Spotlight Series: Thomas Houge, Chief Commercial Officer at SeenThis

In this exclusive Q&A, Thomas Houge, Chief Commercial Officer at SeenThis, shares insights on how the digital ad industry can minimize wasteful carbon emissions while boosting display performance. Read on to uncover what the partnership between SeenThis and OpenX unlocks value for both publishers and buyers.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Growing up, I wanted to be a doctor because I like doing good in the world. While I’m not directly helping people get better in my current job, I am helping companies perform better while reducing their carbon footprint.

Can you explain adaptive streaming and some of the benefits of this technology?

Adaptive streaming advertising is a technology that provides a smooth viewing experience for users with different devices and internet speeds. Rather than downloading the file like traditional video ad serving, we stream it, allowing for almost instant loading by encoding multiple versions of a video file at different bitrates and resolutions to fit various network conditions. Our ads need only minimal load-time even for high-quality video ads, regardless of connection types.

There are a number of benefits for advertisers who use adaptive streaming. Advertisers get an expanded horizon for their video advertising strategy, with the ability to run beautiful ad campaigns in display units with none of the past issues of slow download, all for a lower CPM than in-stream video prices. 

From a technical standpoint, adaptive streaming is automatically compatible with every device, OS, and browser, without file-size restrictions, ensuring maximum quality for every user, and SeenThis is certified across all major advertising networks, for programmatic and I/O campaigns. As a result, advertisers gain access to precise, actionable metrics through seamless ad server integrations.

It’s also important to note that SeenThis streaming removes unnecessary data transfer, which minimizes CO2 emissions — something advertisers are increasingly more concerned with.

How does SeenThis help advertisers and publishers maximize display performance while enhancing the overall experience for consumers?

For audiences, adaptive streaming is a dramatic improvement over traditional ad serving. The viewing experience with adaptive streaming delivers high-quality video ads in display with instant load times and no lag. 

Publishers also get a new opportunity to sell display in a way that delivers high engagement and high attention for advertisers. Publishers have long had to manage limited video inventory and a large inventory of IAB standard display ads that clutter a page and deliver a sub-par experience to their audience. With adaptive streaming, publishers can sell that inventory in a new way — as a high-quality video ad opportunity to advertisers who want scale beyond traditional video inventory. The added bonus of lightning-fast load times makes adaptive streaming in display even more valuable.

What steps does the ​​digital ad industry as a whole need to take to minimize wasteful carbon emissions?

The advertising industry wastes carbon in a number of ways, including market complexity and duplication, waste, fraud, and data usage. There are often many “hops” that an ad takes along the supply chain. Many ads are shown on low-quality websites like made for advertising (MFA) content or are shown in ad slots that no one ever sees. 

Across much of the industry, there is also a lot of data waste. Downloading and serving heavy files uses unnecessary data that causes high emissions. SeenThis solves for data waste by minimizing carbon emissions with streaming technology, which is much more efficient than a standard ad serving.

How does SeenThis favor sustainable media without compromising performance?

When data is transferred, each part of the supply chain requires energy to operate, driving up carbon emissions. SeenThis minimizes data transfer by only transferring data for creative assets that are in view. Similarly, increased attention means fewer impressions needed to meet targets.

SeenThis actually improves performance dramatically, increasing conversion rate by 24% conversion rate and reducing CPC by 29%. By embracing streaming, advertisers are getting an innovative, advanced ad serving technology that also happens to be much more efficient. SeenThis delivers the win-win combination of high-performance technology in a package that uses less data than standard technology.

What reporting insights are you able to provide advertisers with?

We provide advertisers with transparent performance reports that include key metrics such as impressions, video starts, quartile reporting, and average view time. We also provide emissions data including data transfer for each creative, as reported by our CDN provider, Fastly. We also look at the carbon footprint for creative delivery and estimated avoided waste and emissions based on a comparison of creatives being run with SeenThis compared to conventional technology. 
Our estimated avoided emissions considers the full value chain of creative delivery, from server to end-user device. If all other emissions factors — such as content production, ad space allocation, analytics, media distribution, post-click activities, additional vendors, and advertised emissions — are unchanged, these figures could be used in a comprehensive, cradle-to-grave analysis of online advertising. This estimate assumes a global average electricity emissions factor (0.44 kgCO₂e/kWh) and considers standardized values for view time, emissions factors for viewing location, network type, and device type, as well as  data from the SRI & Alliance Digitale database.

How does the SeenThis and OpenX partnership unlock unique value for buyers and publishers?

Our partnership provides advertisers and agencies with a straightforward way to access expanded video opportunities on premium content at competitive prices. It enables advertisers an effective option to run scaled, carbon-efficient campaigns across top quality supply while delivering a next-generation ad experience. As the only company in media, technology, or advertising to be independently verified as Net-Zero, OpenX is a leader in low-carbon advertising solutions that also deliver performance, which is perfectly aligned with SeenThis.