135. Understanding Programmatic Sustainability with Brian O'Kelley at Scope3
Release Date: 08/08/2023
Programmatic Digest
Sign up to our FREE workshop on March 31st: In this episode of Programmatic Digest, Hélène Parker sits down with Assetou Kone, programmatic expert and consultant, for a real conversation about resilience in programmatic advertising and agency life. Assetou shares her journey into ad tech, from studying political science and mass communication to discovering programmatic during a digital marketing bootcamp. What started as a curiosity about digital media quickly became a career built on solving complex marketing problems across multiple verticals, including political campaigns,...
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In this episode of Programmatic Digest, Hélène sits down with Tiffany Wade, Media Director at Hunter Blue, for a grounded conversation on community building, mentorship, and leadership as a woman in programmatic and ad tech. Tiffany shares her path into media, from a psychology background and early career pivots to finding her footing through curiosity, asking better questions, and building relationships that opened doors. They talk about what it feels like to be “the only one” in the room, how to stay brave while navigating discomfort, and why finding your community matters, even if...
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Our Let’s Talk Curation series was created in partnership with GDB, our curated data partner, to help demystify curated audiences, what they are, how they work, and when and why you should consider using them. Check out this lesson on Curation 101. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: About our Partner: GDB is a curated audience data partner focused on combining quality inventory and audience signals to support smarter testing and cleaner measurement in programmatic campaigns.
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Find YouTube link to watch here: Shownotes Welcome to the first Programmatic Digest episode of 2026 with Ellen Parker and Manuela Cortez. This is a quick check-in, plus a trader-friendly breakdown of the biggest 2025 shifts and what to watch in 2026. We cover five trends from 2025 (AI everywhere, privacy and cookieless reality, CTV growth, RMNs going more programmatic, and supply quality/transparency). Then we close with three 2026 predictions: curation becoming “default infrastructure,” AI as a co-pilot (not autopilot), and multi-identity strategies becoming standard. This...
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A fast, practical deep dive into The Trade Desk’s move to label all SSPs as “resellers” — what that label actually means, why it has a bad rap, and where it’s fair vs. misleading. Gareth breaks down value-add resellers (e.g., unique widgets/placements) vs. pure pass-through reselling, explains OpenPath in plain English, and demystifies the Transaction ID debate: what it is, why TTD wants it, and how it impacts buy-side efficiency and supply transparency. We wrap with actionable steps for traders — how to pressure-test paths, when to go direct with publishers/PMPs, and how to...
info_outline💡 This episode is sponsored by Jobsinadtech.com 🌟
Let’s first highlight some “not so fun facts” about the topic covered in this episode, according to Anne Coghlan, COO of Scope3 in Digiday.
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Programmatic advertising creates 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide every month in the United States, which is equivalent to burning about 11.2 million gallons of gas.
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Serving 1,000 digital ad impressions uses the same amount of energy as doing a load of laundry in a washing machine — excluding the dryer — which produces a global average of 514.8 grams of CO2.
Brian O’Kelley co-founder and CEO joins the programmatic meetup, a weekly community call to discuss the importance of sustainability and how to take actions from negotiating supply partnership down to optimizing site lists in your programmatic ad campaigns.
Our favorite quote in this interview can be summarized down to “ Don’t buy crap!”
Take a listen to this hour long interview where the community got to hear first hand what sustainability is and how to take action; asking questions to Brian under the outstanding leadership of our co-hosts Manuela Cortes and Carlos Villanueva.
About Us:
Our mission is to teach historically excluded people how to start and grow in programmatic media buying.
We do so by providing on-demand lessons via the Reach and Frequency™️ program, a dope community with like-minded programmatic experts, and live free and paid group coaching. We also offer activation support via staff augmentation!
Interested in training or hiring programmatic juniors? Book a Free Call
Timestamp:
00:00:00 - The Jingle You need to Hear: Jobsinadtech.com
00:00:20 - What do laundry and adtech have in common?
00:01:40 - At the beginning there were Ad Networks…
00:03:46 - Then there was an SSP and MySpace
00:06:15 - AdTech happens in Data centres, not in the cloud
00:08:25 - Why isn’t programmatic more sustainable after 20 years?
00:10:01 - The challenges of programmatic are bigger than sustainability and the lightbulb moment
00:12:40 - Turning off Fraud and the impact on publisher’s revenue
00:16:35 - BOK on Ads https://bokonads.com/
00:18:54 - PreBid vs. SPO
00:22:23 - Brian’s POV on e-waste on the OTT/CTV topic
00:25:40 - What responsibilities Brands have to Fraud?
00:31:40 - Introducing Climate Shield: Don't' Buy Crap
00:35:40 - Don’t allow resellers! A message for Pubs
00:23:40 - Is there one path more carbon efficient than the other?
00:40:10 - How Hélène take actions and apply Brian’s Wisdom for programmatic buyers
00:45:34 - Ongoing Education, Check out Greenscape from BOKonads
00:48:10 - Lazy Loading on Publishers
00:53:10 - The Inconvenient Truth
💡 This episode is sponsored by Jobsinadtech.com 🌟
Interested in finding out if you are a fit for a career in digital advertising and programmatic?
Take our free Quiz: www.heleneparker.com/programmaticquiz
Guest Information:
Meet the Co-Host:
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Manuela Cortes
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Carlos Villanueva
About Us:
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Hélène Parker Consulting LLC - We are actively accepting clients
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