The ‘Platforms’ Category
Today, DataXu announced that it has acquired demand-side platform (DSP) Mexad, which has its headquarters in Germany as well as offices in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, and Brazil. Dataxu said in a press release that it hopes to globally expand the use of its DX3 digital ad platform with brand advertisers. Read more. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
DataXu CEO Mike Baker discussed the acquisition and its implications.
AdExchanger.com: What were some of the triggers for this acquisition? Global expansion?
MB: Exactly. That's the first bit for us. We've spent a lot of money, time and R&D on building a super‑scalable technology platform. And that's always been our approach to the market. Our DX3 [platform] is an example of what our product does and the perspective we're taking in the market. Now it's about expanding, and driving more traffic and business across the platform.
How does this acquisition contribute to the integrated stack that DataXu envisions?
That's the second thing. They help us attain the winning formula. We're realizing that in order to drive this as an enterprise solution, we need to have an enterprise service. For instance, we need database integrations with clients across multiple databases and countries. If you don't understand how to do an aspect of what we do, like the data management piece or doing a customized attribution model, we're going to actually put that person on site and help you do it. In that sense, it's like any enterprise services business. There's actually a fairly large amount of heavy lifting to be done in doing deployments and integrations. For example, we need to make sure that 35 people across these six territories are all trained and deployed in the same way they are in the US. The best technology and service is the winning combo. That's what customers have told us and we're responding to that.
What do we like about Mexad? First of all, they're very strong in Germany and the UK. As we all know, Germany is an important economy to the overall European Union, and one that's typically less penetrated by American companies. They all go to London and work the Anglo connection. I did that with Enpocket before. I'm familiar with London and we're working there. But, I'm really pleased to be working with somebody who's in Germany and brings connections to that economy. When you talk to their customers, they have a high customer satisfaction rate. Mexad is not a technology company so we're pleased to be buying something that's financially successful, while not paying a dime for technology because we're not a group who needs to buy that.
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Mark Rabe is CEO of Sojern, a travel data and media company with exclusive partnerships with several major airlines.
Adexchanger.com: So, in some ways, are you building an Orbitz competitor with Sojern?
MR: The answer is no. We are partnered with our airline partners - and it's the majority of the large domestic airlines, who are also equity holders in Sojern.
We essentially render media and advertising to their travelers as they're passing through the check-in process.
The company came into being when our founder, Gordon Whitton, who was based in Omaha, Nebraska, sold his last company to Intuit and was essentially doing the weekly commute from Omaha to San Diego. He was an organized guy and would wake up in the morning, print out his boarding pass, get to the Omaha airport and find himself staring at essentially a blank 8.5x11 sheet of paper.
He hit on the idea of, "I can program relevant content for travelers on that printed page as well as find advertisers that want to monetize it." That was the germ of the idea. The printed boarding pass still represents a sizable chunk of our total annual revenue, and phase one of “the business.” Phase two was in the works when I arrived six months ago, and we launched it about three months ago - it was about taking a step back in the check‑in process and creating a rich, personalized experience for travelers as they navigate the check‑in experience. Imagine weather in the destination city, the top five restaurants as provided by one of our content providers, events that are happening in the city, and increasingly make the experience more customized or personalized to a user.
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It's easy.
It's hard.
It's complex.
It's too complex.
Opinions vary widely on the platform buying capabilities available to the demand-side as it looks to exploit opportunity in the data-driven ad ecosystem. AdExchanger.com asked a selection of demand-side executives to share how they think platform buying is performing today. Specifically, the question is:
- "What's the biggest challenge with platform buying in digital today?"
Click below or scroll down to read the answers:
- Jeremy Cornfeldt, SVP, Integrated Business Director, Aegis Media
- Art Muldoon, CEO, and Matt Greitzer, COO, Accordant Media
- Andy Chapman, Leader, Digital Trading, Mindshare
- Paul Longo, SVP, Group Digital Director, Starcom MediaVest Group
Jeremy Cornfeldt, SVP, Integrated Business Director, Aegis Media
"As we all see with any new opportunity in the digital space, the promise of what is possible always seems to be bigger than the reality of what is currently achievable. And one of the biggest challenges we in this industry always seem to face is identifying the talent that can turn the possibilities into reality. This is particularly true of platform buying.
Sure, the platforms aren't perfect yet and you may question how well certain data sources work for different industry verticals, but those issues will be addressed. The bigger challenge is finding the people that know how to make the best use of the platforms and the data sets. The technology can only take you so far - it's the person that is using the technology that will really deliver the results.
Think about search engine marketing. You can have the same search campaign in the hands of one team and see mediocre results. And then you can hand that same set of keywords to a new team and see much better performance. The reason is that the new team will have people look at a variety of things differently - new copy, different bid strategies, landing page optimizations and the list goes on. It's the people that are executing and maximizing what the technology can do that will drive the campaigns to perform at the highest levels.
Since platform buying is still continuing to evolve we as an industry are building the talent pool. There is no question that there are some very talented people in this space, but that challenge is to expand the talent pool as fast or faster than the pace of the technology advancements. Without the talent the technology won't be able to deliver on it's promise."
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Jeff Dittus is CEO of Campaign Grid, a data-driven ad platform for political campaigns.
AdExchanger.com: How did Campaign Grid begin?
JD: The founding of CampaignGrid was an accident. My partner Rich Masterson was asked to run for Congress in the suburbs of Philadelphia. As he was putting his campaign together he priced out how much placing advertisements for his congressional campaign on TV would cost. As we evaluated the media buy, we quickly realized that you had to pay millions of dollars to reach six million people, of which 98 percent of them were not the target audience and could not vote for him in his congressional district (i.e.: registered voters, living in the 13th district of PA that vote in primaries). In 2008 when we started the company, we understood the power of online targeting and how the electorate was moving online to get news, participate in democracy and give to candidates. It was before the President used the web so brilliantly. We quickly learned how difficult it was to buy online media for political campaigns, as publishers were not set up to deal with the niche. It also became apparent that targeting voters was impossible. So we took these set of circumstances and adapted commercial tools that used “BIG DATA” for online political advertising.
What problem is Campaign Grid solving?
We solve several problems:
Grid eliminates the waste in traditional media by combining first party data via our National Online Voter File(TM); a proprietary list of all 187 million registered voters with RTB on all nine ad exchanges, the top portals such as Yahoo and AOL, and the top online video networks such as TidalTV, and mobile networks. In the past, first party matching programs had limited reach, and by combining the RTB exchanges, with the portals and other networks listed above, we can seamlessly provide advertisers with great scale.
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As data is appended to display media in real-time auctions, certain "old" ways of doing digital business may warrant a re-examination. AdExchanger.com thought "first look" might be one of those tactics that deserves review.
But before we begin, don't know what "first look" is? Into the weeds we go...
Let's say you're a publisher and you're selling your non-guaranteed, (remnant) display inventory through two buying partners: Ad Network A and Ad Network B. In a very basic, ad network "waterfall" setup, Ad Network A gets a chance to buy remnant display ad inventory first - this is "first look" - and then, if Ad Network A doesn't want it, it passes the request for an ad to Ad Network B.
And now imagine 2 or 3 ad networks, a private exchange and another open, ad exchange all in a publisher's "waterfall" of remnant, demand sources. You get the idea.
So... given the pace of innovation with digital audience buying and today's real-time bidding (RTB) environments, AdExchanger.com asked a selection of executives in the world of online advertising the following question:
"How important is 'first look'?"
Click below or continue scrolling:
- Mario Diez, CEO, quadrantONE
- Matthew Goldstein, EVP Operations, Korrelate
- Jay Friedman, COO of Goodway Group
- Vlad Stesin, Co-founder and Vice-President, Product, BLOOM Digital Platform
- Martin Kelly, Co-founder, Infectious Media
- Adrian Tompsett, Director of Business Development, DataXu
Mario Diez, CEO, quadrantONE
"Buyers and their intermediaries all ask for first look - some sort of proprietary relationship with media owners that they can translate to their client as an enhanced value. It helps a network or agency buyer's conversation with a brand when the media entity can identify clear, differentiated value around 'first look,' for sure. But, as with all 'value-adds,' it all comes down to some sort of exclusivity - and trust between the parties. From the premium publisher side, first look is the 'carrot' that we are happy to provide based on an expressed exchange criteria. This can be a guaranteed spend, an overall spend, bid bias, above market rate pricing, etc... But, it has to be all-encompassing because just asking for first look is no different than a sales rep asking an agency 'can you send me an RFP?' Right now, agency trading desks are all asking for it because it enables them to show their clients value beyond the buying efficiency and centralized data strategy they already deliver. Ad networks have built years of intelligence on how frequency plays to performance and market that position in to agency buyers - not to mention marketing the value of 'above the less desirable inventory stack.' First Look is just another, different, seemingly more exclusive, bite at that apple."
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Matt Spiegel is the new CEO of Tap.Me, an in-game advertising technology company. Read the release. Previously, Spiegel was CEO of Annalect Marketplaces and Omnicom Media Group Digital.
He discussed the new role and its implications with AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: What attracted you to the start‑up world?
MS: It's interesting. I think most people have gotten to know me from the agency world. But I'm actually from the start‑up world, and that's how I got to the agency world. I've been in the digital media business in one way, shape, or form actually since the late '90s. I often say that I grew up in sales at L90, which was an ad network in the late '90s. After that stop I founded Resolution Media, a search marketing agency, and joined Omnicom when they acquired the business in 2005.
So, what is it about your Ominicom experience that may have inspired your interest in Tap.Me?
Having spent the last couple years helping Ominicom launch Accuen, I’ve paid very close attention to the changing landscape of how digital media is bought and sold. I strongly believe in the power of automated and open platforms, the power of data, and how those things enable new marketplaces to open up for premium brands. So ultimately, I see that same potential here in the game space for a couple of specific reasons.
One is the huge increase in mobile penetration via smartphones and tablets. The second thing, which is less obvious to many, is that games are actually the most downloaded type of application to either your smartphone or your tablet.
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Last week, Datran Media and CONTEXTWEB agreed to merge their companies into PulsePoint, which describes itself as an "integrated digital media technology platform." Read the release announcing the merger.
Patrick Vogt, Executive Chairman, and Tim Murray, CEO, of PulsePoint discussed the merger and the future for the new company.
AdExchanger.com: What was the trigger for the merger of the two companies? Why didn't standalone make sense anymore?
PATRICK VOGT: The merger was born from market need and our partnership over the past year. We now have a holistic platform addressing the needs of today's digital marketplace. PulsePoint will provide brands, agencies and publishers with the intelligence, insights and recommended actions that are critical for success in today’s digital arena. Our platform and business model (licensing and media business) are very unique and we believe it is game changing and will allow us to reinvent digital advertising.
TIM MURRAY: The value from the merger is PulsePoint's ability to enable marketers to cross-inform media and drive the best results across display, social, mobile, video and email through a single platform that is open enough to integrate with other technologies common across large company infrastructures. Individually, we could not do that and we didn’t see any other company with a holistic approach across a sea of single-point solutions.
Our customers and the marketplace at large have been demanding a solution that will enable them to transcend the spreadsheets and truly become smarter and more efficient at what they do. Our market is highly fragmented, with no integration or learning flow between multiple media types, channels and devices. PulsePoint is answering this market need with integrated solutions to target, serve, monitor, validate and report on campaigns across digital channels and devices.
Is PulsePoint addressing audience buying or contextual buying?
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David Brussin is CEO of Monetate, a provider of testing, targeting, and personalization services for websites.
Earlier this month, the company announced a $15 million Series B funding round led by OpenView Venture Partners. Read more on TechCrunch.
AdExchanger.com: Is the focus of the company eCommerce?
DB: We're actually not focused on eCommerce. Our mission is really about anyone with a website, who has a commercial goal around the site, because all websites have the same thing in common.
Whether they're transactional B to C, eCommerce, online retail, direct response or subscription, they all have the same characteristics around needing to provide relevant, compelling experiences for visitors, in order to drive an outcome.
For online retail, that action is purchasing a product that's probably going to be shipped to them. For direct response, it might be transactional or it might not. But there is a pretty direct connection to some kind of exchange of value transaction.
For media, it's different. That action might be transactional in nature and subscription oriented, but it might also be engagement and consumption of content, ad views.
We chose eCommerce as our initial vertical, because we actually have some features that we've built that are specifically for eCommerce that help that vertical. But we're now playing in a number of other spaces.
Looking at a HubSpot or Adobe which has its enterprise platform solution – how does Monetate differentiate?
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Yahoo!'s Right Media is announcing today new publisher controls for real-time bidding (RTB) on display ad inventory through its exchange. The company says controls include:
"Inventory opt-in: Sellers can choose the specific types of their inventory they wish to offer via real-time bidding. (The default setting is to opt out of RTB.)"
"Reserve Prices: To help manage sales channel conflict, sellers can set reserve prices for different types of inventory sold on specific channels, and set specific reserve prices for both RTB and non-RTB buyers."
Read more on the Right Media blog here.
Ramsey McGrory, Head of Right Media Exchange, discussed a bit more about today's announcement and its implications.
AdExchanger.com: Just to recap from a buy side perspective, real-time bidding is now available through Right Media Exchange and it has been available for a while. Correct?
RM: It has been available for a while. Q1 of last year we announced the DSP (Demand-Side Platform) pilot. Part of that was holding company agencies were getting access to real-time bidding (RTB). The intent there was - from the Yahoo! perspective - to use those significant agency relationships as a way to evaluate what had to be done with RTB from a feature/functionality perspective and actually get “water” going through the pipes.
The “plumbing” has been there for about two and a half years and the DSP pilot is where we've really started to ramp it. Last year, we started to surface inventory. Then, we figured out all the problems on the publisher side. At the same time, the buyers were figuring out all of their problems.
For example, it's very difficult for a DSP or an agency trading desk to consistently respond to 35,000 QPS (queries per second) no matter the stated SLA (service level agreement) because their infrastructure may not be able to handle that load or they may not have enough data to have a point-of-view on all of the different inventory.
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Scott Grimes is CEO of Cardlytics, a transaction marketing technology company.
AdExchanger.com: How is your Capital One experience coming in handy as you look to grow Cardlytics?
SG: Capital One provided a fantastic example of the power of the data in the financial services industry. We are enabling the financial institutions to leverage its data to the benefit of the Financial Institution (FI), their customers and the merchants.
What problem is Cardlytics solving? -for merchants, banks and consumers.
Cardlytics is enabling Financial Institutions (FIs) to monetize the value of their transaction data in a way that benefits their customers and the merchants - while completely protecting consumer privacy and not requiring the FI’s transaction data to leave their premises. Merchants get access to a huge base of consumers (we currently reach 16M households and will reach 75M households by Q1 2012) who receive rich, relevant rewards that are extremely simple to engage with and redeem using the payment solution they use every day.
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