Nokia Adds Exchange; Is It Really 'Second Price'?

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Nokia Adds Exchange

In an effort to bring more developers to its platform, Nokia has started an ad exchange to pay them. GigaOm’s Ryan Kim reports, “Nokia Ad Exchange (NAX), which is built off of Inneractive’s technology, will allow developers to access 120 ad networks in 200 countries and target Windows Phone 8, Series 40 and Symbian phones but also hit iOS, Android and BlackBerry from one dashboard.” Read it. And, see the video.

Retailer Ad Nets? Old News

The intersection of e-commerce, display advertising and retargeting has been getting a lot more attention since Amazon upped the ante with the introduction its third platform last month. But as Adweek’s Tim Peterson notes, big box retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart have been doing it for a while. At the other end, ad networks have been ramping up their retargeting abilities as well. “A year ago, the effective media dollars deployed against audiences of other brands was effectively zero,” OwnerIQ CEO Jay Habegger told Adweek. “Five years from now it will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” Read more.

Second Price Auctions

On ClickZ, Digilant’s Nate Woodman reviews the second price auction model and says on exchanges, most are not second-price. Woodman writes, “Most of the research I’ve seen around advertising auction types is focused on the Google paid search auction. The common misconception is that the Google exchange is a Vickrey-Clarke-Groves auction, but most experts conclude that it is in fact a generalized second-price auction. Both auctions support some type of price reduction where the winning buyer pays slightly more than the next highest bid.” Read more.

Toolbar In the Toolbelt

PandoDaily peeks under the hood of Commerce Sciences, a Tel Aviv startup focused on personalized e-commerce. One of its products is a graphic element that sits at the bottom of a website and pops up with messages, coupons, and other information. Ok, ok, it’s a toolbar. But don’t write it off, says Mick Weinstein: “Commerce Sciences calls it a Personal Bar, as it can, for example, produce different messages for first time customers versus customers whose behavior the software has already analyzed and optimized for.” So far, more than 70 sites are using it and Commerce Sciences has “collected over 20 million user actions.” Read more.

Marketing Tactic Tumult

Readers of veteran NYT columnist Stuart Elliott are contending that a recent article about Adobe’s ad campaign, dubbed “Metrics not myths,” appears a little too similar to an earlier brand promotion from ad tech firm’s [x+1] called “What’s your painpoint?” In a Q&A with readers, Elliott says he wasn’t aware of the [x+1] campaign when he wrote about the Adobe campaign created by its agency, Goodby, Silverstein. The agency tells Elliott it never encountered the other campaign. “Is it because the internet and social media make it so much easier to see campaigns from around the world and share opinions about them? Is it because a connected world inspires those who live in it to see connections everywhere?” Elliott wonders. “Lots of questions, few answers.” Read the rest.

Google Analytics: BYO Data

Google is letting site owners plug first party data into its core analytics product, via a new “universal analytics” offering geared to enterprise marketers. From its blog post yesterday: “The tools from the Measurement Protocol allow you to seamlessly send your own data about your customers and business (from any digital device that you are measuring) to your Analytics account. This can help you see how users interact with your brand from multiple touchpoints – phones, tablets, laptops or more – in one place.” Read more.

Discussing Consolidation

On The Makegood, LUMA Partners’ i-banker Terence Kawaja tells Matt Straz that consolidation is a good thing for the ad tech ecosystem. He adds, “We have seen a bifurcation of deals between top companies that are bought for strategic premiums vs. companies that capitulate and are sold for amounts that don’t provide a positive return to investors. This trend is likely to continue as ubiquitous venture funding dries up and companies are forced to take action.” Read more.

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