# S1 E18 - AdForm

Episode 18 - AdForm 

[00:00:00] Elgato Wave Neo-24: welcome to the middlemen. I'm Tom Limongello, and I'm here with Todd Sawicki. We, as middlemen, live at the intersection of media and e commerce, and we would like for you to join us in our discussions where we turn that chaotic intersection into your comfort zone  

[00:00:19] Todd: This is our thanksgiving special edition. I 

[00:00:22] Tom: yeah. And I thought it was high time that we got Joe Dressler on. He was somebody I worked with closely at quotient because he's somebody who is good at bouncing off ideas about what the hell is going on in the industry. 

[00:00:35] Tom: And so we had some. Interesting topics we wanted to go through. I think a lot has been happening in the ad tech world around curation, around the sort of maturation of retail media, in the last few years, since we were quotient,  

[00:00:49] Tom: Was not the winner that it should have been even though it was in the catbird seat of retail media what else should we be talking about in this episode, 

[00:00:55] Todd: think one of the fun things to talk about is the rise of App lovin and this [00:01:00] week, they're practically a meme stock right 7x Growth they're well run company they've been great for if you want to do paid app downloads But in terms of a broader marketing company, it's whoa, what the heck? 

[00:01:11] Todd: It just I don't quite understand what they've done in terms of 7x in their value And if people really want to know what is what do ad tech geeks or you know the Adtech-erati talk about? things like this  

[00:01:23] Tom: This is what we talk around the thanksgiving table 

[00:01:26] Todd: Yeah it's if we had all the ad techers, which I guess the closest thing to the Thanksgiving industry table would be at like CES and we all go out to dinner at whatever, at Caesars or something. 

[00:01:35] Todd: And, you look at this space and you say, okay what's happening and why? Suddenly why is curation the hottest thing since sliced bread? And as a guy like myself who built and ran a DSP, as we mentioned before, we sold Zemanta off to Outbrain, it lives on within Outbrain. 

[00:01:50] Todd: And you look at the. The space, and you're like, there's nothing new about curation. It's this whole idea of basically SPO, self aligned [00:02:00] path optimization, which itself, I always thought was a bunch of Huppabaloo, and versus, it's just like the standard thing every DSP does, or allows its users to do, is the whole point of real time bidding, and ad auctions are the ability to pick and choose impressions. 

[00:02:16] Todd: And do it smartly and that's all what SPO is and I don't get what's so new about curation Just why do we have to come up with the a new name for everything in ad tech? It drives me batty 

[00:02:28] Tom: Yeah, we'll get into that and a bunch more on the podcast today with joe dressler, so let's get into it  

[00:02:34] Tom: So today we have an old friend, Joe Dressler who I worked with at Quotient. He was the guy who led the Ahold-Delhaize or ADUSA business when we were there. So that would mean retailers like Stop and Shop, Peapod, Giant, Hannaford, Food Lion and we did a lot of fun stuff together. And so I thought it'd be great to talk to him again, because after Quotient, he moved to AdForm, which is a leading [00:03:00] international DSP that's focused on identity resolution. Did I do that right? 

[00:03:06] Joe Dressler: That was great. What a great intro, Tom. I miss you, man. It's always good to see you again. Good working with you. 

[00:03:10] Tom: Good to see you as well. And I thought, we have lots of things we can talk about, but when we talk we have a good back and forth on the issues of the day and ad tech, not just a, Hey, what does my company do? And so I thought that would be fun to get you on the pod and talk about some of the hottest things. 

[00:03:24] Tom: And the first thing we thought of was why do we care about curation? So maybe I'll ask Todd first, what do you think about curation? 

[00:03:32] Todd: Curation, I cannot believe we're talking about something that we've been doing forever in the world of DSPs and ad tech and SSPs. The amusing thing about Joe being at Adform is I used to run Adform are competitors. They're both based in Eastern Europe, and I don't know why Eastern Europe is the hotbed of ad tech, but it certainly is. 

[00:03:53] Todd: And anyway, it's funny, it's because, you look at curation, and curation to me just looks like, The latest way to call what [00:04:00] we've been doing at DSPs a long time deal IDs, like the idea of curating audiences and everything else just seems like, what the hell is this even like a thing? And why are we talking about curation when it's been something, at least to me, someone who built the DSP been around for a long time. 

[00:04:13] Todd: So I'm this is just crazy that we're just suddenly, this is a new hot thing. And IAB has to redefine or define something that has existed in my mind for a decade. 

[00:04:21] Joe Dressler: Todd, Todd, is it the classic what's old is new again? We work in a space which is all about remarketing ourselves and rebuilding the same scenarios. Ad exchanges became ad networks with DSPs. How it all works together is similar. And it's funny. The only I talked to so many people are into curation. 

[00:04:36] Joe Dressler: We know that the Google has a massive focus right on it right now. TradeDesk is trying to do their own thing with curation because they know the topic is hot. Is it just the idea of better automation today versus what was deal IDs before? Is that the only real difference you think? 

[00:04:50] Todd: I wonder if it's really, Anything different than like SPO? Didn't we just rename DLIDs as SPO? Supply Path Optimization? Like, how is it any different than [00:05:00] SPO? Which we've been a buzzword since what, 2018, 2019? I just find it shocking that we have to go to this again. It's funny. 

[00:05:07] Todd: The irony of this is Tom, I get into this in terms of us working together and trying to escape ad tech and getting into, at least for me I thought I could escape, got into retail tech, e com tech, whatever we want to use, and suddenly retail media is the hottest thing since sliced bread, and in many ways, in talking with Tom and probably yourself retail media is the rebranding of just co op advertising, which has been around for a hundred years. 

[00:05:26] Joe Dressler: Absolutely. Al Pacino did say once I was out, they just pulled me back in. So maybe that's the same idea. Like you can't leave ad tech because it's fundamental to everything that we're talking about. 

[00:05:34] Tom: Yeah, maybe one way to get to this is why do you think curation really, then what was the need for the rebrand? Was there any sort of reason why we needed to do this at this time? 

[00:05:47] Joe Dressler: I saw, and I could be wrong, right? But I certainly saw the trend curation tied similarly, maybe coincidentally as well, to the loss of cookie signals and cookie deprecation. Right? [00:06:00] People were trying to think about how else can I solve the idea that with cookies going away, how do I target fundamentally? 

[00:06:05] Joe Dressler: And that really came down to contextual or curation on one side, and kind of alternative IDs on the other side. Todd, what do you think about that? Do you see the same trend? Or maybe did you see a different spark to curation? 

[00:06:18] Todd: to me. I think it's honestly DSP is just looking for another way to sell something that's already existing. But fundamentally, identity resolution obviously is a huge issue. And we've talked about this, which is to me, the rise of retail media, the irony, of course, of, quotient blowing up right as retail media took off. 

[00:06:37] Todd: It's just one of those things like, how the heck does that happen? And even in this context, no pun intended. The rise of, you want to say, fine, it's contextual curation. Fine, we could always have done that DLIDs, and going back to another talk about giving away potentially the golden goose as it could have taken off. 

[00:06:54] Todd: Oracle shutting down GrapeShot as part of shutting down Oracle advertising, like this would have been in their moment, like curation, the [00:07:00] market finally came to GrapeShot. We didn't when I ran Zamanta, we had integrated GrapeShot in 2018, I think, right? And it's a fantastic solution in terms of contextual resolution. Or was until Oracle decided to, to stab in the back and put it out to pasture, so to speak. And so I think that's one of the things that okay, but is a DSP like Adform? It's had things around contextual, and it's had things around SPO, and it's had things around helping customers curate content. 

[00:07:28] Todd: Audiences and things like that. So this idea of like little c curation has been, if anyone who's used to DSP has known how to do this thing for three clicks forever. So it just I always chuckle when suddenly this is a hot thing and Ivy Tech has to find some standard for something that like any good DSPs had the basic functionality for years. 

[00:07:47] Tom: So it's a curation, just a rebrand of contextual is that one part of it, you get a certain amount of tonnage from that. And then you get a certain amount of tonnage from the IDs, the alternative ID you cobble [00:08:00] together a media plan from these new sources? 

[00:08:03] Joe Dressler: It's a great question. I think both are used in their own way and should be combined in some context. Let's for a second assume that curation is here to stay, and it offers a value, whether it's a unique value. That's a different story. But let's just assume it's here to stay for a bit. 

[00:08:15] Joe Dressler: I think, Tom, to your question. What I found fascinating as I talked to hundreds of advertisers and agencies is this concept of curation or contextual ties to obviously the audiences and the content at which they appear. And But does not allow you to control reach and frequency any differently than using a cookie, right? 

[00:08:35] Joe Dressler: So you have different devices, you are different IDs on those, contextual doesn't solve that necessarily. That's where all the alternative ideas come into play that can hopefully look you and see who you are on your mobile device, on your computer, on a work IP address versus a home IP address. So I think that's where they both come together and are used very separately. 

[00:08:54] Joe Dressler: So for Adform scenario, you mentioned earlier that like identity fragmentation, identity resolution is so important to us, it's the [00:09:00] mainstay of why we think we're in business. And it's because Contextually or curation should be used over here, but it doesn't help control reach and frequency. 

[00:09:09] Todd: I was going to jump in and say, I think one of the fascinating things about, our point about I left to go to e com tech and got sucked right in back in with the rise of retail media, we couldn't escape and you and Tom, I think would be useful to talk about, the background of quotient and what happened. 

[00:09:25] Todd: Why isn't quotient here today as a retail media kingpin, when to me, retail media solves identity resolution in, in, in an interesting way, right? Because you create an account on a retailer, you get the first party data, you have purchase history. Like it has attribution. It is really one of the fascinating things around the future of online advertising, because it does that in a way that's not. 

[00:09:51] Todd: One of the oligopoly, folks. If retail media is the future of online media, because it does have identity resolution. I'm not sure I'd need these [00:10:00] alternative IDs or early. I think we're going to go anywhere. 

[00:10:01] Todd: Why aren't you both still working at quotient? You got, you think about it. What I love is you guys were running and building. business at a hold before the pandemic, before all this thing. And, I think there's a great story about lots of things that happened there in terms of why you're both not there today, 

[00:10:18] Joe Dressler: Yeah, no, it's great. Let me address one thing you said, because I think there's an important nuance that the industry, at least what I've seen. And one of the reasons I left quotient and came to Adform was this idea of match rate versus reach rate. And so you're absolutely right that retail media, one of the reasons of the rise, there's multiple reasons, but one of the reasons of the rise was tied to first party data, knowing the audience is going after and be able to close the loop on measurements. 

[00:10:42] Joe Dressler: So I hit Tom with messages. I saw he bought Oreos or Snapple or something else, and I can attribute appropriately 100 percent right? That is really critical. And one of the reasons millions of dollars are floating into that, but a downside of it. When we think about alternative IDs, was that everyone was talking about what the match rate [00:11:00] was. 

[00:11:00] Joe Dressler: So whether it's Ahold, or Albertsons, or Kroger, or Target, or Walmart, they all upload their data to someone like LiveRamp, or Neustar or Lotame or Panorama, or ID5. And they get these great match rates because they have email address, and they have phone number, and they have physical address. All good identifiers for a person. And so you're a retailer and you find out you have an 80 percent match rate and we're all high fiving each other. 

[00:11:21] Joe Dressler: We picked a great technology partner. We're going to be amazing, but Todd, what no one was talking about. And we started to see this in the measurements was the limitation of the reach rate. So just because you were able to match 80 percent of the people doesn't mean you can find them because alternative IDs in the open web today are relatively limited. 

[00:11:40] Joe Dressler: And so budgets were being created for the 80%. But they were reaching, only reaching about 20 percent of them. And that was lowering ROAS and starting to lower incrementality to be a negative number. And I think we can talk through the rise of Quotient and where we went well, and the fall of Quotient and where we missed, all being tied to the same [00:12:00] concept. 

[00:12:00] Tom: You're also working with very complex businesses. And, there's a couple of things there. One, I think Todd was alluding to is that right at the point of the pandemic Ahold decided to, try to put peapod to pasture and, pump up stop and shop and some of the other 

[00:12:15] Todd: what was that timeline is they shut down peapod. What in like January, February. 

[00:12:20] Tom: They need to make sure that they 

[00:12:22] Joe Dressler: 2020, 

[00:12:22] Tom: need to make sure that everybody was in their house completely before they shut 

[00:12:25] Todd: Yeah, exactly. Talk about, Oh my God, they shutting down an e com business of any flavor in January or February, 2020 is going to look back and go, could you have made a worse decision? 

[00:12:36] Tom: And it's interesting because you watch it over time, you see the same thing where they bought a controlling stake of FreshDirect and FreshDirect was a great brand in New York or whatever. And then they put it under giant. And so you see it where it's I know what they were trying to do. They were trying to pump up their brands, but they were taking a lot of the, it would be like Amazon, Amazon just did a new thing with Amazon grocery, where it's like all the Oreo and all the sort of, Jif [00:13:00] brands that you can't get at Whole Foods. 

[00:13:01] Tom: And, but if you undercut what Whole Foods is and you kill that brand, you lose a lot. And so I think it was a similar thing where the retailers just have a tough time trying to scale or, bolster their aging brands. But in terms of quotient and why aren't we on top? I think the other big trend was seeing the profit that retail media brings in, it made them want to bring it in house. 

[00:13:26] Tom: And so what they basically did was they decided to not use quotient, which was more of a one stop shop where we sold, we had all the technology in different places and we cobbled it all together. They decided to go best of breed for every different solution and try to bring it in house as much as they could. 

[00:13:42] Tom: And by doing that, it basically rewinded the, their progress like three years. Because now they're trying to get to a place where they're still competitive with some of these partners and that, it's, it, and they're all relaunching it and telling the ad tech world that they finally have retail media when they've had it for years. 

[00:13:59] Tom: So yeah, I think they just [00:14:00] took a very giant step back, even if they are bringing their profitability 

[00:14:03] Todd: I think you're also, and I, it's funny because in, you guys have talked about this, it'd be good to reference this, but. Quotient's original name was, is how I've always known them, coupons. com, and they're right, they're bet on coupons versus retail media again in the 2019 2020 window looks back and goes, oops what were they thinking? 

[00:14:23] Todd: Yeah, there's the whole full service versus, in source, outsource, perspective with Ahold and others. But I think it's the, how does a company miss the window on retail media when they're right in the middle of it and tries to go back to, 2008 wants its web online web business. 

[00:14:36] Todd: And, once it's coupon business back, 

[00:14:39] Joe Dressler: about this for years, Todd, so I think it also ties into the psychological affair of what goes on inside organizations, both our own at the time and many others which is how much technology is needed to advance the business when you're growing exponentially. 

[00:14:53] Joe Dressler: So when the money's coming in, as long as that money remains coming in at that level, you feel like you're all good. If you're not looking at the [00:15:00] future to understand that when CPGs are spending a little bit of money. Go back to 2019, 2020. They're spending in their eyes, very little money with a retailer, well under a million dollars. 

[00:15:11] Joe Dressler: It falls under the radar. No one's asking a lot of questions. They're not asking reporting questions. They're not asking for verification questions. They're not asking ad serving questions, all things traditional publishers are beholden to get millions of dollars from a big brand. And then as 2020 accelerated, obviously with the pandemic and e commerce and retail media took off, The dollars became real. 

[00:15:31] Joe Dressler: The requirements of a CPG to spend those dollars got elevated to what we all know is very normal IAB terms. I'll just use that as a standard blanket. And many retailers were not prepared for that. And so companies like Quotient had to decide how much money do I put into my own tech stack to get to, to get the retailers up to the level. 

[00:15:50] Joe Dressler: And then they made their own profitability decision that says, was that the right call or not? I think by the end of the story, we know that it was not the right call because the company doesn't exist. And we lost tremendous momentum that was [00:16:00] unfortunately there. 

[00:16:01] Todd: I think it's a fascinating story. And, you've actually point out a really important transition. Within retail media that I think a lot of us have glossed over like it took off and the change from this early experimental phase when you can do anything and be anything to suddenly you had to be like a real ad business. 

[00:16:21] Todd: And I think to your point about match versus reach rate speaks to that suddenly retailers, you couldn't. Get away with. If you have small budget, it's fine. You could easily find 50, 000 people on your site in a month. And then suddenly, oh, I need to deliver millions of uniques in a certain two week or 30 day window. 

[00:16:38] Todd: Oh, and the world has changed. And I think that's been interesting. How much does Adform play in the audience extension business? Which is obviously is a big part of improving your reach rate, if you're a retailer, and that's a big component, and so it might be interesting, because obviously, if I were back running Zemanta still, that would be a big focus of what I was doing, and I [00:17:00] imagine it's got to be part of your story today. 

[00:17:01] Joe Dressler: Yeah, without being pitchy, Tom, I brought a whole, 20 page deck, but I know we won't have time to go through it. Kidding, of course. Perfect. Who doesn't love a good PowerPoint after a podcast? But I think to answer your question very cleanly, when I was specifically leaving Quotient, I was looking for a solution to a problem I knew existed. 

[00:17:18] Joe Dressler: And so I picked Adform because of the audience extension, because of the idea that if a single alternative identifier was never going to scale enough, how do you find Tom when he has different IDs in the marketplace? So Tom is LiveRamp123, but he's also Neustar456. And he's also ID5-789. 

[00:17:37] Joe Dressler: And none of us as a DSP control what parameters an SSP or publisher send over. So if I'm looking for Tom as a Neustar number, but the publisher only sends over LiveRamp, traditional DSPs cannot and will not bid on the LiveRamp information. 'cause it's inconsequential to them. adform created a product called ID fusion. 

[00:17:56] Joe Dressler: Truly fusing identifiers together all PII safe [00:18:00] 'cause it's only IDs. We know nothing about Tom whatsoever. But that allows us to find him in more spots 'cause we can identify him under different identifiers. And I think that future is critical. Otherwise your reach rate's going to be tiny, which means you're going to inefficiently use your budgets. 

[00:18:14] Joe Dressler: And marketers are using less money on media dollars than they are tech fees and that balance has to change. 

[00:18:20] Tom: It sounds like you're going to have the uphill battle of asking brands to spend higher CPMs, which I think was the kiss of death in the retail media world that we were in, where we were really hawking all mobile traffic because it was cheapest, mainly because we were introducing a new retailer data tax that hadn't really been in the market. 

[00:18:39] Tom: So you had both the media cost the TAC and a retailer data share and obviously quotients to share. And so we were really going for the lowest common nominator inventory. Your reach rate argument sounds like it's a good one, but doesn't it mean it's much higher CPMs? 

[00:18:55] Joe Dressler: No. If anything, it's the opposite is what we're finding. I'll give you like the simplest example possible. If you go [00:19:00] between cookies and alternative IDs, the CPMs on Chrome are about 42% higher. I think it's according to e-marketer, then they are in Safari because every single impression in Chrome right, has more bidding on it. 

[00:19:14] Joe Dressler: And so what's great about IDFusion and this idea of using multiple alternative IDs is now I can find you, Tom, in more places than I could have before. So again, using simple math for this conversation, if I did an analysis, a forecast that says I'm going to find you 15 times in a month using one identifier, but now using multiple IDs, I can find you 45 times, I can actually be more prescriptive as far as when and what I bid on you, because I don't have to focus on that 15 to get 10. 

[00:19:44] Joe Dressler: I can focus on 45 to get 10, so I don't have to bid 10. I can bid two or three at certain points. So actually the opposite of what you said is becoming true, which is great for 

[00:19:51] Todd: You guys have brought up, and this is probably a good rant to bring us home, is you bring up mobile and we bring up [00:20:00] IDE and then you resolution, and the other hot topic in our little, water cooler side of the business that we're all a part of is App Lovin. And, j Joe and us were chatting about this and how the hell is AppLovin worth more than the trade desk? 

[00:20:16] Todd: And how the hell have they, what is it seven x this year in terms of their stock price? Holy crap. Like what? It's, you. As a, DSP, do you view them as a competitor? Are they, are they really an SSP? Like, how, why is suddenly, are they the hottest things since sliced bread? 

[00:20:33] Joe Dressler: I, one, I wish I had the answer for it too. I wish I worked there about a year ago and had RSUs or options that I could have bought 

[00:20:39] Todd: Yeah, we all, I think we all do. Yes. We can all be bitter about that. 

[00:20:42] Joe Dressler: Because that's truly game changing at that point. 7x in a year is ridiculous. And I think it would be phenomenal if Jeff Green heard this podcast. 

[00:20:50] Joe Dressler: Because he's asking himself the same question with his board, probably all the time. They're, TradeDesk is a massive organization, and they're worth, what, roughly 60 billion? And App Lovin worth [00:21:00] roughly 80 or 85 billion? It's not even close in that perspective. It's not even close. I, the only thing I can understand and think about is, I remember App Lovin from the early days, just like you guys do. 

[00:21:10] Joe Dressler: And they were really a measurement and attribution partner in mobile, which was incredibly difficult back then. And mobile made up a nascent part of the ecosystem programmatic. Clearly that's flipped. Mobile is now larger than desktop or display, whichever term you want to use in that perspective. So that shows me a linear nice, solid linear curve, not a 700 percent curve this year. 

[00:21:31] Joe Dressler: I don't know.  

[00:21:32] Tom: I think what you're talking about is what Eric Seufert has argued, which is that when they bought MoPub as an SSP provider within the mobile world or whatever, they had a lock on, having the ability to predict the lifetime value of those customers. 

[00:21:45] Tom: And it's a really specific market , but it's a bigger one as to Todd's point than it was back in the teens or whatever, but is it a meme stock and are we just seeing froth happening? And I think there was a good LinkedIn post that we'll put in the show notes about App [00:22:00] Lovin or app scamming. 

[00:22:01] Tom: So there's some thinking around the fact that. They're maybe ahead of their skis. It would be interesting to hear from our listeners. What, if there's any any thoughts about this on LinkedIn, 

[00:22:08] Todd: Think the funny thing about App Lovin and from A-A-D-S-P standpoint app Loving's, interesting from the stand of, they're very focused on. App downloads, and that's still an important business. And are they going to make this transition to other performance? I saw some thread on Twitter like they're offering access to their platform. 

[00:22:25] Todd: You spend 20, 000 a day on Facebook like how I've never seen that platform gave themselves like this, and I can't believe anybody thinks that they really need to bend over backwards for an ad platform like Apple. And you show up three weeks from now, you'll be able to, for a dollar a day, probably get an account. 

[00:22:39] Todd: And the, do you make, are they more managed service at this point? Is that part of it? Like it's that they're just they well know this app world and versus this, broad open web world, do you think that's part of it, Joe, or do you think it's some level of just seven X stock price and silly people feel they have to spend money with them? 

[00:22:58] Joe Dressler: really do think it's the [00:23:00] latter in the sense of momentum drives momentum, right? We've seen this multiple times. I'm not about to be on here perfecting my expertise in meme stocks and what is the actual curation or specificity of what drives a meme stock, but 700 X without the revenue. The revenue growth is not 700 X this year, right? 

[00:23:17] Tom: Most of what I hear is that they were very much mobile apps, but they're starting to bring in DTC. 

[00:23:22] Tom: Are they benefiting from some of what Facebook lost, even though Facebook is starting to come back very strongly after they've done their deals with Amazon and others, I think maybe that's part of it, that they're drafting off of Meta's sort of original decline a few years ago. That's the best I can do. 

[00:23:39] Joe Dressler: I wouldn't say it's not a bad analogy or thought process, but at least with Meta and Google, when they did so well, any other social media or kind of owned and operated, you're still working off your own inventory. You're not making a margin off somebody else's. 

[00:23:52] Joe Dressler: And so even as Facebook has gotten more expensive and DTC has calmed down because it's not as cheap as it was in 2014, 2016, 2018, to [00:24:00] just start a business, run ads on Facebook and be like, cool, we got it covered. There's, resolution issues. There was attribution issues that all came into play. 

[00:24:07] Joe Dressler: I just don't know how Apple oven, even if what you're saying is true, which I like your idea. I think it's strategically makes a ton of sense. I just don't see how the exponential revenue, the 700 X right revenue comes into play here. 

[00:24:18] Todd: And what I don't understand, and you're like if they're drafting off some of the challenges around Facebook's D to C ad buying or ad buyers, doesn't Apple 11 going to have the same identity resolution problems that all the other mobile guys, like when Apple locks down iOS and you can't do crap, like what the hell are they doing for identity resolution? 

[00:24:37] Todd: I can't believe they've, they're sophisticated, as you guys. Potentially are an ad for them in terms of like open web identity resolution has to be the hardest thing in the world to solve for. So kudos for you guys for trying to do that. And I just I just don't get like what secret sauce could they possibly have that gets around OS level blocks. 

[00:24:56] Joe Dressler: Correct. And then the DTC ultimately has to buy into it, [00:25:00] right? This is all a measurement and attribution. It was always easier with Facebook. It's always easier with Google when you're like, Hey, my, my funny joke is I spent a million dollars with each one of those. I get 10, 000 conversions. I've got 20, 000 in total, but my actual checkout counter, right? 

[00:25:13] Joe Dressler: My register, if you will, only shows 15, 000 for the month. Cause there's always been duplication between the two of them always right. But in, in this case with App Lovin I just, I don't get, you need the DTCs to buy into you as the source of truth. And if so, how are you validating into your point, Todd, like what have you uncovered that makes you that much better than everyone else across the board that just, I've never seen it. 

[00:25:33] Joe Dressler: I've never heard it. Not from advertisers, not from marketers, not from partners. 

[00:25:38] Todd: And from an app download and getting new apps, app loving was always a good platform solution, right? So what's interesting to us is the expansion potentially beyond that and how they potentially. I, we don't know what they could have figured out. That if Face, like Facebook is literally deprecating. 

[00:25:55] Todd: Like Cappy and a lot of the DTC attribution come January. Like you [00:26:00] go look at call it the ad buying Twitter world. Holy crap. Are those people freaking out about the lack of attribution showing up in January? That'd be a good follow up topic for us to chat about. And I'm like, how Apple doesn't solve that 

[00:26:12] Joe Dressler: All of that. 

[00:26:13] Todd: or form. 

[00:26:13] Todd: So fascinated to understand like outside of app downloads, how does that business scale in a world where Facebook can or medic can't figure something out as 

[00:26:21] Tom: I think we've used enough of Joe's time. We have to make a resolution for the podcast, but we haven't resolved the issues that are probably going to come up in January to your point, Todd. So thank you, Joe, for being on the middleman and it sounds like you might have to come back. 

[00:26:34] Joe Dressler: I would always welcome that. Todd. Great to meet you more formally, Tom. Always a pleasure to stay on stage with you. 

[00:26:40] Tom: All right. Thanks so much. 

[00:26:43]