The ‘Ad Networks’ Category
Skip Brand is CEO of Martini Media, an online ad network targeting "affluent" audience. Martini Media recently raised $13 million to "continue commercializing its proprietary analytics, targeting products, differentiated multimedia and social media formats." Read the release.
He shared insights about his company and the ad industry at-large in an interview with AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: What's still working about the ad network model?
SB: I'd say if you're a vertical and it's an audience like the $100k+ person at work or at play, then you exist because it's a differentiation - particularly if you look at the single share of voice and performance from a click‑through and buying standpoint, or performance from a brand-lift standpoint. It is this type of inventory that ends up being the game changer.
Does Martini Media have its own demand‑side platform? Is audience buying a part of what you do?
Well, we did launch in late Q3 what we called Martini Live. That is our private exchange. We believe there has been a lack of brand buyers on the exchange. We believe in the rising star IAB ad units like the Portrait. Companies like AOL are having a tough time offering a single share of voice with rich media ads. We believe those ads should not only be premium-sold, but in order to better vertically-scale, we believe there should be a rich media exchange for that type of inventory as well.
So, you're aggregating your network of publishers to create effectively an opportunity for other demand‑siders to buy from your network?
Correct. On the flipside, the demand coming from the advertising side - their interest is scale so it's great that we have a niche audience [at scale].
Do you also buy from exchanges?
We do some of that. But, remember that for us, it takes 1,000 sites to equal 90 million uniques - which we have. We kick out more sites than we add in. So what makes us unique as a media network is we don't just want reach. We kick them out because maybe they don't have mobile, video or they don't have rich media abilities.
If we are able to find that $100k+ audience on our own network, we can amplify it if the advertiser or the agency wants us to. That ability to amplify is to find it on other contextual sites, as well as sites where we deem you can find $100K+ audience. We call that, Got Martini. Obviously, there are affluent folks or prosumers elsewhere. If the agency or the client wants us to help find that, we're definitely able to do that either through the exchange or through amplifying, whether they are site buys or through OAS.
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Michael Katz is CEO of interclick, an online advertising technology company that was acquired yesterday by Yahoo!. Read the release.
Katz shared a few thoughts on the transaction with AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: Why sell now?
MK: This is about accelerating our roadmap. We believe in the tremendous opportunity to benefit from each other's core strengths. For us, the vision remains intact - we just plan on getting there much faster with greater resources. For Yahoo!, they get a best-in-class team and technology which has proven to be successful in today's ever-evolving, highly-fragmented ecosystem
What's your take on display, in general, right now? It seems there's a move toward creating a marketing stack if you will.
Google has done a great job at "owning the stack". They are trying to replicate what has made them so successful in search to a degree and many see that as the dominant strategy but interclick prides itself, and always has, on being innovators and that means not chasing the incumbent but maneuvering strategically as seen with platforms such as OSM and Genome.
Do you see Interclick's tech working with Right Media Exchange? Yahoo!'s network?
All of this will be unveiled in the coming months and quarters.
What are the plans for you and the rest of the interclick team? Will you stay on?
Its business as usual for us. The executives have signed on to join Yahoo! and we look forward to this incredible opportunity.
By John Ebbert
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Today, in spite of no CEO and rumors swirling that it will be acquired, Yahoo! acquired interclick, an advertising network which has focused on evolving its business to take advantage of the data-driven advertising space. Total cost of the deal is $270 million - all cash. Read the release.
Click below for a selection of industry executives and their "take" on the transaction:
- Bill Wise, CEO, MediaBank (interclick board member)
- Adam Cahil, EVP and Co-Media Director, Hill-Holliday (IPG)
- Will Margiloff, CEO, IgnitionOne (Dentsu)
- Rich Astley, MEC, Managing Partner, Digital Trading (GroupM, WPP)
- Kurt Unkel, SVP, VivaKi Nerve Center (Publicis)
Bill Wise, CEO, MediaBank (interclick board member)
"When I joined the board of directors of interclick at the end of last year, I got a lot of calls and emails from people who couldn't believe I was joining the board of an ad network. That was the time of the DSP, the data exchange, the yield players, and the video & mobile start-ups. The reason I joined was two-fold. First, I fundamentally believed the market was too small for disjointed point solutions, and interclick did it all. They went premium, have the single best data activation platform in market and was applying all their display assets towards video... At scale. Second, and most important, they have an awesome team. You won't find their team on industry panels at conferences or on any lists of top ad tech people. They are a heads down, get it done, non flashy team that provides superior solutions and results for clients. Having spent 3 years after the right media acquisition at Yahoo... I can tell you a team that executes who are not political and who does NOT get caught up in the headlines is EXACTLY what Yahoo needs. It was a great acquisition for them. I hope they have the guts to turn off the other ad networks from their class II inventory and capture that revenue for themselves."
Adam Cahil, EVP and Co-Media Director, Hill-Holliday (IPG)
"We've been working pretty closely with Interclick on their Genome data platform over the past couple of months and have been really impressed with it, as well as with their team.
Their tools are all about valuing third-party data, either discretely or in combination with specific placements, and give a really insightful view into what works and why. It's one thing to know that there are lots of people in a segment that sounds like it will make sense for a campaign, and another thing to predict the value of that specific data in terms of generating the outcome you're looking for, which is what Genome does.
I think it's a great acquisition for Yahoo! The immediate benefit is gaining a team and set of tools that give them access to conversations about data-driven digital, which hasn't been a space they've competed in recently. And over the longer term the data valuation tools will be helpful in selling Yahoo! media, because what I think will be proven is that high quality content in combination with third-party data outperforms pure audience buying. It makes sense that it would, but now they'll have the data to prove it."
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Naveen Tewari is CEO and Founder of InMobi, a mobile advertising network.
AdExchanger.com: InMobi purchased Sprout last year of course. How important is rich media to successful mobile campaigns today? Can an advertiser have a successful mobile campaign without rich media?
NT: The importance of rich media is mostly determined by the objectives of the campaign. Obviously for bigger brands with multimedia advertising strategies, the role of mobile is defined by the new dimension of interaction it brings. To fully capitalize on mobile for these types of brands, rich media is a must have for at least part of the media plan.
This realization led to our purchase of Sprout. That said - performance banners will always be critical for reach and frequency impact and will always be important to pure performance advertisers such as developers.
What is your thinking around brand "awareness" dollars and mobile? Is there such a thing or is it all about direct response for the forseeable future?
It's both for sure and it all depends on the objectives of the advertiser. Coke will want engaging rich media experiences and will pay CPM. The next Angry Birds will want performance advertising and pay CPC. Clearly, InMobi built itself as a performance network between 2008 and 2010. While performance advertising continues to grow and will always be 70% to 80% of the impression volume on any network, 2011 has seen a rapid transformation from performance to "brand engagement" advertising. Just to give you a sense of the pace of that shift, by the end of 2010, InMobi had about 50 Fortune 1000 advertisers running in the first 3 years of its existence. In just a few months in 2011, we have seen that number increase 5x to 250 and we are not even into Q4 yet.
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Yesterday, media company Federated Media announced the acquisition of Boulder, Colorado-based ad network and publisher technology company Lijit. Federated CEO Deanna Brown offered in a release, "Our combined relationships, proprietary tools and conversational marketing services will be invaluable to publishers and advertisers alike." Read it.
Lijit CEO Todd Vernon and COO Walter Knapp will become the EVP of Technology and SVP of Platform Revenue respectively at Federated, and Lijit CTO Manny Puentes will become Federated's VP of Technology. Additionally, Lijit board member Seth Levine of Foundry Group will now be part of Federated's board.
Vernon and Knapp discussed the deal with AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: What was the initial trigger for the deal on Lijit’s side?
TODD VERNON: Well, as I said in my blog post, [Federated Media] approached us at the end of Q1 with the idea of partnering, which we had talked to them about previously. It's a pretty logical deal because they're such a strong powerhouse in terms of a direct sales force and we're programmatic.
AdExchanger.com: So, you wanted to add the direct sales component to your business?
TODD VERNON: Yes, we had always thought we needed to go there someday - and we went there a little bit last year only to find out that we really needed to pay attention to what we were good at - the engineering side of the business. When [Federated] showed up, it seemed like a pretty natural thing to do, but we're a pretty big company as far as invested capital. It had to be a pretty significant deal for everybody to have the [right] outcome and to do some exciting stuff down the road.
AdExchanger.com: What do you guys think - is this the model for the way some ad networks might exit?
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Former AudienceScience executive Jeff Hirsch has announced that he is joining Santa Barbara, California-based Underdog Media as its CEO.
Hirsch discussed his new role and his new company's future plans with AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: Please share some details about the new role. Why make the move?
JH: It’s time for me to get back to basics and do what I do best – build new models and grow companies centered on how to make online advertising more efficient and effective. I am excited about the challenges of working in a small company environment. I do best when I find a company that has unique and valuable technology and has yet to find their stride in terms of capitalizing on their opportunity. That’s what I did by helping found Fastclick and what I did at AudienceScience by leading the digital data revolution.
If you look at the ad network space, there are billions of dollars flowing through these models. Forget about the network model itself for a second – money is spent with these companies because they know how to make campaigns work.
Underdog Media has spent the past four years building proprietary technology that bridges the past to the future. What I mean by that is that they leverage the proven optimization and performance techniques developed over a dozen years of experience with the opportunities that exist in today’s online environment. The team at Underdog has deep domain expertise and that means that they know how to make things work. I want to take that knowledge, and their technology, and expand the set of marketers we can provide value for.
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Yesterday, Travel Ad Network announced the hiring of a new CEO - Nan-Kirsten Forte, formerly of health information site WebMD. According to the release, in Forte's 13 years of service at WebMD, "she was instrumental in growing WebMD’s consumer audience from less than 1 million to over 100 million monthly unique users and a market cap that soared to more than $2 billion." Read more. TAN's former CEO Brian Silver, will remain President and "spearhead a newly-created division of TAN called Travel Publisher and Advertiser Services."
Forte discussed her new role and the opportunity ahead in travel and for TAN, specifically.
AdExchanger.com: Why was taking on the CEO role at TAN the right, next step for you?
NKF: Personally, I wanted the agility that comes with a smaller, private company particularly one where there is so much upside for a lifestyle category like travel that everyone thinks about and plans for almost year around. I really like to create content products that I would want as a working human in a family of 5. I did that for myself in health at WebMD and now after 13 years I am ready to focus on St. John instead of St. John’s Wort!
As you consider the strategy ahead for TAN, what are some of the similarities you see between the health-related business you just left at WebMD and the travel related business of TAN?
Both are subjects that endlessly fascinate people and where they spend money no matter what the state of the economy. Travel intent actions tell marketers a good deal about people's relative affluence and interests so it is a fertile place for all sorts of brands to deliver their messages. Our mission is to assure both consumers and marketers get trusted travel sources and brands as we did at WebMD.
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In what may be a move to eliminate the perception of conflict of interest, Lotame has decided to eliminate its ad network - known as Lotame Media Group (LMG) - and concentrate solely on its data management platform business called Crowd Control. In a note to the press and clients today, CEO Andy Monfried wrote, "Shuttering LMG was difficult because it worked well for our clients and taught us a great deal about how to effectively manage data. But I'm entirely confident I've made the right call as the decision enables us to renew our commitment to being the DMP by which all others are judged."
It may be painful for Lotame to move away from their media business in the near term which probably drove top line revenue - if not bottom line, too. Monfried and company likely see a long term benefit to this "pivot" which aligns with clients' DMP needs as well as a future exit for the company. Competitors may have been active in pointing out the network conflict to potential Lotame clients, too.
Lotame claims to target marketers and publishers with its DMP. Read the company's new FAQ on the changes.
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On Tuesday, Cox Digital Solutions (CDS) announced that it is adding a new brand, Appetite Media, to its portfolio of vertically-focused site networks. According to the release, Appetite Media will focus on offering "food lover" audiences to advertisers who also seek high-impact, "premium" placements. The company says that Appetite will bring together 22 million unique users per month as measured by comScore. Read the release.
Steve Shaw, president of Cox Digital Solutions, discussed his CDS unit and the Appetite Media announcement.
AdExchanger.com: First, can you frame for us where Cox Digital Solutions fits within Cox itself, and why?
SS: Sure. So a quick background - Cox Crossmedia is the company that I founded in July of 2007 and it was started as a division of Cox Reps, which includes TeleRep and HRP.
Cox Reps is the biggest TV representation firm in the industry with about a 40 share of the business out there for spot television representation.
Cox Crossmedia was founded to become the digital equivalent to the broadcast job that Cox Reps was doing. In effect - be a digital rep firm for all these local media sites.
As you probably know, Cox bought Adify in April of '08 and the two companies kind of operated in parallel thereafter – one a technology company and one a sales company. As Adify started getting into the sales arena, we began to look at each other and see some duplication of effort and resources.
In December of last year, we put the two companies together. Around the same time, we bought the sales arm of Internet Broadcasting, IB. And those companies together became Cox Digital Solutions (CDS), which is both a sales and a platform technology company.
We report up through Cox Reps and we're a part of Cox, under the Cox Media Group umbrella.
In terms of the Adify technology itself, is it “sprinkled,” if you will, within the CDS organization now?
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Matt Whaley is CEO of UK-based Jemm Media, a real-time network for display advertising. Whaley is also Chairman of IASH (Internet Advertising Sales Houses).
Click below or scroll down for more:
AdExchanger.com: How would you describe your business model?
MW: So if I were to explain our business model, it would be very similar to a sell-side platform (SSP) -similar to AdMeld , from the point of looking up the publishers inventory to create the most amount of yield. But we also go direct to agency.
We are - to coin a phrase - a real‑time network and much more plugged into looking after the publishers, necessarily, and giving the option to the advertisers to buy how they want to buy. What we have found, especially over the last six months, is that a lot of the advertisers are switching their buying habits and are not necessarily doing standard I.O.-based buys.
Whether [the buyers] want to come in through RMX, AppNexus, Turn Media, wherever that may be, they want to do the optimization themselves.
It has been quite interesting because, being the chairman of IASH, I get to see 26 other members and how they work. There's quite a lot of resistance to move into this type of space and some are trying to slow this process down because it’s going against their model a bit.
But, at Jemm Media, we have tried to offer people the ability to buy however they want.
What's the difference that you see between what you're doing now and a traditional ad network?
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