PM360 Magazine Elite100 Winner: George Tarnopolsky of CMI Media Group

PM360 Magazine Elite100 Winner: George Tarnopolsky of CMI Media Group

PM360 Magazine selected George Tarnopolsky as one of Pharma Marketing’s 100 most influential people for 2021. As media consumption habits of people, including healthcare professionals, expand to more screens and devices, it’s critical to reach them on emerging channels. Today, as VP, Programmatic for CMI Media Group, George Tarnopolsky finds increasingly effective ways to reach people.

George’s programmatic team boasts multiple industry firsts. For example, George’s team created a unique Connected TV campaign for a type 2 diabetes brand that specifically targeted endocrinologists on a 1:1 basis. For another client, George’s team successfully launched a pulmonology brand targeting patients through a targeted Crossix and Adstra campaign within the streaming audio channel.

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Xandr Partners with Lasso to Power Omni-Channel Marketing Solutions for Pharma and Healthcare

Xandr Partners with Lasso to Power Omni-Channel Marketing Solutions for Pharma and Healthcare

Lasso, the omni-channel platform for healthcare marketing and analytics, and Xandr today announced a strategic partnership to simplify the way marketers plan, activate, and measure their Healthcare Provider (HCP) and Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) campaigns.

“Lasso has been a great partner for driving results in our healthcare marketing campaigns. Utilizing the Lasso platform has allowed us to activate HCP campaigns with scale and efficiency,” said George Tarnopolsky, VP Programmatic, CMI Media Group. “Lasso’s partnership with Xandr is the best of both worlds: leading omnichannel reach of Xandr, coupled with Lasso’s turnkey capabilities and 1:1 reporting created for the healthcare space.”

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Planning for a Post-Cookie Future

Digital advertising is changing. Third party cookies and mobile device IDs, trackers used to build a $100B ecosystem, are about to be discontinued without a universal alternative to replace them. Let’s dive deeper into how we arrived here, what likely short- and long-term outcomes look like, and what smart marketers can do to prepare for the changes.

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Two Key Questions About Data Analytics 2020

PM360 asked analytics experts about the impact of Google, Safari, and Firefox all phasing out third-party cookies and the biggest missed opportunities for marketers regarding data. Specifically, we asked them:

  • With third-party cookies crumbling, how will a marketer’s ability to target their campaign, measure attribution, and/or use programmatic buying be impacted? What other areas of marketing may be affected?

  • What are the biggest opportunities in terms of data and/or analytics that not enough companies or marketers either know about or are leveraging to their full potential?

Feedback from George Tarnopolsky, VP Programmatic at CMI/Compas:

Over the next two years, programmatic marketers will need to evolve beyond using targeting methods that depend on cookies. Changes will impact HCP and patient campaigns differently, with key challenges and opportunities in each.

HCP target list buys on endemic websites will flourish as these tactics often depend on NPIs instead of cookies. On the opposite side, HCP non-endemic buys are primarily cookie-based and will need to pivot to alternative approaches, such as using CRM data activation with large publishers who have login data.

Patient marketing will experience growth in keyword contextual and private marketplace tactics, as these approaches don’t depend on cookies. Also, similar to HCP programs, it’s likely CRM data activation will become another replacement. The growth of CRM targeting will signal a rising importance of large publishers, who are able to protect their content behind a login. An unintended consequence of this change may be a decline in independent content, if smaller publishers aren’t able to monetize as effectively as before.

To prepare for these changes, marketers should audit current media plans. This exercise will be helpful in demonstrating that pharma marketers already employ many non-cookie-based strategies, such as NPI targeting, CRM data targeting, and contextual approaches.

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Connected TV and Brand Safety

A new report says there’s a rise in fraud on connected TV platforms. Here’s what pharma marketers should know, from two CMI/Compas experts, Joe Warren, EVP, Media Investment and George Tarnopolsky, VP, Programmatic:

While the headline is scary, it should not be a complete surprise. Clearly television streaming has had significant gains during Covid lock down, and as ad-funded broadcasters increasingly turn to programmatic buying options. Prevention of ad fraud requires adopting programmatic tactics similar to those that marketers have used in the display marketplace, albeit it is currently more challenging to prevent fraud in the video space.

Pre-bid brand safety and fraud prevention solutions are still evolving for emerging channels like Connected TV and Audio. In the interim, marketers can mitigate their risk by partnering with DSPs that screen every impression for bot traffic, via integrations with solutions like White Ops. In addition, marketers may rely heavily on Private Marketplace deals with premium content owners like A&E, CBS, the Golf Channel, and others—which ensures a premium, controlled environment for cTV ads. Lastly, marketers can utilize post-bid reporting from providers like DoubleVerify, closely monitoring their activity for brand safety and fraud, and making changes to campaigns based on observations.

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CVS Media Exchange Launches!

CVS Media Exchange Launches!

Ad network update from George Tarnopolsky, VP, Programmatic: This week, CVS has announced the launch of its own ad network--CVS Media Exchange, or cMx. buyers will be able to reach customers across Display, Video, Search, and Social channels, utilizing intent and purchase audience data from CVS's 74M customers. CVS's ad network closely follows similar approaches from Target and Walmart, who've also launched ad buying powered by their proprietary audience data. This model also emulates the success of the Amazon DSP. More than any other retailer, Amazon has made a concerted effort to compete against market leaders like Google DV360 and The Trade Desk, with its own purchase and intent data as the differentiator. These offerings, including Target Media Network, Walmart Media Group, and the Amazon DSP, have historically been geared toward retail and CPG brands. Healthcare marketers are hopeful that CVS, given its history, creates opportunities for pharma brands as well. We will watch the CVS Media Exchange closely.

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Walmart Updates its Ad Platform

Walmart Updates its Ad Platform

Walmart is leveraging its scale and advertising ambitions to launch a new platform competitive with Amazon, Google, and Facebook. In a new development, Walmart Media Group is adding a new set of metrics to its Walmart Ad Center. The new Walmart reporting suite ties online advertising with customer behavior, and shows how online ads drive online and ecommerce sales. While the applications of Walmart Ad Center are limited to OTC brands, this announcement is exciting for several reasons:

  • The emergence of new options for marketers

  • Increased emphasis on measurement that goes past front-end metrics like reach and clickthrough rate. In healthcare, measurement like script lift is essential in order to better illustrate ROAS of ad campaigns

  • The synthesis of front-end ad campaign metrics (impressions, clicks, reach) with consumer behavior metrics (online and in-store purchases)--all in a single dashboard.

We will watch Walmart's developments closely. Healthcare marketers will benefit from similar developments in healthcare programmatic platforms and offerings. This type of union of online and offline metrics in a single platform will create for better ad campaigns and drive better return on advertising spend.

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Device IDs going the way of cookies..

Apple’s WWDC was a few days ago and there’s one topic people seem to be still talking about: privacy. The company will now require third-party apps to ask permission before tracking users, and are using a nutrition-label-like format to streamline the process.

George Tarnopolsky, VP, Programmatic provides this insight: Users will now get a popup about device id (IDFA) use when they first download an app; the popup will ask whether users allow for their IDFA to be used for ad targeting purposes. This change allows users to opt out of tracking very easily, when apps are first downloaded. App developers will be able to customize this initial popup, for example to illustrate the value exchange from opting into ad targeting. It’s unknown what percentage of users will opt out of IDFA sharing in apps at this time.

At a high level, it is clear that this change will affect the ability of app developers to monetize through ads—and for buyers to buy that app inventory. In the short-term, mobile ad budgets will flow increasingly towards Android apps, which are unaffected by Apple’s change. Long-term, app developers will likely shift more apps to subscription models or require logins. Programmatic buyers will be able to continue leveraging keyword contextual, sitelist, and PMP strategies. In addition, we will likely see an emergence of first party data as the top method for reaching audiences, replacing both browser cookies and mobile device ids.

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Impact of the Global Pandemic on News Publishers

Publisher update from George Tarnopolsky, VP, Programmatic: News publishers are finding the COVID-19 crisis challenging to navigate. While news consumption has grown dramatically, the impact to news publishers has been a negative one from a revenue perspective; most ad buyers have been blocking Coronavirus content. News publishers have had to balance increasing viewership and infrastructure costs with a declining ability to monetize content. In response, Google has announced that it would waive Google Ad Manager (publisher ad server) costs to news publishers, for a period of five months. In a recent blog post, Google said that they hope to “help news organizations reduce some of the cost of managing their businesses and funding important journalism during this time.”

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Programmatic - The Evolution of Marketing Automation - Feb 2020

Programmatic is not going anywhere. Despite the recent questions swirling due to data privacy changes (GDPR, CCPA, and the impending “cookie-less” reality), industry experts agree programmatic for pharma will not be hurt by increased privacy legislation or trends. The bull market position taken by thought leaders is that scaling back now on programmatic “will risk major missed opportunities for greater ROI and better attribution.” Across all sectors, U.S. programmatic media spend totally roughly $60 billion dollars in 2019, and is conservatively estimated by eMarketer to increase to over $80 billion by 2021.

Today, we will leave the reader with this insightful summary of the immediate future from George Tarnopolsky:

A shift to non-cookie based tactics will make programmatic more interesting, as buyers will need to get more creative in their tactic and strategy mix. For example, instead of using a cookie-based data segment that represents a patient population, a programmatic media buyer may now combine Private Marketplace, keyword contextual, geography, and time of day targeting—while also leveraging high engagement Video or Native creative ad units.

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Privacy, Data and Preparedness: POV and Guidance for Pharma Marketers

The advertising industry is shifting as consumers demand more privacy and ownership of their data, regulators struggle to keep up, and technology continues to evolve to offer more ways to engage with consumers and collect their data. The media landscape is fluid and evolves quickly. In an age where data is a commodity, consumers are becoming more aware of how advertisers are using it. In a common quest to educate and regulate, digital governing bodies, state and federal officials, publishers, and technology giants are all weighing in.

At CMI/Compas, we have been planning for this industry shift for some time and have been using both cookie-based and non-cookie-based approaches in our digital ad campaigns. We believe that relevant advertising won’t go away, but we will see a pivot to strategies and tactics that don’t depend on cookies. With the implementation timeline from Google still two years away, there are some unknowns—but there are also ways that we can begin to prepare now.

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Google's dropping third-party cookies. Will pharma marketers need to adapt?

Google says it will phase out third-party cookie support within two years, and some marketers are lamenting the data loss.

The pharma industry, which has to work within strict privacy and regulatory boundaries, may be better positioned than others. Pharma marketers already use plenty of non-cookie tactics. But change is still on its way. “In general, relevant advertising isn’t going to go away. It’s just that we’re going to see pivots and shifts to tactics and strategies that don’t rely on cookies,” said George Tarnopolsky, VP of programmatic at CMI/Compas.

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Filtering Through the Google Noise: What Marketers Need to Know

Recently, there has been a lot of news around Google’s algorithm updates, CCPA and privacy, user data, acquisition of Fitbit, and their overall intention or motivation driving these updates.  While changes of any kind coming from a company like Google are sure to make waves, it’s important to know what can be filtered out and what we need to focus on as marketers and advertisers.  This POV addresses the most relevant and high-profile news to provide clarity and guidance on how it may impact your business. 

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