Ad Tech Is Growing; Rocket Fuel's Traffic Quality Tool

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Business Is Booming

Advertising technology is a standalone industry, and it’s growing. ABI Research projects that independent ad tech is on a $6 billion run rate for the year and it has shown 52% annual growth since 2011. “The moral may be similar to that told of Levi Strauss in the Gold Rush: selling tools to those hunting for gold can be a good and sustainable business,” said ABI research practice director Sam Rosen. ABI highlights the uptick in acquisitions by consumer platform companies (think Facebook/LiveRail, Twitter/MoPub, Yahoo/Flurr, and AOL/Adap.tv). “The real battle lines are drawn between the publisher’s in-house platforms, and those independents that will help brands, advertisers and agencies to navigate the complex landscape without putting all their eggs in one basket.” Read on.

Fraud = Opportunity?

Rocket Fuel released a free tool called Traffic Scanner that measures and monitors a campaign’s traffic quality. It’s not intended to replace a marketer’s preferred anti-fraud vendor, said Ari Levenfeld, senior director of privacy and inventory quality. Rather, “We believe the industry needs a freely available ‘first look at the numbers’ solution that cuts through the fear, uncertainty and doubt, and leads to increased trust and value in the ecosystem.” It’s fraud detection as differentiator. More via the Wall Street Journal.

Sir Martin Speaks

Are brands taking programmatic in-house? Some agencies have pushed back forcefully against the trend. WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell has been among the most vocal. “There will be clients, as there have always been in traditional media buying, that do their own planning and buying,” he told Business Insider. “The issue is whether an in-house agency, particularly in the technology area, can continue to advance their technology in an effective way, and whether the people who work in an in-house agency will be sufficiently challenged over the long and medium-term to continue to work then.” Sorrell said ad tech is the most exciting area WPP has explored in the last two or three years. Read it.

Location Data Query

Does hyperlocal advertising to mobile devices even work? Adweek looks at the value of location data in the mobile media question, but answers are evasive. “[With] one of the big players in this space, we saw 85 percent of all impressions [in a campaign] served were not within the location that we specified for our client,” said Jon Hook, head of mobile at MediaCom International. “I’m not talking about minor discrepancies – these are significant discrepancies that we’re seeing.” Other marketers are concerned about the absence of methods to verify location data. Clarity could come in 2015, when the Mobile Marketing Association is expected to release standards that define location data. More.

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