Ep 151: Tanja Mimica of Kovva on What the Future Holds for Media Buyers

AdTechGod is joined by Tanja Mimica, Co-Founder and COO of Kovva, to discuss her journey from building and selling Martin to PubMatic to launching an AI-powered platform for media buyers. Tanja explains how Kovva automates cross-platform operational workflows, what AI could mean for junior media buyers, and why the future of agencies may depend on turning institutional knowledge into intelligence that compounds over time.

Takeaways:


Kovva automates operational workflows across media-buying platforms and productivity tools.

AI could shift media-buying roles toward higher-value work rather than simply eliminating them.

Kovva uses agency knowledge and playbooks to automate workflows within existing processes.

AI can help agencies retain and scale institutional knowledge across teams.

The future may be a “compounding agency” where organizational intelligence improves with every workflow.


Chapters:00:00 Introduction01:09 Tanja’s Journey Into Ad Tech02:07 Building Martin and a New DSP03:37 The Road to PubMatic04:23 From PubMatic to Founding Kovva05:49 Building a Company With Your Co-Founder and Spouse07:19 Why Tanja Built Kovva08:14 How Kovva Automates Media Buying Workflows10:00 Where Kovva Fits Into the Media Buying Process11:01 Playbooks and Agency Knowledge12:29 Will AI Replace Media Buyers?14:19 How Agency Roles Could Change16:12 The AI Adoption Gap18:21 Using AI to Train Junior Media Buyers19:46 Kovva as an Orchestration Layer21:57 What’s Next for Programmatic Advertising22:18 AI and the Future of Agency Operations24:18 Building the “Compounding Agency”25:34 Closing Thoughts
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