Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
IAB ALM Notes: Data Access Through RTB
In the final panel discussion of the three-day, Interactive Advertising Bureau Annual Leadership Summit, Yahoo!’s Ramsey McGrory identified what he said was one of the key challenges currently emerging around data ownership: the advent of real-time bidding (RTB). McGrory suggested that any participating buyer can either bid or “watch” in a real-time bidding auction of a single impression, for example, and can potentially get access to valuable publisher data and all of its attributes. He questioned whether that’s fair to publishers. UPDATED: Yahoo! says I got it wrong. See Yahoo! clarification here. It should be noted that Yahoo! currently does not have an RTB solution. Google does and Microsoft’s appears to be on the way.
IAB ALM Notes: Tolman Geffs Presentation
Jordan, Edmiston’s Tolman Geffs arguably offered the most compelling presentation (best takeaway, too) of the IAB Summit. The prez included an ecosystem map of the world with which AdExchanger.com’s audience is already familiar -but was likely an eyeopener for some in attendance. Download it here (PDF).
IAB ALM Notes: Exchanges & Networks Rules of the Road
The IAB rules committee associated with ad exchanges and networks delivered for comment “Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines.” Read the release. Among the guidelines is the move towards transparency as the guidelines look to improved brand safety. The release notes ask that networks and exchanges “allow for transparency of inventory sources, publisher relationships, content levels and ad placement details.” The full 39-page guideline doc is available for download and includes a nice glossary on the space. Get it (PDF).
IAB ALM Notes: Adify’s Russ Fradin Says Its All Networks Or Not
Russ Fradin, CEO of Adify, told attendees that it’s time to choose. Either go with networks and understand the cost implications (lower CPMs, reduced or non-existent sales staff). Or, take all the pixeling opportunities off of your site and never contract with networks, and sell direct with a sales team.
AppNexus’ CTO Mike Nolet reappears on his Mike On Ads blog with a post about “how cookie matching works in the RTB world.” Nolet says that PubMatic and AdMeld all work the way he ends up describing except for Google which “requires the bidder to store the mapping on his end” rather than having the RTB providers do the cookie mapping work. Taste the cookie.
Google Under EU Microscope
The Wall Street Journal reports that EU regulators are officially investigating complaints by three European Internet companies about Google’s alleged anti-competitive tactics. Google is innocent until proven otherwise according to the article. Read more.
Search & Display Research
Oh boy.. every display ad marketer’s new favorite piece of research is here. Eyeblaster has put together a study looking at the confluence of search and display ad marketing showing the symbiotic relationship for the tactics. Get it here (Sign-up required.). Among the findings, “72% of the conversions of cross channel search and display campaigns are a direct result of the display channel, only 28% are the result of the search channel.” Is search no longer display’s Daddy?
Millennial Media Acquires Mobile Analytics Firm
Mobile ad network Millennial Media has announced that it has acquired TapMetrics, “a San Francisco-based mobile analytics firm, focused on application usage and behavior.” It’s an interesting parallel to Flurry’s purchase of Pinch Media, another company focused on mobile analytics. More data AND insights are better. Read the release.
Auditude Cozies Up To Comcast
Video ad platform Auditude announced in a release “that it has partnered with Comcast Interactive Media (CIM) to manage and serve CIM’s video advertising across its websites including Fancast, Fancast XFINITY TV and Comcast.net.” Read more. Cable company and an online video ad platform? Makes sense on several levels.
InterCLICK Revs Are Better
Likely referring to the Jordan, Edmiston deck presented at the IAB, interCLICK President Michael Katz indicated in a tweet that revenue estimates for his company are being under-estimated tweeting, “they even under-estimated our revenue at $42M. More like $55M+, announcing earnings on 2/24…stay tuned.” And Katz wasn’t done there as he also tweeted a proposal recently of a merger between yield optimizers: “PubMatic & Rubicon Project should merge and be known as ‘Pub & Rub’.”
eBureau Announces Lead Scoring Partnership
Online leads scoring company, eBureau, announced a partnership with Sparkroom, a “provider of enrollment marketing automation solutions.” eBureau’s lead scoring capabilities will be integrated into Sparkroom’s platform for online marketers active in the lead generation space. Read the release.
Bizo Upgrades
Bizo announced from its blog that it has upgraded its B2B targeting data with exporting features and is offering 150 new, more targeted datasets saying, “Before we were able to target simply Medical/Health professionals, but with the new segments, Bizo marketers can now target and report on detailed segments within the Medical/Health segment such as Cardiologists or Psychiatrists.” Read more.
ClearSaleing Enhancing Attribution
In a release, attribution analytics company ClearSaleing said that it had “heard the call, and is now providing expiration dating for clicks and impressions” which will allow marketers to better customize their own attribution model for “each lead source.” Read the release.
Blinding Me With Science
Media6Degrees has hired Claudia Perlich as Chief Scientist. No, she will not be experimenting with test tubes and yellowcake but rather she’ll be leveraging her “data analysis and machine-learning” skills to help propel forward the company’s social graph targeting tools. Read the release. Interesting to note the R&D trend here, if you will, as Lotame started its own R&D unit recently. DataXu is filled with rocket scientists. MediaMath has more PHDs than Sloan Kettering. AppNexus has the Princeton mafia and Googlers. There are others. Feeling left out? Does the University of Phoenix offers a PHD?
Relevance That Doesn’t Suck
Inspired by a recent NextNY panel, Greg Hills blogs about the importance of relevance in online advertising and provides a list of ways ads can “suck” and “not suck.” Included among his “non-sucking” bullets are the importance of not being intrusive and establishing an emotional connection. Read more.
Top 5 Brand Trends
On Retailer Daily, the results of Brand Keys’ 2010 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index are dissected as the “Top 5 Consumer Brand Trends for 2010” are revealed. “Show me the meaning’ and “Careful chic” are two of the five trends as consumers look deeper and deeply at what they’re buying. Read more.
Optimizing Your Reg Button
How to design the “Register” button… an age-old (relatively speaking, of course) challenge for the landing page of many-a drive-to-sign-up campaign. The Six Revisions design blog for developers and designers lists a bunch of reg button tips including “The registration button should be positioned near the main features/header area (usually at the top part of web layouts).” Is yours? Read more. (source: @Performable)
