Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
DataXu Hits Digital Airwaves, Print
DataXu’s President & CEO, Mike Baker, and Bruce Journey, CRO, were the subjects yesterday of ClickZ’s ongoing, free, interactive marketing and advertising Webcast series. To give a listen, click here (Sign-up gets you admission – available soon.). DataXu is also featured in an interview of Mike Baker by Forbes’ Laurie Burkitt. Baker takes note of the sell-side opportunity in the evolving media space in addition to the buy-side’s saying, “innovative publishers are buying auction media to more efficiently syndicate their content and extend their audience.” Read the interview.
Google Release Q3 Earnings
Google released their Q3 earnings yesterday and to quote Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget earnings were “strong.” According to Blodget “EPS of $5.89 beat street and whisper [predictions]. Net revenue of $4.4 billion was in line with whisper. Free cash flow was a positively enormous $2.5 billion.” According to Blodget’s notes from the call, “1/2 top 25 ad networks using the new Google Ad Exchange already. Pretty good uptake so far.” Read more on Silicon Alley Insider.
Laurie Sullivan of MediaPost says that Google CEO Eric Schmidt also reiterated on the call his company’s interest in acquiring small company’s that make sense to their current businesses and used display advertising as an example. Read Sullivan’s coverage.
Interesting to note that Google’s AdSense a.k.a. Google Network Revenues made $1.80 billion, or 30% of Google’s total revenues in Q3. According to the company this is a 7% increase over 2008. Considering the recession was in full tilt in Q3 last year, the recession has set some low year-over-year numbers for company’s to beat this Q3. No wonder the market is surging past 10,000. Download the Google earnings PDF.
From the transcript on Seeking Alpha, Google CFO Patrick Pichette responds to a question from UBS’ Brian Pitz on effects on the Google Content network pricing by the DoubleClick Ad Exchange: “[DoubleClick Ad Exchange] is already beginning to take away some pricing and efficiency from the market, because effectively you are able to collect inventory from various networks, which is unsold. And what we believe is roughly about 25% of inventory in aggregate, ends up being unsold because it doesn’t have a common exchange or a common place to get traded. So that’s what the ad exchange actually begins to enable.” Read the whole transcript.
It’s true! – according to Rory Maher of Business Insider. Anecdotal evidence shows a shift in budget allocations from Google and Yahoo! search to Facebook self-serve display ads. Maher says he polled a few search agencies who noted the shift in client budgets. The reason? Performance. Read more.
The Three Steps of Optimization
From his blog, “Stream of Consciousness,” Pete Kim sets in stone what he sees as “the three levels of display optimization.” Bid, creative and landing page optimization make his list. Kim makes the point that ideally all three should be analyzed together, though landing page optimization may end up separate for structural reasons. (source: @dherman76) Read the details.
Automotive Meets Brand.net
Brand.net announced that it was entering the automotive category as it looks to leverage its “brand ROI measurement to OEMs and their agencies.” Presumably, if you can speak a brand’s language and provide them the engagement analytics they’re looking for in addition to the performance, the brand dollars should flow. Read the release.
Fetchback Announces Engagement Mapping
Retargeting firm Fetchback has launched its own version of engagement mapping similar to products offered by Atlas and Google AdWords which tracks view through conversions and assists on display campaigns. According to the company, Fetchback’s engagement mapping “is the first attribution management solution of its kind for Retargeting” – FetchBack’s core competency. Read the release.
NYC Tech
The Deal covers the thriving New York City tech community and its growing network of local journalists, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to network. First Round Capital’s Charlie O’Donnell tells The Deal that many don’t understand the size of NYC’s tech community. Read more.
Fred Wilson On VC BS
Fred Wilson is calling “bullsh*t” on his fellow VC’s who think they “need to own” any percentage of a startup company as percentages are trailing upwards of 40% according to Wilson. His point is more about owning quality and partnering with a VC’s target investment rather than looking to make a payday by taking as much equity as possible. Read more.
Egg Carriers
BlueTie and Adventive CEO David Koretz challenges fellow chief executives who he calls “egg carriers” in MediaPost’s Publisher Insider column. Koretz writes about certain CE’s saying, “They spend their time at industry conferences debating how we got to this sad state,” and then adds, “If you spend all your time and energy trying to keep the world from changing, you prevent yourself from innovating.” Read the column.
Internet Radio Growth
Buying audience on radio is a reality. Jetcast announced that it’s ReplaceAds Internet radio ad network has consistently grown to 11.5 million unique users in the past three months. Read more.
Spots Publishers Gain
Ellen Marzell of ComScore looks at recent ComScore data related to the Sports category and pulls out quite a few interesting nuggets including a 25% year-over-year increase of time spent on sports sites globally; the APAC region equals 1/3 of the global sports content audience; and Sports sites reach 46% of the North American online population. Read the blog post.
7 In-Page Units And A Popunder
The CPM Advisors blog looks at a big brand news site and its potpourri of available ad space including a popunder. CPM Advisors wonders aloud for advertisers, if it is “better being on a legitimate site they may not have heard of with two other ads versus being on a brand-name site like [the news site example] with 6 or 7 other units stuck way below the fold at the same price. Or perhaps they shouldn’t care – both options are useful – at some price.” Read more.
