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Book Review: Yield by Ari Paparo · The Yield Doctor with James Deaker

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  Hi, today I'm reviewing a new  book by Ari Paparo called Yield.
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  And you might have expected that me, the Yield  Doctor, would have rushed out to do a review  
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  the moment it was released. But honestly,  the subtitle, how Google bought, built,  
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  and bullied its way to Advertising Dominance,  put me off at first. Still, I decided to dive in.
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  And while I may do a follow-up video to  this one on what we can actually learn  
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  from the book about good yield management, in  this video I'm going to share three things.
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  Who should read the book? What I think  works and what doesn't. And thirdly,  
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  why it matters to anyone working  in the digital industry today.
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  So firstly, who should read this book? If you  have been in Adtech or digital media for a while,  
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  this is basically a must read. You will recognize  half the names in the books either as colleagues,  
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  competition or just legends of the industry. It is  without doubt the most comprehensive history that  
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  I have read of Adtech in print. If you are newer  to the industry, the glossary, the event timeline,  
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  the diagrams about Google AdTech alone are  worth a price of admission. They could fit  
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  into any syllabus for somebody who needs to get up  to speed on the industry quickly. For publishers  
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  and Adtech professionals, this is essential. But  for people outside of that very small circle,  
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  say marketers or general tech readers, it may  feel a little bit much like inside baseball.
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  So what works well for me? The  first half of yield is excellent.  
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  Ari takes us through the creation of  Doubleclick of Microsoft's acquisition  
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  of Aquantive the rise of Appnexus and  other foundational stories and for me it  
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  felt like reliving history personally having  experienced a large part of it. I loved it.
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  One of the strengths is his attention to  detail. He lays out exactly what happened  
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  in various meetings and he talks about the  way that various technologies interacted  
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  and he does a remarkably good job explaining  how the technologies fit together. So if you  
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  don't already understand how a DSP and SSP and Ad  exchange interact, this book will get you there.
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  So what doesn't work as well for me? And again,  
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  this is for me, the second half  of the book was less compelling.
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  Ari spends a lot of time on Google's internal  politics and product decisions. It's interesting,  
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  but it's not always as engaging a narrative.
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  Several chapters focus on lawsuits against Google,  and personally, I found these sections dry.
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  Something better suited to a legal  brief than a business book. And finally,  
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  the structure at times was confusing.  The chapters are organized thematically  
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  in some cases rather than chronologically.  And so I had to stop and reorient myself.
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  So what did I want more of? At the very end,  Ari poses a big question. What went wrong with  
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  web advertising as a whole? And for me, that's  actually the most interesting theme. And obviously  
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  Google is a huge part of that story, but so  are regulation, competition, and the choices  
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  that are made by publishers and advertisers. And  I wish that the book had dug in deeper into that.
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  But maybe that's different than  the book that Ari wanted to write.
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  So here's my verdict. If you  are in publishing or ad tech,  
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  you need to read this. It is the best book  written on the history of our industry so  
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  far. If you are not in the industry,  it may feel too detailed. Either way,  
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  Ari has given us one of the definitive counts  of the early years of internet advertising.
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  He is clearly one of a very short list of  people who could write a book like this.
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  Congratulations to him on creating a truly  valuable read. I'd love to hear more from  
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  you. Have you read Yield? Do you disagree with my  account? Do you agree with Ari's take on Google's  
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  role in the industry? Drop your thoughts  in the comments below. Thanks for watching.