The ‘Ad Exchange News’ Category
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Yahoo! And Right Media On RTB
Given all the hubbub created by the articles in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and included AppNexus, Google and others, Yahoo! has responded with its real-time bidding thoughts via VP/GM Bill Wise who writes, "Right Media was the first marketplace to offer real-time bidding (RTB) in our own marketplace over five years ago (see the story we posted on this last year). We have been testing a new kind of RTB for over the last six months." Read it.
Rubicon Project On RTB
From its blog, Rubicon Project notes the recent mainstream media articles on real-time bidding and says, "We are deeply concerned about the true impact of this buzz-worthy new technology on the value of inventory for publishers. RTB is attention-grabbing, indeed – but it’s not necessarily all good news for publishers of digital content." Read more.
DSP Kool-Aid In Lisbon
According to New Media Age, Mediasmith CEO David Smith spoke at I-COM in Lisbon last week and "said the industry is moving to the 'holy grail of targeting,' with targeting becoming more specific because agencies are taking the technology in-house through their own DSPs." Drink the DSP Kool-aid.
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RTB, AppNexus, Ebay In NY Times
It's official. Real-time bidding is here as the digital media buying phenomenon is featured in an article by reporter Stephanie Clifford of The New York Times who says, "In the real-time process, billboard space would be auctioned off second by second, and tailored to each viewer." AppNexus CEO Brian O'Kelley and one of AppNexus' clients, Ebay are front-and-center as players in the new RTB world. Read it.
More Display, More RTB
Not to be outdone, The Wall Street Journal's Jessica Vascellaro and Emily Steel look at display's resurgence, Google's potential dominance and, of course, RTB in yet another mainstream media, feature article. OMG Digital CEO Matt Spiegel tells the WSJ, "Google has more firepower right now. I'm convinced that the other key players in the space recognize the risk." RocketFuel's Richard Frankel adds, "Google's real-time bidding is a significant advantage over Yahoo's system." Read more. (No subscription? Try here.)
Times On Murdoch Threats
New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger said at the Bloomberg BusinessWeek Media Summit that he would see Rupert Murdoch's potential decision to remove The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, among other News Corp sites, from Google's index as The NY Times' gain. MediaPost quotes Sulzberger regarding Google: "I think it's important to understand what they do, and work with them." Read more.
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Brand Effectiveness Study
On the Microsoft Advertising blog, Microsoft's Head Of Research & Market Insights EMEA Anita Caras announces new research that looks at the effectiveness of brand campaigns in digital. The whitepaper looks at 20 campaigns across 4 EMEA countries and was done in conjunction with ComScore and Eyeblaster. Positive outcomes of brand campaigns include "Branded search-term activity," "Visits to brand sites" and "Uplifts in numbers of engaged visitors to brand site (measured in pages consumed and time spent on the brand site)." Read the post. And, download the whitepaper.
Malware In Congress
CNET's Elinor Mills reports that WhitePages.com has halted the delivery of ad network campaigns that were suspected of delivering malware on its site. Incredibly, the people who discovered the malware attack may have been related to the United States Senate as a Senate rep said that Senate computers had been infected by malware from WhitePages.com and the Drudge Report the day before. They're reading the Drudge Report in the halls of Congress? You gotta be kidding me. Nope.
Specific Media Travel
On website Travolution, Ian Dowds, UK VP of Revenue at Specific Media, discussed momentum for the online ad network in the travel space. Business doubled in January compared to the year ago period and Dowds told Travolution that "two of his top five clients in 2009 were in travel, and that 22 travel clients booked 30 campaigns in January 2010 – up from just 11 clients in the same month in 2009." Read more.
Rubicon Project To Fill AOL Europe Gaps
Daniel Farey-Jones of Mediaweek UK says that Rubicon Project has been asked to take over AOL inventory in Europe for "all countries where AOL has had a network-only sales policy." These countries include Spain, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands . Read more.
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TRAFFIQ announced a partnership with Transworld Advertising Agency Network (TAAN), a network of independent advertising agencies in 40+ markets worldwide. According to the press release, "TRAFFIQ will be the digital media platform TAAN recommends to its member agencies." Read it.
TRAFFIQ CEO Mark Kahn discussed the TAAN partnership, agency holding companies and client momentum.
AdExchanger.com: How are you solving the services needs for TAAN members -- and other clients for that matter? For example, it would seem that with TAAN's member agencies all over the world, it could be a particular challenge for TRAFFIQ and the agencies?
MK: TAAN and its member agencies face the same challenges as our other clients: the need to maximize scale and efficiency, but to also exercise total media control with as much transparency as possible. In the ever-changing digital ecosystem, buyers face a set of challenges that require specific tools built for their needs. Legacy marketing systems are being retrofit to adapt to today's digital climate; TRAFFIQ is custom-built for the digital world specifically to deliver scalable, SaaS-model infrastructure to agencies looking to do more with less.
TAAN's members are mostly mid-size agencies, which is an under-served market but one that is a focus for TRAFFIQ. Unlike the large holding company shops who seem to have limitless resources, many smaller agencies don't yet have access to planning data, ad serving software, or advanced analytics. For these bandwidth-constrained agencies, TRAFFIQ can be a complete digital display solution, addressing RFP creation, distribution, ad serving, analytics, and billing and reconciliation. Ultimately, what we really provide is bandwidth. As more marketing budget moves in the digital direction, agencies must master a new discipline. Adding digital budget means adding more tools, more personnel trained in digital media and ad operations, having to spend more time on billing, etc.
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Levy Discusses Publicis Checkbook
At The Abu Dhabi Media Summit (location, location, location), Publicis CEO Maurice Levy reiterated his ad holding company's position that it is open to buying digital media companies. Levy told the media - including BusinessWeek -, "We are in a very strong cash situation and we might find a collection of small or medium-sized operations." The article suggests the company has $489 million to spend. Will it be on a DSP? Read it.
MDC Acquires The Experiential
MDC Partners announced that it had acquired a majority interest in experiential marketing firm, TEAM Enterprises, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "Experiential" marketing could include "Spectacle Events, Retail Product Demos, Mobile Touring" and more according to the release.
Experience it.
Search Business
Yahoo!'s search engine continues to die a slow painful death according to Business Insider's Jay Yarow who looks at the latest search rankings from ComScore: "Yahoo's search slipped to 16.8% in February from 17.0% in January." J.P. Morgan's Imran Khan notes the 10%+ increase in total search traffic among all engines. Get more search facts here.
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Please Be $100 Mil Or Less
The Business Insider's Nicholas Carlson reports that AOL divulged how much it can pay for any company in the ad tech space, or any other space for that matter, during the recent Credit Suisse conference in Florida. AOL CFO Artie Minson said, "our current credit agreement caps us at a $100 million deals. We're out of the Hail Mary business." Read more. For a transcript of the live blogging of the AOL presentation, click here.
Business Press Short Tech Shrift
CNET's Dave Rosenberg reports that the business press isn't giving technology companies a fair shake according to a new study by IT Database. "The report shows that Apple and Google dominate, while Twitter and Facebook are far more discussed in the business press than Intel, Dell, IBM, or even HP (the largest tech company in the world)," writes Rosenberg. Read more. And, see the study.
NY Times Hires For Digital Future
VentureBeat's Paul Boutin reports that the New York Times is hiring digital for roles such as "Creative Technologist" and that this is a sign of a commitment to a digital future. Boutin says, "The jobs, located in New York City, will focus on expanding content distribution and advertising opportunities in the gradually recovering online economy." Read more.
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Brand.net, Vizu and Nielsen announced results of a new study that combined "online attitudinal and offline purchase data measurement, allowing brands to optimize media during campaigns to increase offline sales." Read the release.
Vizu CEO Dan Beltramo discussed the study and the opportunity in display for brand marketers.
AdExchanger.com: The study was done across contextually relevant publisher websites. Is context critical for brand campaigns? For brand campaigns, what about targeting audience across sites that were not contextually relevant, for example?
DB: There are multiple ways to get at an appropriate audience for a brand campaign whether that be contextual targeting, behavioral targeting, re-targeting, etc. This campaign just happened to be conducted on contextually relevant sites which was the right thing per the advertising strategy of the campaign. The category for this product also strongly lent itself to contextually relevant placement because the target audience often approaches this type of content with an open mind looking for ideas.
How do you verify offline behavior impacted by an online campaign?
DB: There are multiple ways to verify offline behavior impacted by online campaigns, most of which involve using a panel of people who have been pre-recruited to allow certain behaviors to be monitored. Sometimes behavior can also be measured by sampling those exposed to a campaign after a period of time. In this case, Brand.net worked with Nielsen's panel to determine offline shopping behavior following the campaign and with Vizu to measure what aspects of the campaign were most effective during the course of the campaign.
Any performance metrics that you can share which show a formula for effective brand advertising online? Such as reach and frequency?
The most important thing to be doing along these lines is to be using a relevant performance metric like Brand Lift or, if you can afford it, Sales Lift, as opposed to something like Click Through Rates which are not correlated to brand building performance.
I think as soon as there was a formula for effective brand advertising, it would become obsolete due to competitive pressures. That said, the following are a few time tested principles that are supported by the data we see across 100's of campaigns:
- Don't expect your advertising to do too many things. Establish a primary objective and keep it in mind at all times.
- Make sure your advertising creative is consistent with your media plan.
- Establish a consistent, relevant measurement program and let the data speak for itself.
Do you see the need for an online GRP to move brand dollars online?
I think the concept of GRPs would be as helpful online as they are offline and might make purchasing media online easier. That said, GRP's don't really speak to effectiveness as much as they do to reach; so complete ad campaign analysis will need to incorporate some measure of persuasion as well.
By John Ebbert
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Digital Revs Rising In WPP
PaidContent's Ingrid Lunden looks at WPP Group's Q4 2009 and full-year earnings which were reported late last week. In addition to an uptick in overall revenue, WPP divulged, "New media sales accounted for 27 percent of the advertising and marketing group’s revenues, or $3.6 billion." The company says its digital revenues will reach 2/3 of total revs in three or four years. On the earnings call, the company said, "B3, the division’s proprietary trading network, will be launching a real-time bidding service on B3 in the next three to six months." Read more.
NYC Startup Tech
The New York Times' Jenna Wortham looks at the local NYC startup scene and makes the inevitable comparison to Silicon Valley. Citing a recent New York Tech Meet-Up which drew 700 tech enthusiasts, Wortham paints a picture of a vibrant tech scene that is only slowed by the occasional snowstorm. Read it.
Digital Agency Re-birth
AdWeek's Brian Morrissey says that the digital agency is making a comeback after rocketing to fame in the bubble years around 2000 - and then crashing. Razorfish CEO Bob Lord told Morrissey, "The question we're hearing is, how can digital help me change my business?" Read more.
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It's official. Following up on yesterday's announcement on the Inside AdWords blog, buying just got a bit more brand-safe for Google Certified Networks (DSPs, ad networks) on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.
A Google spokesperson said:
"For Ad Exchange buyers, when targeting ads to the Google Content Network, there is a control in the Ad Exchange interface for certified ad networks to exclude below the fold placements."
This can be critical for both brand and direct response advertisers who want to make sure their ad is seen on a web page - and another important data point in DoubleClick's real-time bidding (RTB)-enabled exchange.
CRO Ben Barokas of AdMeld, which also offers RTB-enabled, above-the-fold targeting, commented:
"The ability to separately target and value above-the-fold as well as frequency continues the path to increased transparency, and identify and pinpoint places of value."
Barokas provided insight on how frequency can affect performance in an RTB environment:
"Basically with respect to frequency, the user tends to - holding all other things equal - engage with an advertisement much more in the beginning of a session. Hence the value of a user's impressions tend to lessen over their session. Within the RTB environment, by passing frequency and visibility above the fold, advertisers can value as they see fit."
By John Ebbert
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Once again there was a strong turnout for a vendor-driven, industry event -this time courtesy of data exchange, eXelate, who produced, "Data Wars: The Publisher Strikes Back" at the Union Square W Hotel in New York City.
A panel representing a broad cross-section of industry mucky-mucks tilting towards the publisher world was ably guided by Forrester analyst Emily Riley. On the advertiser side, MediaMath's ubiquitous CEO Joe Zawadzki and Omnicom Managing Director Todd Curry represented the interests of advertisers. AdMeld CRO Ben Barokas advocated for the interests of publisher-side technology companies. IAC President Greg Stevens, United Online VP of Ops Amy Lehman and The New York Times SVP of Digital Ops Martin Nisenholtz brought varying view points from publishers.
Overall, publishers seemed stressed about the new data-driven world but, for the most part, open to solutions. In fact, United Online's Lehman stated that her company had been building solutions in-house for 2.5 years.
In the interest of potentially finding a solution to appropriately compensating publishers for their data, inventory and audience, IAC's Stevens offered to "open the kimono" on publisher data in a limited test as long the buy side agreed to do the same. From the buy side, MediaMath's Zawadzki also appeared willing to "open the kimono" and find a possible solution as audience members were left to gasp at the visualization of panelists in kimonos, etc. Nevertheless, a limited advertiser-publisher partnership is intriguing but would seem complicated as hell. Who's gonna referee? Some VC could end up funding that ref/new startup.
Arguably, the highlight of the evening came from The Times' Nisenholtz, who appears to have had enough of the data-driven world as it exists today and said the following:
"I think that there is going to be an implosion in this marketplace in an 18-month timeframe. I think that this marketplace reminds me of the financial marketplace that existed prior to the bubble bursting. There are far too many players. There are a lot of people spouting a lot of crap that nobody really understands. I don't think they even understand. I hate to say this because I've seen this 5 or 6 times during my career and it always ended in ruin. It always ends with peoples' careers unfortunately ending. I sense that we are at that place in this marketplace."
Schwing! Snap!
In response, Zawadzki pressed Nisenholtz a bit saying internet marketing hasn't gotten smaller in the recent past, why would it happen now. Nisenholtz clarified that he's just talking about the data-driven business (how's eXelate feeling at this point?).
As eXelate's thought-provoking panel illustrated, no question about it: valuing data and audience across the web remains a huge challenge as does appropriately compensating buy and sell-side players. Yes, regulation will come around data -hopefully, self-regulation. But, technology is and will continue to bring increasing efficiency and transparency to advertising, which will eventually make its way to the big tuna: Television.
It's not about putting "the genie back in the bottle." (Cliche #94622) It's about opportunity!
By John Ebbert
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RTB Tricks Exposed
Vlad Stesin (AdExchanger.com Q&A), VP of Platforms at Bloom Digital, looks at what he calls "Stupid RTB Tricks" on his Shift Market blog. Top of the list is "Browser history retargeting... Everytime you serve an impression, you check user’s browser history... In the second part of the campaign, you retarget those who have visisted your competitors’ site with a sweet call to action." Read all about it. Stesin's observations follow up Yahoo! Ramsey McGrory's RTB reservations discussed here last week.
Above The Fold On GCN
The Inside AdWords blog notes availability of a new targeting option for brand advertisers buying on the Google Content Network: "This feature, which filters out "below the fold" inventory, enables brand advertisers to be more selective about where ads appear." That's big! Advertisers can now target "above the fold" through GCN. It will be interesting to see if this feature will be provided to Certified Ad Networks (bid managers, ad networks, etc.) on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Read more.
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