You may have read or heard us saying the “Sortable team” or “our team” and we thought it was time that we started introducing you to various individuals who make up Sortable. So we’d like to introduce you to an important member of the Sortable team.
In the first edition of Life at Sortable, we are thrilled to introduce you to Jamie Murphy. Jamie started at Sortable in the summer of 2018 as the VP of Product and Marketing. With his history of working in the publisher and marketing space, his time heading up digital advertising products at Workopolis, and his background and depth of experience, Jamie’s transition to Ad Tech was one he was ready for!
Let’s get started!
What do you do at Sortable?
“I’m responsible for three teams — the first being Product; the second, Demand; and the third, Customer Success. The Product team, working closely with Engineering, determines what we need to build and grow our product offerings. The most important facet of Product is discovery – we review product performance and usage data, along with having regular calls with customers, to determine how we can bring them additional value and ensure the voice of the customer is infused into our development process.”
“Our Demand team manages our advertiser relationships working closely with SSPs and DSPs. Ultimately they’re responsible for ensuring we have strong relationships with the buy-side and are successfully representing publishers and their inventory with advertisers. Within Demand, we also have our Ad Quality team that ensures that customer blocklists are maintained and that fraudulent ads aren’t being served on our network.”
“A new capacity that I’ve taken on more recently is leading the Customer Success (CS) team. As the name implies, our mission is to ensure that we make our publishers as successful as possible. We view supporting customers as a core part of our Sortable DNA — so of course we’re talking about our products with customers, but often we’re also talking about the evolving advertising landscape, or lending advice on other business issues they may have.”
What do you find most rewarding about your job?
“What I find most rewarding is working and learning from so many great people. We have built great team dynamics with a diverse set of skills and backgrounds that makes working together extremely rewarding. At Sortable everyone is here to help each other in order to better serve our publishers and make each other better. We’re constantly evolving our thinking and processes to drive to better outcomes.”
What does your typical day look like?
“It depends on the day! I do try to create some structure and consistency no matter what the day throws my way. I’m a morning person and that’s usually the time of day when my strategic work happens. I get up at 5:30 (I have a 2 ½ year old 🙂 ) and at that hour I definitely need to start my day off with a coffee. The rest of the day is filled with meetings with my afternoons set aside for customer calls. My days change from week to week depending on what’s going on — so a key part of the job is being responsive to what’s happening in real-time.”
What’s your favourite part about working at Sortable?
“This one’s simple to answer — It’s definitely the people and getting the opportunity to help our publishers.”
What do you think sets the ideal Sortable publisher apart from the rest?
“I think there are two things: 1) they are a publisher who has a data-driven mindset and is willing to test new solutions and approaches 2) has a clear understanding of what outcomes they’re looking for. This information is important for us to ensure we’re aligned and supporting their goals.”
What do you think a post-third-party cookie world will look like? Do you think Ad Tech pros are the people to go to for the answer, or do you think it needs to be a collaborative effort with brands involved too?
“Well, isn’t this the million-dollar question?! I don’t think the world will come crashing down! I believe that in a post-third-party cookie world, marketers will continue to maintain healthy ad spend as companies will need to create demand for their products and services.
We are already seeing numerous identity solutions in the marketplace today that are seeking to provide an alternative. I expect when third party cookies go away, and these alternatives become viable, we will see the industry coalesce around a few of these which will be driven by both advertisers and publishers.
Lastly, I think that marketers will revisit what has worked in the past, starting with contextual advertising. It’s not impacted by privacy legislation but still maintains a high level of relevance to the visitor. On the flip side, I also believe that marketers will see value in investing in the longer term and we should see more spend allocated to building brand awareness.”
What do you think Sortable’s role will be in shaping the future of Ad Tech/Ad Ops, especially as it concerns third-party cookies and transparency in the Ad Tech chain?
“I believe Sortable is going to continue to be at the forefront of the Ad Tech industry, and push the technology boundary — engineering is in our DNA. We have the tools and infrastructure to be able to come up with exciting new solutions. We’re going to continue to be a leader in transparency and ensure marketers are getting good value for their dollars and that publishers are retaining a significant amount of those dollars. We want to continue to evolve to be able to support new formats; we are investing heavily in video and search, and we are watching what’s happening with CTV closely. Connected TV (CTV) — short form, skippable online advertising targeted to relevant content channels and/or audience groups.
Underlying all of that is our goal of simplifying ad operations by providing better tools and delivering more impactful insights to our publishers.”
What do you like most about Ad Tech? What do you like least?
“What I like most about Ad Tech is that you can harness the power and complexities of the ecosystem to build something that delivers clear long term value both for publishers, but also advertisers.”
“What I like least is that some days things just don’t work. Sometimes it takes longer to get to the outcome you want, but the challenge is fun and exciting, and it’s a great feeling when you finally get it right.”
What advice would you give someone going into Ad Tech or starting at Sortable?
“Well, this question varies depending on what area of Ad Tech you’re going into, but from a general standpoint, my advice would be to be on the front lines to understand what publishers and advertisers are looking for and what their challenges are. Being able to bring that external viewpoint into whatever it is you’re trying to do and combine it with a deep understanding of how the technology and ecosystem work will be very powerful.”
Want to learn more about Sortable’s offering? Reach out to us at hello@sortable.com.