eBay's Programmatic Success; Nielsen OCR In The Wild

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

eBay’s Programmatic Success

Programmatic is becoming a big part of the display pie for eBay, who says the volume of ad impressions on its exchange has grown fivefold, UK-based The Drum reported. “The budgets currently being allocated to private marketplaces are much smaller than for open but that’s changing fast. I expect our private marketplace will more than double in terms of business we do through it next year,” said Guy Jones, head of programmatic trading at eBay. Read more.

Nielsen OCR In The Wild

Adweek’s Mike Shields notes that some buy-side clients are using Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) data to effect media buys through the Google platform. He adds, “The company isn’t saying which brands are involved just yet. But the hope is to test and learn, and eventually make the OCR option available to all Google video advertisers. ComScore’s VCE is in the mix as well.” Read it.

Programmatic Worldwide

Programmatic is changing the media agency model, TubeMogul VP of Ops Daniel Schotland told Australia’s AdNews. The market is very similar to the US, says Schotland, who adds, “Over the next few years ‘you could start to see [Australian media agencies] struggle to do business the way they are doing it today. They will need to explore other avenues. It could be a programmatic-or-bust situation.’” Read more.

Targeting Stars

TechCrunch received a “hot” tip that Facebook is testing a star rating system for Pages on the desktop version of the site, which gives users more sentiment than just a simple “like.” As the article’s author, Darrell Etherington, points out, likes are used to express everything from interest to disapproval, so it’s hard to tell exactly what a like means. Although nothing has been officially confirmed, this potential system could give Facebook an edge when competing with rating services such as Yelp. Read more. Could be another targeting attribute for ads, too.

Incumbents Vs. Insurgents

Digital is changing marketing for enterprise companies and continually pushing companies to adopt new technologies, as pointed out by the Thomvest team in a comprehensive report on the space. But who can win at ad tech amidst the vast startup landscape? The Thomvest team offers, “There is a clear opportunity for those companies that have already reached scale (such as a number of companies that are recently public or at a stage where this is an option) to try to compete with the incumbents head on.” Read more.

You’re Hired!