I move in the lock and step with our partners to reach shared goals and milestones. Over the course of many many calls from the prospect stage to quarterly business reviews, I’ve created a direct line to our clients as friends with whom I can have open conversations. This connection rewards me with a drive to build for humans, yielding measurable and emotional values. Dear publishers, you not only have our ears but also our hearts. Let’s continue to build together!
