Emeryville, California-based TubeMogul has changed dramatically since it launched as a programmatic media buying platform for digital video in 2011. It went public in 2014, experienced rampant growth (it’s now active in 70 countries with 13 offices around the globe) and evolved its demand-side platform into a single, integrated cross-channel planning and buying solution that caters to both display and video ad formats – including linear and connected TV – which it recently strengthened through the addition of significant social partnerships with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.
Having struck agreements with a host of premium inventory partners, TubeMogul’s software serves as a one-stop-shop for agencies and brand marketers to plan, buy, measure and optimize their advertising campaigns across channels, and does so to great success. It recently leveraged its new partnership with Facebook to help Expedia reach over 9.4 million unique viewers and secure more than 5,500 bookings in the U.S. in only one month’s time. Expedia increased brand awareness and drove conversions by using TubeMogul’s cross-screen planning software to build incremental reach atop its existing TV advertising schedule by connecting with on-the-go business travellers online and on their mobile devices.
TubeMogul’s defining trait is its independent position as a buy-side only platform built exclusively for advertisers. It doesn’t have any publisher-facing tools, doesn’t own any media and doesn’t make any money by shifting spend from one media property to another.
“That position resonates profoundly with brand marketers and agencies,” says Keith Eadie, chief marketing and strategy officer at TubeMogul. “Advertisers appreciate working with a partner that is completely aligned with their incentives – they trust us because we only succeed when they succeed.”
TubeMogul has also become synonymous with “transparency,” a crucial differentiator at a time when the term has never been more important. TubeMogul’s software includes a full suite of media quality controls that ensures premium inventory availability, empowers clients with complete control over where their ads appear, filters out sites with suspicious traffic, and provides total economic and performance reporting down to the site and app level. These controls enable marketers to understand and realize the true value of their advertising budgets
“We designed our software in response to the lack of transparency that’s been peddled by multiple different players in the ecosystem,” says Eadie. “Historically, advertisers haven’t had any idea where their ads run, exactly how much the media cost or how much an intermediary profited from the mark up. Our platform removes those uncertainties.”
But TubeMogul’s unrelenting focus on transparency extends beyond the product itself to also encompass client education. Their Learning and Development team introduced the industry’s first Client Certification Program and have since launched instructional academies and boot camps across its global offices. The Canadian academy for instance, which launched on July 6, includes a specially built training facility at TubeMogul’s Toronto office that arms clients with an overview of the programmatic landscape in Canada, as well as bespoke operational training on its software platform.

Keith Eadie, chief marketing and strategy officer at TubeMogul; and Dana Toering, managing director of TubeMogul Canada
“This space moves so quickly. The onus is on us to make sure that we’re educating our clients, prospects and others as part of the larger industry,” says Dana Toering, managing director of TubeMogul Canada.
TubeMogul’s regional Client Certification Programs are also indicative of the company’s efforts to localize its business in each market. One of Toering’s, a 20-year Canadian media industry veteran, primary mandates is to graduate TubeMogul’s go-to-market strategy and capabilities to the next phase of growth across Canada.
“We’ve prioritized finding and hiring exceptional homegrown talent in every market around the globe,” says Toering. “Each country and province has its own unique nuances, and we absolutely need local expertise in each market to stay competitive.”
To that end, TubeMogul Canada has focused on building and nurturing direct partnerships with top publishers in effort to help marketers automate pre-existing deals and unify their entire ad buy in a single platform.
And as the industry continues to evolve, so to has TubeMogul’s platform. The company recently launched its cross-screen planning software, a revolutionary technology that leverages data sets from Nielsen and other sources in order to deduplicate audiences across TV and digital channels and achieve the most cost-effective incremental reach.
The next big area of opportunity for TubeMogul, says Toering, is programmatic television (PTV). The company estimates that about 10% of advertising spend that flows across its platform this year will be programmatic TV.
“Our core strength is how we’re able to help advertisers take advantage of the new opportunities like PTV and cross-screen from the same piece of software that they have already been using for their digital initiatives. We’re in a really good position to serve the best interests of our advertisers when PTV becomes a reality in Canada, and we are well underway in the process of making that happen,” said Toering.
For TubeMogul, the focus is solely about building software that makes advertising simpler and more accountable – and it looks like it’s working.