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Cherry Picking in Ad Tech: What It Is and How to Protect Your Inventory · The Yield Doctor with James Deaker

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  One of the biggest fears when publishers  move programmatic is simple. What if I lose  
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  control? What if buyers cherrypick our  best inventory and leave us stuck with  
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  the scraps? What if the premium deals dry up  and we're left worse overall? In this video,  
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  I'll break down some of the real risks of  cherry-picking, why it's a problem, when it's not,  
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  and how to make smart decisions that will grow  your revenue and not shrink it. I'm James Deaker.  
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  I'm the yield doctor. I run a consulting practice  that tackles exactly these types of problems.  
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  And if you need help that goes beyond what's  contained in these videos, please reach out.
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  So, since we're talking about cherry-picking,  I'm going to use cherries in an orchard as the  
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  analogy for ad slots. So, let's imagine that an  orchard sells at least three different kinds of  
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  cherries. Let's say they're red, black, and  yellow. And let's start with the old school  
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  way that advertising has traditionally been sold  by a sales team. They might sell a mix of cherries  
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  in a case for $5 a pound. The buyer knows that  they're getting cherries, but the mix may vary  
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  from one day to the next. Now, let's imagine  that the orchard also sells a curated bundle of  
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  what they think are the best cherries. They're  either all red or they're all sweet. And that  
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  sells for $10 a pound. This is the digital media  equivalent of like a premium sponsorship. Okay.
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  So then somebody at the orchard has a great  idea. Let's let the general public into the  
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  orchard to pick the cherries for themselves and  we'll sell them for $7 a pound. And this happens  
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  in real life in California where I live and  it is a fantastic experience. But here is the  
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  fear that the orchard may have. If people can  pick their own cherries, who's going to buy the  
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  $10 curated cherries anymore? And even if you  were to charge $11 per pound for the self-picking,  
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  the concern is real, especially for the folks  who are making money from the premium offering.
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  So, let's stay with this analogy for a bit longer.  The cherry farm decides to allow general public  
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  cherry-picking, but with guard rails to protect  their premium business. Maybe they limit the  
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  hours. Maybe they cap the quantity that could be  picked by each person or each group. Or maybe they  
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  only open certain rows of the orchard. I used to  work with teams to create similar rules in digital  
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  advertising. These rules balance the promise of  the new revenue with the need to protect the old  
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  legacy sales. That might mean restricting the  access to certain types of inventory, limiting  
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  URL transparency or setting high floor prices. And  this process is called channel management. It's  
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  about designing the guard rails so that different  sales channels don't cannibalize each other.
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  And here's the key point. Channel  management can be very valuable,  
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  especially during transitions when your products  are evolving or you need to maintain customer  
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  relationships. But there is a risk. It is easy to  focus too much on protecting your price and your  
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  yield that you forget what buyers actually  want. I didn't used to eat many cherries,  
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  but once my family discovered that we could drive  out to the orchard, have a great experience,  
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  get months worth of cherries, and freeze them all  down, we picked a lot, and our demand skyrocketed.
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  And the same thing can happen in advertising.  Buyers want ease of access, measurement, ROI, and  
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  visibility into what's happening. And by opening  up programmatic or self-s served channels, we can  
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  unlock new demand, not just shift demand. So if  you do it right, it can become a virtuous cycle.  
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  Advertisers like what they buy, they buy more and  the marketplace becomes more efficient. But if  
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  you do it wrong and you've put so many rules in  place that programmatic really never takes off,  
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  you may end up sitting around and wondering why it  wasn't more successful. So all of that said, I'm  
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  not saying everything belongs in programmatic. If  you have something that is truly unique because of  
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  your audience, your data, or your ad experience,  then keep it with your direct sales team.
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  Think of it like the cherry farm has  a signature cherry gin sling cocktail  
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  that they sell alongside the fruit to their  customers. You're not just letting anybody  
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  mix that cocktail for themselves. So, if you're  an app or a publisher with something special,  
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  you let your direct sales team educate and  differentiate and potentially sell it right  
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  alongside your programmatic channels. I'm  James Deaker. I'm the Yield Doctor. If this  
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  resonates or if you're navigating this right now,  reach out. I'd love to help. Until next time.