How to Make Creators Programmatic
Can an ex-Cameo exec bring more dollars to YouTubers?
Creators are increasingly important to brands. They are reaching audiences that traditional media companies can't.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were easier ways for brands and creators to do deals?
Imagine, instead of finding the right creators, sending them briefs, negotiating prices, going through rounds of notes and edits - wouldn’t life be easier if running influencer campaigns was just as easy as buying ads all over the web via the Trade Desk or lighting up a mega Meta campaign using some kind of self-serve tool?
Well, this has sort of been the dream ever since influencer marketing became a thing. I remember writing about a slew of influencer platforms circa 2016 - startups such as ReadPulse, TapInfluence, Social Bluebook, Cirqle, NextBee and FindYourInfluence.com. Some of them pivoted, and some faded away - as it has proven difficult to standardize and scale creator activations which are inherently ‘messy’ and custom.
Similarly, the early generation of MCNs tried their hand at automated, quick, and easy ad products, such as Maker Offers, and a similar product from Stylehaul.
“There's a graveyard of brand-marketing, influencer-marketing platforms,” said ex-Cameo president Arthur Leopold, co-founder and CEO of Agentio - which just raised $12 million in funding to, you guessed it, try to get this scaled creator ad buy thing right.
I had Leopold on my podcast this week to talk about why both the timing and the technology are right this time.
As for those previous attempts, “none of them have hit any level of scale for a few reasons,” said Leopold. Plus they:
Lacked differentiation
Acted as point solutions, or databases of creators, or CRM platforms
Created a lot of work for brands and agencies
“Without the end-to-end platform…you don't have automation. You don't have scale.”
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Still, you hear so much about how much working with creators is all about tapping into their authenticity, and letting them do what they know what’s best for their audiences. Does anything that smacks of programmatic advertising belong here?
Maybe not yet? After all, creators don’t really know ad tech, the IAB, attribution, these kinds of things, said digital ad vet Cory Treffiletti, Chief Marketing Officer Rembrand- a company which is delivering shoppable product placements in creator content.
“This entire landscape of ad solutions is completely outside their process, and they are very successful despite not knowing anything about the industry,” Treffiletti said.
“We need to fit into their process and their schedules. We need to provide them value to work with us. Not the other way around. The industry will need to revise its process to fit how the creators operate. It will be a compromise of styles.”
To be fair, Cameo (fallen valuation aside) is a good example of a product that made something seemly very cumbersome - celebrity interactions/endorsements - into something simple and scalable. So Leopold and his team have a strong background, not to mention a solid investment team with a solid track record.
Plus, even with all the past flameouts in this arena, the need to sift through the creator landscape may simply be that much greater. “What’s different now is the scale of brands taking this channel seriously,” said media consultant Nick Cicero, who founded and eventually sold the social analytics platform Delmondo in 2018. “The sheer volume of channels and inventory on YouTube today is insanely massive compared to what’s available on traditional CTV.”
Leopold’s argument is that now is the right time for Agentio thanks in part to advancements in AI (which helps with stuff like brand safety), and the fact that there is an increased desire on both sides of the market to work together more.
Before launching the product, “we spoke with the biggest creators in the world today, and they, across the board, almost unanimously, can't sell through their inventory,” he said.
As for brands, “We know that marketing dollars flow to efficiency…The current agency model has constrained the pool of capital moving to influencers,” he said. “Somebody who's buying $100 million worth of Google Ads, they're never going to deal with thousands of one-off negotiations and contracts.”
With Agentio, he claims, “brands can deploy a $50,000 budget one month or a million dollar budget the next month without much additional bandwidth.”
Sounds like a win-win. Though I do wonder whether standardizing creator advertising to such a degree (Agentio is mostly focused on quick host-read ads) will lead to too many generic that become less effective over time.
Still, I could also see this kind of buying platform as an easy entry point for many reticent brands - and maybe over time Agentio figures out a way to broaden its creative offerings while still keeping the buying and execution easier.
Either way, more entry points into creator media and more awareness of who to work with among brands, would seem to be a good thing for this sector.