Interviews

Martech Interview with Steve Yi, co-founder & CEO, MediaAlpha

Steve Yi, talks about programmatic platform for performance marketers and increase operational efficiency for start-ups.

We knew that if we could build a transparent platform that allowed these insurance carriers to target their best prospects, the biggest names in insurance would want to work with us

1. Tell us about your role in MediaAlpha?
I’m the co-founder and chief executive officer of the company. My role is the sort of stuff you’d expect from a CEO: clarifying the vision, shaping the organization, reinforcing our culture, and so on. Some of my responsibilities have changed in recent months, following our successful IPO in late October.

2. Can you tell us about your journey into this market?
We started out working in the auto insurance vertical when online customer acquisition in the space was primarily the domain of black box networks that didn’t give carriers the transparency or granular control they needed to optimize their performance.
Basically, if you were a carrier, you typically purchased access to pools of indistinguishable consumers and paid the same price for each click—regardless of the consumer’s risk profile or likelihood to purchase a policy. From this grab bag would emerge profitable customers … and less profitable ones, but you only figured this out after the fact.

We knew that if we could build a transparent platform that allowed these insurance carriers to target their best prospects, the biggest names in insurance would want to work with us.

It turned out we were right. Today, we have deeply integrated partnerships with the country’s top property and casualty insurance carriers, and we’ve also expanded into the travel, health, and life insurance verticals.

3. How has a data-driven approach enhanced marketing strategies?
The data-driven approach has totally transformed the way marketers identify and reach their target customers. And for all the progress that has occurred over the past decade, data-driven marketing is only becoming more advanced, more precise, and more effective.
Today, the marketers and publishers who use our platform are going beyond the precise targeting tools they’ve used for years to delve into the world of predictive analytics. By applying advanced data science, our customers are able to predict how much each individual consumer will be worth to them, which enables them to buy or sell access to them at the most strategic price.

4. How does your platform provide full CPC control and how does that help marketers?
The MediaAlpha platform gives marketers the transparency and control they need to optimize their customer acquisition performance.
For starters, we give marketers full insight into the publishers they’re buying inventory from, as well as the referral source (e.g. social media, paid search) for each user. With this information, marketers can use our precise targeting features and granular bidding tools to identify their most likely customers and offer the right price for every click, call, or lead. And due to our in-depth reporting tools, every media buy gives marketers more information that they can use to further refine their buying strategy.

5. How does your programmatic platform help performance marketers?
Our platform is designed to help performance marketers maximize the value of every customer interaction. In addition to the transparency and control I mentioned, MediaAlpha helps insurance advertisers connect with high-intent, in-market shoppers, just as they’re getting ready to make a purchase.
The inventory on our marketplace is sourced from owned-and-operated and third-party sites that specialize in helping consumers find and choose the right insurance product for them. For instance, a consumer might log into an auto insurance shopping site like QuoteLab.com and input information about their car, household, and driving history. Our advertisers are then able to offer the consumer a quote, based on the information they provided moments earlier.

6. How does MediaAlpha improve operational efficiency for advertisers?
MediaAlpha is the industry’s best platform for acquiring new customers with efficiency and scale. Our transparency allows advertisers to identify their most likely customers, and our granular bidding options empower them to acquire those customers profitably. Together, these qualities help insurance advertisers optimize for key performance metrics like return on ad spend and lifetime value-to-customer acquisition costs.
We also pride ourselves on our user-friendly platform and the close partnerships we form with our customers. Because the platform is easy to use, our clients can adjust their targeting and bidding parameters themselves. Our team provides consistent guidance and data-driven recommendations that help advertisers achieve the best possible results on our platform.

7. What advice would you like to give to the technology startups?
Trust the math. I think many startups make the mistake of trying to spin their results or pretend they’re bigger or more effective than they really are, particularly when they’re first starting out. But we’ve always held the view that we’re in a results-based business, and the math always catches up to you. That’s why we’ve prioritized being honest and transparent with our customers, even when we face challenges.

8. How do you prepare for an AI-centric world?
One thing we’re focused on is building trust with our clients. As we develop and adopt more sophisticated technology, we’re very proactive about helping our clients understand how things work and how they can use these new advancements to drive their businesses forward. As our clients see the benefits of machine learning and artificial intelligence, they learn to have confidence in the predictions and decisions our algorithms make. That trust is going to go a long way as the technology continues to become more complex.
We also prepare by staying on top of the latest technology and evolving our platform as new opportunities present themselves. We’re focused on doing the small things right, which engenders the client trust we need to go big when the time comes.

9. What are the major developments you’re working on?
We just recently launched our  HYPERLINK “https://mediaalpha.com/article/property-casualty-agents-have-a-new-source-of-high-quality-leads/”

MediaAlpha HYPERLINK “https://mediaalpha.com/article/property-casualty-agents-have-a-new-source-of-high-quality-leads/” for Agents platform, which allows auto insurance agents to reach consumers who’ve been shopping for a policy (these consumers are also known as “leads”). Our Agent platform aims to give insurance agents the same transparency, precision, and control that we’ve given our insurance carrier partners for years. We’re working on some innovations for the platform that we hope will really transform the way agents buy leads online.

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Steve Yi is the co-founder and CEO of MediaAlpha, the leading provider of marketplace solutions for vertical media.
MediaAlpha’s technology creates efficient, transparent marketplaces for the programmatic buying and selling of vertical search media. The company is projected to enable more than $700 million in advertising transactions across the insurance, travel, education, and personal finance verticals in 2020.
Steve has worked in the internet advertising industry for the last 20 years, after starting his career as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs and a management consultant with Oliver Wyman.


MediaAlpha was founded on a simple premise: Be transparent and people will reward you with their trust. We give partners an unprecedented level of insight into the consumers they want to reach. This allows them to target more effectively, invest more efficiently, and grow their businesses more profitably. Our technology platform provides the transparency needed to maximize the value of every interaction.

https://mediaalpha.com/

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