Podcast: Solving For ‘Who Got Paid What’

AdExchanger Talks is a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. This episode of AdExchanger Talks is supported by Exponential.

This week’s podcast guest, Amino Payments CEO Will Luttrell, will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming PROGRAMMATIC I/O New York conference on Oct. 15-16. He will present alongside Nestle on “How To Use Blockchain To Keep Your Supply Chain Clean.”

A lack of transparency in the supply chain has exacerbated problems such as fraud, fee inflation and an overall crisis of trust. Will Luttrell hopes to solve them by channeling all supply-chain payments from the advertiser straight to each partner: agency, publisher, supply-side platforms, demand-side platforms and so on.

“We’re interested in the supply-chain provenance and the smart contracting features of the blockchain,” Luttrell says in the latest episode of AdExchanger Talks. “Imagine giving a big advertiser like AT&T a view of the path of their ad on the way to Business Insider and how much money was taken out at every step, and then paying out to that supply chain.”

The most impressive thing about Amino is that it’s live in-market, which is more than can be said for many blockchain startups. About $1 million a week in ad spend is now tracked via its Lens reporting product.

Unsurprisingly, some partners are less than enthusiastic about a technology that imposes cost transparency, but Luttrell claims there are fewer haters than he anticipated.

“We have some large agency stakeholders that are very pro-Amino,” he insists. “The smarter and more progressive agency folks who have the best interest of their clients in mind feel this is a new opportunity to bring a transformational technology to their brand buyers.”

Having all a brand’s suppliers process their payments through one system may seem like a simple – even boring? – idea. But Luttrell talks like a revolutionary.

“The transformative power of what we’re doing comes when we’re moving the money, when we’re doing a single pull from a brand or buying agency and then paying everyone simultaneously according to their cut,” he says. “In that world there’s no room for the shenanigans that we’re seeing today.”