Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
PubMatic Hires
Peter Kafka of All Things D reports that Andrew Rutledge, who had been in charge of publisher sales for DoubleClick for the past year, has moved to yield optimizer, PubMatic, and assumed a similar role. (Read the release.) Josh Wetzel from eBay and Shopping.com also joined the PubMatic team as Vice President of Publisher Services.
In an interview with AdExchanger.com, Rutledge stated that he was drawn to PubMatic for a few reasons including its focus on premium publishers, technology and client feedback, and the opportunity ahead given his belief in the PubMatic product roadmap.
Rutledge adds that one of the key differences between his new role at PubMatic and his previous role at DoubleClick is that “DoubleClick’s value proposition and pricing model was primarily CPM driven. I really like PubMatic’s focus on the 2nd channel (non-guaranteed inventory), which is primarily driven by performance advertisers and ad networks who buy in different ways.”
Brand.net Expanding
Elizabeth Blair’s (AdExchanger.com Q&A) Brand.net is growing. In a press release, continued strength in CPG is providing momentum as Blair says, “Our average order continues to exceed $100,000, and the majority of our revenue continues to be repeat purchases by the top 100 U.S. advertisers.” Brand.net’s premium pitch appears to be working. To spread the word – and drive business – the Company added sales executives from Yahoo!, AOL and Time Warner as well as opened a Dallas office.
Search Spend Up
Mike Shields of Mediaweek references a new report from Performics which says that search spend was up in July. This is the first upward momentum seen all year according to Performics. Read the article.
Spanfeller Manifesto: There Is No Remnant
Jim Spanfeller (AdExchanger Q&A), CEO of Forbes.com, takes publishers to task for selling out, so to speak, and liquidating so-called “remnant” inventory at rock bottom prices which in turn kills their bottom line and business model. Whether you agree or not, this article on PaidContent.org is a useful reference as the argument against the use of ad networks by large publishers.
Sean Finnegan Addresses Media
On iMedia Connection, Gretchen Hyman interviews Starcom MediaVest Group President and CDO, Sean Finnegan, who echoes agency-wide sentiment that addressable media through digital is the future whether online, print, mobile or TV. Read the entire interview.
Yahoo! Builds Display For Arab World
Yahoo! acquired Maktoob.com, the “world’s largest” online community focused on the Arab world with 16 million unique users from the Arab world – Yahoo! has 20 million uniques from the same audience. Rafat Ali of PaidContent.org says the acquisition price is rumored to be in the $75 million – $80 million range. According to Maktoob.com, “The acquisition will allow Yahoo! to offer Arabic-language content for the first time as well as Arabic versions of its products and services, such as instant messaging and email.”
Patients As Data
In “Research Trove: Patients’ Online Data,” The New York Times’ Sarah Arnquist looks at ways in which patient data is being aggregated to assist in medical research. Not an advertising article per se, but it’s fascinating how researchers are using exactly the same methods that we hear about in advertising such as “lookalikes” to find target audience – or patients in this case – with the formation of websites such as PatientsLikeMe and 23andMe.
The Agency-CPA Network Relationship
Hollis Thomases reviews how media agencies and CPA networks are able to get along and what can be done to improve the relationship in her article on ClickZ. Thomases concludes that CPA nets formidable reach is something needed by the marketplace – a common argument made by many ad networks. The reality is that if agencies are unable to harness demand-side buying platforms and effect successful client campaigns, they will most certainly continue to use ad networks. Read more.
Seed Capital Vs. Series A
Venture capital firms are starting to unleash their pocketbooks, yet still remain wary of any large new investment according to Caine Moss of VentureBeat. Moss suggests that VC are turning to seeding company with smaller, sub-$1 million investments as opposed to multi-million dollar “all-in” investments. Read more.
We View, We Click, We Dwell
Emarketer has re-purposed a recent Eyeblaster study that explores the value of rich media ads beyond the click. In the study, uses “dwell time” as a defining metric which covers “spending time with [the ad], including mouse-overs, user-initiated video duration, user-initiated expansion duration and other user-initiated custom interaction durations.” With more activity/interactivity in a rich media expandable ad, for example, the “dwell time” significantly increases according to the study. Read more.
Need A Charge?
Daily DOOH has a photo of a new out-home-of home kiosk whose sole purpose is to charge your phone or favorite music player.
Brand Safety, Right This Way
Writers on the Right Media blog is looking to steer its exchange into a brand-safe world with RM’s Marketplace Select program and is encouraging publishers to sign up. By offering transparency regarding publisher URLs as well as a vetting process, it is hoped that more advertisers will be willing to spend on the exchange. Read more.
PointRoll Getting Smarter
PointRoll announced in a release that it is partnering with Yahoo!’s behavioral targeting solution, Smart Ads, in order to infuse its rich media advertising technology with the latest and greatest in targeting from Yahoo!
Ad Network Chitika Finds Google Love
Today’s data nugget comes from the blog of ad network, Chitika, which “compared the OS and search engine data for 163,211,927 searches – a sample of the Chitika network’s search data from July 30th through August 16th.” Linux OS users overwhelmingly use Google search to the tune of 94%. Read more. Looking at AdExchanger.com’s stats, regardless of the OS, 92% of users who visit from searches come from Google.
