AdExchanger.com

Analysts Thinking $10 Billion In Display Revs For Google; Mobclix Enabling Geo And Brands; VAST Gets Traction With Brightcove, EyeWonder; Google Toe In DOOH

Here's today's AdExchanger.com news round-up... Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Google Display Starting To Pump

In a BusinessWeek article by Douglas Macmillan, Doug Anmuth of Barclay's Capital tells BW, "Display ads are likely to contribute a little more than $1 billion, or about 4% of Google's (GOOG) total sales this year—an increase of as much 40% over last year." Blimey! Now analysts are starting to wonder when Google will hit $10 Billion in display. Read about the numbers.

Mobclix Enabling Geo And Brands

With Apple mandating that iPhone app developers remove the ability to use the phone's location-based services, Mobclix is now offering another way in. By using Nielsen PRIZM and ConneXions on the Mobclix ad exchange, marketers can now target audience right to the zip code level and sync with their online (PC browser-based) audience targeting according to the company. Read the release. In that Nielsen PRIZM helps brand marketers target offline, too, (see discussion on Datalogix deal with Nielsen in November), the case for enabling digital buying for brand marketers accustomed to traditional channels could be made, too (iPhone).

iPhone LBS Edict Not So Bad

Greg Yardley suggests on his blog that all the hub-bub around Apple shutting down the use of the iPhone's location-based services is much-ado about nothing as he writes, "No user should be asked to share their location without any visible benefit to them in the app – it wastes the user’s time and it gets the tinfoil hat crowd wondering what exactly sharing that location was for." Read about the tinfoil and more here.

Brightcove, EyeWonder Jump In-Stream

Eyewonder announced that it has partnered with Brightcove to provide in-stream advertising solutions. What does this mean? Specifically, EyeWonder said in a release, "By incorporating the IAB VAST-compliant, open-source UIF into the Brightcove platform, organizations will be able to serve any EyeWonder in-stream video ads, including fully interactive linear and non-linear formats." More standardization, improved scale for in-stream video ads is the goal here. Read the release (PDF).

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Ad Exchange News | No Comments »

Who Owns The Data?

"Data-Driven Thinking" is a column written by members of the media community and containing fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Today's column is written by Scott Portugal, CRO at TRAFFIQ.

Audience targeting has come a long way, baby. In the last 5 years, we've evolved from simple intra-site and intra-network retargeting to advanced, algorithmically-driven audience targeting across the web with multi-variant data sources. Customized segmentation is available across an ever-growing list of data suppliers, and audiences can be analyzed & targeted based on buying history, content engagement, offline data sources, social media engagement, etc. It's a Chinese-menu of demography, psychography, and implied attributes that is simultaneously exciting and dangerous.

Much of the dialogue around data today is focused around appropriate best practices; providing clear disclosure of data utilization, easy opt-out paths, consumer awareness campaigns, and more. The consumer will be empowered with greater and greater controls to determine what data is used by whom. If we operate from the principle that in the near future a détente will be reached between digital marketing professionals and consumers (including data privacy lobbyists), there will still be a great unanswered question: who owns the data?

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Data-Driven Thinking | 1 Comment »

Getting Active With The Social Graph

"Social Exchange" is a column focused on the evolving roles of social media in online advertising.

Today's column is written by Andrew Pancer, Chief Operating Officer of Media6Degrees.

The rise of social tools has given the publishing industry an opportunity to leverage connections to increase traffic and time spent with their core audience, while attracting new readers based on their core audience’s social graph.

Just about every major publisher I can think of has enabled social applications on their sites. Some of the more popular are: Facebook, Twitter, AddThis, StumbleUpon and Digg. Enabling the audience to share, tweet and post content to their newsfeed is an excellent strategy, and one I have encouraged in the past. But most sites stop there, failing to unlock the full potential of the social graph.

Instead of simply placing icons on their website in the hopes that readers will distribute their content, publishers should actively push content and messaging to their readers and their readers’ social graph, both on their web sites and throughout social media. Using Twitter and Facebook Connect, publishers can share with readers what their friends are reading and what they are saying about the content.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Social Exchange | No Comments »

Display Ads Are Back!; Microsoft Display Ads Takes Facebook Punch; Broadcast Execs See More Video Ads Online

Here's today's AdExchanger.com news round-up... Want it by email? Sign-up here.

The Display Comeback

Brian Morrissey pens "Display Ads Aim for a Banner Year" on AdWeek and says, "Banner ads, nearly given up for dead, are showing new life thanks to developments in the display ad business that could close the gap between ad spending on search and display ads." In the article, Morrissey quotes sources from last week's conference sponsored by AdMeld - which he identifies as an "exchange." Hmmm... has AdMeld's business model officially changed? No, says an AdMeld spokesperson, "Though we're referred to as both an 'exchange' and a 'yield optimizer' at different points in the piece, we see ourselves as the latter, and more specifically as a publisher yield optimizer." Read more.

Another Blow To Display At Microsoft

ClickZ's Zach Rodgers writes that the display ad marriage between Facebook and Microsoft Advertising has hit the fan. Facebook will now do its own thing and represent and deliver its inventory directly. In addition, it looks like standard IAB ads may be over on Facebook as the company said they prefer "formats that feature social actions [which] perform better and provide a better user experience since they are more consistent with the look and feel of Facebook." Read more. Microsoft's display "loss" is no surprise in that it was previously reported by Bloomberg in January that Microsoft was already starting to see their Facebook relationship deteriorate. Visit the time machine here. (Is Atlas still relevant?) Consequently perhaps, there's a big "now hiring" sign out in the Careers section of Facebook's corp website.

On Yahoo! And Newspapers

Jennifer Saba of Editor & Publisher looks at Monster's acquisition of HotJobs and Yahoo!'s loss of access to 200 newspapers. According to Saba, a group of newspapers enjoy APT platform services and recruitment services, while other newspapers - such as the 200 in the deal - receive recruitment-only services with ad services if they want it (optional!). Read more.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Ad Exchange News | No Comments »

Not Every Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Is Created Equal: What Is A True DSP?

"Data Driven Thinking" is a column written by members of the media community and containing fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Today's column is written by Nat Turner, CEO, at Invite Media.

If you asked a group of people in the display industry to pick the biggest theme for display in 2010, I would be surprised if it wasn't the concept of real-time bidding and the advent of the so-called "demand-side platform" (DSP).  It seems that there's a new "DSP" launching every week these days, each with its own twist or differentiation.  Over the last several years, I've met or spoken with a number of agencies and marketers on the topic.

The good news is that many of these buyers have started to realize the massive potential impact that a DSP technology can bring to the table.  The bad news, however, is that their decision-making process for figuring out what this all means has become extremely muddled and complex (and is only getting worse).  What I've realized is that very few people really know what a "true DSP" is or how to evaluate one (and to no fault of their own), or even how to tell one DSP apart from another.  Any company can claim anything on their website; any company can build a nice PowerPoint deck or tell a great story about real-time bidding or rocket science optimization.  At the end of the day, what really matters is that the agency makes the right decision for their client(s) and chooses a well-evaluated and thoughtful path in order to take advantage of this tectonic shift happening in the industry.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Data-Driven Thinking | 8 Comments »

Resonate Networks CEO Gernert On Attitudinal Targeting

Resonate Networks announced that it has launched attitudinal targeting in a release on Wednesday.

AdExchanger.com discussed the new targeting capabilities with Resonate Networks' CEO Bryan Gernert.

AdExchanger.com: Given the rich sources of social data available today, how important is social media to creating Resonate's dataset? Or, is it important?

BG: While social data is important for advertisers in terms of ensuring your brand, service or product is involved in the real-time conversations within social media channels, attitudes, values and beliefs are at the core of consumers' actions, brand affinities, purchase behavior and media consumption. That said, data on audiences' attitudes is invaluable to marketers and outweighs social information. Advertisers who leverage attitudinal data are able to connect with audiences on a deeper, more enduring level.

Considering your familiarity with your attitudinal targeting product, it might make sense for Resonate to develop its own media business, where it buys on behalf of clients? Any plans in this area?

Resonate's Attitudinal Targeting does include placing the media buys. Here's how it works, clients come to us with their campaign goals and target audience, we work with them to identify additional audiences that deliver on their strategy based on our research and data. We then use our proprietary Quality Visitation Indices(tm) to identify the best online properties to deliver the highest concentration of the desired target audience. Once the media plan is in place we work directly with these sites to deliver our clients advertising to highly targeted audiences through the most precise online media. Essentially we connect advertisers to consumers with a precision not otherwise possible.

What about the shelf life of attitudinal data? How long does it work? And how "real-time" is your attitudinal targeting?

Actually attitudinal data doesn't have a short shelf life because consumers' values remain relatively consistent. Traditional targeting and data don't allow for advertisers to understand audiences in the same profound manner that attitudinal targeting and data allow. People's attitudes do change over time but at a much slower pace than their purchase & search behavior. With each wave or our continual research we add new, valuable data so we not only know why consumers make decisions but our data and methodology enable us to identify trends and shifts in audience attitudes over time. Think about it this way, Contextual targeting is based mostly on intuition (i.e. people who frequently visit SierraClub.com are environmentalists), while Behavioral Targeting is based upon assumptions (if Joe Smith searches for a camera and/or is on an electronics site he is interested in buying a camera). These types of targeting have their place and value, however knowing why people make decisions and tapping into audiences that identify with brands based on attitudes, orientations and beliefs - key elements that shape purchase behavior and brand relationship - position advertisers to develop long-term, successful connections with desired audiences. Research is at the heart of what we do but we're not a research company, we connect advertisers with highly targeted audiences to deliver the most effective campaigns.

By John Ebbert

Share It!

Posted in Platforms | 1 Comment »

AdExchanger: Crisis In Ad City (Part I)

A new, (somewhat) weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem...

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Comic Strip | 3 Comments »

The Video Ad Selector Is Here; When In Doubt, Rebrand Says Comcast; Akamai Reports Earnings, Acerno Results

Here's today's AdExchanger.com news round-up... Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Choose Your Weapon

The Wall Street Journal's Suzanne Vranica takes a look at recent efforts by a combo of Publicis Groupe, Microsoft, Yahoo, CBS and Hulu that is trying to find a more effective way to advertise through online video. The answer? Let the consumer choose what ad they want to see. Vranica notes, "Tests found that 'ad selector,' a format that lets online-video watchers pick one of three companies' ads to watch, outscored other ad formats." Read more.

When In Doubt, Rebrand

Comcast announced that it was rebranding itself as Xfinity which and offer the same internet, phone and TV services but with the new name, which company officials likely hope makes the customer forget about lost connections and internet outages. Thus far, feedback on the new name has been swift - Seattle Post Intelligencer says results from an informal survey say the name is reminiscent of a gaming console. Read it. And, read Comcast's blog.

AdMeld Real-Time Conference

A standing-room crowd enjoyed nearly a full-day of panels and presentations around real-time bidding and current innovation in the digital ad world. The space seems to appreciably grow in months not years. Among the nuggets from the event was report put together by Forrester and funded by AdMeld called "Media Buying Goes Real Time." Download it here (PDF - requires sign-up).

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Ad Exchange News | No Comments »

The Cycle of Innovation for Digital Advertising

Michael Walrath is the former CEO of Yahoo!'s Right Media.

I believe that there is a cycle of innovation at work in digital advertising.  Where we are in the cycle at any given time depends on many factors, including the economy, availability of capital, supply and demand imbalances, M&A appetite, etc.

Let’s take a look at the cycle.  We’ve got to start somewhere, so let’s start with an ad recession.

Recessions and Innovation

I think we can mostly agree that recessions suck, yet they also set the stage for periods of great innovation.  How?

Recessions cause growth to slow, revenues to suffer and some really lackluster financial performance.  This is especially difficult for the large public companies that have to talk about how badly things are going…all the time. 

During downturns, these companies naturally reduce their investments and ambitions to bolster financial performance, creating a vacuum of unmet market needs.   Entrepreneurs see an opportunity to serve these needs and talented people shake loose from established players.  Capital is harder to come by, so only the best ideas and teams tend to get funding during these times.  It’s counter-intuitive, but I believe that history shows that the best companies often start during difficult markets.  These companies are forced to show more focus, discipline and flexibility than over-capitalized companies founded during strong markets.  The business models of recession vintages are often built on worst-case scenario assumptions.  Once the recovery starts, their fundamentals can and do improve.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Considering Digital | 5 Comments »

AOL Reports For The First Time; Bright Roll Gets $10 Million; Widgetbucks Is Dead

Here's today's AdExchanger.com news round-up... Want it by email? Sign-up here.

AOL Reports For The First Time

AOL reported its 4th quarter 2009 earnings and among the takeways, "Domestic display revenue grew year-over-year for the first time in 8 quarters." Get the Investor Relations Presentation (PDF) here. ClickZ's Christopher Heine looks deeper into the earnings report and reports that AOL beat the street's expectations as the company "reported a profit of $1.4 million, compared to a $1.96 billion loss for the same 2008 period." Earnings release here (PDF).

BrightRoll Gets $10 Million

BrightRoll has rung the register and received $10 million in funding led by Scale Venture Partners. According to VentureBeat's Paul Boutin, the company will use the funds to "expand its technology platform and beef up worldwide advertiser and publisher operations." Boutin notes that Brightroll CEO Tod Sacerdoti says his company has been profitable for the past 12 months as video gains momentum online. Read more.

Private Companies Have Earnings Calls

We've noted recent press releases from private, ad tech companies regarding their earnings and/or revenue momentum.  Now, The Wall Street Journal Venture Dispatch blog reports that private companies are even having earnings conference calls as companies see it as a way to build their brand and show their alternative solution to larger companies.  Read more.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Ad Exchange News | No Comments »

Eyeblaster Research Shows Audience Buying Habits Says Geifman

Recent Eyeblaster research led by Ariel Gelfman looked at conversions from more than 10 billion impressions and showed that their are correlations between online and offline buying habits. Read the release.

Geifman discussed the research with AdExchanger.com.

AdExchanger.com: In the release about your eCommerce report you say, "This research also highlights the unique potential of addressable advertising in making digital channels even more effective conversion producers." Can you drill down a bit here? What is the link you see in the research to audience buying in digital?

AG: Digital affords the ability to uniquely target users unlike other channels such as traditional out of home and even TV. The research points out that online advertising drives high conversions in tandem with spikes in offline retail figures.  Audience buying can become an invaluable tool for advertisers.  If advertisers can reach consumers via online display while in the midst of the buying decision, they can persuade them to buy their product and not the competitor’s.  With addressable advertising becoming more widely adopted by marketers, users experience more relevant advertising and this is expected to increase online conversions and grow digital display as a direct response medium. The ability to target the right audience and eliminate wasted impressions will improve ROI and increase user response online. Ultimately, this will drive sales and activity on E-commerce sites.

Any thoughts as to why your research showed conversions reaching their all time high on the Monday following Christmas?  What might be the consumer's thought process?

Read the rest of this entry »

Share It!

Posted in Research | No Comments »