RSS FeedArchive for the ‘Platforms’ Category

Reaping The Benefits Of Marketing Automation

marketing-automationEven though it is widely used, customers would be hard-pressed to find vendors who agree with the label "marketing automation," according to Jon Miller, VP of marketing content and strategy at marketing automation software provider Marketo.

Marketing automation is "one of those terms that nobody really seems to love but at the same time it’s what people use," Miller told AdExchanger. "It has been associated with a fancier way of sending spam when in reality it gives you the ability to listen to and respond to your customers in real time with relevant information—these are things that actually make the marketing more personal...for the customer, not less so."

Other marketers would seem to agree with Miller's assessment. Tech research firm IDC predicts the marketing automation market will reach $4.8 billion in 2015, up from $3.2 billion in 2010.

At a time when marketers must juggle multiple channels and increasingly empowered customers, many are turning to marketing automation software to manage, track and scale their digital campaigns.

(more...)

DG Groups All Products Into Ad Management Or Video/TV Solutions

Andrew Bloom, DGDigital ad management provider DG is pouring the disparate technologies and products it has bought and built over the last few years into a single receptacle called "VideoFusion." While having a clearer marketing message is the over-arching reason for the "brand unification," the company also wants to emphasize its proposition to be the connective tissue between online and TV ad delivery, said Andrew Bloom, DG's senior VP-strategic business development.

"Rather than going out after each new product addition or acquisition, we wanted to be sure we had the plumbing and integration settled first, and that's what VideoFusion represents," Bloom said. "And so instead of thinking of this as a rebranding, we're calling it a unification."

(more...)

Cox Digital Solutions Shutters Platform Services, Former Adify Business

Cox Digital Solutions Adify LogosCox Digital Solutions, which houses the white label vertical ad network and ad serving business formerly known as Adify, will no longer offer platform services to outside media companies, the company has told clients.

In a letter sent last month to customers, obtained by AdExchanger, Andy Levi director, Publisher Operations at CDS, as part of the unit's restructuring, CDS will focus solely on its product offerings.

"Over the next 60 days, CDS’s platform services will remain open to allow you time to transition to a new provider," the letter said. "Our platform services will remain available until April 12, 2013, but you may discontinue the platform services at any point over the next 60 days. We understand that this is a big transition for you and we will work with you to make it as seamless as possible."

(more...)

Atlas, At Last. Facebook Ad Chief Gokul Rajaram Speaks

fb-atlasFacebook has confirmed its agreement to buy Atlas from Microsoft, paving the way for a more robust demand-side offering from the company. In an interview with AdExchanger, Ads Product Director Gokul Rajaram said the primary aim is to help advertisers compare their Facebook ads with all online, and eventually offline, placements. An ad network is not in the picture, he said, at least in the short term.

"This acquisition allows marketers and agencies to measure the ROI of their campaigns across both Facebook and non-Facebook properties, and across desktop and mobile," Rajaram said. "Our goal is to be able to measure cross-device insights, and be the best ad serving platform on the Internet."

The companies did not disclose terms of the deal, which was first reported by AdAge.

To achieve its product goals for Atlas, Facebook will need to invest heavily in engineering and product management hires, and so that's what it plans to do. Rajaram said the company will keep Atlas based in Seattle, while hiring up in product development, engineering, and design. It will develop its base of operations in that city into a second hub for ad-related product development, in addition to Menlo Park. The bigger office there will have the additional benefit of helping Facebook coordinate closely with Microsoft, which is a close partner.

"We're excited to be a bigger part of the ecosystem there," he said.

But perhaps the biggest plans Facebook has for the platform are around mobile.

"One of the big things we hear from marketers and agencies is that the current ad serving systems do not support mobile. Mobile is a black box. Mobile basically is unsupported in ad serving and measurement. Marketers need to know their mobile campaigns can be fully measured and that's not happening today. And so we are committing to eventually build a mobile device, cross platform ad serving solution for Atlas," said Rajaram.

(more...)

Datacratic Rolls Out RTBkit, Open Source Bidding Framework

rtbkit-datacraticWhat do you do if you have real-time bidding software that's non-core to your business, but could still be an asset to young ad companies faced with building their own bidders from scratch? You take it open source.

That's what Montreal-based Datacratic has done with the release of a new RTBkit framework, available at RTBkit.org. Engineers who decide to use the software package, offered under an open source Apache license, can avoid some of the coding headaches required to put in place a bidding system capable of handling tens of thousands of queries per second. The framework's booster say developers will be able to focus instead on differentiated features such as unique optimization algorithms and bidding logic.

"We think this allows people to get RTB out of the way quickly and focus on optimization, data driven bidding strategies, and the dataflows that a particular company might require to bid in a very unique and innovative way," says Datacratic CEO James Prudhomme.

RTBkit is a framework only. Any company that decides to use it will need to pay for servers or rent server space in the cloud to actually bid on exchanges.  But it does represent a significant milestone for RTB infrastructure, according to Neal Richter, chief scientist at The Rubicon Project and co-chair of the IAB's OpenRTB committee, who has been briefed on the project.

(more...)

PubMatic: 'Programmatic Reserved' Spend To Hit $1 Billion Next Year

pubmatic-goelGoogle, AppNexus, and PubMatic are all talking up the convergence of guaranteed and non-guaranteed media. The first solutions designed to address this convergence were private exchanges, embraced by many sellers but fewer on the buy side. Now the companies are moving forward on the next wave of features.

Among the favored approaches is so-called "holistic yield management" or "unified optimization" – essentially a way to let ad network and exchange buys compete with direct sales. This approach has advocates and opponents. For the latter, see Esco Strong's recent piece, " Why Publishers Should Be Wary of Optimizing Their Direct and RTB Demand Sources Together." For the former, see PubMatic's new Deal Management functionality.

According to PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel, the new workflow lets publishers more easily share inventory packages and price points with prospective advertisers, and traffic the winning ad with the advertiser's DSP of choice. He pegs the size of the programmatic reserved opportunity in the hundreds of millions this year -- and at more than $1 billion in 2014.

We spoke with Goel about a new workflow and UI for the product, the size of the market, and other topics.

How does PubMatic view the "programmatic reserved" opportunity?

RAJEEV GOEL: We saw the opportunity about a year and a half ago, specifically that 10% of the bids [on our platform] are $10 CPM and higher. When you consider that, the old model doesn’t really make sense, because I may have direct-sold a $5 or $7 CPM, and why is that winning out over the $10 bid? Particularly when you factor in the cost of sales and service of the non-RTB approach, then you will get additional profitability on that $10 bid versus my $5 direct-sold campaign and now you’ve got even more compelling economics.

(more...)

DSP DataXu Raises $27 Million

mike-bakerDataXu has raised a $27 million round, a hefty chunk though somewhat less than other recent investments in similarly mature display ad tech companies. (AppNexus secured $75 million last month, Rocket Fuel took $50 million in June).

Thomvest Venture Capital led the round and gains a board seat, while current investors Atlas Venture, Flybridge Capital Partners and Menlo Ventures also participated.

We asked DataXu CEO Mike Baker about the company's acquisition plans, and he had this to say: "We’ve acquired before (for geographic expansion) and are likely to do so again as we grow.  That said, DataXu has a strong engineering culture so a key element for this kind of expansion is bringing great technologists into the team."

Acqui-hires aside, DataXu will likely use some of the money to support its growing marketing, sales, and business operations, as well as consulting services.

DataXu now employs 225 in 11 offices in eight countries globally -- including the high-growth Brazilian market.. Brands active on the platform number 700 according to the company, and sales revenue from direct-to-enterprise platform sales (as opposed to managed services) is now a majority of revenue.

(more...)

AdBrite Shutters Exchange, Sale Talks Continue For Marketplace And IP Assets

Hardeep-Bindra-AdBriteAdBrite has shut down its exchange, and says it is close to selling off its other assets: namely, its B2B Marketplace directory and the intellectual property and engineering operations that power the core exchange product. In essence, this means that adBrite as it has been known -- since evolving from an ad network -- will soon be no more. But, for the time being at least, adBrite CEO Hardeep Bindra tells AdExchanger that the company is still operating with a skeletal staff, though the brand remains alive nevertheless.

"The sale could happen in a matter of days, with the worst case scenario being three- to four weeks," Bindra said, after AdExchanger contacted him in response to a report that the company was shutting down after sales talks fell through by  AllThingsD's Peter Kafka.

Although in a letter to clients (the full document is at the bottom of this post), Bindra says that bankers pulled the plug on adBrite after failing to sell the company as a whole, it is in talks with "several" private equity firms and "established" ad tech firms about purchasing the technology and related assets piecemeal. If a PE firm takes over, Bindra said that the adBrite name could well survive. But if an ad tech firm makes the purchase and folds the exchange technology into an existing system, the adBrite logo will probably be retired.

AdBrite is vague about why it had to shutter now. It may have suffered from a drought of quality inventory on its platform, as more mature exchange offerings hoovered up ad space. Or it may have been hurt by its past association with adult content, though Bindra noted that the Spanish adult ad network Exoclick was always independent and has no connection to adBrite these days.

(more...)

AppNexus Secures $75 Million After Long Road To Funding

brian-okelley-appnexusNo AppNexus insiders will take money off the table as the RTB pure play soaks up a new $75 million investment led by Technology Crossover Ventures. Instead, funds from the series D round will be pumped into the company in the form of new features, marketplace quality improvements, and employee development.

CEO Brian O'Kelley wrote in a blog post, "We decided not to take any money for management or employee liquidity, as we see huge upside opportunity over the next few years."

AppNexus media spend measured $700 million in 2012 (triple its 2011 revenues) and the company doubled its headcount to 400 globally. The company says it wants to make sure those 400 staff have the opportunity to advance -- including through professional development and formal management training. To some industry watchers AppNexus has occasionally appeared to lack a deep management bench, and showing it has a well of senior talent will be important as the company moves toward either an IPO or sale to a major acquirer.

(more...)

Attribution Landscape In Flux, Adometry Raises $8M To Accelerate Platform

adometry-pellmanThe debate around multi-channel attribution is perhaps the essential marketing problem of this decade. Can you really optimize ad spend on a cross-channel basis, and at the impression level? Not yet. Will you be able to? A lot of smart money says yes, but it's going to be a long and bumpy ride.

The most prominent attribution platforms that use algorithms – not manual processes – to assign media value are Visual IQ, Adometry, Convertro, and Clearsaleing. All are hustling to beef up their data partnerships, sales/marketing headcount, and client consulting (i.e. "change management") operations. Even setting aside the business challenges, there remains the formidable problem of incorporating owned and earned impressions in a meaningful way. This is made more difficult by the reluctance of Facebook and other platform companies' to allow impression tracking on organically shared brand content.

One of the well rated platforms (See Forrester's 2012 Wave report), Austin-based Adometry, has raised $8 million led by Shasta Ventures – and only took two months to do it.

CEO Paul Pellman says, "Three months ago we had no compunction, no desire to raise money. We were exceeding our plan. Then we saw an opportunity to move faster."

(more...)