Reviewing The SSP With Forrester; Hearst Seeing Digital Profits; Unblocking Display

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Reviewing The SSP

Following up its demand-side platform (DSP) report, Forrester has published a new missive on sell-side platforms (SSPs). Authored by analyst Michael Greene, he teases the report on the Forrester marketing blog saying, “The 6 vendors we reviewed – Admeld, AppNexus, Doubleclick ADX, Pubmatic, Right Media, and Rubicon Project – are by no means new to this game. Still, we were astonished at how quickly these vendors and enhancing and expanding their product offerings.” A look at the report shows all of the companies scored reasonably well according to Forrester’s measurement stick except for Yahoo! Right Media which was on the precipice of being a “Risky Bet.” Read more on the blog. And then, download it from Admeld (for a PII donation).

Publisher Profiting

Big media, web publishers take heart… one of your brethren is profiting from the digital world. Read more. In an email published by paidContent, Hearst president David Carey said that his company was “solidly profitable” in 2011 and shed light on the revenue breakdown at Hearst: “Roughly 40 percent of our revenues are U.S. print and digital, 40 percent international print and digital, and 20 percent are services (iCrossing and CDS Global).” Selling digital subscriptions remains a key target. Read more. For now, on the data side, iCrossing’s newly-acquired Red Aril would seem to be the basis of the data strategy and unlocking the audience on all of that brand-safe content.

Unblocking Ads

AdBlock Plus, the popular ad block brower software, has decided to let a few ads through. Dare I say “premium” ads? The NY Times Noam Cohen reports, in December, “Adblock Plus introduced a new concept, the ‘acceptable ad’ – that is, an ad so inoffensive that it shouldn’t necessarily be blocked by the software.” Maybe ads with cat pictures? How does that work? Easier said than done says the Times. In the blogosphere, interest from advertising digerati percolates as Greg Yardley writes: “This is a very decent way to make revenue – you can charge advertising companies who wish to be audited – but AdBlock Plus won’t be able to get away with it. It simply won’t be tolerated by the extension’s userbase. Why? People feel the pain of loss more sharply than the pleasure of gain.” Read it.

Beyond Mobile Banners

On Digiday, Jack Marshall takes a look at alternatives to mobile ad banners and takes note of one company called Kiip which is churning out advertiser coupon opportunities to users. Marshall writes, “It is a way to mesh the ad experience with the environment, something that’s not been done very well in the desktop Internet.” Read more.

Data On Big Data

eMarketer has aggregated some data on what “big data” means. Courtesy of Connotate, a few graphics are ready for your Powerpoint so that you can explain to the CEO why the agency, marketing org or media company that you all are part of, need to prepare to take advantage of the data deluge. Leading the “big data” definition pack… Big Data = “All the external and internal web-based data available for business intelligence.” Boing!

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Feeding The Publisher

kbs+p’s Darren Herman is on Ad Age with a piece looking at ad transformation in 2012. He thinks publishers are going to get the benefit of what he sees as abundant attribution technology and the move away from the last click or last impression as the scene stealer. Herman writes, “We will start to see more agencies adopting this measurement methodology, attribution vendor consolidation (many exist), and the price drop a bit for this type of reporting, as it becomes a commonplace.” Read it.

But Wait. There’s More!