WEBVTT
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What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another
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episode of Performance Marketing Minds brought
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to you by Outbrain Direct Response. I'm your
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host, Joe Adonna, and today we've got a pretty
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special one. We've got the founder of MediaForce,
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Eyal Moshe, and the CRO, David Resnick, hopping
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on the podcast. And it's a very unique conversation.
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I don't think Eyal has ever done a podcast, which
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is crazy for how big MediaForce is and the impact
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they've had in the digital marketing. and specifically
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performance landscape over the last 10, 15 years.
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So extremely grateful, really neat conversation,
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and learned a ton about what they're doing in
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terms of AI, how they think about managing large
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business teams and different types of changing
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competitive landscapes. Really a lot to learn,
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especially if you're an independent affiliate
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or smaller agency. These guys do a lot. So without
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further ado, enjoy my conversation with the two
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legends of media force. Okay. Well, let's do
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this because I've got the founder and CEO and
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the CRO on the same podcast. So I'll start it
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off with actually a fun question. What do you
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guys disagree with the most day to day in business?
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They actually arguing with David is fine. It's
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like one of my hobbies. I have to say. But seriously,
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I think we argue quite well. To give you one
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recent example, we just discussed, you know,
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we're doing some things on Google with search
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and the future of search with AI taking over
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and AI overview. And I am, you know, coming from
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a more performance DNA, like there are opportunities
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right now. Let's, let's explore them. Let's leverage,
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let's jump on the opportunities. And David. balances
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me quite well, to be honest, thinking, wait,
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let's think about the future, the landscape in
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the next three, five years, where is it going?
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Do we want to make these investments or like,
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I think we balance each other quite well. And
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it's fine to argue. No, it's always a good exercise.
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I think in general, AI tends to think a couple
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of years down the road while we're trying to
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obviously build the business that we have today.
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So it's always a good balance. I mean, there's
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always new emerging things coming across the
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industry. And we like to be on top of it, but
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it's hard to sort of jump around all the time.
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So we do try to balance each other in terms of
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making sure we're looking five years down the
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road, but also what are we doing today? Are we
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going deeper? Are we becoming experts in the
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business that drives revenue and profit, but
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also keeping an eye on what's next? So it's always
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a balance. I mean, you trying to reel it in a
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little bit, they all trying to visualize the
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future and make sure that you guys still have
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money to operate over the next three years and
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not go fully into something. I think it's getting
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harder and harder, but just because not the arguments
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are getting harder and harder, but the things
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that are emerging are just accelerating so quickly,
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right? With AI and everything, all the tools
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we can use and the new emerging kind of platforms.
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It's becoming much more fun to argue because
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some of the future can be pulled in quite sooner,
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I think, with all these tools. And there is quite
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a significant physical distance between us, which
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definitely helps to get a different perspective
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on things. I think it's working quite well. How
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do you guys balance? You're a big enough company
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now and you have enough resources to where you
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could probably build a lot of things in -house
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and you have in the past. But especially in this
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AI landscape and you know, there's video creation
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services, there's reporting, there's different
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MCP servers that can optimize across all different
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platforms. Like how do you guys decide, okay,
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we're going to build this in -house with our
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own tech stack or we're actually going to look
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external to be able to solve some of these problems.
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That's actually a good question. To be honest,
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we are not necessarily always making the right
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decisions. Many times we started creating our
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own tools and then we figured there is a better
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third -party tool and we shouldn't be building
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the tool on the other end. We've tested quite
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a few third -party tools before and we realized
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that because our tech stack is quite unique and
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we have quite a few products that were built
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in -house with unique APIs to different other
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networks or interfaces, we are better off creating
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all on. I feel now we are more mature we have
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a better process of understanding where it makes
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sense to invest where we see the potential equity
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value future equity value of the product. We
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just recruited a CPTO which helps us a lot with
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these decisions and we believe AI is definitely
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changing and like I said on one hand it's easy
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to create now tools on the other end. You definitely
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don't want to go and create a each and every
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tool where there are good alternatives out there.
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Yeah. Makes sense. I feel like, you know, what
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makes more sense is if we actually take a little
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bit of a step back too. So he forced bounds in
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2007, right? At least that's what I have in my
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notes. Right. Um, for the people that don't really
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know you guys and know what you do, what, I guess,
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what were you trying to solve back then, you
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know, that, that made you create this. crazy
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performance marketing engine to what it is now.
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And what, just what is, and what are you guys
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doing differently than most people are doing?
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I want to know the story. And I think it was
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really interesting to a lot of people if they
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hear the story of how it was, how it was started.
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Sure. So actually fan fact, we started together
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with Outbrain, which is now part of Teeds in
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20, 2007. And back then, a lot of the advertising
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was banner -based. I remember the good old days
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where you were buying banners on MSN, Yahoo,
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and you know, there wasn't even such a thing
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as native advertising. Definitely programmatic
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wasn't existent back then. And on one end, it
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created quite a few opportunities. On the other
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end, it was very hard to manage. No automation.
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Everything was manual. I remember the good old
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days sending insertion orders via fax machines
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at 3 a .m. committing to buy through. But I remember
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them very well, like committing to $3 million
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a quarter on yahoo .com 300 by 250. And that's
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it. It's yours. I mean, whether you were able
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to sell it, monetize it or not, you had to pay
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these $3 million. And the hand was shaking and
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we had to take a lot of risks. And we were among
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the first to do native without actually calling
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it native advertising. So like we bought the
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300 by 250, we split them into three different
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offers, utilizing our own ad server. And it worked
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it worked very well and i remember that the beginning
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a publishers didn't really like it because it's
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like. Decide whether you're an advertiser or
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a content recommendation and thanks to our brain
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which is now. We feel that they actually made
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it a very common thing and suddenly everyone
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is speaking the same language. Long story short,
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I think we wanted to change how people were buying
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traffic from just getting clicks to generating
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outcomes and potentially downstream conversions.
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providing actual value for our advertisers. Do
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you think there was a moment in time that you
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guys hit a revenue milestone where you're actually
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saying, okay, this is working and this is something
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that people want for the downstream advertisers
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and being able to see, okay, we're going to take
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this into this performance world and this is
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where things are going to go. Like, was it one
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particular client or advertiser or was it just
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something that you saw and you decided, you know,
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what we're going all in on this? I guess we saw
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the biggest effect when we started with auto
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insurance. I even remember the discussions with
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your team. Back then, Outbrain wasn't really
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selling advertising. It was mostly content recommendation.
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I remember getting a call from Outbrain. I think
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it was a do you show me a is asking me a question
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like do you guys think that let's say we were
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able to sell you clicks for. 30 cents with you
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would you be able to buy them and. I honestly
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miss those days because it was very exciting
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you know to pay for click and and the quality.
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we were getting from Outbrand was always like
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top notch, high, very high, and very high intent.
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Of course, in relative to the traffic channel,
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like to the intent of Native, I mean. And that
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was definitely a hard moment when we started
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with auto insurance. Everyone was telling us,
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good luck, guys. I mean, there's no way a lot
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of companies, a lot of people tried before. Yes,
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it's working great for search, but I mean, no
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way it's going to work for display, native, you're
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wasting your time, you're wasting your money.
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I even remember flying to New York City to have
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some meetings and people actually, you know,
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try to tell me not to go that route. And I'm
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so happy we decided to enter this market because
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Uh, we, we were able to, to do a lot of damage
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and we were one of the first to actually, uh,
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generate high scale, high volume of fleets for
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the auto insurance industry in the United States.
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And again, I, I miss, I really miss those days.
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You guys have been around a little bit longer
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than me, I'm sure. Um, I've been in here for
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10 years, but you've seen more than me. Um, and
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I always hear stories about those glory days.
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You know, when things were easier and there wasn't
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as much competition, but also the inventory stack
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was a little bit different, you know, and there
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weren't as many native networks on the publisher
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side. So competition wasn't as fierce there either.
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But it's funny because I feel like every platform
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mostly has gone from nice branding experience
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to performance advertisers and direct response
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advertisers really just taking over once they
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figure out what they can do. Um, and it's, it's
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really unique to see. And you guys being one
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of the first ones to do it, we're seeing now,
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especially on the, since the Teeds merger with
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Outbrain, the CTV channel start to do really
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well for a lot of the direct response advertisers.
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And it's funny because the Teeds CTV platform,
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I think was built really high impact premium.
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publisher partnerships, in -stream non -skippable
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video, good stuff. But you tell a performance
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marketer that, and they're frothing at the mouth
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to see what type of offer they can put there
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to make it work. So I think everything kind of
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trends to performance at the end of the day,
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you know? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, and David,
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you know, has been asking at all. basically sharing
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the request from advertisers. I mean, we know
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CTV provides, or generally TV advertising provides
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value. We know we were able to crack display
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native without on and operating, on and operated
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the DSP, performance DSP, Genie. Basically, and
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again, this is me now talking about the future.
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I have no doubt that in a year, Gini will be
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trading quite a lot of CTV activity. It's already
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happening right now. And we also work very closely
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with other partners to buy CTV, performance CTV.
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And yes, you are right, Joe. I mean, the challenge.
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Challenges are there. Attribution is a very big
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challenge with CTV. Generally, making someone
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who is watching news or watching different content
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on their TV screens, you need to get them from
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one medium to another medium, and it's not easy.
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But we're seeing already success and positive
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signs. And I'm pretty sure that with the right
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models and with the right heuristic solutions
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to attribution, we're gonna scale it. And I see
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very bright future for CTV advertising as a performance
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marketer and also audio advertising, by the way.
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I think there is a lot of potential there. Yeah,
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on the audio side, I remember going to Manscapes
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office in Sure. San Diego years ago. And they
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were showing me the reporting from their podcast
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advertising and you know, it was rowing decks
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and all that crazy stuff back then. Um, it was
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nuts, but you brought up a good point. I mean,
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you guys have such a big business now. Um, you
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can probably almost work with whoever you want.
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You get a lot of inbound leads from people, I'm
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sure as well. And what business model are you
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actively trying to seek out and what ones are
00:14:56.750 --> 00:14:59.070
you. Kind of saying no to at the moment, you
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know, it's almost a better way to saying that
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is like what makes a good client to you guys
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sitting from your side of the table. What does
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one look like? And maybe what's something that
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you're shying away from at the moment. Yeah.
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I mean, we don't, I guess we don't try to shy
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anyone away or push anyone away, but, uh, there,
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there is sort of this common thread with our
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top advertisers and typically kind of. credit
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goes back to their ability to track, right? So
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they're able to record and kind of see report
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back downstream performance. And for us, that's
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cool. That's what we need for our system and
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our platform to better optimize, right? And so
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when we have partners that are able to do that
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and... have the ability to kind of give us a
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runway, right? Because we typically have two
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stages in campaign developments. Usually the
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first phase is like discovery, exploration. We
00:15:51.370 --> 00:15:53.090
have no idea where this campaign is going to
00:15:53.090 --> 00:15:55.610
perform, where it's going to work. So we kind
00:15:55.610 --> 00:15:57.250
of work hand in hand trying to figure out, okay,
00:15:57.450 --> 00:16:01.029
where are we going to ideally get the performance
00:16:01.029 --> 00:16:04.590
for this campaign? Once we start to see sort
00:16:04.590 --> 00:16:06.629
of our KPI is being hit, their KPI is being hit,
00:16:06.669 --> 00:16:08.549
then we can kind of move into that next phase.
00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:11.820
which is kind of the exploit phase. And that's
00:16:11.820 --> 00:16:13.960
the phase where we can start to see a lot more
00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:17.740
scale. But to get from explorer to explorer,
00:16:17.820 --> 00:16:20.860
it does take time. It does take losses on both
00:16:20.860 --> 00:16:23.259
sides. So the best advertisers are typically
00:16:23.259 --> 00:16:25.649
the ones that understand. that it's not always
00:16:25.649 --> 00:16:26.929
going to be a home run right out of the gate.
00:16:27.309 --> 00:16:28.929
We have to understand that as well. And that
00:16:28.929 --> 00:16:31.610
does require us to have that runway to optimize,
00:16:31.629 --> 00:16:34.009
whether it's the creative, the funnel, right?
00:16:34.409 --> 00:16:37.850
The landing page, the messaging, the value to
00:16:37.850 --> 00:16:39.629
the consumer, whatever it might be, right? It's
00:16:39.629 --> 00:16:43.009
a puzzle. And so the best advertisers, typically
00:16:43.009 --> 00:16:46.470
the ones that to have patience can record the
00:16:46.470 --> 00:16:50.070
full funnel and are able to kind of report that
00:16:50.070 --> 00:16:53.320
back to us for us to use. to better manage the
00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:56.000
campaigns and move from explore to, to exploit.
00:16:56.919 --> 00:16:59.340
So this is, I really want to ask you this question,
00:16:59.500 --> 00:17:02.720
David, um, because the CRO role is it's interesting
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:04.579
role to me. Cause you have your hands in everything
00:17:04.579 --> 00:17:07.539
and nothing at the same time. You're helping
00:17:07.539 --> 00:17:09.559
plan, you're doing all these things, but especially
00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:11.559
in the world of direct response and performance
00:17:11.559 --> 00:17:15.940
media, how, how do you do your role effectively
00:17:15.940 --> 00:17:18.059
when there is so many things out of your control?
00:17:18.140 --> 00:17:21.000
You know, like you have. Sellers trying to close
00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:22.720
business for media force to bring in deals. You
00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:24.440
have media buyers that are running the media.
00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:27.660
You have the client side that is. Helping with
00:17:27.660 --> 00:17:29.839
the product and upsells and landing pages, but
00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:32.440
you guys are also creating them. Like, I don't
00:17:32.440 --> 00:17:36.900
know. I'm just curious how you operate this in
00:17:36.900 --> 00:17:39.339
DR because it is hard when you, if you're not
00:17:39.339 --> 00:17:40.819
winning, you're losing, right? Like if you're
00:17:40.819 --> 00:17:42.539
not making money, you're automatically losing
00:17:42.539 --> 00:17:45.220
money. And from a CRO standpoint, being able
00:17:45.220 --> 00:17:48.039
to, like we said in the beginning, Say what is
00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:50.200
worth it in the short term versus long term and
00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:51.940
what do I stick around with and continue to bleed
00:17:51.940 --> 00:17:53.480
from I don't know I just think it's a really
00:17:53.480 --> 00:17:55.839
interesting perspective and role to have and
00:17:55.839 --> 00:18:05.079
a challenging one. I'm sure How do you how do
00:18:05.079 --> 00:18:09.279
you do that Yeah, no, it's it's it's quite the
00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:12.380
balance I think that um, you know oftentimes
00:18:12.380 --> 00:18:15.140
we could do everything right right on the on
00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:20.599
the media and and the metaphor side, but it does
00:18:20.599 --> 00:18:23.140
end up maturing in terms of downstream performance,
00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:27.599
whether it's a specific LTV or AOV or policy
00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:31.960
rate. So it requires this kind of delicate balance.
00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:33.480
What worked for us might not work for the partner
00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:34.839
and vice versa. What worked for the partner might
00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:37.140
not work for us. And so it's always kind of finding
00:18:37.140 --> 00:18:43.720
that right partnership and making sure that we're
00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:46.910
both on the same team. But internally, I think
00:18:46.910 --> 00:18:48.869
that we found the structure with kind of this
00:18:48.869 --> 00:18:51.069
pod structure that works best, where everyone
00:18:51.069 --> 00:18:53.750
has sort of the same incentives. So everyone
00:18:53.750 --> 00:18:56.049
who's a stakeholder in the campaign, you know,
00:18:56.049 --> 00:18:58.190
whether it's the AM who's managing the client
00:18:58.190 --> 00:19:00.529
on day to day, or the salesperson who brought
00:19:00.529 --> 00:19:03.789
it in to the person developing the funnels, optimizing
00:19:03.789 --> 00:19:06.789
the pages that the consumer might go through
00:19:06.789 --> 00:19:09.690
a post click, everyone is really working hand
00:19:09.690 --> 00:19:11.670
in hand to make sure that they're optimizing
00:19:11.670 --> 00:19:16.730
the entire flow and relationship. Because The
00:19:16.730 --> 00:19:18.109
worst thing that can happen is churn, right?
00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:20.549
We don't want to see advertisers go away. So
00:19:20.549 --> 00:19:23.150
they're incentivized to see how they can hit
00:19:23.150 --> 00:19:27.109
our KPIs, their KPIs and continue to grow. And
00:19:27.109 --> 00:19:28.809
so everyone is pretty much working together in
00:19:28.809 --> 00:19:32.650
this little pod structure. But going back to
00:19:32.650 --> 00:19:35.289
your question, how do you navigate through this?
00:19:35.309 --> 00:19:37.789
Because again, There's a lot of moving parts
00:19:37.789 --> 00:19:40.230
and different advertisers require different things.
00:19:40.670 --> 00:19:43.990
We try to stay as diversified as possible. It's
00:19:43.990 --> 00:19:46.009
very intentional on our side. We're not all in
00:19:46.009 --> 00:19:47.930
on auto insurance. We're not all in health and
00:19:47.930 --> 00:19:50.809
beauty. We're not all in an e -comm. We really
00:19:50.809 --> 00:19:53.569
try to be as diversified as possible, not just
00:19:53.569 --> 00:19:55.450
with the partners we work with, but the funnels.
00:19:55.569 --> 00:19:58.049
And so we're in comparison charts, we're in a
00:19:58.049 --> 00:20:01.509
lead gen, we're in content, right? We're in so
00:20:01.509 --> 00:20:03.450
many different funnels as well as different.
00:20:03.579 --> 00:20:06.039
categories that allows us kind of navigate that
00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:08.759
fluctuation that you're referring to. There's
00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:10.579
seasonality, there's just, you know, overall
00:20:10.579 --> 00:20:13.920
advertiser sensitivity. There's so much that
00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:16.200
goes into like you said, and so we really try
00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:19.299
to both structure internally to optimize better
00:20:19.299 --> 00:20:23.019
for both sides, but also this diversification
00:20:23.019 --> 00:20:26.619
I think has helped us over the past 18 years
00:20:26.619 --> 00:20:30.559
to go through that and to really kind of uh,
00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:32.839
work through those challenges and it's, it's
00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:35.319
helped. It's been beneficial for sure. Yeah.
00:20:35.420 --> 00:20:36.720
And that's kind of tees up a question I have
00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:39.160
for all two, like as, as a leader, when there
00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:42.920
are things like regulatory changes in the world
00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:47.059
or there's platform policy changes or basically
00:20:47.059 --> 00:20:48.900
anything that's going on that's out of your guys
00:20:48.900 --> 00:20:52.670
control from a leader of an ad technology company,
00:20:52.869 --> 00:20:54.349
right? Like think about just our work together
00:20:54.349 --> 00:20:56.269
with like Albright and me, of course, I have
00:20:56.269 --> 00:20:58.490
policy changes all the time. Publisher isn't
00:20:58.490 --> 00:21:00.309
like something we can't run this. Oh, now we
00:21:00.309 --> 00:21:03.029
can run this. Oh, you know, like, how do you,
00:21:03.130 --> 00:21:06.029
how do you lead through those things and communicate
00:21:06.029 --> 00:21:08.529
it to your team and also not lose your own mind?
00:21:09.569 --> 00:21:13.490
How do you go about doing that? I really think
00:21:13.490 --> 00:21:18.970
it's a great, great question. I believe that
00:21:18.970 --> 00:21:23.450
every problem is an opportunity to be and I know
00:21:23.450 --> 00:21:26.029
quite a few people say this, but I really think
00:21:26.029 --> 00:21:30.609
it's a way of thinking and to be honest, that's
00:21:30.609 --> 00:21:34.210
exactly when performance marketers shine because
00:21:34.210 --> 00:21:38.509
I've seen and I've seen some colleagues and good
00:21:38.509 --> 00:21:43.349
friends who got alerted by changes and then they
00:21:43.349 --> 00:21:46.420
said, okay, it's not for me. And I personally
00:21:46.420 --> 00:21:48.839
love these changes. And I mean it. I love them
00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:53.059
because they create new opportunities, basically
00:21:53.059 --> 00:21:57.039
leveling the playing field. And I think our insurance
00:21:57.039 --> 00:22:00.819
business is a good example. Just after we started,
00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:03.960
there were some changes with the TCPA and you
00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:06.839
know, the consent that required written consent
00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:11.940
for four leads. And I've seen a lot, a lot competitors
00:22:11.940 --> 00:22:16.490
just... unfortunately, you know, not being able
00:22:16.490 --> 00:22:19.630
to survive. And they couldn't adjust. And we
00:22:19.630 --> 00:22:22.369
actually saw it as an opportunity. And yes, we
00:22:22.369 --> 00:22:24.869
did suffer. We suffered quite a lot initially,
00:22:24.869 --> 00:22:28.950
but I mean, we figured it's here to stay. And
00:22:28.950 --> 00:22:34.730
if we learn how to adjust quickly and leverage
00:22:34.730 --> 00:22:39.670
this problem and try to see how we can do a bit
00:22:39.670 --> 00:22:41.970
better or more creative than the competition,
00:22:42.719 --> 00:22:46.700
There must be ways, there is a path to make this
00:22:46.700 --> 00:22:50.519
work. And that was the reality. I mean, we were
00:22:50.519 --> 00:22:54.019
able to grow since then quite significantly.
00:22:55.240 --> 00:22:58.940
And I really, sometimes I know it may sound odd,
00:22:59.019 --> 00:23:01.559
but I'm waiting for these changes. I'm waiting
00:23:01.559 --> 00:23:04.859
for, you know, for example, one of the networks
00:23:04.859 --> 00:23:08.099
coming up with the strong policy or like a big
00:23:08.099 --> 00:23:10.720
policy change. We're not going to accept health
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:14.819
and beauty. Great. It's great news because it
00:23:14.819 --> 00:23:17.000
means more opportunities for our insurance business.
00:23:17.420 --> 00:23:22.660
Or we cannot accept VSAs. Great. I mean, we'll
00:23:22.660 --> 00:23:24.920
figure it out with some other. And I think as
00:23:24.920 --> 00:23:28.500
David, David touched a great point in being diversified,
00:23:28.519 --> 00:23:31.579
both on the advertiser and publisher side, which
00:23:31.579 --> 00:23:38.519
allows us to thrive in these situations. I mean,
00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:41.480
the diversification is crazy because even when,
00:23:41.500 --> 00:23:43.500
you know, a lot of people don't do it, even with
00:23:43.500 --> 00:23:46.680
performance agencies that employ a lot of people
00:23:46.680 --> 00:23:48.839
and they're very committed to just lead gen or
00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:51.180
like home services lead gen, trying to break
00:23:51.180 --> 00:23:53.460
them out of it and say, okay, even if you still
00:23:53.460 --> 00:23:55.140
want to run lead generation, maybe go into some
00:23:55.140 --> 00:23:57.559
different areas or maybe start to fold in some
00:23:57.559 --> 00:24:00.500
Ecom that has a little lead gen or something
00:24:00.500 --> 00:24:03.440
like that. So it's something we try and push
00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:07.279
a lot. Not many people pick up on it. too often,
00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:12.000
unfortunately, but no, that's good. Yeah, we
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:14.339
try to stay in them, but I mean, sometimes that
00:24:14.339 --> 00:24:17.720
could also in some ways be distracting, right?
00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:20.359
When you're always trying to find that next vertical
00:24:20.359 --> 00:24:24.619
or that next funnel that works well. But we've
00:24:24.619 --> 00:24:26.799
done another thing David and I argue on, by the
00:24:26.799 --> 00:24:29.460
way, seriously, like focus. Sometimes, you know,
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:32.039
I want to do one, two, three, four, and then
00:24:32.039 --> 00:24:35.769
David is like, wait, let's... Focus Eyal, let's
00:24:35.769 --> 00:24:39.569
focus. We can do it also. Like, yeah, sorry,
00:24:39.650 --> 00:24:43.109
go ahead, David. There's certainly a common thread
00:24:43.109 --> 00:24:45.910
that allows us to kind of be nimble. I think
00:24:45.910 --> 00:24:50.289
it's part of our DNA. Both have Eyal and I started,
00:24:50.349 --> 00:24:53.250
you know, with that mindset of kind of getting
00:24:53.250 --> 00:24:57.630
into new channels or new categories, just testing
00:24:57.630 --> 00:25:00.869
things out, seeing how it goes. The common thread
00:25:00.869 --> 00:25:03.609
though is mainly with kind of how we optimize,
00:25:03.890 --> 00:25:05.869
right? The way we structured the company in terms
00:25:05.869 --> 00:25:09.609
of the different teams. You know, we put a lot
00:25:09.609 --> 00:25:11.690
of value in the funnel, a lot of value on the
00:25:11.690 --> 00:25:14.390
creative side of things. And of course, the algo
00:25:14.390 --> 00:25:18.589
and our first party data, but a lot of our, you
00:25:18.589 --> 00:25:22.089
know, teams are structured around how do we build
00:25:22.089 --> 00:25:24.950
intent, regardless of the category, regardless
00:25:24.950 --> 00:25:26.930
of the channel. That's kind of the main thing
00:25:26.930 --> 00:25:29.130
is just building that intent. And if you could
00:25:29.130 --> 00:25:32.339
kind of come up with a playbook, you could utilize
00:25:32.339 --> 00:25:34.180
that across multiple categories and multiple
00:25:34.180 --> 00:25:36.380
channels. And there's usually a common thread
00:25:36.380 --> 00:25:40.180
for doing so. So that's helped. I mean, that's
00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:43.000
helped us get from auto and home and life insurance
00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:47.940
to roofing, windows, solar back in the day, mortgages,
00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:50.779
right? So we've been able to apply some of these
00:25:50.779 --> 00:25:55.380
best practices and it tend to work. And I think
00:25:55.380 --> 00:26:00.380
just to add on top, I like search. and we started
00:26:00.380 --> 00:26:05.359
doing a search at the beginning of MediaForce.
00:26:05.799 --> 00:26:11.460
We actually create demand, so we display a native
00:26:11.460 --> 00:26:14.059
advertising guess. It's probably lower intended
00:26:14.059 --> 00:26:17.180
search, but at the same time, we are able to
00:26:17.180 --> 00:26:21.099
proactively sell something to someone who wasn't
00:26:21.099 --> 00:26:23.180
proactively searching for this product, which
00:26:23.180 --> 00:26:27.099
means that... If we like you mentioned Joe home
00:26:27.099 --> 00:26:29.740
improvement, for example, we believe there is
00:26:29.740 --> 00:26:32.019
we know there is need for home improvement lease.
00:26:32.900 --> 00:26:36.259
We can create that kind of demand on, on our,
00:26:36.259 --> 00:26:39.200
on the platforms we work with, which is very
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:41.940
different than people thinking about changing
00:26:41.940 --> 00:26:46.519
their windows or, or a, I don't know, a roofing,
00:26:46.619 --> 00:26:49.960
like they need some roofing help. So like. We
00:26:49.960 --> 00:26:53.380
have more control. We can impact the mindset
00:26:53.380 --> 00:26:56.740
of the users reading an article right now on
00:26:56.740 --> 00:27:00.599
CNN .com. And while they weren't proactively
00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:06.759
searching for windows, we made them think about
00:27:06.759 --> 00:27:11.119
changing the windows and the funnel was convincing
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:15.019
enough so they actually decided to take action.
00:27:16.140 --> 00:27:18.410
I think this is why it's so... interesting to
00:27:18.410 --> 00:27:21.029
be on the, in the native space is because it's
00:27:21.029 --> 00:27:22.650
almost like a drug. You're almost like a drug
00:27:22.650 --> 00:27:25.670
addict, you know, so hard to convince somebody
00:27:25.670 --> 00:27:30.049
to do what you want them to do because they're
00:27:30.049 --> 00:27:32.769
creating intent out of thin air. And this from
00:27:32.769 --> 00:27:35.190
like my, from the ad network side perspective
00:27:35.190 --> 00:27:37.670
and working in the DR world for so long, I'm,
00:27:37.970 --> 00:27:40.549
I've always tried to understand, well, if the
00:27:40.549 --> 00:27:42.609
offer stinks, can you still convince someone
00:27:42.609 --> 00:27:45.930
to submit their information or buy it or whatever?
00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:49.220
I just keep coming back to it's always split
00:27:49.220 --> 00:27:50.900
down the middle, but a good funnel is always
00:27:50.900 --> 00:27:52.980
going to win. Like a good copywriting, good fun.
00:27:53.640 --> 00:27:55.839
And that's always what I keep hearing coming
00:27:55.839 --> 00:27:58.920
back to. And I don't know if you guys studied
00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:02.539
psychology or you employ people that are really
00:28:02.539 --> 00:28:05.059
tech savvy people that are also good with psychology,
00:28:05.259 --> 00:28:08.799
but I don't know. I've seen people get hired
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:12.240
that are psychology majors that go into copywriting
00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:14.460
or advertising and some of the best copywriters
00:28:14.460 --> 00:28:17.029
that. I see out there, the independent copywriters,
00:28:17.210 --> 00:28:19.970
they have this really different way of thinking
00:28:19.970 --> 00:28:23.930
than a marketer, you know, and I feel super important
00:28:23.930 --> 00:28:26.750
to almost have like, you don't necessarily need
00:28:26.750 --> 00:28:28.750
the marketing background. You almost need like
00:28:28.750 --> 00:28:32.710
the psychology background. Exactly. Exactly.
00:28:33.170 --> 00:28:36.730
And, and frankly, it's becoming easier. We recently
00:28:36.730 --> 00:28:42.990
recruited a two great, uh, employees, a Claude
00:28:42.990 --> 00:28:46.980
and Chegy PT. And they have been super, super
00:28:46.980 --> 00:28:50.440
nice. Now, but seriously, we do work with internal
00:28:50.440 --> 00:28:54.440
copywriting team. And like I said, it's like
00:28:54.440 --> 00:28:58.539
understanding what drives people to take actions.
00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:02.839
Because at the end of the day, it could be a
00:29:02.839 --> 00:29:05.940
fear they're having. It could be a passion they
00:29:05.940 --> 00:29:11.680
have and you need to light it up and make them
00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:15.480
see it. touch some sensitive points that, you
00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:18.200
know, would make someone, and it's important
00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:22.019
to remember the mindset. The mindset of the user
00:29:22.019 --> 00:29:25.339
is someone who is not proactively looking for
00:29:25.339 --> 00:29:28.180
that product. So you need to touch exactly these
00:29:28.180 --> 00:29:34.640
points and make them, you know, be aware of the
00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:39.000
need and then convince them to buy the product.
00:29:39.339 --> 00:29:44.460
I personally love this process. We do have great,
00:29:44.460 --> 00:29:49.359
great team that helps us identify exactly these
00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:53.900
points. And seriously, with Generative AI, we
00:29:53.900 --> 00:29:59.000
were able to transform some of the learnings
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:03.059
we have to create some custom GPTs or custom
00:30:03.059 --> 00:30:09.130
gems or whatever to actually... build it into
00:30:09.130 --> 00:30:11.970
a system, which we use. We also have our own
00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:18.089
LLM, which allows us to run sensitive IP internally
00:30:18.089 --> 00:30:22.529
without exposing to third parties. Yeah. I have
00:30:22.529 --> 00:30:24.470
that in my house too. I run my own personal server
00:30:24.470 --> 00:30:28.529
and have my own LLM. I also use the public stuff,
00:30:28.549 --> 00:30:30.369
but I get it. And especially for you guys, I
00:30:30.369 --> 00:30:33.539
mean, for All businesses out there. It's kind
00:30:33.539 --> 00:30:35.940
of crazy. And, you know, I, we just had a new,
00:30:35.940 --> 00:30:38.500
um, we just had a kid seven weeks ago and the
00:30:38.500 --> 00:30:40.240
amount of pictures of poop and baby questions
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:43.740
I'm asked on his chat, Jean B is like, I'm feasibly
00:30:43.740 --> 00:30:46.640
information that is not probably not good for,
00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:50.119
for what's best. But it's like, interesting.
00:30:50.220 --> 00:30:51.519
That was one of the things I wanted to ask is
00:30:51.519 --> 00:30:53.960
like, if you had these tools back in like 2019
00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:57.690
and you had the ability to, you know, use this
00:30:57.690 --> 00:30:59.630
type of machine learning and processes, how far
00:30:59.630 --> 00:31:01.690
ahead would you have been? And it's just crazy
00:31:01.690 --> 00:31:03.950
how far it's kind of come only in, you know,
00:31:03.950 --> 00:31:06.390
two, three years now with just how things have
00:31:06.390 --> 00:31:09.750
blown up. And I'm really curious, like where
00:31:09.750 --> 00:31:12.750
you guys, how you've mentioned how you're using
00:31:12.750 --> 00:31:14.349
it now, but just how you think it's going to
00:31:14.349 --> 00:31:16.930
work in the next three to five years. We didn't,
00:31:17.089 --> 00:31:20.549
we know about the creative generation. Um, we
00:31:20.549 --> 00:31:24.089
kind of know about some data manipulation storytelling
00:31:24.089 --> 00:31:27.640
through it and everything, but Where do you see
00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:29.940
things heading in that direction? At least when
00:31:29.940 --> 00:31:31.819
it comes to like marketing and ad tech and you
00:31:31.819 --> 00:31:39.279
guys. So, David can elaborate regarding how we
00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:41.640
see it on the marketing side, but I can share
00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:47.480
that on the tech side, we are able to cherry
00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:52.319
pick the users and traffic that actually provides
00:31:52.509 --> 00:31:55.509
Better value for for advertisers much better
00:31:55.509 --> 00:31:59.190
than like I wish we had these tools many years
00:31:59.190 --> 00:32:04.960
back. Yes, but. We now see that utilizing ML
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:09.359
and regenerative AI, we are able to understand
00:32:09.359 --> 00:32:13.279
the user journey better. We are able to make
00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:15.799
better predictions. At the end of the day, Genie
00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:18.579
as a bidder predicts the likelihood of a user
00:32:18.579 --> 00:32:22.099
to click or convert or take some kind of action
00:32:22.099 --> 00:32:27.660
online. And with more advanced model and with
00:32:27.660 --> 00:32:30.759
AI and utilizing of course our first -party data,
00:32:31.349 --> 00:32:35.069
which we have acquired since 2007, as you can
00:32:35.069 --> 00:32:40.549
imagine, a significant data set. And by the way,
00:32:40.609 --> 00:32:45.190
it's an interesting story. We recently ran some
00:32:45.190 --> 00:32:48.410
kind of analysis on the data we have and we saw
00:32:48.410 --> 00:32:50.750
that with the tools we have today, we are able
00:32:50.750 --> 00:32:53.250
to predict way, way better than we could even
00:32:53.250 --> 00:32:59.359
in 2020. I think it will only improve and it
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:02.400
will only become better. And yes, we are doing
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:06.460
it also on the marketing side, David. Yeah. I
00:33:06.460 --> 00:33:09.039
mean, for me though, I'm more excited about kind
00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:11.420
of the impact it might have for some of our advertisers.
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:15.680
Just looking at what we're constrained with today
00:33:15.680 --> 00:33:18.099
and some of the restrictions we have, a lot of
00:33:18.099 --> 00:33:22.069
it's based on, hey, we can't... take leads for
00:33:22.069 --> 00:33:24.089
hours. We can't take leads on the weekends. This
00:33:24.089 --> 00:33:25.369
is nobody in the call center, right? So if you
00:33:25.369 --> 00:33:28.269
think about a Gentic AI and the ability to service
00:33:28.269 --> 00:33:33.230
consumers 24 -7, right? No matter what day of
00:33:33.230 --> 00:33:35.970
the week, they could sell policy, they could
00:33:35.970 --> 00:33:38.490
sell, you know, whatever it might be, insurance
00:33:38.490 --> 00:33:42.150
purely through this Gentic AI and have a, you
00:33:42.150 --> 00:33:45.869
know, from step one to always at the end, they
00:33:45.869 --> 00:33:49.420
can have purely digital experience. that for
00:33:49.420 --> 00:33:52.039
us opens up so much more capacity, or it opens
00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:53.859
up the capacity for them, which translates to
00:33:53.859 --> 00:33:56.160
more budget for us. So I'm excited about that,
00:33:56.160 --> 00:33:58.619
you know, how it impacts our partners and our
00:33:58.619 --> 00:34:01.480
advertisers with their ability to service their
00:34:01.480 --> 00:34:04.859
clients and the customers we send them. Because
00:34:04.859 --> 00:34:07.240
that just unlocks a lot more for us in terms
00:34:07.240 --> 00:34:10.500
of the budgeting and I imagine performance, right?
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:13.280
So to me, that's exciting. You know, especially
00:34:13.280 --> 00:34:15.739
if you look at that use case for insurance and
00:34:15.739 --> 00:34:19.320
the uninsured space, right? I see a world where
00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:21.360
everything's purely driven through this HNTIC
00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:23.800
AI experience and you're able to kind of give
00:34:23.800 --> 00:34:28.800
a policy within, you know, within minutes maybe,
00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:33.579
you know. That's certainly going to unlock a
00:34:33.579 --> 00:34:37.239
lot of potential for both sides. I agree. One
00:34:37.239 --> 00:34:39.239
of the companies that I've helped consult for
00:34:39.239 --> 00:34:41.219
over the years is a company called Vita and they
00:34:41.219 --> 00:34:44.360
do HNTIC AI. Whole Voice, they're ex -Telcom
00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:47.059
founders and It's pretty serious and it's kind
00:34:47.059 --> 00:34:49.579
of like they work a lot in the Legion space and
00:34:49.579 --> 00:34:54.320
it's kind of crazy how much. At least from the
00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:56.760
beginning, when you are openly honest that like
00:34:56.760 --> 00:34:59.199
this is an AI you're talking to what type of
00:34:59.199 --> 00:35:01.739
information the consumer gives you because more
00:35:01.739 --> 00:35:03.800
willing to like, I'm not talking to David and
00:35:03.800 --> 00:35:06.400
they all I'm talking to like Joe exactly who's
00:35:06.400 --> 00:35:08.099
not going to judge me or not care what I have
00:35:08.099 --> 00:35:09.900
to say or how much debt man or how overweight
00:35:09.900 --> 00:35:13.199
I am or all this stuff. And What we've seen is
00:35:13.199 --> 00:35:15.179
the people that lean into it, give us like a
00:35:15.179 --> 00:35:17.940
persona and things like that. The calls are more
00:35:17.940 --> 00:35:19.420
willing to like share the information and be
00:35:19.420 --> 00:35:21.699
like, all right, cool. You know, I'm done. So
00:35:21.699 --> 00:35:25.139
I totally agree. And to the point of in the home
00:35:25.139 --> 00:35:27.239
services niche, you're eventually trying to get
00:35:27.239 --> 00:35:31.559
down to some window repair company, right? Or
00:35:31.559 --> 00:35:33.420
some gutter company. That's where this is going.
00:35:33.739 --> 00:35:35.780
But for the really small businesses, what happens
00:35:35.780 --> 00:35:38.219
if the guy's on the roof, you know, he's not
00:35:38.219 --> 00:35:39.539
going to answer the cell phone. So how do you,
00:35:39.639 --> 00:35:41.900
that lead, how do you schedule it? At home visit
00:35:41.900 --> 00:35:44.199
an appointment and how do you ultimately track
00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:46.440
it as a lead for you guys that fuels the business?
00:35:46.820 --> 00:35:49.440
Like a couple more of those a day just by this
00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:52.079
AI voice taking me through the whole step -by
00:35:52.079 --> 00:35:55.420
-step process total. I just completely agree
00:35:55.420 --> 00:35:57.460
with total game changer over the next couple
00:35:57.460 --> 00:35:59.420
of years. Yeah. Okay. And then the application
00:35:59.420 --> 00:36:00.800
could be across so many different categories
00:36:00.800 --> 00:36:04.820
for sure, for sure. But yeah, the, the funnels
00:36:04.820 --> 00:36:08.820
that require some call center operation. with
00:36:08.820 --> 00:36:11.940
hundreds of seats, right? Thousands of seats.
00:36:12.500 --> 00:36:14.739
They're constrained by sort of the hours and
00:36:14.739 --> 00:36:18.480
by a lot of different operational issues, right?
00:36:18.900 --> 00:36:23.360
So this should open up a lot more capacity. For
00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:25.639
sure. Well, we've been kind of jamming for like
00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:27.679
35 minutes, I think. I don't really know the
00:36:27.679 --> 00:36:30.400
time. What do you guys want to leave us with?
00:36:30.460 --> 00:36:32.639
Like we talked about the last three to five years,
00:36:32.679 --> 00:36:38.440
I guess. Just what are you, what are you most
00:36:38.440 --> 00:36:40.980
excited for? I think 2026 is going to be a year
00:36:40.980 --> 00:36:43.559
that we're back on the uptrend and the upswing
00:36:43.559 --> 00:36:46.719
in like the economy, the ad tech world. People
00:36:46.719 --> 00:36:48.900
start to use some of these tools to enable them
00:36:48.900 --> 00:36:51.559
more. But I guess how do you guys want to leave
00:36:51.559 --> 00:36:58.760
this off? You know, I think it reminds me of
00:36:58.760 --> 00:37:01.719
the first few days where we had the integration,
00:37:02.039 --> 00:37:06.659
the RTB integration with Outbrain. And it was
00:37:06.659 --> 00:37:11.480
new both to us and to Outbrain. And, and, um,
00:37:11.980 --> 00:37:15.219
when we, when I got the first call, I think it
00:37:15.219 --> 00:37:21.500
was, uh, in 2018 from Guy, Guy Agour, and it
00:37:21.500 --> 00:37:24.480
was like, Eyal, do you realize you, you, you
00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:30.139
just spent yesterday $30 ,000 and we were, uh,
00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:33.150
yes. And are you sure the performance is there?
00:37:33.329 --> 00:37:36.769
And to be honest with you, we spent hours reviewing
00:37:36.769 --> 00:37:40.369
thousands of lines in our log files because it's
00:37:40.369 --> 00:37:43.150
all programmatic. Remember, it's like, it's new.
00:37:43.789 --> 00:37:47.409
It's nothing like, we had to know that we didn't
00:37:47.409 --> 00:37:51.670
overbeat. We didn't overpredict. Like we had
00:37:51.670 --> 00:37:56.269
to review quite a few things and it was very
00:37:56.269 --> 00:37:59.210
exciting. It was very exciting. I remember. that
00:37:59.210 --> 00:38:02.869
kind of excitement. And I remember I was quite
00:38:02.869 --> 00:38:05.849
nervous too, because you know, it wasn't a one
00:38:05.849 --> 00:38:09.190
off thing. It was like on a daily basis. Exactly,
00:38:10.969 --> 00:38:14.989
exactly, exactly. And you're also thankful for
00:38:14.989 --> 00:38:16.989
the fact he just called you and it didn't show
00:38:16.989 --> 00:38:20.139
up, you know, here in the office. So, so it's
00:38:20.139 --> 00:38:23.860
like, yeah, for sure. But like really, it was
00:38:23.860 --> 00:38:26.780
very exciting. And, and I think we are going
00:38:26.780 --> 00:38:29.340
to see more and more of this excitement in, in
00:38:29.340 --> 00:38:33.260
2026. You mentioned CTV for sure. These are the,
00:38:33.260 --> 00:38:36.599
you know, the yes, early success is there, but
00:38:36.599 --> 00:38:42.019
I think there will be a moment where we will
00:38:42.019 --> 00:38:46.809
know. Okay. That's like. It is for real, it's
00:38:46.809 --> 00:38:49.510
working, it's performing. Like we're able to
00:38:49.510 --> 00:38:52.250
spend a lot more, you know, identifying the users
00:38:52.250 --> 00:38:55.610
and yes, we'll need to figure out some kind of
00:38:55.610 --> 00:38:58.309
attribution issues, like I mentioned, you know,
00:38:58.550 --> 00:39:02.530
potentially not being able to track one -to -one,
00:39:03.269 --> 00:39:05.730
probably doing some heuristics with households
00:39:05.730 --> 00:39:08.989
or whatever, but it's going to work. I know it
00:39:08.989 --> 00:39:12.969
for sure. And I'm very excited. Like we have
00:39:12.969 --> 00:39:15.440
our own creative studio here. in media force
00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:18.820
and like, yes, we utilize a lot of generative
00:39:18.820 --> 00:39:22.500
AI, but still we have like a big physical studio
00:39:22.500 --> 00:39:27.019
and we see a lot of success when we combine the
00:39:27.019 --> 00:39:31.360
studio with agentic AI. So like even here, I
00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:36.880
think it's like something that we will do more
00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:39.980
and more and see and walk closely with kids.
00:39:41.639 --> 00:39:44.800
uh, definitely we see the value and, and we know
00:39:44.800 --> 00:39:48.039
the kind of access you have to, you guys have
00:39:48.039 --> 00:39:51.860
to premium CTV supply, which really makes me
00:39:51.860 --> 00:39:55.119
excited about it. I think we can do a lot more
00:39:55.119 --> 00:40:00.460
together and, uh, and, you know, grow just like
00:40:00.460 --> 00:40:02.780
we did at the beginning of the way with programmatic
00:40:02.780 --> 00:40:05.579
grow hand in hand together. It seems like the
00:40:05.579 --> 00:40:07.900
dawn of at least a little bit of a new stepping
00:40:07.900 --> 00:40:11.280
stone, I think for, you know, our partnership
00:40:11.280 --> 00:40:13.099
together, but just in general, the industry,
00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:15.639
like TV scientific getting acquired by Pinterest.
00:40:16.239 --> 00:40:18.699
Exactly. People believe people understand it's
00:40:18.699 --> 00:40:20.420
here. I was on a call with someone a couple of
00:40:20.420 --> 00:40:24.179
weeks ago, big in the CTV space, probably spends
00:40:24.179 --> 00:40:28.400
200 to $400 ,000 a day at peak on CTV. I'm sitting
00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:29.940
there. My mind's blown. Like, what are you talking
00:40:29.940 --> 00:40:32.360
about? And he just told me you stepped in a pile
00:40:32.360 --> 00:40:35.400
of shit, but a good pile of shit. So I only at
00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:38.570
the time where This is working, you know a couple
00:40:38.570 --> 00:40:40.570
years ago. It really wasn't at the point where
00:40:40.570 --> 00:40:43.090
this made a lot of sense, but Exactly. Something
00:40:43.090 --> 00:40:46.849
has changed on the you know, Joe I definitely
00:40:46.849 --> 00:40:50.289
and it reminds me the the the early days of Google
00:40:50.289 --> 00:40:54.510
Google AdWords, you know Everyone had to exclude
00:40:54.510 --> 00:40:57.570
display by default. Like no one was buying display
00:40:57.570 --> 00:41:01.210
and it was like you know, don't even try this
00:41:01.210 --> 00:41:05.019
traffic and And exactly that's when we identify
00:41:05.019 --> 00:41:07.659
this as an opportunity. And I think it's happening
00:41:07.659 --> 00:41:10.059
here as well. Like people say, yeah, CTV, it's
00:41:10.059 --> 00:41:12.360
great, but more for awareness, more for brand
00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:16.159
advertisers. But that's exactly when we understand
00:41:16.159 --> 00:41:20.360
there is a lot, a lot potential for performance,
00:41:20.539 --> 00:41:25.960
DR advertisers, and we're gonna do some big damage
00:41:25.960 --> 00:41:34.000
there. Let's do it. You guys, I really appreciate
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:36.260
it. It's crazy because I didn't really know the
00:41:36.260 --> 00:41:38.519
whole story with you guys. And I mean, I knew
00:41:38.519 --> 00:41:41.179
you guys have been partners for a while without
00:41:41.179 --> 00:41:44.179
bringing in. I know the little bits and little
00:41:44.179 --> 00:41:46.260
pieces and stuff, but it's kind of crazy looking
00:41:46.260 --> 00:41:48.920
back all those years ago and now being here for
00:41:48.920 --> 00:41:52.820
those that are still here. So yeah, yeah, for
00:41:52.820 --> 00:41:56.500
sure. For sure. Thank you so much. Thank you,
00:41:56.579 --> 00:41:58.679
Joe. We had a pleasure talking to you. Thank
00:41:58.679 --> 00:42:01.480
you so much. Take care. Bye -bye.
00:00:01.019 --> 00:00:03.180
What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another
00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:05.820
episode of Performance Marketing Minds brought
00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:08.019
to you by Outbrain Direct Response. I'm your
00:00:08.019 --> 00:00:10.519
host, Joe Adonna, and today we've got a pretty
00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:12.839
special one. We've got the founder of MediaForce,
00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:16.420
Eyal Moshe, and the CRO, David Resnick, hopping
00:00:16.420 --> 00:00:19.879
on the podcast. And it's a very unique conversation.
00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:22.260
I don't think Eyal has ever done a podcast, which
00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:24.800
is crazy for how big MediaForce is and the impact
00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:27.929
they've had in the digital marketing. and specifically
00:00:27.929 --> 00:00:30.350
performance landscape over the last 10, 15 years.
00:00:31.050 --> 00:00:34.170
So extremely grateful, really neat conversation,
00:00:34.329 --> 00:00:36.369
and learned a ton about what they're doing in
00:00:36.369 --> 00:00:38.329
terms of AI, how they think about managing large
00:00:38.329 --> 00:00:40.869
business teams and different types of changing
00:00:40.869 --> 00:00:43.710
competitive landscapes. Really a lot to learn,
00:00:43.789 --> 00:00:45.750
especially if you're an independent affiliate
00:00:45.750 --> 00:00:50.289
or smaller agency. These guys do a lot. So without
00:00:50.289 --> 00:00:52.729
further ado, enjoy my conversation with the two
00:00:52.729 --> 00:01:05.459
legends of media force. Okay. Well, let's do
00:01:05.459 --> 00:01:09.799
this because I've got the founder and CEO and
00:01:09.799 --> 00:01:13.640
the CRO on the same podcast. So I'll start it
00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:15.859
off with actually a fun question. What do you
00:01:15.859 --> 00:01:20.260
guys disagree with the most day to day in business?
00:01:21.980 --> 00:01:24.280
They actually arguing with David is fine. It's
00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:29.120
like one of my hobbies. I have to say. But seriously,
00:01:29.140 --> 00:01:34.250
I think we argue quite well. To give you one
00:01:34.250 --> 00:01:38.629
recent example, we just discussed, you know,
00:01:38.670 --> 00:01:41.510
we're doing some things on Google with search
00:01:41.510 --> 00:01:45.950
and the future of search with AI taking over
00:01:45.950 --> 00:01:50.349
and AI overview. And I am, you know, coming from
00:01:50.349 --> 00:01:54.930
a more performance DNA, like there are opportunities
00:01:54.930 --> 00:01:57.329
right now. Let's, let's explore them. Let's leverage,
00:01:57.530 --> 00:02:02.219
let's jump on the opportunities. And David. balances
00:02:02.219 --> 00:02:06.239
me quite well, to be honest, thinking, wait,
00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.800
let's think about the future, the landscape in
00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:11.740
the next three, five years, where is it going?
00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:15.539
Do we want to make these investments or like,
00:02:16.300 --> 00:02:20.000
I think we balance each other quite well. And
00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.259
it's fine to argue. No, it's always a good exercise.
00:02:23.379 --> 00:02:26.680
I think in general, AI tends to think a couple
00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:28.080
of years down the road while we're trying to
00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:29.719
obviously build the business that we have today.
00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:31.919
So it's always a good balance. I mean, there's
00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:35.139
always new emerging things coming across the
00:02:35.139 --> 00:02:38.800
industry. And we like to be on top of it, but
00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:42.060
it's hard to sort of jump around all the time.
00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:44.919
So we do try to balance each other in terms of
00:02:44.919 --> 00:02:46.280
making sure we're looking five years down the
00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:49.259
road, but also what are we doing today? Are we
00:02:49.259 --> 00:02:52.259
going deeper? Are we becoming experts in the
00:02:52.259 --> 00:02:54.180
business that drives revenue and profit, but
00:02:54.180 --> 00:02:58.699
also keeping an eye on what's next? So it's always
00:02:58.699 --> 00:03:02.090
a balance. I mean, you trying to reel it in a
00:03:02.090 --> 00:03:04.969
little bit, they all trying to visualize the
00:03:04.969 --> 00:03:06.430
future and make sure that you guys still have
00:03:06.430 --> 00:03:09.270
money to operate over the next three years and
00:03:09.270 --> 00:03:12.550
not go fully into something. I think it's getting
00:03:12.550 --> 00:03:15.550
harder and harder, but just because not the arguments
00:03:15.550 --> 00:03:17.530
are getting harder and harder, but the things
00:03:17.530 --> 00:03:20.550
that are emerging are just accelerating so quickly,
00:03:20.550 --> 00:03:23.509
right? With AI and everything, all the tools
00:03:23.509 --> 00:03:25.810
we can use and the new emerging kind of platforms.
00:03:28.490 --> 00:03:31.650
It's becoming much more fun to argue because
00:03:31.650 --> 00:03:34.030
some of the future can be pulled in quite sooner,
00:03:34.150 --> 00:03:38.110
I think, with all these tools. And there is quite
00:03:38.110 --> 00:03:41.409
a significant physical distance between us, which
00:03:41.409 --> 00:03:47.349
definitely helps to get a different perspective
00:03:47.349 --> 00:03:53.889
on things. I think it's working quite well. How
00:03:53.889 --> 00:03:57.340
do you guys balance? You're a big enough company
00:03:57.340 --> 00:03:59.300
now and you have enough resources to where you
00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:01.219
could probably build a lot of things in -house
00:04:01.219 --> 00:04:04.960
and you have in the past. But especially in this
00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:08.080
AI landscape and you know, there's video creation
00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:11.879
services, there's reporting, there's different
00:04:11.879 --> 00:04:13.960
MCP servers that can optimize across all different
00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:16.540
platforms. Like how do you guys decide, okay,
00:04:16.540 --> 00:04:18.060
we're going to build this in -house with our
00:04:18.060 --> 00:04:21.079
own tech stack or we're actually going to look
00:04:21.079 --> 00:04:23.839
external to be able to solve some of these problems.
00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:28.379
That's actually a good question. To be honest,
00:04:29.439 --> 00:04:32.939
we are not necessarily always making the right
00:04:32.939 --> 00:04:35.600
decisions. Many times we started creating our
00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:38.819
own tools and then we figured there is a better
00:04:38.819 --> 00:04:42.839
third -party tool and we shouldn't be building
00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:45.579
the tool on the other end. We've tested quite
00:04:45.579 --> 00:04:48.180
a few third -party tools before and we realized
00:04:48.180 --> 00:04:51.199
that because our tech stack is quite unique and
00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:56.060
we have quite a few products that were built
00:04:56.060 --> 00:05:02.000
in -house with unique APIs to different other
00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:07.300
networks or interfaces, we are better off creating
00:05:07.300 --> 00:05:11.439
all on. I feel now we are more mature we have
00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:14.060
a better process of understanding where it makes
00:05:14.060 --> 00:05:17.160
sense to invest where we see the potential equity
00:05:17.160 --> 00:05:20.639
value future equity value of the product. We
00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:28.600
just recruited a CPTO which helps us a lot with
00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:33.160
these decisions and we believe AI is definitely
00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:36.199
changing and like I said on one hand it's easy
00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:39.009
to create now tools on the other end. You definitely
00:05:39.009 --> 00:05:41.250
don't want to go and create a each and every
00:05:41.250 --> 00:05:44.490
tool where there are good alternatives out there.
00:05:45.730 --> 00:05:49.790
Yeah. Makes sense. I feel like, you know, what
00:05:49.790 --> 00:05:51.269
makes more sense is if we actually take a little
00:05:51.269 --> 00:05:54.089
bit of a step back too. So he forced bounds in
00:05:54.089 --> 00:05:56.050
2007, right? At least that's what I have in my
00:05:56.050 --> 00:05:58.910
notes. Right. Um, for the people that don't really
00:05:58.910 --> 00:06:01.769
know you guys and know what you do, what, I guess,
00:06:01.870 --> 00:06:03.790
what were you trying to solve back then, you
00:06:03.790 --> 00:06:06.209
know, that, that made you create this. crazy
00:06:06.209 --> 00:06:08.529
performance marketing engine to what it is now.
00:06:10.430 --> 00:06:13.689
And what, just what is, and what are you guys
00:06:13.689 --> 00:06:15.149
doing differently than most people are doing?
00:06:15.250 --> 00:06:16.970
I want to know the story. And I think it was
00:06:16.970 --> 00:06:18.709
really interesting to a lot of people if they
00:06:18.709 --> 00:06:20.610
hear the story of how it was, how it was started.
00:06:21.589 --> 00:06:24.029
Sure. So actually fan fact, we started together
00:06:24.029 --> 00:06:27.589
with Outbrain, which is now part of Teeds in
00:06:27.589 --> 00:06:32.779
20, 2007. And back then, a lot of the advertising
00:06:32.779 --> 00:06:36.040
was banner -based. I remember the good old days
00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:39.819
where you were buying banners on MSN, Yahoo,
00:06:40.100 --> 00:06:42.600
and you know, there wasn't even such a thing
00:06:42.600 --> 00:06:47.319
as native advertising. Definitely programmatic
00:06:47.319 --> 00:06:51.500
wasn't existent back then. And on one end, it
00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:54.139
created quite a few opportunities. On the other
00:06:54.139 --> 00:06:58.769
end, it was very hard to manage. No automation.
00:06:59.649 --> 00:07:02.149
Everything was manual. I remember the good old
00:07:02.149 --> 00:07:06.410
days sending insertion orders via fax machines
00:07:06.410 --> 00:07:12.029
at 3 a .m. committing to buy through. But I remember
00:07:12.029 --> 00:07:15.050
them very well, like committing to $3 million
00:07:15.050 --> 00:07:19.850
a quarter on yahoo .com 300 by 250. And that's
00:07:19.850 --> 00:07:22.509
it. It's yours. I mean, whether you were able
00:07:22.509 --> 00:07:25.649
to sell it, monetize it or not, you had to pay
00:07:25.649 --> 00:07:30.430
these $3 million. And the hand was shaking and
00:07:30.430 --> 00:07:36.810
we had to take a lot of risks. And we were among
00:07:36.810 --> 00:07:39.370
the first to do native without actually calling
00:07:39.370 --> 00:07:42.550
it native advertising. So like we bought the
00:07:42.550 --> 00:07:46.149
300 by 250, we split them into three different
00:07:46.149 --> 00:07:51.509
offers, utilizing our own ad server. And it worked
00:07:51.509 --> 00:07:54.790
it worked very well and i remember that the beginning
00:07:54.790 --> 00:07:57.769
a publishers didn't really like it because it's
00:07:57.769 --> 00:08:01.410
like. Decide whether you're an advertiser or
00:08:01.410 --> 00:08:06.550
a content recommendation and thanks to our brain
00:08:06.550 --> 00:08:13.300
which is now. We feel that they actually made
00:08:13.300 --> 00:08:18.220
it a very common thing and suddenly everyone
00:08:18.220 --> 00:08:22.939
is speaking the same language. Long story short,
00:08:23.500 --> 00:08:28.120
I think we wanted to change how people were buying
00:08:28.120 --> 00:08:32.440
traffic from just getting clicks to generating
00:08:32.440 --> 00:08:35.679
outcomes and potentially downstream conversions.
00:08:37.110 --> 00:08:41.549
providing actual value for our advertisers. Do
00:08:41.549 --> 00:08:43.610
you think there was a moment in time that you
00:08:43.610 --> 00:08:45.509
guys hit a revenue milestone where you're actually
00:08:45.509 --> 00:08:47.250
saying, okay, this is working and this is something
00:08:47.250 --> 00:08:49.289
that people want for the downstream advertisers
00:08:49.289 --> 00:08:51.750
and being able to see, okay, we're going to take
00:08:51.750 --> 00:08:54.490
this into this performance world and this is
00:08:54.490 --> 00:08:57.330
where things are going to go. Like, was it one
00:08:57.330 --> 00:09:00.350
particular client or advertiser or was it just
00:09:00.350 --> 00:09:03.070
something that you saw and you decided, you know,
00:09:03.090 --> 00:09:09.269
what we're going all in on this? I guess we saw
00:09:09.269 --> 00:09:11.950
the biggest effect when we started with auto
00:09:11.950 --> 00:09:15.169
insurance. I even remember the discussions with
00:09:15.169 --> 00:09:18.250
your team. Back then, Outbrain wasn't really
00:09:18.250 --> 00:09:22.669
selling advertising. It was mostly content recommendation.
00:09:23.049 --> 00:09:28.000
I remember getting a call from Outbrain. I think
00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:32.980
it was a do you show me a is asking me a question
00:09:32.980 --> 00:09:36.259
like do you guys think that let's say we were
00:09:36.259 --> 00:09:40.059
able to sell you clicks for. 30 cents with you
00:09:40.059 --> 00:09:44.820
would you be able to buy them and. I honestly
00:09:44.820 --> 00:09:48.100
miss those days because it was very exciting
00:09:48.100 --> 00:09:51.639
you know to pay for click and and the quality.
00:09:52.169 --> 00:09:56.529
we were getting from Outbrand was always like
00:09:56.529 --> 00:10:00.009
top notch, high, very high, and very high intent.
00:10:00.190 --> 00:10:05.850
Of course, in relative to the traffic channel,
00:10:06.950 --> 00:10:11.450
like to the intent of Native, I mean. And that
00:10:11.450 --> 00:10:14.789
was definitely a hard moment when we started
00:10:14.789 --> 00:10:18.289
with auto insurance. Everyone was telling us,
00:10:18.289 --> 00:10:21.169
good luck, guys. I mean, there's no way a lot
00:10:21.169 --> 00:10:24.830
of companies, a lot of people tried before. Yes,
00:10:24.830 --> 00:10:28.690
it's working great for search, but I mean, no
00:10:28.690 --> 00:10:33.250
way it's going to work for display, native, you're
00:10:33.250 --> 00:10:34.870
wasting your time, you're wasting your money.
00:10:35.049 --> 00:10:37.990
I even remember flying to New York City to have
00:10:37.990 --> 00:10:40.610
some meetings and people actually, you know,
00:10:40.730 --> 00:10:45.129
try to tell me not to go that route. And I'm
00:10:45.129 --> 00:10:48.649
so happy we decided to enter this market because
00:10:49.610 --> 00:10:53.029
Uh, we, we were able to, to do a lot of damage
00:10:53.029 --> 00:10:57.549
and we were one of the first to actually, uh,
00:10:57.730 --> 00:11:00.990
generate high scale, high volume of fleets for
00:11:00.990 --> 00:11:03.070
the auto insurance industry in the United States.
00:11:04.610 --> 00:11:08.250
And again, I, I miss, I really miss those days.
00:11:09.850 --> 00:11:11.210
You guys have been around a little bit longer
00:11:11.210 --> 00:11:13.409
than me, I'm sure. Um, I've been in here for
00:11:13.409 --> 00:11:17.049
10 years, but you've seen more than me. Um, and
00:11:17.049 --> 00:11:18.950
I always hear stories about those glory days.
00:11:19.070 --> 00:11:23.509
You know, when things were easier and there wasn't
00:11:23.509 --> 00:11:26.590
as much competition, but also the inventory stack
00:11:26.590 --> 00:11:29.250
was a little bit different, you know, and there
00:11:29.250 --> 00:11:31.730
weren't as many native networks on the publisher
00:11:31.730 --> 00:11:35.149
side. So competition wasn't as fierce there either.
00:11:36.409 --> 00:11:40.070
But it's funny because I feel like every platform
00:11:40.070 --> 00:11:45.230
mostly has gone from nice branding experience
00:11:45.230 --> 00:11:48.350
to performance advertisers and direct response
00:11:48.350 --> 00:11:50.529
advertisers really just taking over once they
00:11:50.529 --> 00:11:54.529
figure out what they can do. Um, and it's, it's
00:11:54.529 --> 00:11:56.590
really unique to see. And you guys being one
00:11:56.590 --> 00:11:58.889
of the first ones to do it, we're seeing now,
00:11:59.210 --> 00:12:01.389
especially on the, since the Teeds merger with
00:12:01.389 --> 00:12:04.769
Outbrain, the CTV channel start to do really
00:12:04.769 --> 00:12:07.470
well for a lot of the direct response advertisers.
00:12:07.509 --> 00:12:10.169
And it's funny because the Teeds CTV platform,
00:12:10.169 --> 00:12:14.549
I think was built really high impact premium.
00:12:14.779 --> 00:12:17.340
publisher partnerships, in -stream non -skippable
00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:20.799
video, good stuff. But you tell a performance
00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:24.200
marketer that, and they're frothing at the mouth
00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:26.600
to see what type of offer they can put there
00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:29.539
to make it work. So I think everything kind of
00:12:29.539 --> 00:12:32.580
trends to performance at the end of the day,
00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:35.620
you know? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, and David,
00:12:35.620 --> 00:12:40.519
you know, has been asking at all. basically sharing
00:12:40.519 --> 00:12:44.159
the request from advertisers. I mean, we know
00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:47.940
CTV provides, or generally TV advertising provides
00:12:47.940 --> 00:12:53.620
value. We know we were able to crack display
00:12:53.620 --> 00:12:57.600
native without on and operating, on and operated
00:12:57.600 --> 00:13:06.080
the DSP, performance DSP, Genie. Basically, and
00:13:06.080 --> 00:13:08.860
again, this is me now talking about the future.
00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:14.519
I have no doubt that in a year, Gini will be
00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:19.019
trading quite a lot of CTV activity. It's already
00:13:19.019 --> 00:13:22.419
happening right now. And we also work very closely
00:13:22.419 --> 00:13:29.500
with other partners to buy CTV, performance CTV.
00:13:29.820 --> 00:13:32.179
And yes, you are right, Joe. I mean, the challenge.
00:13:32.440 --> 00:13:35.000
Challenges are there. Attribution is a very big
00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:40.340
challenge with CTV. Generally, making someone
00:13:40.340 --> 00:13:46.940
who is watching news or watching different content
00:13:46.940 --> 00:13:49.879
on their TV screens, you need to get them from
00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:53.200
one medium to another medium, and it's not easy.
00:13:53.679 --> 00:13:59.080
But we're seeing already success and positive
00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:02.879
signs. And I'm pretty sure that with the right
00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:06.779
models and with the right heuristic solutions
00:14:06.779 --> 00:14:11.720
to attribution, we're gonna scale it. And I see
00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:16.539
very bright future for CTV advertising as a performance
00:14:16.539 --> 00:14:19.559
marketer and also audio advertising, by the way.
00:14:19.720 --> 00:14:24.879
I think there is a lot of potential there. Yeah,
00:14:24.899 --> 00:14:27.080
on the audio side, I remember going to Manscapes
00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:31.750
office in Sure. San Diego years ago. And they
00:14:31.750 --> 00:14:33.490
were showing me the reporting from their podcast
00:14:33.490 --> 00:14:36.429
advertising and you know, it was rowing decks
00:14:36.429 --> 00:14:39.889
and all that crazy stuff back then. Um, it was
00:14:39.889 --> 00:14:41.429
nuts, but you brought up a good point. I mean,
00:14:41.429 --> 00:14:45.309
you guys have such a big business now. Um, you
00:14:45.309 --> 00:14:48.190
can probably almost work with whoever you want.
00:14:48.210 --> 00:14:50.049
You get a lot of inbound leads from people, I'm
00:14:50.049 --> 00:14:54.210
sure as well. And what business model are you
00:14:54.210 --> 00:14:56.750
actively trying to seek out and what ones are
00:14:56.750 --> 00:14:59.070
you. Kind of saying no to at the moment, you
00:14:59.070 --> 00:15:00.750
know, it's almost a better way to saying that
00:15:00.750 --> 00:15:04.870
is like what makes a good client to you guys
00:15:04.870 --> 00:15:06.549
sitting from your side of the table. What does
00:15:06.549 --> 00:15:08.669
one look like? And maybe what's something that
00:15:08.669 --> 00:15:12.370
you're shying away from at the moment. Yeah.
00:15:12.370 --> 00:15:14.169
I mean, we don't, I guess we don't try to shy
00:15:14.169 --> 00:15:17.509
anyone away or push anyone away, but, uh, there,
00:15:17.509 --> 00:15:19.549
there is sort of this common thread with our
00:15:19.549 --> 00:15:23.259
top advertisers and typically kind of. credit
00:15:23.259 --> 00:15:26.139
goes back to their ability to track, right? So
00:15:26.139 --> 00:15:29.139
they're able to record and kind of see report
00:15:29.139 --> 00:15:31.620
back downstream performance. And for us, that's
00:15:31.620 --> 00:15:35.039
cool. That's what we need for our system and
00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:38.240
our platform to better optimize, right? And so
00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:41.440
when we have partners that are able to do that
00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:44.629
and... have the ability to kind of give us a
00:15:44.629 --> 00:15:46.289
runway, right? Because we typically have two
00:15:46.289 --> 00:15:48.889
stages in campaign developments. Usually the
00:15:48.889 --> 00:15:51.370
first phase is like discovery, exploration. We
00:15:51.370 --> 00:15:53.090
have no idea where this campaign is going to
00:15:53.090 --> 00:15:55.610
perform, where it's going to work. So we kind
00:15:55.610 --> 00:15:57.250
of work hand in hand trying to figure out, okay,
00:15:57.450 --> 00:16:01.029
where are we going to ideally get the performance
00:16:01.029 --> 00:16:04.590
for this campaign? Once we start to see sort
00:16:04.590 --> 00:16:06.629
of our KPI is being hit, their KPI is being hit,
00:16:06.669 --> 00:16:08.549
then we can kind of move into that next phase.
00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:11.820
which is kind of the exploit phase. And that's
00:16:11.820 --> 00:16:13.960
the phase where we can start to see a lot more
00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:17.740
scale. But to get from explorer to explorer,
00:16:17.820 --> 00:16:20.860
it does take time. It does take losses on both
00:16:20.860 --> 00:16:23.259
sides. So the best advertisers are typically
00:16:23.259 --> 00:16:25.649
the ones that understand. that it's not always
00:16:25.649 --> 00:16:26.929
going to be a home run right out of the gate.
00:16:27.309 --> 00:16:28.929
We have to understand that as well. And that
00:16:28.929 --> 00:16:31.610
does require us to have that runway to optimize,
00:16:31.629 --> 00:16:34.009
whether it's the creative, the funnel, right?
00:16:34.409 --> 00:16:37.850
The landing page, the messaging, the value to
00:16:37.850 --> 00:16:39.629
the consumer, whatever it might be, right? It's
00:16:39.629 --> 00:16:43.009
a puzzle. And so the best advertisers, typically
00:16:43.009 --> 00:16:46.470
the ones that to have patience can record the
00:16:46.470 --> 00:16:50.070
full funnel and are able to kind of report that
00:16:50.070 --> 00:16:53.320
back to us for us to use. to better manage the
00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:56.000
campaigns and move from explore to, to exploit.
00:16:56.919 --> 00:16:59.340
So this is, I really want to ask you this question,
00:16:59.500 --> 00:17:02.720
David, um, because the CRO role is it's interesting
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:04.579
role to me. Cause you have your hands in everything
00:17:04.579 --> 00:17:07.539
and nothing at the same time. You're helping
00:17:07.539 --> 00:17:09.559
plan, you're doing all these things, but especially
00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:11.559
in the world of direct response and performance
00:17:11.559 --> 00:17:15.940
media, how, how do you do your role effectively
00:17:15.940 --> 00:17:18.059
when there is so many things out of your control?
00:17:18.140 --> 00:17:21.000
You know, like you have. Sellers trying to close
00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:22.720
business for media force to bring in deals. You
00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:24.440
have media buyers that are running the media.
00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:27.660
You have the client side that is. Helping with
00:17:27.660 --> 00:17:29.839
the product and upsells and landing pages, but
00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:32.440
you guys are also creating them. Like, I don't
00:17:32.440 --> 00:17:36.900
know. I'm just curious how you operate this in
00:17:36.900 --> 00:17:39.339
DR because it is hard when you, if you're not
00:17:39.339 --> 00:17:40.819
winning, you're losing, right? Like if you're
00:17:40.819 --> 00:17:42.539
not making money, you're automatically losing
00:17:42.539 --> 00:17:45.220
money. And from a CRO standpoint, being able
00:17:45.220 --> 00:17:48.039
to, like we said in the beginning, Say what is
00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:50.200
worth it in the short term versus long term and
00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:51.940
what do I stick around with and continue to bleed
00:17:51.940 --> 00:17:53.480
from I don't know I just think it's a really
00:17:53.480 --> 00:17:55.839
interesting perspective and role to have and
00:17:55.839 --> 00:18:05.079
a challenging one. I'm sure How do you how do
00:18:05.079 --> 00:18:09.279
you do that Yeah, no, it's it's it's quite the
00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:12.380
balance I think that um, you know oftentimes
00:18:12.380 --> 00:18:15.140
we could do everything right right on the on
00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:20.599
the media and and the metaphor side, but it does
00:18:20.599 --> 00:18:23.140
end up maturing in terms of downstream performance,
00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:27.599
whether it's a specific LTV or AOV or policy
00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:31.960
rate. So it requires this kind of delicate balance.
00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:33.480
What worked for us might not work for the partner
00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:34.839
and vice versa. What worked for the partner might
00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:37.140
not work for us. And so it's always kind of finding
00:18:37.140 --> 00:18:43.720
that right partnership and making sure that we're
00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:46.910
both on the same team. But internally, I think
00:18:46.910 --> 00:18:48.869
that we found the structure with kind of this
00:18:48.869 --> 00:18:51.069
pod structure that works best, where everyone
00:18:51.069 --> 00:18:53.750
has sort of the same incentives. So everyone
00:18:53.750 --> 00:18:56.049
who's a stakeholder in the campaign, you know,
00:18:56.049 --> 00:18:58.190
whether it's the AM who's managing the client
00:18:58.190 --> 00:19:00.529
on day to day, or the salesperson who brought
00:19:00.529 --> 00:19:03.789
it in to the person developing the funnels, optimizing
00:19:03.789 --> 00:19:06.789
the pages that the consumer might go through
00:19:06.789 --> 00:19:09.690
a post click, everyone is really working hand
00:19:09.690 --> 00:19:11.670
in hand to make sure that they're optimizing
00:19:11.670 --> 00:19:16.730
the entire flow and relationship. Because The
00:19:16.730 --> 00:19:18.109
worst thing that can happen is churn, right?
00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:20.549
We don't want to see advertisers go away. So
00:19:20.549 --> 00:19:23.150
they're incentivized to see how they can hit
00:19:23.150 --> 00:19:27.109
our KPIs, their KPIs and continue to grow. And
00:19:27.109 --> 00:19:28.809
so everyone is pretty much working together in
00:19:28.809 --> 00:19:32.650
this little pod structure. But going back to
00:19:32.650 --> 00:19:35.289
your question, how do you navigate through this?
00:19:35.309 --> 00:19:37.789
Because again, There's a lot of moving parts
00:19:37.789 --> 00:19:40.230
and different advertisers require different things.
00:19:40.670 --> 00:19:43.990
We try to stay as diversified as possible. It's
00:19:43.990 --> 00:19:46.009
very intentional on our side. We're not all in
00:19:46.009 --> 00:19:47.930
on auto insurance. We're not all in health and
00:19:47.930 --> 00:19:50.809
beauty. We're not all in an e -comm. We really
00:19:50.809 --> 00:19:53.569
try to be as diversified as possible, not just
00:19:53.569 --> 00:19:55.450
with the partners we work with, but the funnels.
00:19:55.569 --> 00:19:58.049
And so we're in comparison charts, we're in a
00:19:58.049 --> 00:20:01.509
lead gen, we're in content, right? We're in so
00:20:01.509 --> 00:20:03.450
many different funnels as well as different.
00:20:03.579 --> 00:20:06.039
categories that allows us kind of navigate that
00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:08.759
fluctuation that you're referring to. There's
00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:10.579
seasonality, there's just, you know, overall
00:20:10.579 --> 00:20:13.920
advertiser sensitivity. There's so much that
00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:16.200
goes into like you said, and so we really try
00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:19.299
to both structure internally to optimize better
00:20:19.299 --> 00:20:23.019
for both sides, but also this diversification
00:20:23.019 --> 00:20:26.619
I think has helped us over the past 18 years
00:20:26.619 --> 00:20:30.559
to go through that and to really kind of uh,
00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:32.839
work through those challenges and it's, it's
00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:35.319
helped. It's been beneficial for sure. Yeah.
00:20:35.420 --> 00:20:36.720
And that's kind of tees up a question I have
00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:39.160
for all two, like as, as a leader, when there
00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:42.920
are things like regulatory changes in the world
00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:47.059
or there's platform policy changes or basically
00:20:47.059 --> 00:20:48.900
anything that's going on that's out of your guys
00:20:48.900 --> 00:20:52.670
control from a leader of an ad technology company,
00:20:52.869 --> 00:20:54.349
right? Like think about just our work together
00:20:54.349 --> 00:20:56.269
with like Albright and me, of course, I have
00:20:56.269 --> 00:20:58.490
policy changes all the time. Publisher isn't
00:20:58.490 --> 00:21:00.309
like something we can't run this. Oh, now we
00:21:00.309 --> 00:21:03.029
can run this. Oh, you know, like, how do you,
00:21:03.130 --> 00:21:06.029
how do you lead through those things and communicate
00:21:06.029 --> 00:21:08.529
it to your team and also not lose your own mind?
00:21:09.569 --> 00:21:13.490
How do you go about doing that? I really think
00:21:13.490 --> 00:21:18.970
it's a great, great question. I believe that
00:21:18.970 --> 00:21:23.450
every problem is an opportunity to be and I know
00:21:23.450 --> 00:21:26.029
quite a few people say this, but I really think
00:21:26.029 --> 00:21:30.609
it's a way of thinking and to be honest, that's
00:21:30.609 --> 00:21:34.210
exactly when performance marketers shine because
00:21:34.210 --> 00:21:38.509
I've seen and I've seen some colleagues and good
00:21:38.509 --> 00:21:43.349
friends who got alerted by changes and then they
00:21:43.349 --> 00:21:46.420
said, okay, it's not for me. And I personally
00:21:46.420 --> 00:21:48.839
love these changes. And I mean it. I love them
00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:53.059
because they create new opportunities, basically
00:21:53.059 --> 00:21:57.039
leveling the playing field. And I think our insurance
00:21:57.039 --> 00:22:00.819
business is a good example. Just after we started,
00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:03.960
there were some changes with the TCPA and you
00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:06.839
know, the consent that required written consent
00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:11.940
for four leads. And I've seen a lot, a lot competitors
00:22:11.940 --> 00:22:16.490
just... unfortunately, you know, not being able
00:22:16.490 --> 00:22:19.630
to survive. And they couldn't adjust. And we
00:22:19.630 --> 00:22:22.369
actually saw it as an opportunity. And yes, we
00:22:22.369 --> 00:22:24.869
did suffer. We suffered quite a lot initially,
00:22:24.869 --> 00:22:28.950
but I mean, we figured it's here to stay. And
00:22:28.950 --> 00:22:34.730
if we learn how to adjust quickly and leverage
00:22:34.730 --> 00:22:39.670
this problem and try to see how we can do a bit
00:22:39.670 --> 00:22:41.970
better or more creative than the competition,
00:22:42.719 --> 00:22:46.700
There must be ways, there is a path to make this
00:22:46.700 --> 00:22:50.519
work. And that was the reality. I mean, we were
00:22:50.519 --> 00:22:54.019
able to grow since then quite significantly.
00:22:55.240 --> 00:22:58.940
And I really, sometimes I know it may sound odd,
00:22:59.019 --> 00:23:01.559
but I'm waiting for these changes. I'm waiting
00:23:01.559 --> 00:23:04.859
for, you know, for example, one of the networks
00:23:04.859 --> 00:23:08.099
coming up with the strong policy or like a big
00:23:08.099 --> 00:23:10.720
policy change. We're not going to accept health
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:14.819
and beauty. Great. It's great news because it
00:23:14.819 --> 00:23:17.000
means more opportunities for our insurance business.
00:23:17.420 --> 00:23:22.660
Or we cannot accept VSAs. Great. I mean, we'll
00:23:22.660 --> 00:23:24.920
figure it out with some other. And I think as
00:23:24.920 --> 00:23:28.500
David, David touched a great point in being diversified,
00:23:28.519 --> 00:23:31.579
both on the advertiser and publisher side, which
00:23:31.579 --> 00:23:38.519
allows us to thrive in these situations. I mean,
00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:41.480
the diversification is crazy because even when,
00:23:41.500 --> 00:23:43.500
you know, a lot of people don't do it, even with
00:23:43.500 --> 00:23:46.680
performance agencies that employ a lot of people
00:23:46.680 --> 00:23:48.839
and they're very committed to just lead gen or
00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:51.180
like home services lead gen, trying to break
00:23:51.180 --> 00:23:53.460
them out of it and say, okay, even if you still
00:23:53.460 --> 00:23:55.140
want to run lead generation, maybe go into some
00:23:55.140 --> 00:23:57.559
different areas or maybe start to fold in some
00:23:57.559 --> 00:24:00.500
Ecom that has a little lead gen or something
00:24:00.500 --> 00:24:03.440
like that. So it's something we try and push
00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:07.279
a lot. Not many people pick up on it. too often,
00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:12.000
unfortunately, but no, that's good. Yeah, we
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:14.339
try to stay in them, but I mean, sometimes that
00:24:14.339 --> 00:24:17.720
could also in some ways be distracting, right?
00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:20.359
When you're always trying to find that next vertical
00:24:20.359 --> 00:24:24.619
or that next funnel that works well. But we've
00:24:24.619 --> 00:24:26.799
done another thing David and I argue on, by the
00:24:26.799 --> 00:24:29.460
way, seriously, like focus. Sometimes, you know,
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:32.039
I want to do one, two, three, four, and then
00:24:32.039 --> 00:24:35.769
David is like, wait, let's... Focus Eyal, let's
00:24:35.769 --> 00:24:39.569
focus. We can do it also. Like, yeah, sorry,
00:24:39.650 --> 00:24:43.109
go ahead, David. There's certainly a common thread
00:24:43.109 --> 00:24:45.910
that allows us to kind of be nimble. I think
00:24:45.910 --> 00:24:50.289
it's part of our DNA. Both have Eyal and I started,
00:24:50.349 --> 00:24:53.250
you know, with that mindset of kind of getting
00:24:53.250 --> 00:24:57.630
into new channels or new categories, just testing
00:24:57.630 --> 00:25:00.869
things out, seeing how it goes. The common thread
00:25:00.869 --> 00:25:03.609
though is mainly with kind of how we optimize,
00:25:03.890 --> 00:25:05.869
right? The way we structured the company in terms
00:25:05.869 --> 00:25:09.609
of the different teams. You know, we put a lot
00:25:09.609 --> 00:25:11.690
of value in the funnel, a lot of value on the
00:25:11.690 --> 00:25:14.390
creative side of things. And of course, the algo
00:25:14.390 --> 00:25:18.589
and our first party data, but a lot of our, you
00:25:18.589 --> 00:25:22.089
know, teams are structured around how do we build
00:25:22.089 --> 00:25:24.950
intent, regardless of the category, regardless
00:25:24.950 --> 00:25:26.930
of the channel. That's kind of the main thing
00:25:26.930 --> 00:25:29.130
is just building that intent. And if you could
00:25:29.130 --> 00:25:32.339
kind of come up with a playbook, you could utilize
00:25:32.339 --> 00:25:34.180
that across multiple categories and multiple
00:25:34.180 --> 00:25:36.380
channels. And there's usually a common thread
00:25:36.380 --> 00:25:40.180
for doing so. So that's helped. I mean, that's
00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:43.000
helped us get from auto and home and life insurance
00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:47.940
to roofing, windows, solar back in the day, mortgages,
00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:50.779
right? So we've been able to apply some of these
00:25:50.779 --> 00:25:55.380
best practices and it tend to work. And I think
00:25:55.380 --> 00:26:00.380
just to add on top, I like search. and we started
00:26:00.380 --> 00:26:05.359
doing a search at the beginning of MediaForce.
00:26:05.799 --> 00:26:11.460
We actually create demand, so we display a native
00:26:11.460 --> 00:26:14.059
advertising guess. It's probably lower intended
00:26:14.059 --> 00:26:17.180
search, but at the same time, we are able to
00:26:17.180 --> 00:26:21.099
proactively sell something to someone who wasn't
00:26:21.099 --> 00:26:23.180
proactively searching for this product, which
00:26:23.180 --> 00:26:27.099
means that... If we like you mentioned Joe home
00:26:27.099 --> 00:26:29.740
improvement, for example, we believe there is
00:26:29.740 --> 00:26:32.019
we know there is need for home improvement lease.
00:26:32.900 --> 00:26:36.259
We can create that kind of demand on, on our,
00:26:36.259 --> 00:26:39.200
on the platforms we work with, which is very
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:41.940
different than people thinking about changing
00:26:41.940 --> 00:26:46.519
their windows or, or a, I don't know, a roofing,
00:26:46.619 --> 00:26:49.960
like they need some roofing help. So like. We
00:26:49.960 --> 00:26:53.380
have more control. We can impact the mindset
00:26:53.380 --> 00:26:56.740
of the users reading an article right now on
00:26:56.740 --> 00:27:00.599
CNN .com. And while they weren't proactively
00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:06.759
searching for windows, we made them think about
00:27:06.759 --> 00:27:11.119
changing the windows and the funnel was convincing
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:15.019
enough so they actually decided to take action.
00:27:16.140 --> 00:27:18.410
I think this is why it's so... interesting to
00:27:18.410 --> 00:27:21.029
be on the, in the native space is because it's
00:27:21.029 --> 00:27:22.650
almost like a drug. You're almost like a drug
00:27:22.650 --> 00:27:25.670
addict, you know, so hard to convince somebody
00:27:25.670 --> 00:27:30.049
to do what you want them to do because they're
00:27:30.049 --> 00:27:32.769
creating intent out of thin air. And this from
00:27:32.769 --> 00:27:35.190
like my, from the ad network side perspective
00:27:35.190 --> 00:27:37.670
and working in the DR world for so long, I'm,
00:27:37.970 --> 00:27:40.549
I've always tried to understand, well, if the
00:27:40.549 --> 00:27:42.609
offer stinks, can you still convince someone
00:27:42.609 --> 00:27:45.930
to submit their information or buy it or whatever?
00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:49.220
I just keep coming back to it's always split
00:27:49.220 --> 00:27:50.900
down the middle, but a good funnel is always
00:27:50.900 --> 00:27:52.980
going to win. Like a good copywriting, good fun.
00:27:53.640 --> 00:27:55.839
And that's always what I keep hearing coming
00:27:55.839 --> 00:27:58.920
back to. And I don't know if you guys studied
00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:02.539
psychology or you employ people that are really
00:28:02.539 --> 00:28:05.059
tech savvy people that are also good with psychology,
00:28:05.259 --> 00:28:08.799
but I don't know. I've seen people get hired
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:12.240
that are psychology majors that go into copywriting
00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:14.460
or advertising and some of the best copywriters
00:28:14.460 --> 00:28:17.029
that. I see out there, the independent copywriters,
00:28:17.210 --> 00:28:19.970
they have this really different way of thinking
00:28:19.970 --> 00:28:23.930
than a marketer, you know, and I feel super important
00:28:23.930 --> 00:28:26.750
to almost have like, you don't necessarily need
00:28:26.750 --> 00:28:28.750
the marketing background. You almost need like
00:28:28.750 --> 00:28:32.710
the psychology background. Exactly. Exactly.
00:28:33.170 --> 00:28:36.730
And, and frankly, it's becoming easier. We recently
00:28:36.730 --> 00:28:42.990
recruited a two great, uh, employees, a Claude
00:28:42.990 --> 00:28:46.980
and Chegy PT. And they have been super, super
00:28:46.980 --> 00:28:50.440
nice. Now, but seriously, we do work with internal
00:28:50.440 --> 00:28:54.440
copywriting team. And like I said, it's like
00:28:54.440 --> 00:28:58.539
understanding what drives people to take actions.
00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:02.839
Because at the end of the day, it could be a
00:29:02.839 --> 00:29:05.940
fear they're having. It could be a passion they
00:29:05.940 --> 00:29:11.680
have and you need to light it up and make them
00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:15.480
see it. touch some sensitive points that, you
00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:18.200
know, would make someone, and it's important
00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:22.019
to remember the mindset. The mindset of the user
00:29:22.019 --> 00:29:25.339
is someone who is not proactively looking for
00:29:25.339 --> 00:29:28.180
that product. So you need to touch exactly these
00:29:28.180 --> 00:29:34.640
points and make them, you know, be aware of the
00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:39.000
need and then convince them to buy the product.
00:29:39.339 --> 00:29:44.460
I personally love this process. We do have great,
00:29:44.460 --> 00:29:49.359
great team that helps us identify exactly these
00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:53.900
points. And seriously, with Generative AI, we
00:29:53.900 --> 00:29:59.000
were able to transform some of the learnings
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:03.059
we have to create some custom GPTs or custom
00:30:03.059 --> 00:30:09.130
gems or whatever to actually... build it into
00:30:09.130 --> 00:30:11.970
a system, which we use. We also have our own
00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:18.089
LLM, which allows us to run sensitive IP internally
00:30:18.089 --> 00:30:22.529
without exposing to third parties. Yeah. I have
00:30:22.529 --> 00:30:24.470
that in my house too. I run my own personal server
00:30:24.470 --> 00:30:28.529
and have my own LLM. I also use the public stuff,
00:30:28.549 --> 00:30:30.369
but I get it. And especially for you guys, I
00:30:30.369 --> 00:30:33.539
mean, for All businesses out there. It's kind
00:30:33.539 --> 00:30:35.940
of crazy. And, you know, I, we just had a new,
00:30:35.940 --> 00:30:38.500
um, we just had a kid seven weeks ago and the
00:30:38.500 --> 00:30:40.240
amount of pictures of poop and baby questions
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:43.740
I'm asked on his chat, Jean B is like, I'm feasibly
00:30:43.740 --> 00:30:46.640
information that is not probably not good for,
00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:50.119
for what's best. But it's like, interesting.
00:30:50.220 --> 00:30:51.519
That was one of the things I wanted to ask is
00:30:51.519 --> 00:30:53.960
like, if you had these tools back in like 2019
00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:57.690
and you had the ability to, you know, use this
00:30:57.690 --> 00:30:59.630
type of machine learning and processes, how far
00:30:59.630 --> 00:31:01.690
ahead would you have been? And it's just crazy
00:31:01.690 --> 00:31:03.950
how far it's kind of come only in, you know,
00:31:03.950 --> 00:31:06.390
two, three years now with just how things have
00:31:06.390 --> 00:31:09.750
blown up. And I'm really curious, like where
00:31:09.750 --> 00:31:12.750
you guys, how you've mentioned how you're using
00:31:12.750 --> 00:31:14.349
it now, but just how you think it's going to
00:31:14.349 --> 00:31:16.930
work in the next three to five years. We didn't,
00:31:17.089 --> 00:31:20.549
we know about the creative generation. Um, we
00:31:20.549 --> 00:31:24.089
kind of know about some data manipulation storytelling
00:31:24.089 --> 00:31:27.640
through it and everything, but Where do you see
00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:29.940
things heading in that direction? At least when
00:31:29.940 --> 00:31:31.819
it comes to like marketing and ad tech and you
00:31:31.819 --> 00:31:39.279
guys. So, David can elaborate regarding how we
00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:41.640
see it on the marketing side, but I can share
00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:47.480
that on the tech side, we are able to cherry
00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:52.319
pick the users and traffic that actually provides
00:31:52.509 --> 00:31:55.509
Better value for for advertisers much better
00:31:55.509 --> 00:31:59.190
than like I wish we had these tools many years
00:31:59.190 --> 00:32:04.960
back. Yes, but. We now see that utilizing ML
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:09.359
and regenerative AI, we are able to understand
00:32:09.359 --> 00:32:13.279
the user journey better. We are able to make
00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:15.799
better predictions. At the end of the day, Genie
00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:18.579
as a bidder predicts the likelihood of a user
00:32:18.579 --> 00:32:22.099
to click or convert or take some kind of action
00:32:22.099 --> 00:32:27.660
online. And with more advanced model and with
00:32:27.660 --> 00:32:30.759
AI and utilizing of course our first -party data,
00:32:31.349 --> 00:32:35.069
which we have acquired since 2007, as you can
00:32:35.069 --> 00:32:40.549
imagine, a significant data set. And by the way,
00:32:40.609 --> 00:32:45.190
it's an interesting story. We recently ran some
00:32:45.190 --> 00:32:48.410
kind of analysis on the data we have and we saw
00:32:48.410 --> 00:32:50.750
that with the tools we have today, we are able
00:32:50.750 --> 00:32:53.250
to predict way, way better than we could even
00:32:53.250 --> 00:32:59.359
in 2020. I think it will only improve and it
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:02.400
will only become better. And yes, we are doing
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:06.460
it also on the marketing side, David. Yeah. I
00:33:06.460 --> 00:33:09.039
mean, for me though, I'm more excited about kind
00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:11.420
of the impact it might have for some of our advertisers.
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:15.680
Just looking at what we're constrained with today
00:33:15.680 --> 00:33:18.099
and some of the restrictions we have, a lot of
00:33:18.099 --> 00:33:22.069
it's based on, hey, we can't... take leads for
00:33:22.069 --> 00:33:24.089
hours. We can't take leads on the weekends. This
00:33:24.089 --> 00:33:25.369
is nobody in the call center, right? So if you
00:33:25.369 --> 00:33:28.269
think about a Gentic AI and the ability to service
00:33:28.269 --> 00:33:33.230
consumers 24 -7, right? No matter what day of
00:33:33.230 --> 00:33:35.970
the week, they could sell policy, they could
00:33:35.970 --> 00:33:38.490
sell, you know, whatever it might be, insurance
00:33:38.490 --> 00:33:42.150
purely through this Gentic AI and have a, you
00:33:42.150 --> 00:33:45.869
know, from step one to always at the end, they
00:33:45.869 --> 00:33:49.420
can have purely digital experience. that for
00:33:49.420 --> 00:33:52.039
us opens up so much more capacity, or it opens
00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:53.859
up the capacity for them, which translates to
00:33:53.859 --> 00:33:56.160
more budget for us. So I'm excited about that,
00:33:56.160 --> 00:33:58.619
you know, how it impacts our partners and our
00:33:58.619 --> 00:34:01.480
advertisers with their ability to service their
00:34:01.480 --> 00:34:04.859
clients and the customers we send them. Because
00:34:04.859 --> 00:34:07.240
that just unlocks a lot more for us in terms
00:34:07.240 --> 00:34:10.500
of the budgeting and I imagine performance, right?
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:13.280
So to me, that's exciting. You know, especially
00:34:13.280 --> 00:34:15.739
if you look at that use case for insurance and
00:34:15.739 --> 00:34:19.320
the uninsured space, right? I see a world where
00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:21.360
everything's purely driven through this HNTIC
00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:23.800
AI experience and you're able to kind of give
00:34:23.800 --> 00:34:28.800
a policy within, you know, within minutes maybe,
00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:33.579
you know. That's certainly going to unlock a
00:34:33.579 --> 00:34:37.239
lot of potential for both sides. I agree. One
00:34:37.239 --> 00:34:39.239
of the companies that I've helped consult for
00:34:39.239 --> 00:34:41.219
over the years is a company called Vita and they
00:34:41.219 --> 00:34:44.360
do HNTIC AI. Whole Voice, they're ex -Telcom
00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:47.059
founders and It's pretty serious and it's kind
00:34:47.059 --> 00:34:49.579
of like they work a lot in the Legion space and
00:34:49.579 --> 00:34:54.320
it's kind of crazy how much. At least from the
00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:56.760
beginning, when you are openly honest that like
00:34:56.760 --> 00:34:59.199
this is an AI you're talking to what type of
00:34:59.199 --> 00:35:01.739
information the consumer gives you because more
00:35:01.739 --> 00:35:03.800
willing to like, I'm not talking to David and
00:35:03.800 --> 00:35:06.400
they all I'm talking to like Joe exactly who's
00:35:06.400 --> 00:35:08.099
not going to judge me or not care what I have
00:35:08.099 --> 00:35:09.900
to say or how much debt man or how overweight
00:35:09.900 --> 00:35:13.199
I am or all this stuff. And What we've seen is
00:35:13.199 --> 00:35:15.179
the people that lean into it, give us like a
00:35:15.179 --> 00:35:17.940
persona and things like that. The calls are more
00:35:17.940 --> 00:35:19.420
willing to like share the information and be
00:35:19.420 --> 00:35:21.699
like, all right, cool. You know, I'm done. So
00:35:21.699 --> 00:35:25.139
I totally agree. And to the point of in the home
00:35:25.139 --> 00:35:27.239
services niche, you're eventually trying to get
00:35:27.239 --> 00:35:31.559
down to some window repair company, right? Or
00:35:31.559 --> 00:35:33.420
some gutter company. That's where this is going.
00:35:33.739 --> 00:35:35.780
But for the really small businesses, what happens
00:35:35.780 --> 00:35:38.219
if the guy's on the roof, you know, he's not
00:35:38.219 --> 00:35:39.539
going to answer the cell phone. So how do you,
00:35:39.639 --> 00:35:41.900
that lead, how do you schedule it? At home visit
00:35:41.900 --> 00:35:44.199
an appointment and how do you ultimately track
00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:46.440
it as a lead for you guys that fuels the business?
00:35:46.820 --> 00:35:49.440
Like a couple more of those a day just by this
00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:52.079
AI voice taking me through the whole step -by
00:35:52.079 --> 00:35:55.420
-step process total. I just completely agree
00:35:55.420 --> 00:35:57.460
with total game changer over the next couple
00:35:57.460 --> 00:35:59.420
of years. Yeah. Okay. And then the application
00:35:59.420 --> 00:36:00.800
could be across so many different categories
00:36:00.800 --> 00:36:04.820
for sure, for sure. But yeah, the, the funnels
00:36:04.820 --> 00:36:08.820
that require some call center operation. with
00:36:08.820 --> 00:36:11.940
hundreds of seats, right? Thousands of seats.
00:36:12.500 --> 00:36:14.739
They're constrained by sort of the hours and
00:36:14.739 --> 00:36:18.480
by a lot of different operational issues, right?
00:36:18.900 --> 00:36:23.360
So this should open up a lot more capacity. For
00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:25.639
sure. Well, we've been kind of jamming for like
00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:27.679
35 minutes, I think. I don't really know the
00:36:27.679 --> 00:36:30.400
time. What do you guys want to leave us with?
00:36:30.460 --> 00:36:32.639
Like we talked about the last three to five years,
00:36:32.679 --> 00:36:38.440
I guess. Just what are you, what are you most
00:36:38.440 --> 00:36:40.980
excited for? I think 2026 is going to be a year
00:36:40.980 --> 00:36:43.559
that we're back on the uptrend and the upswing
00:36:43.559 --> 00:36:46.719
in like the economy, the ad tech world. People
00:36:46.719 --> 00:36:48.900
start to use some of these tools to enable them
00:36:48.900 --> 00:36:51.559
more. But I guess how do you guys want to leave
00:36:51.559 --> 00:36:58.760
this off? You know, I think it reminds me of
00:36:58.760 --> 00:37:01.719
the first few days where we had the integration,
00:37:02.039 --> 00:37:06.659
the RTB integration with Outbrain. And it was
00:37:06.659 --> 00:37:11.480
new both to us and to Outbrain. And, and, um,
00:37:11.980 --> 00:37:15.219
when we, when I got the first call, I think it
00:37:15.219 --> 00:37:21.500
was, uh, in 2018 from Guy, Guy Agour, and it
00:37:21.500 --> 00:37:24.480
was like, Eyal, do you realize you, you, you
00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:30.139
just spent yesterday $30 ,000 and we were, uh,
00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:33.150
yes. And are you sure the performance is there?
00:37:33.329 --> 00:37:36.769
And to be honest with you, we spent hours reviewing
00:37:36.769 --> 00:37:40.369
thousands of lines in our log files because it's
00:37:40.369 --> 00:37:43.150
all programmatic. Remember, it's like, it's new.
00:37:43.789 --> 00:37:47.409
It's nothing like, we had to know that we didn't
00:37:47.409 --> 00:37:51.670
overbeat. We didn't overpredict. Like we had
00:37:51.670 --> 00:37:56.269
to review quite a few things and it was very
00:37:56.269 --> 00:37:59.210
exciting. It was very exciting. I remember. that
00:37:59.210 --> 00:38:02.869
kind of excitement. And I remember I was quite
00:38:02.869 --> 00:38:05.849
nervous too, because you know, it wasn't a one
00:38:05.849 --> 00:38:09.190
off thing. It was like on a daily basis. Exactly,
00:38:10.969 --> 00:38:14.989
exactly, exactly. And you're also thankful for
00:38:14.989 --> 00:38:16.989
the fact he just called you and it didn't show
00:38:16.989 --> 00:38:20.139
up, you know, here in the office. So, so it's
00:38:20.139 --> 00:38:23.860
like, yeah, for sure. But like really, it was
00:38:23.860 --> 00:38:26.780
very exciting. And, and I think we are going
00:38:26.780 --> 00:38:29.340
to see more and more of this excitement in, in
00:38:29.340 --> 00:38:33.260
2026. You mentioned CTV for sure. These are the,
00:38:33.260 --> 00:38:36.599
you know, the yes, early success is there, but
00:38:36.599 --> 00:38:42.019
I think there will be a moment where we will
00:38:42.019 --> 00:38:46.809
know. Okay. That's like. It is for real, it's
00:38:46.809 --> 00:38:49.510
working, it's performing. Like we're able to
00:38:49.510 --> 00:38:52.250
spend a lot more, you know, identifying the users
00:38:52.250 --> 00:38:55.610
and yes, we'll need to figure out some kind of
00:38:55.610 --> 00:38:58.309
attribution issues, like I mentioned, you know,
00:38:58.550 --> 00:39:02.530
potentially not being able to track one -to -one,
00:39:03.269 --> 00:39:05.730
probably doing some heuristics with households
00:39:05.730 --> 00:39:08.989
or whatever, but it's going to work. I know it
00:39:08.989 --> 00:39:12.969
for sure. And I'm very excited. Like we have
00:39:12.969 --> 00:39:15.440
our own creative studio here. in media force
00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:18.820
and like, yes, we utilize a lot of generative
00:39:18.820 --> 00:39:22.500
AI, but still we have like a big physical studio
00:39:22.500 --> 00:39:27.019
and we see a lot of success when we combine the
00:39:27.019 --> 00:39:31.360
studio with agentic AI. So like even here, I
00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:36.880
think it's like something that we will do more
00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:39.980
and more and see and walk closely with kids.
00:39:41.639 --> 00:39:44.800
uh, definitely we see the value and, and we know
00:39:44.800 --> 00:39:48.039
the kind of access you have to, you guys have
00:39:48.039 --> 00:39:51.860
to premium CTV supply, which really makes me
00:39:51.860 --> 00:39:55.119
excited about it. I think we can do a lot more
00:39:55.119 --> 00:40:00.460
together and, uh, and, you know, grow just like
00:40:00.460 --> 00:40:02.780
we did at the beginning of the way with programmatic
00:40:02.780 --> 00:40:05.579
grow hand in hand together. It seems like the
00:40:05.579 --> 00:40:07.900
dawn of at least a little bit of a new stepping
00:40:07.900 --> 00:40:11.280
stone, I think for, you know, our partnership
00:40:11.280 --> 00:40:13.099
together, but just in general, the industry,
00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:15.639
like TV scientific getting acquired by Pinterest.
00:40:16.239 --> 00:40:18.699
Exactly. People believe people understand it's
00:40:18.699 --> 00:40:20.420
here. I was on a call with someone a couple of
00:40:20.420 --> 00:40:24.179
weeks ago, big in the CTV space, probably spends
00:40:24.179 --> 00:40:28.400
200 to $400 ,000 a day at peak on CTV. I'm sitting
00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:29.940
there. My mind's blown. Like, what are you talking
00:40:29.940 --> 00:40:32.360
about? And he just told me you stepped in a pile
00:40:32.360 --> 00:40:35.400
of shit, but a good pile of shit. So I only at
00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:38.570
the time where This is working, you know a couple
00:40:38.570 --> 00:40:40.570
years ago. It really wasn't at the point where
00:40:40.570 --> 00:40:43.090
this made a lot of sense, but Exactly. Something
00:40:43.090 --> 00:40:46.849
has changed on the you know, Joe I definitely
00:40:46.849 --> 00:40:50.289
and it reminds me the the the early days of Google
00:40:50.289 --> 00:40:54.510
Google AdWords, you know Everyone had to exclude
00:40:54.510 --> 00:40:57.570
display by default. Like no one was buying display
00:40:57.570 --> 00:41:01.210
and it was like you know, don't even try this
00:41:01.210 --> 00:41:05.019
traffic and And exactly that's when we identify
00:41:05.019 --> 00:41:07.659
this as an opportunity. And I think it's happening
00:41:07.659 --> 00:41:10.059
here as well. Like people say, yeah, CTV, it's
00:41:10.059 --> 00:41:12.360
great, but more for awareness, more for brand
00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:16.159
advertisers. But that's exactly when we understand
00:41:16.159 --> 00:41:20.360
there is a lot, a lot potential for performance,
00:41:20.539 --> 00:41:25.960
DR advertisers, and we're gonna do some big damage
00:41:25.960 --> 00:41:34.000
there. Let's do it. You guys, I really appreciate
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:36.260
it. It's crazy because I didn't really know the
00:41:36.260 --> 00:41:38.519
whole story with you guys. And I mean, I knew
00:41:38.519 --> 00:41:41.179
you guys have been partners for a while without
00:41:41.179 --> 00:41:44.179
bringing in. I know the little bits and little
00:41:44.179 --> 00:41:46.260
pieces and stuff, but it's kind of crazy looking
00:41:46.260 --> 00:41:48.920
back all those years ago and now being here for
00:41:48.920 --> 00:41:52.820
those that are still here. So yeah, yeah, for
00:41:52.820 --> 00:41:56.500
sure. For sure. Thank you so much. Thank you,
00:41:56.579 --> 00:41:58.679
Joe. We had a pleasure talking to you. Thank
00:41:58.679 --> 00:42:01.480
you so much. Take care. Bye -bye.
