Chris O'Hara

About Chris O'Hara

Chris O’Hara is Bionic's Co-Founder and was Chief Revenue Officer at the time he wrote these articles. Chris is an ad technology platform enthusiast focused on enabling programmatic direct reserved media buying. Chris has held leadership roles at Salesforce, Krux Digital, Looksmart, TRAFFIQ, Reviewed.com, MediaBistro, and Nielsen. Chris is a member of American Business Media’s speaker’s bureau, the IAB’s Networks and Exchanges and Sales Executive Committees, and a contributor to industry publications including Business Insider, eMarketing & Commerce, Econsultancy, AdMonsters, MediaPost, The Agency Post, Adotas, ClickZ, iMediaConnection, DigiDay, and AdWeek. In addition, Chris has published extensive research on the ad technology space, focusing on platforms and technology solutions that drive digital advertising. His recent publications include “The Role of the Agency in Data Management" (Econsultancy, June 2016), Data Driven: Harnessing Data and AI to Reinvent Customer Engagement (McGraw Hill, July 2018), and Customer Data Platforms (Wiley, October 2020). Chris is currently Head of Global Product Marketing and Solutions, Customer Data Solutions at SAP.
25 Sep 2014

Fraud and the Programmatic Direct Pivot

By |2023-03-04T14:59:40-05:00September 25th, 2014|Categories: Thoughts|Tags: , |

There has been a lot of talk about the pervasive amount of click fraud and bot traffic happening in digital. Marketers are reportedly spending anywhere from 30% to 70% of their digital budgets on fake impressions and clicks, and an entire cottage industry is cropping up to help marketers combat [...]

30 Jul 2014

Do Digital Media Agencies Have a Plan?

By |2023-03-04T14:56:01-05:00July 30th, 2014|Categories: Thoughts|Tags: , , , , , , |

Digital agencies used to get paid for unpacking an incredibly complicated digital landscape for marketers. Faced with all kinds of new marketing opportunities, advertisers turned to savvy digital agencies to figure out where to spend their money, and how much of it to dedicate to display, mobile and social channels. [...]

15 Apr 2014

Know These 5 AdTech Memes for 2014

By |2023-03-04T14:48:01-05:00April 15th, 2014|Categories: Thoughts|Tags: , , , , |

Well, at least it’s not the “year of mobile” again. Or, maybe it is. After several days of media investment banking conferences (Gridley and JEGI), I can reliably report that 2014 will be “the year” of many uber-trends ,some of which will enrich the M&A bankers who have a focus [...]

30 Mar 2014

The Battle for Workflow Automation

By |2023-03-04T14:59:40-05:00March 30th, 2014|Categories: Bionic for Ad Sales News, Bionic for Agencies News|Tags: , , , , , |

Even though programmatic RTB has seen the lion’s share of venture capital funding and an enormous amount of innovation, RTB buying only accounts for 20%-30% of all digital media dollars. The real money still flows through the direct buying process, with agencies spending up to 400 hours and $50,000 to [...]

18 Mar 2014

The Four Keys to Programmatic Direct Success

By |2023-03-04T14:48:01-05:00March 18th, 2014|Categories: Bionic for Ad Sales News, Learn to Media Plan|Tags: , , , , |

I was recently talking to the Chief Digital Officer of a large agency that does a lot of digital media buying. He has been working closely with a number of software providers to standardize his operations on a media management system. Getting all his vendor information, order management, and billing [...]

4 Jan 2014

The Transactional RFP Business is Dying

By |2023-03-04T14:59:40-05:00January 4th, 2014|Categories: Bionic for Ad Sales News|Tags: , , , |

“80 percent of the publishers getting an RFP don’t even stand a chance.” – Doug Weaver, Upstream Group Direct mail is an amazing thing. It costs something like $750 CPM to put a glossy catalogue in the mail, but somehow direct marketers make those numbers work. Mailing lists are constantly [...]

13 Dec 2013

The Nuts and Bolts of Programmatic Direct

By |2023-03-04T14:48:01-05:00December 13th, 2013|Categories: Learn to Media Plan, Thoughts|Tags: , , , |

An interview with Econsultancy’s Monica Savut and Bionic's Chris O'Hara, on his recently published programmatic direct whitepaper. Econsultancy: Why now? In other words, why has this “programmatic direct” trend been on the radar lately? What’s driving all of the conversation the space? Chris O’Hara: It’s really something my boss Joe Pych calls [...]

4 Dec 2013

Programmatic Direct is in the Top of the Second Inning

By |2023-03-04T14:48:01-05:00December 4th, 2013|Categories: Bionic for Agencies News|Tags: , , |

Lately, I have been working on a whitepaper about the “programmatic direct” phenomenon. Part of the research involved surveying a bunch of influential people in the space, and asking them where they thought this new buying methodology was in terms of adoption. Their answers kind of surprised me. If “programmatic [...]

20 Nov 2013

Directory of Digital Advertising Races Past 10,000 Premium Listings

By |2023-03-04T14:05:33-05:00November 20th, 2013|Categories: Bionic for Ad Sales News, Bionic for Agencies News, News|Tags: |

The Bionic Directory has reached a new milestone: more than 10,000 digital advertising programs are now listed. What's become known as the "Rodeo Drive of digital advertising," this Directory includes detailed information about premium digital advertising programs from the best publishers. The listings in the directory - known as "data [...]