Facebook doesn’t want umpteen degrees of separation between its LiveRail exchange and the stable of publishers who use it to monetize, and the company is taking swift action to cull intermediaries.
In an email obtained by AdExchanger, Facebook says it will terminate publisher services for an undisclosed number of customers (namely third-party resellers of desktop video inventory) by the end of November, citing a push toward “quality, direct-publisher relationships.”
Here’s the full text of the email received by one partner:
October 27, 2015
Re: Termination of LiveRail Publisher Services and Applicable Agreement
Dear LiveRail Customer,
LiveRail is shifting its business focus toward quality, direct-publisher relationships. As a result of this shift in focus, LiveRail will discontinue your use of our publisher services as of November 30, 2015. The applicable agreement covering such publisher services will be deemed terminated as of this date. Please note that you will still be responsible for payment for all invoices for services rendered between now and date of prior to the date of termination and any other obligations that survive termination under the applicable agreement. Also, please be advised that your access to any reports or data available through our service will cease on the termination date. Please reach out to xxxxx@xxxxxxx.com if you have any questions.
Sincerely, The LiveRail Team
Facebook declined to comment or confirm the number of LiveRail customers affected.
Facebook’s move to shore up more quality supply follows a similar move by AppNexus, which has abolished impression resale on its platform and thus dramatically consolidated its supply chain.
Such moves by platform players are seen as a way to fight fraud and invalid traffic, while strengthening direct ties with the “principals” in media transactions: the publisher and advertiser.
“We’ve heard there are about 150 networks and partners they’re turning out, which – to be fair – some were phony accounts or very small customers who hardly used the platform,” said one source who asked to remain anonymous. “They want to clean up bad inventory sources to improve the overall quality of supply.”
LiveRail is well entrenched with premium publishers. It powers both private marketplaces and yield management functionalities for video portal Dailymotion, Hulu and Gannett. More recently, Facebook converted some of LiveRail’s capabilities into a monetization engine for exchange-based, in-app mobile display and native formats.
“Facebook’s move to premium, direct-publisher relationships is necessary,” noted Frank Sinton, CEO of mobile video platform Beachfront Media.
“However, it marks the loss of an independent ad technology platform,” he added. “It remains to be seen how this will impact the entire publisher market. Since the original video SSPs are now part of large media companies, we know there is a big opportunity to serve publishers and brand advertisers via an independent video SSP.”
Another partner noted that while Facebook’s moves could reduce overall impressions, ad networks and trading desks who buy low and mark up high would naturally be most affected.
Allison Schiff contributed.
