VOLUME III
May 1 – August 31, 2010
The Q&A’s
Learn from the Ecosystem
TABLE OF CONTENTS
AGENCIES .................................................................................................................................. 8
Accordant Media Offering Next Generation Buying And Optimization Services Say Founders Greitzer And
Muldoon ...................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Tim Hanlon Reviews New Role at Catalyst S+F, And Agency As Venture Fund .............................................. 10
WPP’s Media Innovation Group GM Brian Lesser On DSPs, Holding Cos And Launching ZAP 3.0 .............. 16
Audience Buying Is Crucial For Entertainment-Focused Agency Media Storm Says MD Cornfeldt .............. 19
Mediabrands’ Cadreon CEO Moorcroft On Buying Platform Developments And Competitive Landscape ... 22
Team Detroit And PointRoll Discuss Ford Online Video Ad Campaign Results .............................................. 24
VivaKi Nerve Center’s Unkel Discusses Integration Of Razorfish, Growth Of Audience On Demand Trading
Desk .......................................................................................................................................................................... 26
VivaKi CEO Hecht Talks AdECN Integration, Google/Invite Media, New “Primary” BlueKai Data Partnership
And French Cuisine ................................................................................................................................................. 29
Yieldivision: We Are A Media Agency With DSP Technology ............................................................................ 33
AD NETWORKS & EXCHANGES ............................................................................................ 35
In-Stream Ad Network Ad.ly Keeping Users Invested In Twitter Says CEO Gullov-Singh .............................. 35
AdReady CEO Siebrecht On Company Plans And Recent Infusion .................................................................. 37
AdReady CEO Siebrecht Says Company Shifting Toward Servicing Agencies With Its Demand-Side
Platform .................................................................................................................................................................... 39
Akamai CTO Afergan On Akamai Ad Product Momentum, Pixel Free Technology And The Media Landscape
................................................................................................................................................................................... 41
Ad Network Roll-up: AudienceScience CEO Hirsch On Consorte Media Acquisition ..................................... 47
Consolidation: AudienceScience CEO Hirsch On Wunderloop Acquisition..................................................... 48
AudienceScience CEO Hirsch On Guaranteeing Data And Audience Validation Reporting ........................... 49
Brand.net CEO Blair Discusses Latest Capital Raise, Positioning And Media Futures Platform ................... 51
Chitika Offering Local Ad Exchange And Ad Network Models To Marketers Says CEO Kolluri .................... 54
New Collective Display Ad Study Points To Audience Buying Growth Through Social Media And Portals . 56
Collective EVP Fitzgibbons On AppNexus Partnership; Says Collective Already Is A DSP ........................... 58
ContextWeb’s Subramanian On PubVantage And PerformancePrice ............................................................... 59
Measurement And Data Driving Strong Growth For Datran Media’s Aperture Says SVP Knoll ..................... 60
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Growing Direct Response Budgets Driving DSNR Media Group Revenues Says CEO Peles ........................ 63
Goodway Group Leveraging Local Advertising And The Ad Network Model Says COO Friedman ............... 66
Google’s Spencer And Miller Announce DoubleClick Ad Exchange Enhancements; Discuss Verification
Space, Display Strategy .......................................................................................................................................... 69
Grocery Shopping Network CEO Robinson Says Platform Increasing Performance By 30% ........................ 72
IDG TechNetwork Targeting Enterprise, Consumer and Gaming Audiences Says CEO Longo ..................... 75
CEO Chenard Says Image Space Media To Intro Self-Serve For Company’s In-Image Ad Network .............. 78
Katz Reviews New Release Of InterCLICK’s Audience Targeting Platform, Says DSPs Are Failing As A
Whole ........................................................................................................................................................................ 80
InterCLICK Prez Katz On Strong Q2 Results; Says Company Goal Is To Align Data, Inventory, And Creative
................................................................................................................................................................................... 82
Kontera CEO Shaham On Results, Company Strategy, In-Text Ad Exchanges And More.............................. 84
Legolas Media Offers Sellers Opportunity To Leverage Their Data In Display Marketplace Says CEO
Arnstein .................................................................................................................................................................... 87
Lijit CEO Todd Vernon On Series D Funding And Data Strategy Roadmap...................................................... 89
LookSmart Looking To Sustain Profit, Grow Revenues Says VP Gill Brown ................................................... 91
MainStreetSocial Helping Local Governments Pay The Bills Through Advertising Says CEO Townsend ... 93
Online Data Explicitly Devoid Of Value; Value Determined By Rocket Fuel Tech Says Prez Frankel ............ 95
ValueClick Media Enters Platform Game; GM Todd Says Company To Simplify Fragmented Display Ad
Market ....................................................................................................................................................................... 96
Right Media Exchange Update From Yahoo! VP McGrory: New Pilot For SEMs, Demand-Side Platforms And
Demand Media Partnership .................................................................................................................................... 98
ANALYSTS ............................................................................................................................. 101
Bank Of Montreal’s Salmon Sees Digital Marketing Hub .................................................................................. 101
BUYING PLATFORMS ........................................................................................................... 103
Adapt.ly Addressing Fragmented, Social Advertising With Self-Serve Platform Says CEO Sethi ............... 103
BLiNQ Media Offering Social Media Ad Platform On Cost-Per-Social-Action Basis Says CEO Williams .... 105
DataXu Data Showing Wide-Swings In CPM Prices For Display Advertising Says VP Simmons ................ 107
DataXu Data Showing Creative Impacting Campaign Conversions More Than Audience, Context Says VP
Catanzaro ............................................................................................................................................................... 109
LucidMedia Announces $4.5 Million In Funding; CEO Ajay Sravanapudi Discusses Plans ......................... 111
3
CEO Sravanapudi On Licensing LucidMedia Contextual Technology To ValueClick .................................... 113
Eyeblaster Becomes MediaMind; CEO Trifon On New Company Name, Direction ........................................ 114
Permuto CEO Shamim Discusses Recent Client Performance And E-Commerce Opportunity ................... 116
Triggit CEO Coelius On New Funds, Emerging Real-Time Bidding Channels, More ..................................... 118
DSP Turn Targeting Brand Dollars With Optimizer Not Just Direct Response Says GM Smolin ................. 120
GM Smolin On Turn Demand-Side Platform Update, Service And Real-Time Bidding Trends ..................... 121
x+1 CEO Nardone Discusses Robust First Quarter 2010 Performance ........................................................... 123
CREATIVE PROVIDERS & OPTIMIZATION .......................................................................... 124
CEO Beriker On New Dapper DisplayDR Product, Search And Display Insights ........................................... 124
Oggifinogi Prez Rosen On New Funding And Real-Time Rich Media .............................................................. 126
DATA & MEASUREMENT ...................................................................................................... 128
CEO Jakubowski Discusses New Aggregate Knowledge Audience Management Platform ......................... 128
Bizo CEO Glass On New Data Partnership With BlueKai Exchange ................................................................ 131
BlueKai Launches White-Label Registry To Promote Data Collection Transparency Says CEO Tawakol .. 132
BrightTag Data Management Platform Addressing Consumer, Advertisers And Publishers Says CEO
Sands ...................................................................................................................................................................... 133
CEO Cimino Says Brilig Is An Audience Commerce Platform With An Open Transaction Marketplace ..... 136
CEO Radfar On Clearspring Audience Platform For Advertisers And Publishers ......................................... 139
Compass Labs Identifying Purchase Intent Through Social Conversations Says CEO Venkatachari ........ 141
Demdex CEO Nicolau On New Financing ........................................................................................................... 143
Online Publishers Can Get Private Data Exchange Thru eXelate Says CRO Zagorski .................................. 144
eXelate CEO Zohar On New Funding, The Consumer, And Publisher Platforms ........................................... 146
Feeva Neighborhood Level Dataset Speaks To Brand Marketing Strategies Says CEO Shah ..................... 148
Localeze Prez Beard Discusses Powering New Places Feature In Facebook ................................................ 151
Magnetic CEO Shatkin-Margolis On New Search Retargeting Partnerships Through Ad Networks ........... 152
Magnetic Raises Another $4 Million; CEO Shatkin-Margolis Discusses Search Re-Targeting Usage ......... 153
MarketShare Partners Acquires JovianData ....................................................................................................... 154
Netezza GM Terrell Discusses Digital Client Momentum And Common Data Strategy Misconceptions ..... 156
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CEO Schigel Says ShareThis Leveraging Data For Publishers, Advertisers And Consumers ..................... 158
VisualDNA Launches New Publisher-Side Audience Targeting Platform For Mirror News Group .............. 160
DIGITAL TV, VIDEO AND RADIO .......................................................................................... 162
Adap.tv Gets RTB: Real-Time Bidding For The Online Video Marketplace ..................................................... 162
Adap.tv President Gabriner On TidalTV Partnership And RTB-Enabled Marketplace ................................... 164
BBE Looking To Automate, Make Video Advertising Simple For Clients Says CEO Wasserlauf ................. 165
blip.tv Gets $10.1 Million From Canaan Partners And Bain Capital; CEO Hudack Discusses Funding And
Plans ....................................................................................................................................................................... 167
CEO Sacerdoti Announces BRX – The New BrightRoll Exchange For Video ................................................. 168
Kantar Video CEO Lederer Discusses Videolytics Platform ............................................................................. 170
Video Ad Network Open Book Video To Offer Property By Property Transparency Says CEO Prohaska .. 172
YuMe CRO McLernon Says Company’s Brand Security Initiative Helps Set It Apart From Video Ad Platform
Competitors ............................................................................................................................................................ 174
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING ............................................................................................ 177
Acquisio Co-Founder Poirier On The Trade Desk Partnership, SEMs And Display Media ........................... 177
Perfect Market Matching Search Audience To Content Says CEO Schoenfeld .............................................. 179
CEO Lien Says Marin Software Bringing Display, Facebook And Paid Search Ad Management To One
Platform .................................................................................................................................................................. 181
Searchandise Commerce Following In-Store Merchandising Model Says CEO Federman .......................... 184
Agencies Using The Crowd And Trada In Order To Provide Marketing Services Says CEO Robertson ..... 187
DIGITAL OUT-OF-HOME........................................................................................................ 188
ADstruc Bringing Efficiency And Technology To Out-Of-Home Advertising Says CEO Laramie ................ 188
SHOPPING.............................................................................................................................. 191
WeShop Leveraging Purchasing Data With Group Buying Says CEO Lee ..................................................... 191
ShopLocal Targeting In-Store Influence Of The Web Says CEO Sharma ........................................................ 193
MyBuys Using Kinetic Ads To Engage The Consumer Says CEO Cell ........................................................... 195
PERFORMANCE MARKETING .............................................................................................. 197
Cross Pixel Media Targeting In-Market Active Shoppers On Ecommerce Sites Says CEO Pearlstein ........ 197
5
TellApart CEO McFarland Claims Vendors Pull View-Through 'Wool' Over Client Eyes ............................... 199
PUBLISHER ............................................................................................................................ 201
Targeting Young Men, Publisher Break Media Concentrates On Direct Ad Sales Says CTO Wilson .......... 201
Glam Media Migrates Its 3,000+ Sites To GlamAdapt Says SVP Jacobs ......................................................... 203
Tyler Fitch of Mindjolt Talks About Publisher Opportunities And Challenges ............................................... 206
Exchanges, Nets and Optimizers Providing Revenue Streams At Sporting News Says Exec Strauss ....... 208
Publisher Technorati Offering Brand Advertisers Scale With Ad Network Says CEO Jalichandra ............. 210
MEDIA BUYING AD TECHNOLOGY ...................................................................................... 212
New CEO Bill Wise Says MediaBank Aims To Give Media Ecosystem Control Over Media Buying, Data
Management ........................................................................................................................................................... 212
MediaBank CEO Wise Discusses New Cross-Channel DSP ............................................................................. 214
PRIVACY REGULATION ........................................................................................................ 216
Better Advertising’s Scott Meyer On Privacy Survey Concerns Limiting Online Ads ................................... 216
Power I Makes Sense For Ecosystem Says Better Advertising CEO Meyer ................................................... 217
TARGETING TECHNOLOGY ................................................................................................. 219
AdMeld And Peer39 Announce Semantic Data Partnership ............................................................................. 219
Attitudinal Targeter Resonate Networks Raises $5 Million; CEO Gernert Discusses Data-Driven Landscape
................................................................................................................................................................................. 222
TRAFFIC TOOLS: SERVING, QUALITY AND ATTRIBUTION .............................................. 224
AdSafe Media Expands Product Line And Into Europe With New Capital Says CRO Wakeford .................. 224
ClickForensics CEO Pellman On New Financing And Audience Verification ................................................. 225
DoubleVerify CEO Netzer On New Fraud Detection Group ............................................................................... 227
VENTURE CAPITAL AND BANKING..................................................................................... 229
Battery Ventures’ Patel Sees More Skepticism Regarding Ad Technology Investment Than Years Past ... 229
Betaworks Swimming In Real-Time Streams Says Founder And COO Weissman ........................................ 232
Gil Beyda of Genacast On Invite Media Success, Stepping Up Investment In Start-ups This Year ............. 234
GCA Savvian’s Kawaja On Google’s Acquisition Of Invite Media And Demand-Side Platform M&A .......... 236
6
Fast Pay Partners Looking To Shorten Receivables Cycles Says Partners Simon And Yee ........................ 238
The Jordan, Edmiston Group's Tolman Geffs Discusses Industry M&A Trends, Sale Of Investopedia To
ValueClick By Forbes ............................................................................................................................................ 241
Investment Banker Terence Kawaja Starts LUMA Partners .............................................................................. 243
Petsky Prunier’s Chadda On FetchBack Sale To GSI Commerce .................................................................... 245
WebMynd Creating New Revenue Stream For Publishers With Search App .................................................. 247
PUBLISHER YIELD MANAGEMENT TOOLS ........................................................................ 249
AdMeld CEO Barrett On New Funds And Next Steps ........................................................................................ 249
Krux Digital Ready To Establish New Rules For Data Usage Says Founder Chavez ..................................... 251
Metamarkets CEO Soloff Announces $2.5 Million Funding From IA Ventures And Allen & Company Execs
Among Others ........................................................................................................................................................ 254
CEO Goel Discusses PubMatic Sell-Side Platform And Momentum................................................................ 256
Rubicon Project Buys SiteScout; COO Roah Discusses Acquisition ............................................................. 258
Yieldex Seeing Traction In Premium Yield Optimization Says CEO Shields................................................... 260
7
Agencies
Accordant Media Offering Next Generation Buying And
Optimization Services Say Founders Greitzer And Muldoon
June 8, 2010 – 7:11 am
Art Muldoon and Matt Greitzer are Co-Founders of Accordant Media, a media buying and optimization company for
agencies and in-house marketers.
AdExchanger.com: Please share a bit of background. Where did you
come up with the idea for Accordant Media?
Matt: The idea behind Accordant is that we integrate strategy, technology
and execution to provide a complete buy-side solution for audience
targeting and exchange-traded media.
Art and I worked together at Avenue A (now Razorfish) for many years
and we each have deep buy-side experience. Art was GM in our New
York office and most recently he led the global marketing data and media
attribution initiatives at Aegis. I ran the SEM practice at Razorfish and also
launched ATOM Systems, Razorfish’s agency trading desk which is now
part of Vivaki.
Honestly, we came up with the idea on the back of a napkin over lunch
after a ContextWeb panel, so we owe Jay Sears some thanks for that. We
recognized there is a proliferation of technology and data providers, but
few buy-side parties with expertise piloting these technologies on
marketers’ behalf.
What problem is Accordant Media solving?
Art: We offer the advantages of audience-based buying solutions without
the complexities. Many agencies and advertisers don’t want to own the responsibility (“hassles”?) of solving for
new technology vendors, data integrations and staffing/utilization at the expense of managing their client
relationships, strategic and creative work. Accordant is a trusted media buying specialist providing transparency,
control, insights and expertise to succeed today. We also believe there are huge strides to be made in integrating
disparate data sources to develop rich, targetable audience segments. We have a unique point of view on how
this is best accomplished and make micro-segmentation a core part of our model.
Do you consider Accordant a services or technology company?
Art: Accordant Media is a technology-enabled services company. Our clients want reliable services that the pure
tech players can’t provide given their business models. We utilize best-in-class enterprise technology partners
where it makes sense to do so, while developing our own proprietary audience analytics and data/campaign
optimization tools. Whatever you want to call it, our clients are relieved to find a company like ours willing to take
a service-forward approach to an increasingly important and effective marketing channel.
Why can a services company "work" in digital media?
8
Matt: We don’t think “service” is a bad word and believe we can manage an attractive business in this area. The
problem plaguing many services businesses in digital media is they are stretched too thin to scale: they want to
develop custom, high-value solutions as clients’ strategic partners, and they also want to command technical and
tactical expertise with a point of view on the 200+ companies in the ad tech landscape. Only service businesses at
massive scale play both these roles. We aim to take the execution and technical integration components off the
shoulders of agencies and in-house marketers so they can focus on building relationships and responding to
customers.
Given your backgrounds in search marketing, what are the pitfalls that you see search marketers
discovering in display media?
Matt: The level of complexity involved in making display work is far greater than that in search, so search
marketers do not engage with display media at all because it’s just too confusing. For those who do engage I
believe they make the same mistakes that traditional display marketers make in focusing on the wrong metrics.
Search marketers often expect search-like results from display, and that’s just not realistic with a push medium.
Display can be effective in and of itself, but it is even more effective as a driver of response at some later date –
through search. We don’t see many search marketers using, and measuring, display as an SEM amplifier. That’s
a big missed opportunity, and one we aim to address.
Where will social media advertising fit in your plans? What's your view on advertising through Facebook?
Matt: We are certainly interested in the social graph as an audience targeting mechanism. Beyond that, we think
Facebook’s ad platform is an extremely attractive advertising vehicle given its potential to deliver search-like
targeting through micro-segmentation of audience. In that respect it is entirely consistent with our thesis around
micro-segmentation. To the extent clients demand it we plan to make Facebook advertising part of our offering.
Would the Accordant Media model work across other media channels as well?
Matt: Absolutely. We view our approach as channel agnostic and are focused on a broader concept of what we
term, "algorithmic media." A core component of our business involves optimizing across search and display, so our
approach is already cross-channel. Beyond that, we are building the audience profiling, segmentation and
analysis techniques that will allow us to support additional channels such as digital video, mobile, email and any
other biddable media channels.
Are you pursuing funding? What are your plans here?
Art: We are currently raising a modest seed round. We’ve been self-funded and want to accelerate our applications
development, partner integrations and business scale with the support of a few strategic investors.
What milestones would you like to have seen the company achieve a year from now?
Art: We are passionate about seeing more agencies and in-house media buyers deploying advanced audience
targeting and biddable media tactics as part of their campaign strategies. We want to be known for making
advanced media buying simple and effective. We want our clients to become heroes for choosing us – our industry
needs more heroes!
Follow Matt Greitzer (@mattgreitzer), Art Muldoon (@amuldoon) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on
Twitter.
June 8, 2010 – 7:11 am
9
Tim Hanlon Reviews New Role at Catalyst S+F, And
Agency As Venture Fund
May 4, 2010 – 9:31 am
Tim Hanlon spoke with AdExchanger.com regarding his new role at
Catalyst S+F. The Former VivaKi Ventures' exec, will be joining the
marketing firm as a partner and be "responsible for the firm's
venture investment and advisory strategies, as well as the lead
consultant on advanced media issues." Read the release.
AdExchanger.com: How will your experience with VivaKi
Ventures help inform your new role at Catalyst S+F
considering its venture focus?
TH: My "venture" experience actually dates back to around 2006 when my Publicis Groupe Media colleague
Rishad Tobaccowala was putting the idea of Denuo (Publicis Groupe's media futures consultancy) together. He let
me pester him into creating and contributing a practice that would focus on connecting with and translating the raw
innovation in advertising/marketing/media from the "edges" for the (preferably early and representative) benefit of
the various agencies and clients of the Groupe. Not the typical stuff of agencies or holding companies (at least
then), and not necessarily driven by pure financial/strategic investment. The idea became to help well-intentioned,
engineering-dominated, entrepreneurial firms in or around the business of advertising/media/marketing better
understand the realities (and sometimes unrealities) of the marketing/advertising/agency business - and in return,
use them as visceral prods for innovation inside the walls of our agency brands and clients. In the process, we
found ourselves also aiding the investors behind the companies, who were looking for industry guidance and
insight for their portfolio firms and themselves. We ran it as Denuo Ventures for about three years, and bumped it
over to the VivaKi corporate unit in late 2008.
As a startup itself, Catalyst S+F is in a unique position to help such firms, their investors and, increasingly,
innovation-starved brand marketers without the legacy biases of traditional agency/holding company structure
getting in the way. Don't get me wrong, there will always be a need for big, scaled agency solutions for large brand
marketers, but scale tends to water down innovation into defensiveness, protectionism and, at best,
incrementalism. My real sense is that marketers have quickly recognized that smart, innovative - and faster approaches to reaching an increasingly complex assortment of the right people with the right messages is now
mission critical - and that legacy agencies as classically defined/structured may not necessarily offer the
nimbleness or "digital completeness" they need. Folks like Catalyst S+F are starting from a completely different
perspective - including the notion that venture-like activity can be a valuable part of the equation,
Do you think new agency models should include (if funds are available) a venture or investment strategy?
All investment is an exercise in financial risk, and the typical agency or holding company is not set up to handle the
inevitable ups and downs of such activity. But I do think the general skills associated with investment: valuecreation, due diligence, corporate governance, business growth/development, strategy and positioning, etc. are
important elements of what marketing services companies ("agencies" or not) need to embrace in order to survive
and thrive in the increasingly sophisticated activity of marketing. The legacy business models of classic agencies full-service or specialized - will probably not survive intact in the next few years (read Bob Garfield's "The Chaos
Scenario" for a raw taste), and I do think new approaches are crucial for survival. Marketers needs are changing
rapidly, and not everybody who services them are moving in parallel lock-step. Some incumbents will evolve and
survive/thrive, but my sense is that a great many "outsiders" - specialty agencies, tech firms, media sellers, etc. will effectively start to offer similar/better services and, in the process, re-shuffle the industry deck. It's already
happening - exciting and daunting at the same time.
10
Why is Catalyst S+F a good fit for you? Why would you say Chicago is a good fit for Catalyst S+F?
John, Cory and the whole team here are amazingly focused on creating something new that helps multiple
stakeholders in the marketing activity food chain. Some of that is traditional services, but with a more
modern/nimble focus. But a lot of it is increasingly non-traditional - approaches to creating value and success from
multiple directions. Whatever our "ventures" activity evolves to will be a good example, if we do it right. I'm honored
the folks here think I can add value, and I'm looking forward to the challenge.
As for Chicago, I can't think of better place in the US to "reality check" some of the mania that happens around
media and tech in places like New York and Silicon Valley. The city has always been a strong marketing town and
is, in my opinion, an excellent filter for the best ideas that are emanating from the coasts. (Although I would
definitely vouch for Chicago's surprisingly dynamic tech innovation scene - small, humble, but pretty impressive
and definitely underrated). I've always found it to be an advantage when vetting innovation - it's closer in mindset
(and geography) to the representative thinking of marketers and it's an excellent barometer of how innovation will
or won't translate into the bigger world
By John Ebbert
May 4, 2010 – 9:31 am
11
VP Dax Hamman Of Hearst's iCrossing Discusses Display,
DataXu Partnership And The Expression Of Intent
August 19, 2010 – 3:12 pm
DataXu announced earlier this week that Hearst digital marketing
agency iCrossing had chosen DataXu for demand-side platform
services. Read the release.
iCrossing VP Dax Hamman discussed the deal as well as
iCrossing's view on DSPs and "intent" media.
AdExchanger.com: What are the triggers for choosing to
include a demand-side platform in your business model in
general?
DH: The pendulum of media has swung so much during the last 18 months from a primarily premium buying CPM
model to a performance based exchange-based model that any serious media agency must have a strategy for the
exchanges and RTB.
For iCrossing, our heritage is 13 years in search, and that is a tremendous amount of knowledge with regards to
biddable media strategy and execution. In many ways it puts us in the best possible place to offer performance
display campaigns using the exchange environments.
In addition, our search business generates a significant amount of data and, by having a DSP relationship, we can
leverage that data and turn it into real value for our clients.
Please drill down on the discovery process that led to iCrossing picking DataXu. What were some of the
criterion by which you judged each DSP and eventually chose DataXu? And, will you use DataXu
exclusively as your DSP?
We have been using other solutions for a period of time and have also been buying exchange media indirectly by
packaging it in combination with the data. Any site retargeting buy with networks like Yahoo and MMN are in part
an exchange buy; the execution happens to be in someone else's hands.
The consideration process for a partner has been purposefully long. Just two years ago, DSP technology was
some of the hottest code to have. However, the market became commoditized quickly when companies began
offering a DSP (lite) tool for free when buying their data -. We felt it was important to wait and monitor both the
evolution of the exchanges and the DSP technologies during this timeframe - and so we used that timeframe to
trial several technologies and learn what was right for us.
There were some major considerations that were critical for us:




Above and beyond anything else - people; the folks at DataXu share many of our philosophies towards
media and data and the direction of the industry, and both parties demonstrated a real desire to be
partners with each other
Experience in the executive and senior management team - innovation is critical and we want a partner
that is ahead of the curve
Solutions for all types of buying, including RTB and premium
Ability to self-serve - we have the smartest and most experienced SEM team and we want to leverage
those people and that knowledge in our display buying
12


Ability to integrate the iCrossing data for the benefit of our display media buying
Solid reporting and optimization solutions
Can you discuss what you meant in the release by "talking to 'the individual expressing intent' rather than
'simply shouting at the crowd'"? For the marketer, how is that a scalable strategy?
'Individuals with intent' is the mantra that we built the iCrossing display media practice on - we have clients who
can chant it back to us in meetings!
The phrase is designed to briefly explain what has been a fundamental shift in media planning. The idea of
shouting at the crowd refers to an old school methodology, a reliance on homepage takeovers, big and long term
commitments, a lack of flexibility, demographic network buying etc.
All of these methods often have tremendous waste built into them and as such are not as effective at achieving a
brand's objectives. We commonly see media plans from the biggest media agencies where it seems they just
cannot move past a premium CPM world.
And we don't need to focus on those types of models anymore.
In today's world of biddable media and the exchanges, we can be laser focused on individuals who are doing what
we want them to be doing, not merely hoping a few people in a crowd will be doing so coincidentally.
We find those individuals by using intent data - have they searched for a term we care about, have they visited the
website, have they bought on another site, have they read an advertorial etc.
Is it scalable? Absolutely! There is data all around us. Arguably it is best for a client to create their own data with
techniques like site retargeting, and that in isolation is limited in spend based on the site's traffic volume. There are
however, many techniques for creating and obtaining data that prove themselves to be very valuable.
Looking back since the beginning of the year in digital ad tech, what has surprised you most?
I love digital - I have spent most of my career in it and that is primarily because of the speed at which it changes;
and it is that sheer speed that is always a pleasant surprise. Right now, watching the separation of media and data
is fascinating, and it will lead to further consolidation in the industry, but also an increased amount of evolution.
By John Ebbert
August 19, 2010 – 3:12 pm
13
Infectious Media’s Impression Desk Is More Than A DSP
Says Co-Founder Andy Cocker
May 13, 2010 – 8:12 am
Andy Cocker, co-Founder and Managing Partner of UK-based,
Infectious Media Ltd, a media agency, discussed the company's
momentum in the media trading space - and the company's
Impression Desk media buying platform - with AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: Please define Infectious Media's value
proposition.
AC: We are a media buying services company, specializing in data
driven display trading across ad exchanges. We've purpose built
our infrastructure and service offering to give advertisers better
value and control from their display campaigns. There's a lot of
jargon and hype in this space right now, and we, ourselves are
guilty of overcomplicating things sometimes. The bottom line is we
make display advertising work harder. This is what advertisers and
agencies are interested in; the 'under the hood detail', whilst critical
for execution is secondary.
What is The Impression Desk? And, what are the differentiators?
Impression Desk is our multi-exchange trading 'engine'. It's more than just a 'DSP'. It's a combination of core DSP
technologies with additional proprietary data, technology and service layers on top. We've developed it based on
our requirements and experience of serving UK and European focussed advertisers. This is a big differentiator.
The UK and European markets are different to the US in many ways. Scale of audience, liquidity of quality
inventory, liquidity of 3rd party data, and advertiser 'brand safety' requirements are just a few of the nuances that
we have tailored Impression Desk to deal with. In particular, we're working on some interesting data integrations
and a bespoke 'brand safe' inventory classification programme, which we will be launching soon.
How about the competitive set?
In terms of competitive set, we don't believe there are many business around that offer the combination of service,
data and tech layers with the UK and European experience that we have. We are often compared performance
wise by advertisers and agencies against ad-networks, here in the UK. Interestingly we are starting to compete
against some of the large holding group offerings, although many of them are choosing to work with us too,
because of our agility, experience and 100% focus.
The allusion to the financial markets is apparent. Why is the financial markets analogy relevant in your
opinion? What do you clients think about it?
We never made a conscious decision to market ourselves in that way. Whilst i think there are some similarities with
financial trading, there are plenty of things that are totally different. For me, the biggest macro analogy which helps
clients understand the revolution taking place, is to compare it to the 'Big Bang' which took place in the City of
London in 1986. This was the year when financial trading started to switch from 'over the phone' to 'screen based',
high frequency, algorithmically assisted trading. This is where the analogy ends i think.
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How much educating are you doing right now? Is this an important part of the business?
We're doing a LOT of educating right now. There is such an interest in this space, and at the same time, so much
hype and confusion around what is and isn't possible, and who does what in the increasingly complexed eco
system. We spend a lot of time de-mystifying this space and trying to communicate the benefits to advertisers in a
clear and simple way. We will be announcing details of an industry event focussing on this very soon, so watch this
space.
Any buying trends you can report?
The main trends/ issues right now in the UK and Europe surround RTB liquidity and Brand Safety. RTB liquidity is
ramping slowly, but there is still a shortage of named 'brand safe' supply. We're also definitely seeing an increase
in clearing prices in the UK, as demand grows and buyers better recognize the value of what they are buying. We
are certainly bidding above average on inventory with recognized value to our advertisers. This is good news for
publishers as it proves that this model can work for them too, not just the buy side.
And, are you selling inventory yet? It seems like media participants are either buying or selling in the
exchange world but not both. When do you see true trading taking place?
No we're not selling, nor do we currently have plans to. Our primary focus at the moment is getting the buy side
proposition right. Ultimately, any trading operation like ours, needs to be very clear on which side they are primarily
serving. The only way a 'buy side' service could legitimately sell inventory as well, is when it is absolutely sure that
the inventory has no value to the advertisers it represents, but that would make us more like a network, which we
are not. As a next generation media buying operation, our aim is to ONLY bid on inventory that is of value to our
advertisers., and not to pick up any excess 'waste'. The 'true trading' you mention is something that ad networks
have been doing for some time now, but that means they can't truly represent the best interests of advertisers.
Finally, how big is Infectious Media today in terms of employees and how are you sustaining the
business? Any thoughts on seeking venture funding, for example?
We are currently 11, and growing rapidly based on purely organic growth. Our plan is to double in size by this time
next year. and we're currently recruiting in the areas of account management and analytics.. Infectious Media is an
independent business, which has given us the freedom and agility to follow our instincts, but we have ambitious
plans and recognize that the competitive landscape is intensifying. We always keep an open mind to funding, and
are currently exploring all our options.
Follow Infectious Media (@infectiousmedia) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 13, 2010 – 8:12 am
15
WPP’s Media Innovation Group GM Brian Lesser On DSPs,
Holding Cos And Launching ZAP 3.0
June 10, 2010 – 12:21 am
Brian Lesser is SVP and General Manager at the Media Innovation
Group, WPP’s proprietary ad technology firm.
What is the Media Innovation Group (MIG)‘s role within WPP?
MIG is WPP’s technology-driven digital marketing company
designed to help marketers navigate the increasingly complex
digital landscape. At MIG, our goal is to build technology and
leverage data to give agencies and advertisers access to the
audiences they are trying to reach. We are very closely integrated
with WPP’s agencies and help them make smarter media
investment decisions on behalf of our clients by providing the right
technology infrastructure and connectivity into the digital ad
ecosystem.
What is the MIG’s current product offering?
Data is at the core of all our products. The first product developed
by the MIG in 2007 was a performance data warehouse called
Zeus. Since that time we have developed a series of applications
that leverage the data we collect. The suite of applications is called
ZAP, the Zeus Advertising Platform. ZAP integrates targeting,
optimization, buying and analytics, giving advertisers better visibility
into the performance of their digital marketing campaigns. Today
we are announcing the release of ZAP 3.0. It’s loaded with
updated features such as ZAP Segment Builder which makes
ZAP’s segmentation capabilities actionable via B3; an enhanced
RTB interface called ZAP Trader and ZAP Reporting, a way to further automate and customize our reporting and
analysis tools.
Our technology supports B3, our very-successful media optimization business which allows our partner agencies
to target audiences more efficiently across publishers, ad networks and real-time marketplaces like ad exchanges.
Is the MIG a DSP?
No. Definitions are getting somewhat fuzzy as everyone is now calling themselves a DSP but we prefer not to use
that term. As I understand it, DSPs are very focused on automated buying and creating greater efficiencies in
acquiring inventory, mainly through RTB. We have been doing that very successfully and at significant scale for
over two years, both through our own proprietary solutions and by testing and partnering with nearly all of the
leading third-party providers in the field. We certainly have all the capabilities of what is commonly known as a
demand-side-platform, but our scope and ambition are much broader.
How exactly is your approach different from a DSP like Turn, Mediamath or Invite?
First of all, we don’t focus on one particular inventory channel, the way DSPs focus on exchanges. We buy from
everyone who can deliver the audience that fits the marketing strategies that our agencies help define for their
clients: direct from publishers, through networks, on exchanges, enriched with third-party data etc.
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Secondly and most importantly, we want to do more than just help advertisers and agencies (re)claim value from
various intermediaries in the ecosystem and acquire inventory more efficiently at lower rates. We build technology
for our agencies to serve their clients’ needs more holistically – greater efficiency and lower rates is just one of
many goals they have, in fact they probably care more about connecting with the right audiences and attributing
ROI correctly across all relevant channels, not just display. We want to create lasting value by leveraging all the
knowledge that WPP companies have of their clients’ overall marketing goals and interactions with their
customers; and having that rich data inform agencies and clients’ decision-making, every step of the way. We think
that kind of value creation will become a source of lasting competitive advantage for our agencies.
What about other ad holding company buying platforms such as Publicis’ Vivaki, IPG’s Cadreon or Havas’
Adnetik?
I think all of the agency holding companies are rightly focused on driving efficiency in a highly-fragmented market.
However, there is far too much concentration on buying cheap media. I agree that in an inefficient market, there
are bad actors that take outsize margins without adding value. But acquiring cheap media is the easy part. Our
focus is on adding value to advertisers and quality publishers through data and technology. For example, we
provide attribution modeling that allows advertisers to see beyond view-through or last-click. This reporting helps
advertisers buy smarter (not just cheaper), but it also helps quality publishers in that it properly values user
interactions that happen higher in the purchase funnel.
Also, we believe in the importance of proprietary technology to ensure the integrity of our client’s data. This is why
WPP entered this space earlier and more aggressively than other ad holding companies and invested heavily in
building its own technology development capabilities. We have been working on ZAP and B3 for three years now,
and while we may not have as many engineers as Google, I am guessing we have more than the other holding
companies combined.
Why the need to own technology? Why not outsource it to a nimble startup?
We need proprietary technology to leverage and protect our clients’ proprietary data. But our strategy is not to
develop every relevant application ourselves. Parts of ZAP rely on partnerships with high-quality technology
organizations. We build the pieces that are most important to protect client data and ensure WPP’s competitive
advantage. We partner to incorporate the best point solutions.
The inherent dilemma of every third-party DSP is that you cannot unlearn what you learn from your clients’ data,
no matter how separately you store it. Every buy that an agency sends through a DSP makes that DSP smarter,
ultimately benefitting that agency’s competitors. In order to get from mere capturing of value into true value
creation, you need closer integration of technology platforms with agencies and the ability to tap into proprietary
data. Deep partnerships like that need to be exclusive and ideally as in our case, wholly-owned.
What’s your reaction to Google’s acquisition of Invite Media?
First of all, congratulations to Nat, Zach and the entire Invite Media team. This is something we have been
anticipating. It validates our strategy of owning proprietary DSP technology. From our perspective, DSP’s are not
reliable long-term partners for this very reason. We cannot predict who their owners will be, and therefore who will
control the advertiser data.
From Google’s perspective this makes complete sense. It now owns buy-side and sell-side tools, and the real-time
marketplace in between. Theoretically, Google’s visibility over advertiser data now allows it to monitor pricing
across all exchanges, including Right Media and some advertisers and publishers may feel threatened by that.
Given the necessity for constant innovation in technology, how do you keep your team focused and
incentivized, considering the current excitement in and temptation of the start-up world?
The MIG is a great place to be right now. Unlike our friends at startups, we don’t need to sell ourselves externally
and are happy to fly below the radar. Instead, we have been hard at work for the past three years partnering
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closely with our agencies and building technology. We really hit an inflection point last year and we’ve run over 500
campaigns for 100 advertisers over the last 12 months in North America and the UK. We continue to grow at a
very fast pace in our NYC and London offices and will be entering new international markets. Scale and proprietary
data are a huge advantage in this business and we are betting that advertisers and agencies will prefer real
results, data integrity and accountability over salesmanship and hype in the long run. Agency skills like creativity,
branding and deep client relationships across channels will see resurgence once the ad technology gold rush dies
down and the obsession with cheap inventory fades. There is a lot to be said for being owned by the world’s
largest buyer of digital media and taking the long view – we have a clear strategy and are well-positioned to help
our agencies and their clients benefit from market innovation.
Follow Brian Lesser (@blesser) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 10, 2010 – 12:21 am
18
Audience Buying Is Crucial For Entertainment-Focused
Agency Media Storm Says MD Cornfeldt
July 22, 2010 – 8:05 am
Jeremy Cornfeldt, Managing Director, Digital, of Media Storm, a
digital media agency.
AdExchanger.com: On a percentage basis, how much ad
spend is devoted to display in a typical campaign? Can you
see this changing going forward? Why or why not?
JC: It really varies for our campaigns on the goals of each
initiative. At the end of the day, it will really be the performance
that will dictate the percentage spend. If you look at how search
started to take over the budget allocation it was totally driven by
performance and as long as display can continue to drive
performance whether they are brand or DR metrics, it will continue
to receive budget. And I think the amount it will receive will really
depend on the goals of the campaign.
As new opportunities present themselves, I do see the allocation to
display eroding as marketers test and measure, but it will all come
back to performance driving the allocation.
Is Mediastorm owned by an ad holding company? Please
share a bit of background on the company.
Media Storm is an independent agency that was started by Tim
Williams and Craig Woerz. Tim and Craig were looking to change
the agency model and differentiate their offering in the
marketplace. Almost 9 years later, we have a thriving agency of 100+ staff with great experience in the
entertainment space and over 30 clients in this vertical. We have also have been able to attract client's outside of
the entertainment space, but with inherent entertainment value. Our entertainment experience has served us well
in helping client's outside of this space to build their brand and drive sales and we were recently awarded Media
Plan of the Year by Media Week Magazine for one of these executions.
And yourself? How did you get to Mediastorm and what do you do there today?
Prior to Media Storm I was at Carat. While at Carat, I had the opportunity to meet Craig and Tim to explore some
possible partnership opportunities. We never ended up partnering on a specific project, but I stayed in touch with
Craig and Tim over the years. I had always been impressed with their agency and the fact that they had built it
from scratch and managed to find a niche and truly differentiate themselves.
Late last year, they called me and explained that they were looking to hire a senior level resource to run their
digital team and asked if I would be interested. After meeting with multiple people in the agency, I jumped at the
opportunity and here I am today.
I oversee our digital team and I'm responsible for our strategy, management and growth in the areas of display,
search, social media and data. I'm really lucky to have a great staff that have a wealth of digital experience and
clients that are willing to be first to market with new opportunities. It's been 6 months so far and I'm having a great
time.
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Has audience buying through data-driven digital channels reached your clients yet?
Definitely. The majority of our clients are all about targeting the right audience that they believe (through research
and content testing) would be interested in their new/existing programs. Audience for us is crucial. Our goal is to
continually learn more about the audience and their interests and align our content messages accordingly. For
clients our DR clients, the audience targeting and data is key for us to continually optimize our campaigns and
drive business results.
Who gets it and who doesn't?
I'd say that all of our clients get it, but for our entertainment clients we have to balance our audience targeting with
our high impact media/creative executions. Entertainment campaigns are shorter in duration to keep the
information recent and fresh and high impact placements help to ensure reach. So we leverage our audience
targeting to complement our high impact placements.
Brand versus DR - how does spend break out at Mediastorm for digital? Any trends you can share?
It's a little harder to answer because even for our DR clients we are still doing a fair amount of brand focused
media. We are fortunate to have a vast amount of DR and brand experience within the team, so we're able to
construct robust campaigns for our clients. Regardless of whether or not we're doing a brand or DR campaign,
audience data is core to our success. With each campaign, we strive to learn more about our target and hone in
on key interest areas to continually optimize existing and set the stage for planning for our future campaigns.
Is an earned media strategy possible using data and ad targeting?
Absolutely. Look at what companies like 33across and Media6Degrees are doing with data from earned
conversations and the success that they've had for their advertisers. For our clients, it's paramount to understand
what's happening in the earned space. Entertainment is one of the most highly discussed topics in the earned
space, so it's crucial for us to listen to the conversation and tie that data into our planning approach. We tend to
look at all aspects of what the user does and says online and leverage this data to help refine our target and their
interests to truly pinpoint our user with our media & social media plans.
How do you manage between letting clients do what they want, and trying to prepare them to use newer,
more efficient technology, for example?
We're lucky in the fact that our clients trust us when it comes to introducing new ideas and technology. We do
have the occasional push back on specific sites, but for the most part our clients have been very open to the ideas
of using targeting technology, leveraging our trading desk and our social media listening capabilities.
What about a trading desk strategy for Mediastorm?
We have one in place that we are currently testing and we're always looking at other providers as well. There are
several strong players and we want to ensure that we align ourselves with the technology that meets the specific
needs of our client base now and in the future.
How big of an issue is collections and billing for the agency? Does it ever keep you from executing
campaigns efficiently with your vendors?
Not an issue for us as we have a solid staff and great systems in place.
Considering the speed at which innovation is changing advertising, how does Mediastorm keep up? In
particular, does it train its employees regularly?
Our goal at the agency is to constantly stay ahead of the space. It is a challenge for the team to keep up with their
day-to-day tasks as well as stay on top of changes in the industry, but we have plans in place to keep the team
20
abreast of new developments. Each month, we meet as a group to discuss the industry and our clients, share
ideas and meet with key innovative partners. As I mentioned before, we are also fortunate to have clients that are
not afraid to be first to market with a test and the best way to learn about new technology and other opportunities is
to actually see how well they perform in a campaign. And we have some other tactics that we use to keep up to
date on new players and changes in the space with a goal of constantly staying ahead of the curve.
How will the role of the media planner buyer evolve in the next few years? What is your view on the ad
network model and its benefits to the agency going forward?
The biggest question in my mind is the impact that the DSPs will have on the media planner. Is this a unique set of
skills? Will this evolve like paid search did? And I think the answer is yes. When paid search first started to take
hold, most agencies tasked their media planners to manage these programs. But soon we found that this was a
unique set of skills and we began to train and hire for search specialists. I believe the same will happen (and is
already happening) with those who utilize DSPs on a regular basis - it is a unique set of skills. To answer your
specific question, I think a new type of media planner will be born.
The benefit the ad networks, exchanges and other types of data providers can bring to the agencies moving
forward is the marriage of our site side data with the front end media data to truly complete the picture of who the
user is, their interests and how we can effectively and efficiently target them moving forward. I think you'll start to
see some larger CPG type clients who value this kind of targeting to take advantage of these opportunities.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 22, 2010 – 8:05 am
21
Mediabrands’ Cadreon CEO Moorcroft On Buying Platform
Developments And Competitive Landscape
May 10, 2010 – 9:04 am
In a release last week, IPG's Mediabrands announced that
Brendan Moorcroft had been appointed CEO for Cadreon,
Mediabrands online media buying platform which services
Universal McCann (UM), Initiative, Mediabrands Ventures and their
clients."Read the release.
Moorcroft discussed Cadreon's development and his views on the competitive landscape.
AdExchanger.com: When does Cadreon become available to all media agencies at IPG and what are some
of the key milestones you're looking for in the interim?
BM: Cadreon is available to all media agencies within IPG. The Cadreon force started working with both
Mediabrands and non-Mediabrands business units this year.
With display's ability to target audience well-established, where do you see the next digital silos which will
make sense for audience targeting?
Cadreon is excited by a few places, first, online video seems will most likely be the next scalable channel, however
the automation of Addressable TV, Digital Out-of-home and Mobile are on our radar. Cadreon is currently
activating experiments in each of those areas. Also, anything with a digital serving system will be incorporated in
the Cadreon ecosystem at some point.
Do you think agency buying platforms, and Cadreon in particular, can innovate and compete with buying
platforms created via the VC-backed community? For example, some might say, the incentive structure for
acquiring skilled employees is much more powerful in the startup world.
Yes. Cadreon represents true demand. Outside VC backed platforms still do not represent true demand, they are a
proxy. This allows us to work with best of breed technology partners to help craft technology agnostic solutions.
As a key stakeholder, what impresses you the most about this move toward audience buying in digital
advertising?
It's delivering on what Digital always promised to do: to use technology to help reduce waste in the eco-system.
The really exciting part is the velocity of change.
And, after listening to UM/Mediabrands' clients over the past few years, what's the biggest pain point for
them with an agency audience buying platform strategy?
Cadreon is focusing on educating clients about the benefits to buying audiences vs. buying through the traditional
model. Most clients understand the theory, but it is Cadreon's responsibility to providing demonstrative proof that it
works.
In terms of working with ad agencies, do you see a role for ad networks in the future? Are agency buying
platforms trying to remove ad networks from the value chain?
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Yes. Some ad networks have been great partners to us and provide excellent inventory and offer great technology
point solutions. Those ad networks that simply aggregate insertion orders and fill them through either daisy
chaining or exchange based buying will have a limited run.
By John Ebbert
May 10, 2010 – 9:04 am
23
Team Detroit And PointRoll Discuss Ford Online Video Ad
Campaign Results
August 27, 2010 – 11:53 am
PointRoll recently announced results from a Ford campaign led by Ford's
agency, Team Detroit. For in-banner video ads using PointRoll technology
for a Ford 'Drive One' campaign, "Interaction rates rose 74 percent for
expandable video ad units and nearly doubled for non-expandable video
ad units." Read the release (PDF).
Todd Huntley, SVP, Group Account Director Ford Brand Digital, Team
Detroit, and Sarah Ripmaster, VP, Major Accounts & Automotive,
PointRoll, discussed the campaign and its results.
AdExchanger.com: The engagement numbers seem impressive. But,
is it selling cars?
TODD HUNTLEY: The objective for the campaign is a bit higher in the
funnel -- trying to engage with the consumer and get Ford on their
consideration list. We cannot directly tie the metrics from these banners to cars sold, but Ford has definitely seen
increases in market share using tactics such as this to deliver the right experience to the user.
How do you and the client gauge/measure success?
SARAH RIPMASTER: For this initiative we measured success on interactions using PointRoll benchmarks that are
developed by analyzing the thousands of campaigns we've powered beyond Ford (more than 60% of rich media
campaigns online are powered by PointRoll). In this case we measured that on average, users spent 40 percent
more time with the Ford brand in comparison to industry benchmarks. We also found that 4.5 percent of
consumers click, rollover or take an action with a non-expandable video ad. Additionally, we found that 15 out of
every 100 users that expanded a panel in an expandable video ad unit actually started a video, and that the
percentage of users that completed the video in full surpassed our industry benchmarks by more than 10 percent.
It appears the video made for this ad was made specifically for the web ad unit given the creative direction
and videography. In general, what have you seen in regards to the proper use of the web video format?
Are mistakes still being made?
TODD HUNTLEY: The video was actually a series of 60 15-second TV spots showcasing people's responses to
the product features. We have shot a lot of video for web and experienced great success with online video views
as well as brand engagement, as measured by attitudinal studies.
In addition to automotive, what other verticals do you see as particularly well-suited for the brand
campaigns exhibited in these ad units? Why?
SARAH RIPMASTER: All verticals can benefit from dynamic ad campaigns like this one. Advertisers across
industries are looking to engage users by offering ads that are contextually relevant and non-disruptive to their
online experiences. We've seen successful campaigns from major CPG, retail, automotive and entertainment
advertisers. Marketers from each sector are linked by a common goal to create, target, deliver and measure
dynamic ads that engage with consumers in a respectful way.
By John Ebbert
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August 27, 2010 – 11:53 am
25
VivaKi Nerve Center’s Unkel Discusses Integration Of
Razorfish, Growth Of Audience On Demand Trading Desk
June 2, 2010 – 6:08 am
AdExchanger.com spoke to Kurt Unkel, SVP of Publicis' VivaKi
Nerve Center, about recent events at the company as well as the
integration of Razorfish and Atom Systems, Razorfish's media
trading unit.
AdExchanger.com: What's the difference between Vivaki, the
VivaKi Nerve Center, and Audience On Demand?
KU: Vivaki is the strategic entity created by Publicis Groupe to leverage the combined scale of its media and digital
operations, which represent nearly $60 billion dollars in global ad spend and influence. VivaKi aggregates the
marketplace influence of five autonomous brands, including: two global media agencies, Starcom MediaVest
Group and ZenithOptimedia; two leading digital marketing agencies, Digitas and Razorfish; and a premiere futures
practice, Denuo.
On behalf of its agency brands and their clients, VivaKi faces the market to help identify and build technology,
message distribution, audience aggregation and content solutions for the future. VivaKi also includes a “Talent &
Transformation Practice”, which leverages the scale of the VivaKi brands to develop and deliver tools and
approaches designed to attract, develop, train, motivate and reward the world’s best people.
Sitting at the core of VivaKi is the VivaKi Nerve Center, which serves as a think tank, R&D center and testing
ground to activate new pathways for clients to connect with consumers in an increasingly digital world.
The key objective of the VivaKi Nerve Center is to help deliver better solutions for our clients as the marketing
landscape continues to evolve and accelerate at a fast pace. Collaboration within the VivaKi family, and across
the Groupe, is essential.
To succeed in our mission, the Nerve Center will focus on some key areas to empower our VivaKi agency teams
and clients:
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Global Platforms & Products: Developing global platforms and proprietary products that help our agencies
differentiate and compete in the marketplace. Products will be supported by an advanced underlying
technology and data infrastructure that delivers speed and scale.
Industry-Leading Partnerships: Creating strategic global partnerships that provide tangible value for our
clients and partners, while differentiating against the competition.
Innovation & Thought Leadership: Investing in innovation and next generation emerging opportunities, like
The Pool, which will validate our leadership position in the marketplace.
Our "trading desk" solution is called Audience on Demand and is therefore a key strand in the global platforms and
products category above and indeed innovation. It’s one of the most exciting areas to touch all agency groups in
recent years. Vivaki Nerve Center has worked very collaboratively with the Vivaki brands in delivering the
Audience on Demand platform to their clients.
How has VivaKi integrated Razorfish's ATOM Systems into the company's trading desk strategy, the
VivaKi Nerve Center?
26
We have combined the teams, technologies, and techniques into a single, cohesive AOD business unit. It's been a
very positive and successful transition, with a lot of synergistic upside for our clients, our agencies, and our
expanding team. Much of what ATOM was focused on was DR-client oriented and much of the existing AOD client
base was audience oriented, so it really was a perfect compliment strategically. We have also been able to
dedicate specialty resources towards areas such as data & inventory partnerships, advanced analytics, client
education, and platform technologies. This is allowing us to deliver to our agencies and their clients what we
would argue to be one of the most seasoned, savvy teams in this young space.
What can you share regarding scale of VivaKi's trading desk strategy today? Where do you think you'll be
by the end of the year?
We've had over 55 clients running on AOD to date in 2010, with well over 1250 campaigns and over 1 billion
impressions a month (and rising). And that's pure exchange-based buying, executed by the AOD team directly,
which is a key aspect of our approach. We're very focused on developing the talent internally and helping grow the
ecosystem by being active, first party participants. This is entirely about buying the right audience, at the right
time, for the right price across the widest media footprints possible for our clients. Our goal is to continue to
educate and grow adoption of AOD throughout the rest of the year, building on successes and taking advantage of
learning opportunities.
We've also recently launched 3 clients in the UK, so scaling those opportunities, as well as helping to develop
marketplaces abroad that will support the AOD model, play into this goal as well.
How important to the trading desk strategy's success are the companies represented by investments
made by VivaKi Ventures? -such as "Buddy Media, Adap.tv, Aggregate Knowledge, and Tumri, among
others" as noted here.
We've enjoyed great working relationships across Vivaki with our Ventures partners, and where a partner is
applicable to AOD, we've connected the dots. But not every aspect of Ventures is AOD, and not every part of AOD
can work within Ventures.
Discuss the AOD/VNC (??) team. How big is it? What percentage of VivaKi media agencies are being
serviced by the group? Does all non-guaranteed display buying go through the AOD/VNC group?
The AOD team works in conjunction with our agency media & strategy teams, so the core team is 20+ strong and
growing (see job board), but that's truly an understatement. We may be the engine that executes, but our agency
teams help make us successful with really brilliant strategies and helping clients understand the opportunities
within this ever changing space.
If you had it do over again from scratch, what one change would you make to your strategic steps to-date?
There's always been a great silver lining to challenges we've encountered in the past 2 years of running AOD, and
we've learned a lot from those. If I had to pick one topic, I would say that education around attribution is an area
that continues to be complex. Understanding of the topic varies widely across clients and agencies, and so
navigating that and bringing everyone up to equal footing continues to be a big part of our education process.
Can't say there's a mulligan we need on it, though.
Will Publicis buy its own DSP at some point, do you have one already, or will you continue to license from
third-parties/partners?
Our technology strategy is focused on owning the IP around campaign management, optimization, and analytics.
As Vivaki,, we have had a great deal of success to date in building on top of existing solutions so that our workflow,
our view of the data, and our ability to activate our insights are points of differentiation. We've developed portfolio
management solutions to support some of our largest clients who have overlapping lines of business, we've built
search solutions that allow us to move faster and with greater insights than our competition, and we've created
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data management & dashboard solutions that are structured to develop actionable insights. Continuing with that
successful strategy tends to be our focus.
But never say never..
By John Ebbert
June 2, 2010 – 6:08 am
28
VivaKi CEO Hecht Talks AdECN Integration, Google/Invite
Media, New “Primary” BlueKai Data Partnership And
French Cuisine
June 14, 2010 – 1:44 am
Publicis’ VivaKi Nerve Center CEO Curt Hecht recently discussed
some of the latest updates with the Nerve Center.
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AdECN Integration Via AdECN
Invite Media And Google Interoperability
VivaKi Nerve Center Targeting Europe
Using Ad Networks
BlueKai Partnership
Brand Safety And Possible Verification Partner
On Moving To Paris, Kenny Departure
Audience Buying For Video, The Pool
AdExchanger.com: What announcement do you have in
regards to inventory partners?
CH: We’re the first holding company to be procuring inventory
through AdECN. We were able to make that integration happen via
Invite Media.
I was with Microsoft’s Darren Huston last week and he is quite
pleased with the quality of advertisers he's seen come through due
to the integration and [the quality] of our brand marketers. We’re
excited by that. It's by no means exclusive and wouldn't expect it to
be. But, it now makes us interoperable with Google, Yahoo, and
Microsoft. And we're working hard on AOL which will hopefully
happen in the near term.
AdExchanger.com: What kind of inventory do you see through AdECN?
CH: AdECN is focused first on Hotmail. And I think as they understand how performance looks, we'll expand from
there. But, we've started with Hotmail.
The other good piece of news about this is the fact that it is through Invite Media, and post-Google acquisition [Google] has been very supportive. Google realizes it's for the DFA stack, away from media, and they appreciate
that it works just like search bid management or serving ads. it's a good thing for the industry that they're taking the
interoperable view.
You were asking [earlier] how we felt about the Invite Media acquisition. I think it's great that what you're seeing is
some consistency where Omnicom (Click here for OMG CEO Matt Spiegel’s thoughts) and InterPublic Group
(Click here for Cadreon CEO Brendan Moorcroft’s thoughts) - I believe through AdExchanger.com - they both have
come out supportive and positive.
I was with Jonathan Nelson of Omnicom yesterday, and he supported what Matt Spiegel had already said from
Omnicom that they think interoperability is key and are supportive on that front.
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You also asked if we were clued in on [the Invite Media acquisition]. We've been working with Invite Media for a
long time, and Publicis Group has had a relationship strategically with Google for a long time as well, so there
weren't any surprises for us with the announcement. We’ve been supportive.
I was at Susan Wojcicki’s and Neal Mohan’s product management offsite yesterday in California, and they asked
me what I thought. And I said, "Listen, just do not slow down. Don't slow down with Invite Media. Let them continue
to innovate."
I assume they'll eventually put them on the Google Stack, but for the time being we just want to keep progress
going the way that it has been and get [Invite Media] into Europe. We're using Invite today in the UK. We've run
about four campaigns. We see continued expansion and we'd like to use them in other parts of Western Europe.
AdExchanger.com: That's very interesting what you're saying about Europe. Is this an indication that
European advertisers are getting into the idea of audience buying through exchanges?
CH: Yes. It's part of the reason I'm going over [to Paris] - to develop the market as much as I possibly can with
Marco Bertozzi who we recently hired to lead the Nerve Center in Europe. I look at it as four legs on a stool. First,
you need to have the liquidity and inventory. Technically, Google has it in a lot of markets. And Right Media
Exchange has it in a lot of markets. With Orange and OpenX, they’re going to be there as well. But, you need to
have that technology layer - that's the bid workflow layer which is just starting to crop up. Invite Media pre-Google
was moving into the market - we had brought Invite Media into the U.K. for VivaKi and have been using them.
Then, the other thing that I'm going to talk about is the data marketplace. You need to have it. And, obviously,
demand via the agencies and the marketers.
And so a bulk of my time will be, basically, making all four legs of the stool come together in Europe. Once again,
it’s not going to be exclusive… we just want to be the marketplace leaders in terms of bringing this marketplace to
reality, and we think there's client demand there and addressable media will expand at scale across screens from
this development work.
AdExchanger.com: What about ad networks? Will VivaKi use them in the future?
CH: We do see a shift away from ad networks. It is happening right now.
We do believe that there will be some ad networks that still exist, but that model - a black box around data
arbitraged on the media side and providing services that we know that folks like VivaKi Nerve Center’s SVP Kurt
Unkel’s group provides - we just don't see a real need for it. There will be pressure on it.
AdExchanger.com: Are ad networks being used in the VivaKi Nerve Center toolkit today? I recognize that
you are pushing out your VNC strategy to member agencies. The member agencies may still be using ad
network.
CH: The approach we've taken is one that's extremely transparent. The agency client teams which manage their
clients’ business have an option. They've got to do what is best for their client, at the end of the day. They've got to
decide if an ad network will deliver what they need or if Audience On Demand will.
Kurt Unkel’s Audience On Demand team are in a position where they need to be competitive on price, on the
inventory that they are getting and on the data that they’re leveraging. There's also an education piece around this
internally on why our offering is competitive or why it's better.
We are not forcing anything on the system or our clients. What we believe is, we can just do a better job – that’s
really the approach that we've been taking. Because of it, we're actually looking at taking market share, in terms of
using our own platform.
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And at the end of the day, it leads to better outcomes for our clients, whether that be through price or sales or
whatever metric they think is important to them.
AdExchanger.com: What's happening with VivaKi Nerve Center and BlueKai?
CH: [A bit of history on this]: in June 2008, we launched VivaKi - I was in Paris for it - and we also announced
Audience on Demand. At the time, it was more of a concept and something that we talked about with Google.
We're at that two-year anniversary. We started with liquidity and inventory, which is why we are talking to Google
and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Then, we solved for kind of the bidding piece in the interoperability of it, which
was Invite Media.
Now, where we've turned is to the data marketplace.
There's a lot of complexity in it. Kurt Unkel is meeting with 20 different companies and trying to string it all together.
Similar to Invite Media, what I've said to him and Sean Kegelman is, "Hey, let's find a core partner".
And that partner, while not exclusive, but I would say “primary” will be BlueKai. What we're doing is developing a
two-tiered approach with them.
One is, obviously, they provide their own marketplace. They go out and license their own data, and we can procure
it.
The other way we will work with them is as more of a platform, where we'll use their technology and actually go out
and put together our own data deals with publishers, or work with BlueKai to integrate client data or data that we
may have on the VivaKi side - we’ll be licensing their platform.
So, it will be kind of a two-prong approach with BlueKai. We feel good about their technology and their
management team including CEO Omar Tawakol. And, we feel good about the people supporting them such as
Chris Moore and Redpoint Ventures, who really have a magic touch.
When you look at all of the components of BlueKai, we feel like they’re a good partner for VivaKi. Once again, it's
non-exclusive both ways, but we think it's the kind of innovative approach that isn't happening in other places in the
market right now.
I don't necessarily want to go and put capital investment into doing what BlueKai is doing. I'd rather license it, as
it's kind of embryonic, and see how it matures.
AdExchanger.com: In regards to the costs of data and media, is data costing more than media today?
How is that breaking out?
CH: It's hard to give it a percentage. But, what I do hear from the team is that, there is a rising cost in data. In some
cases, the data costs more than the media. What I've said to them is “Fix it.” The best way to address that is to
leverage your scale. Find a common solid partner that we want to get behind, and start to manage the economics
that way.
And then, we'll see where we can take it. It’s more of the strategic approach we're taking..
It was three or four months ago where I was saying, “Pick one. Let's pick a partner.” But, it was too early as VNC’s
Kurt Unkel and Sean Kegelman said, "We don't know. We're not sure who are the right partners to pick."
And I said to the guys, “Listen, it's going to be non-exclusive but primary. Who are you using the most of today?”
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And they kept saying BlueKai. So I said, “By the time you're close to signature on a partnership, it's going to be
another two or three months. And before we put your name on it, you are going to know if you're confident.” -And
they are, which is why we're working with BlueKai.
[BlueKai CEO Omar Tawakol] and I were on a stage at the John Batelle event on Tuesday (6/8/10). We didn't get
into the details of it, but we alluded to the fact that we are working closely together.
AdExchanger.com: There's another big area out there which seems to me to be very important to you,
which is around brand safety. Will it make sense at some point for you to partner with another company to
provide you that brand safety story and technology that will satisfy what is hopefully brand dollars coming
online and your brand marketer clients’ needs?
CH: Absolutely. That's another area that Kurt Unkel has been working on -in terms of who is going to be [providing
that service]. And I think there's a real need for a verification platform in the space.
We know now after the fact where our ads ran. What we need now is a more preventative layer in terms of
knowing before our ads are placed and that it's going into the right content or adjacent to the right content. So no
announcements there, but definitely a focus.
The way that we have been addressing it today is buying on the open exchanges, while knowing where we are
running, and then also working with the premium publishers to create a private exchange which we had in AdX 1.0.
We are working on [the private exchange idea] with Google and are addressing it now in the second iteration of
AdX to make sure that if we want to work with CBS or NBC, we can trade with them directly, under the general
assumption that most of their content is going to be safe for our clients.
AdExchanger.com: Last question for you regarding the timing around David Kenny's departure and you
moving to Paris, is there anything to read from it?
CH: There is no direct correlation as far as I know. David was the originator of the concept of the Nerve Center.
We then worked together in making it a reality for VivaKi with very strong support from Jack Klues.
But my going to Europe was something that was decided with David and Maurice earlier in the year, Maurice
decided Paris over London. I am looking forward to making the move as the job over there is really about Nerve
Center expansion as well as a lot of the other things that we're working on. Maurice is a huge supporter of the
Nerve Center and is particularly close to our relationships with Google and Microsoft and the specifics of AOD and
The Pool.
But I am most passionate about this display marketplace -and really, any audience driven marketplace. We are
looking to video next. I've got the team full bore on video. And we just know that clients are going to want
addressable inventory across any screen - that's the strategy.
AdExchanger.com: Will the video, audience buying strategy relate in any way to The Pool initiative?
CH: Yes. All of these teams are reporting into me, and the goal is to make sure that learning from one team is
spread among the others.
And what we've seen with The Pool and online video is the client demand and interest. This interest and Ad
Selector is going to address the commercial format around it.
VivaKi’s Tracy Sheppach and The Pool team are working very, very closely with Kurt Unkel and the AOD team, so
we can cross-pollinate this thinking and bring AOD to video quickly. So, we have staff working on it. We're talking
to our different partners about how they can help enable it, and you’ll see more to come there.
By John Ebbert
June 14, 2010 – 1:44 am
32
Yieldivision: We Are A Media Agency With DSP
Technology
July 8, 2010 – 12:05 am
Simon Aurik is Business Development Director Europe of Yieldivision, a
media agency based in The Netherlands.
AdExchanger.com: What is Yieldivision?
SA: We are a new breed of agency with a technology which allows us to
buy inventory across multiple sources (exchanges, adnetworks, direct
pubs and ssp’s). Our technology enables us to base our media buying
strategy on enriching the impression with data. This data is provided by
our direct relations with data partners – direct and third party. We see
technology as differentiating between the current market for traditional
media agencies and ad networks.
You position as a media agency, but you also seem like an ad
network. Fair statement?
YD is a media agency but our technology resembles that of a DSP. Our
clients are Direct Advertisers in various industries like Travel, Finance,
Telco. Also we are a strategic supplier for media consultants and
creative agencies.
What problem is Yieldivision solving?
Our goal is to always work against performance metrics we set with our advertisers. These metrics can be a CPA
goal, clicks or unique users within an audience for branding. The main focus in the end is to use our unique media
strategy to reach the ROI goals of our client’s total budget. By combining existing technology with own developed
targeting, bidding and optimization tools we provide a unique product for the European market.
Lead gen, branding, increasing sales - these are all campaign services you offer. But which one is the
sweet spot in terms of target market?
Increasing sales. All vertical markets within the YD's clientbase are looking for performance and conversion
insights for their marketing euro.
What is going on in Europe from the agency side that makes you think that Yieldivision has a lot of
opportunity?
There is a enormous opportunity regarding knowledge and pricing - our company can benefit from knowledge
regarding Audiences and overlap. Also our highly competative pricing model is a USP. Both gives us the first
mover advantage.
What's your view on demand-side platforms? Are they useful for buying European audience?
Yes they are indeed. At the moment DSP's are very useful. In the future we believe there will be a (piece of)
market for these DSP's. Eventually, the client/advertiser will buy directly into adexchanges.
What are you doing about creative given that it's a critical component of media?
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We are constantly innovating and improving regarding creative. Therefore we have launched the division Dynamic
Ads. Examples:
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SEA banner - where a user is searching through a search engine for a flight to London. He clicks through
to a landingpage of the airtravel website. If the user leaves this airtravel website, he will be retargeted with
a dynamic ad with content based on his search query. (search to display and vv)
Product/Destination banner - presenting the offer where prior already has been selected on the clientsite.
Users with specific interest in a product will be shown the exact product on other websites.
Convenience banner - closing a conversion without a user having to cancel his surfing activities.
What does Yieldivision's pricing model look like?
YD model is based on transparancy. We earn our profits on the margin between media buying and results. We do
not charge any consultancy fees, adservingfees etc.
Who are your investors? Please discuss your funding and any future plans that you can share in this area.
We have a private investor. Our mission is to become the leading player in Europe.
One year from now, what milestones would you like Yieldivision to have accomplished?
Our goal would be to have offices in Netherlands, Germany and Sweden. Numbers of FTE's: +50%. Revenues will
show an increase of +200%.
July 8, 2010 – 12:05 am
34
Ad Networks & Exchanges
In-Stream Ad Network Ad.ly Keeping Users Invested In
Twitter Says CEO Gullov-Singh
May 27, 2010 – 9:45 am
Arnie Gullov-Singh is CEO of Ad.ly, an in-stream online advertising
network.
AdExchanger.com: You have an extensive background leading to
your CEO role at Ad.ly. But, what key learnings do you think you're
bringing from your experience at Fox Audience Network, in
particular?
AGS: I learned a ton about what it takes to build a high performing
organization and how the big corporations in our industry make major
strategic and financial decisions. I was also given a lot of freedom by
Adam to drive the strategy at FAN and provide leadership to the
organization, which is very unusual for a big company and certainly helped
me grow into a more effective leader.
What problem is Ad.ly solving in your estimation?
Ad.ly is 100% focused on monetizing the stream. We’re doing this today by
connecting top tier content creators on Twitter with top tier brands to
enable micro-endorsements. We’re helping content creators monetize their
audiences and we’re helping marketers get their brand messages into the
stream in a controlled, well-lit environment. Our platform is a huge timesaver for both parties as it brings
economies of scale to what has traditionally been a series of point-to-point, offline transactions.
How does Ad.ly differentiate? Is being first-to-market critical?
I think its more critical being simplest-to-market. Ad.ly launched with a solution that is easy for marketers, content
creators and users to understand. Its paid off, enabling us to scale quickly and provide marketers with targeted
reach into over 45 million unique monthly users on Twitter, through a network of 60,000 of the most influential
content creators. We’re making it easy to spend money on Twitter and I think that’s what’s resonating most in the
advertising community right now.
Twitter COO Dick Costolo said in the post announcing their terms of service change, "We will not allow
any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API". In your
Ad.ly blog post, you say that the company still operates under Twitter's TOS. Can you provide a use case
on what Ad.ly does that's different than "injecting" paid tweets leveraging the Twitter API?
Twitter’s TOS change is designed to eliminate the low quality, deceptive practices of 3rd parties who are using
Twitter’s API to post ads into a user’s stream without the user’s consent. This always happens on successful
platforms – think black hat SEO on Google, friend request spam on MySpace, aggressive continuity products on
Facebook apps. In each case the platform owner has to take steps to clean up their ecosystem for the good of
their users and in most cases it becomes an ongoing battle.
35
By contrast, Ad.ly is all about quality, transparency and disclosure. We work with top brands like Sony, NBC &
Microsoft to bring high quality offers to our publishers. Publishers have full control over whether to accept or deny
individual ads from our advertisers. If they accept an ad, they use Ad.ly as the application to schedule sending their
tweet to their followers at the time and date requested by the advertiser, much like they use other apps to send out
organic tweets. By using our application, publishers enable advertisers to track that their ads are being delivered
as contracted and it also ensures that every paid tweet is sent out with the proper disclosure.
How does Ad.ly add value to Twitter?
We’re helping Twitter’s most influential users monetize their audiences, much like how Google helped bloggers
become businesses with AdSense a few years ago. This is important because it keeps Twitter’s users invested in
staying on Twitter. Through doing this we’re also helping marketers understand how to advertise effectively on
Twitter, which is obviously good for the platform and the stream as a whole.
Regarding expansion, can the Ad.ly business model be brought to other social media networks and
applications such as Facebook? Seems risky to be leaning on one platform - Twitter.
Twitter is a great platform for sharing content and has considerable scale so it made sense to start there as a way
to enter the market quickly. Now that we have raised additional funds and are growing fast it makes sense for us to
extend our reach into the broader stream ecosystem.
Given your experience at the Fox Audience Network, what are your thoughts on the display (or datadriven) advertising ecosystem? Anything surprise you?
I think the biggest surprise was around the relative worth of inventory and data. When we started the group that
became FAN we thought that having access to inventory was a commodity and that having access to data was the
competitive advantage. Within the past two years we’ve seen data become more of a commodity and access to
inventory become more of the competitive advantage.
Given the usage of ".ly" in the Ad.ly domain, what if Libya suddenly decided to take back all of the domain
names associated with its top level domain? Is there a disaster plan?
We own adly.com, so we can easily switch over if we need to.
Will Ad.ly need to tap the venture capital world again? Or can you grow the business sufficiently with what
you have?
With the $5M we just raised I think we’re in good shape right now. Our revenue is growing much faster than
expected and we’ve got a terrific team of engineers and salespeople operating very efficiently, which will help us
keep our expenses under control as we scale.
A year from now, what milestones would you like to have seen Ad.ly accomplish?
We have a lot of early data that shows in-stream advertising is generating great ROI for marketers, which makes it
an attractive proposition for search marketers. By this time next year I expect us to have proven that out on a much
larger scale.
Follow Arnie Gullov-Singh (@arniesingh), Ad.ly (@adlyads) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 27, 2010 – 9:45 am
36
AdReady CEO Siebrecht On Company Plans And Recent
Infusion
May 24, 2010 – 8:01 am
AdReady announced recently a new $5.3 million round of funding
from current investors Madrona Venture Group, Bain Capital and
Khosla Ventures. Read the release.
AdReady CEO Karl Siebrecht discussed the new funds and the
company's plans.
AdExchanger.com: How will the company use the $5.3 million raised in this round?
KS: This capital will be used to advance our display technology platform, with a focus on our creative toolsets,
media buying platform, and optimization features.
Looks like your new round was an inside round with current investors Madrona Venture Group, Bain
Capital and Khosla Ventures. Why did you decide to not include another investor in this round?
Our current investors are tightly aligned with our vision, and provide great support to the company. We also have
two additional outside directors who round out a very experienced and effective Board – Steve Singh, the CEO of
SaaS company Concur Technologies, and Jason Kilar, the CEO of Hulu. This along with my desire to spend as
much of my time as possible with our customers, prospects and team instead of fundraising made doing an
internal round the most desirable path for all parties involved.
Since coming on in October as CEO of AdReady, and as the former President of Atlas, what has surprised
you about the display advertising space in the past 7 or 8 months?
I guess what has surprised me most is the lack of sophisticated display tools in the market for advertisers and their
agencies whose campaign-level budgets can’t support expensive and overhead-intensive enterprise software
applications.
On the one hand, I understand this because almost all of the spending in display has historically come from very
large marketers whose budgets can support lots of overhead and people costs. On the other hand though, I know
that many mid-sized advertisers share the same performance expectations as larger advertisers, and that many if
not all of the best digital agencies in the world struggle to profitably serve these advertisers well.
Furthermore, there are many large advertisers who need to manage their budgets in lots of smaller chunks --- what
we call “micro-campaigns” – and who experience these same cost challenges. So it is surprising that little
innovation has happened for this segment, and it is the reason why I’m so excited to be part of the AdReady team
now.
Given your do-it-yourself and full-service offerings which includes media buying, what model BEST
describes AdReady's current business model for display: creative optimization vendor, demand-side
platform or ad network?
We’re a technology platform company for display advertising. Our platform incorporates creative toolsets for
production, testing and iteration, and a media buying platform for automated, targeted access to media, all
wrapped in a layer of sophisticated optimization algorithms to drive great performance. We do not believe that you
can make display effective without the tight integration of creative, media and optimization.
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When it comes to key clients, what is the key target market for AdReady today? How do you expect this to
evolve in the next 12-24 months?
Our sweet spot is helping agencies and advertisers manage what we call “micro-campaigns” -- display campaigns
focused on micro-targeted audience segments that require the same level of creative and media intelligence as a
standard campaign.
Example clients who need micro-campaigns include travel companies with larger overall budgets that are split up
across dozens or hundreds of different geos with multiple promotional offers, or smaller advertisers trying to reach
narrowly targeted audiences with different product lines or messages. Because these budgets at a campaign level
are small, it is critical that campaign production and management costs are low. Otherwise the working media
budget gets eaten up by overhead costs.
What makes our solution unique is that it delivers the power and sophistication of multiple enterprise level software
solutions in a single, highly advanced yet very flexible platform. Whether you’re a large marketer trying to
efficiently reach micro-targeted segments or a smaller marketer trying to cost-effectively go digital, AdReady
enables better campaign results with lower overall costs.
Given the prevalence of marketers that have these micro-campaign related needs, I expect that we’ll continue to
be focused on this segment for a long time to come.
By John Ebbert
May 24, 2010 – 8:01 am
38
AdReady CEO Siebrecht Says Company Shifting Toward
Servicing Agencies With Its Demand-Side Platform
July 14, 2010 – 8:30 am
In a press release, AdReady announced AdReady for Agencies, "a
hosted, privately labeled display advertising platform" as well the
addition of Brian McAndrews of Madrona Ventures to its board.
Read the release.
CEO Karl Siebrecht of AdReady discussed the new ad platform
focus and more.
AdExchanger.com: Is the new AdReady for Agencies display ad platform a strategic shift for AdReady?
The company was focused on more mid- and long-tail solutions, no?
It is part of an ongoing shift that has been underway for a while now. When the company was founded in 2006, its
initial focus was on delivering a self-service platform for long-tail advertisers. Over time, we've realized that our
platform adds the most value for more sophisticated agencies and advertisers who are trying to manage
campaign-level budgets in smaller chunks driven by narrow audience targets. Examples include airlines with lots
of city pairs and a need to manage individual campaigns with unique creative for each target audience against
each city pair, or manufacturers with co-op marketing programs across multiple dealers in multiple geographies.
This also includes mid-sized companies with smaller overall budgets, but who also have the same sophisticated
requirements of the top 100 spenders in the market.
Do you consider AdReady for Agencies a demand-side platform?
Yes. Few people realize it, but AdReady was actually one of the first demand-side platform integrations into the
Right Media Exchange, and was also the first demand-side Google API integration for display/image ads, both in
2006.
Unfortunately, the DSP "box" has been drawn to focus on media/audience buying only and it excludes creative
capabilities, so because AdReady has always had both media-side and creative-side capabilities in our platform, it
has been difficult for people to figure out where to categorize us in the evolving landscape. But we've always been
adamant that these two capabilities must be leveraged in tandem to truly unlock the potential of digital marketing.
The beauty of the core DSP capabilities is that highly targeted audiences can be identified and purchased.
However, if a marketer can't actually send each narrowly defined audience segment a set of unique, targeted
messages and then optimize and pick winners from them, then what's the point? Getting a generic message to the
right person at the right time doesn't quite cut it.
How will AdReady differentiate AdReady For Agencies in the marketplace compared to other DSPs and ad
network offerings?
Our customers tell us that our two main sources of differentiation are our creative tools which vastly lower their
creative production costs and thus enable true "precision campaigns" (unique messages to micro-targeted
audiences) to be created and managed cost-effectively, and the overall elegance/usability of our platform. On the
latter point, because our platform has been out in the market for 3+ years and has been used by thousands of
agencies and advertisers, we've got lots of experience balancing the need for power and sophistication in terms of
algorithms, targeting capabilities, etc. with equally important need for great efficiency and ease of use.
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Where will the new platform source inventory? Will it leverage exchanges, aggregators and ad networks
and use RTB, for example?
Through our platform, our customers have access to all major sources of automated, aggregated inventory
including Google/DoubleClick, Yahoo, RMX, AdBrite, ADSDAQ, and Rubicon, among others. We also enable
integration with several targeting data providers like BlueKai and eXelate. Additionally, a big differentiator is that
we also provide scalable access to inventory from top publishers like ESPN and Pandora that isn't available
through exchanges, via our unique technology partnerships with them.
What do you think Brian McAndrews of Madrona Ventures will bring to your board? You worked together
in the past, correct?
As the former President of Atlas I worked for Brian for many years while he was CEO of aQuantive, and he's been
a great mentor. He's been one of the leading visionaries from the early days of the digital marketing industry, and
is a great partner in imagining how the next decade will evolve in the space and where AdReady can play an
important role in that evolution. More than anything though, he brings a ton of experience and perspective on how
to build a great, customer-focused business and I know he'll help ensure that we keep this focus above all else as
we continue to build AdReady.
By John Ebbert
July 14, 2010 – 8:30 am
40
Akamai CTO Afergan On Akamai Ad Product Momentum,
Pixel Free Technology And The Media Landscape
June 17, 2010 – 9:06 am
During last week's Internet Retailer Conference In Chicago,
AdExchanger.com spoke to Mike Afergan, CTO and SVP of
Advertising Decision Solutions (ADS) at Akamai about the
company’s digital advertising products including its new “pixel free”
solution as well as industry trends from Akamai’s point-of-view.
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The Ecommerce Pitch and Pixel Free Announcement
On Aggregating All Cookies
Where Does Acerno Fit In ADS
The Data Co-operative
The Most Surprising Thing About Acerno
On Akamai Having Its Own DSP
When Does ADS Become A Meaningful Part Of The
Business
On Shopographics And The Competitive Set Such As
BlueKai
Use Cases For The Predictive And Descriptive Products
Powered By Shopographics
On Akamai Making Its Data Available For Targeting
Purposes
The Impact Of RTB On Akamai’s Strategies
How Akamai Handles Creative
From The Client’s Perspective: Buying ADS Products A La
Carte
View On Google/Invite Deal
Evolution Of The Media Landscape In The Next 12 Months
AdExchanger.com: What’s Akamai’s pitch at an e-Commerce conference like this?
MA: So, at a conference like this, Akamai's pitch is very simple. We do three things for your site: Bring people to
your site, we help give them a great experience on your site, and we help them transact securely and scale. That's
our “one floor elevator” pitch at a place like this.
Probably what's most relevant to [AdExchanger.com’s audience], is that first part, bringing people to the site.
There are a couple things that we talk about there such as the advertising decisions: the predictive and
descriptive of targeted advertising.
Another relevant area that we actually talk about – especially with a lot of IT folks at this conference - is about how
search engines are creating a lot of discussion on how page latency will now impact a site’s ranking in search. For
[latency challenges] we have a product called Dynamic Site Accelerator (DSA).
That's probably a good segue to Akamai’s Pixel Free announcement today.
As we've rolled out the Advertising Decision Solutions (ADS) product, our customers are already on the DSA
product, and they've obviously spoken to us about the pain of pixels. [There are two sides to the pain:] I had one
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marketer tell me that his IT staff came back to him with “great news” that it was going to take now, only six months
to change the pixels on his site. That's just a non-starter for the marketer. [The other side of pixel pain is]
represented by the large retailer, for example, who knows that a large fraction of their page load time is coming
from pixels that are slowing things down.
Also as a result of that, what retailers might do is put pixels only on a few portions of the site and what ends up
happening is the sideways traffic, search, etc., doesn’t get captured at all.
Months ago, our Pixel Free solution was just a new idea and in beta. Now, we've released this and had a lot of
commercial success working with many large advertisers. They've validated, frankly, even more so than we would
have hoped, the key value props.
AdExchanger.com: Does your new Pixel Free technology offer aggregation of all cookies on a client’s
site?
We decided to walk before we ran - basically meaning no Akamai advertising products require any pixels. Now,
we're starting to have conversations with customers who are asking us these sort of questions. Obviously this is an
exciting area for us to explore and understand over time: the potential ability to really eliminate pixels in general
from whole industry.
There are certain customers we've worked with on custom projects already, around those lines. But the product is
really focused on the Akamai ADS products today.
AdExchanger.com: How is the pixel-free technology used?
So, for example, a travel site was interested in identifying a particular audience on their site and advertising to that
audience. They had pixels on their site, but pixels only on a fraction of their pages -that meant two things. Number
one is for those particular users, they could only see them. Number two is what we focus on -what we call our
predictive products, which is a lot more than re-marketing. It’s understanding the whole ecosystem across the
entire set of, say, 140 million US online shoppers who are in market for your product right now.
The travel site was missing 80% of their target market [due to not pixeling all pages] – thus missing all of those
profiles. By Akamai now seeing all of the pages on their site [with the Pixel Free technology], we were now able to
get a much better view into their population, which meant we were able to go and run a much larger campaign.
AdExchanger.com: Clarify what part of Advertising Decision Solutions (ADS) is Acerno which was
acquired by Akamai in 2008?
Very simple. ADS has one product line. We have the Akamai solution, which is the predictive and descriptive. It's
powered by a lot of technology. Powered by the co-op, which is where shop-o-graphic comes from, powered by
our Pixel free, powered by our modeling, etc. Our customers work with us. They buy Akamai products.
Then, those products run on the Acerno ad network. We talk about Acerno as our media footprint that these
products now run on. That's the way we handle our branding.
[To summarize,] Akamai has predictive and descriptive products. Those are powered by our Pixel free technology,
our data co-op, the Akamai distributive network, obviously, all of the great folks that we have on our team. Those
campaigns run on the Acerno network.
AdExchanger.com: Let’s talk about the data cooperative, which is central to Akamai’s advertising
solutions. The idea of sharing data with one’s competitors - is there any pushback there, and do your
customers have any options, in terms of the rights they have around their data, being mixed into your
system?
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It's certainly a question that all of our customers think about and ask. Frankly, it's a good thing that they think about
that, because it means they are running mature responsible businesses. They are thinking through the trade-offs.
We are at the scale now where the amount of benefits that any customer gets so far outweigh any concerns they
might have. We are already targeting, effectively, everybody who shops online.
We have a massive amount of data across hundreds of product manufacturers, retailers, travel, telecom sites and
the like that contribute their data. So, yes, if I were a retailer, I would be concerned about sharing my data with a
company that maybe only had two or three other companies in a system.
At Akamai, we are at the scale now...We have a trusted relationship with our customers now that they feel
comfortable participating in our co-op, leveraging our products, because it gives them so much benefit in the
marketplace today.
AdExchanger.com: What has surprised you about Acerno and its business model, since it was acquired
by Akamai?
I think the thing that has been most positively surprising is just the amount of resonance that it has had in the
existing customers at Akamai already had, and the benefits that those customers are getting from using the
product. It's been really exciting for us to take that new product, leverage it in, and the synergies that we were
getting both in terms of up-selling existing customers. Then, obviously, the synergies with DSA have been really,
really exciting for us.
AdExchanger.com: Thinking a little bit about the landscape, as it were, what are your thoughts about
maybe Akamai as the owner of a demand-side platform (DSP)? You mentioned earlier Acerno as a media
network. Doesn't it make sense for Akamai to have a DSP on behalf of its clients?
I will say that at Akamai we are always looking at what incremental functionality is valuable, is needed by our
customers to do more with us, leverage our unique capabilities and leverage the data that we have.
And we are always going to be looking at new functionality we can add on to the system that allows us to do that,
whether or not you define that as within the DSP regime or not, it depends on how you define a DSP. But certainly
we are looking to expand our product portfolio. Looking to do more for customers and we are always looking for
great ideas that are out there.
AdExchanger.com: How does the Acerno Media Network buy today?
We use every available tool that is out there to buy high quality media for our customers. And so we use all the
different techniques that might make sense there.
AdExchanger.com: Akamai has been relatively quiet about Acerno - except maybe on AdExchanger.com
- as well as the ADS solution. Why have you been quiet today and is today’s announcement a signal that
Akamai will become more public about ADS from a marketing perspective?
I think we have been very loud and very focused with customers and building more traction in our market. Over the
past year you have seen us very, very focused on bringing more customers on to the system, making sure they are
happy and doing more. Certainly into the general marketplace we haven't done as much in terms of explaining
what we are doing, but I think certainly over the past few weeks you see us doing more.
For example, the data visualization tool is a great example of us really not just talking more, but also giving insights
into what we are doing behind the scenes.
You will see us doing more publicly and talking a lot more about what we do. The flip side is we are going to focus
on what's most important, which is making sure we are bringing more customers into the system. And ultimately
making sure that they are very, very happy - that's obviously our key focus.
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AdExchanger.com: In terms of revenue, what contribution is the ADS business includes the Acerno Media
Network business making to Akamai today and then part two of that question is, when will it become
meaningful?
Great question. So I will defer to the IR team in terms of the specific numbers. What I can say is that we are very
happy with the progress and the growth that we are having. And I will defer any other specific financial questions
there. I would say that ADS from a business and strategic perspective is already meaningful. It is already
something that is a prevalent in any of the conversations we are having with people who do advertising, retailers,
travel, telecom and the like.
There is already a significant portion of the conversation we have with those types of sites. Pixel-free is a great
example of how it ties into the rest of Akamai's product portfolio in a meaningful way. And so from our business it is
already meaningful, strategically obviously the finance questions I will defer to the IR team.
AdExchanger.com: How do you answer some critics who question why should buyers pay a premium for
Acerno's Shop-o-graphic-enabled campaigns when they can get the same intent info from BlueKai and tie
it to whatever inventory they want for a lot less money?
First of all, I am not sure that all of the pieces of the question were necessarily true. I would focus on sort of
Akamai's two key products here which are predictive and descriptive. For predictive, we do something that is
fundamentally different than anyone else out there, which is we have levered this data from across hundreds of
different websites in a very deep and granular level. We built specific models for that particular retailer, that
particular travel site, based on their particular products, their particular business objectives. And we see very well
across our customer base that that same model doesn't necessarily work for somebody else, that every customer
is different,.
And so it is really critical to have models that are finely tuned, number one, using the predictive analytics that we
have which no one else has, leveraging that massive data set which we have which no one else has. But then
combining those in a way that brings a specific model for our customer. So I think our predictive model is very
different from anyone else that's out there.
I would also say that our descriptive which is powered by Shopographics, is also fundamentally different from
anything that anyone else has out there. In that it really leverages a broad set of purchases that are made in the
past to really understand what this person is and what they'd be interested in buying in the future.
It really focuses on that shopping data across hundreds of different sites. And that's really what we see is powerful
to the models is the type of data and the diversity of the data really allows us to be effective in what we do and
that's very important there.
AdExchanger.com: Can you give me use cases for the “Predictive” and “Descriptive” products?
So we have two products, we have the predictive product what you think about is finding in-market consumers.
Find me someone who is in-market for my type of plasma TV right now. Find someone who is in-market for the
swimsuits that I am selling on my site right now and that's the predictive product. The descriptive product which is
where the Shopographics technology comes in is more upper funnel and so that is a place where somebody who
wants to ... a brand advertiser who wants to, may not be selling something in their store but wants to create
awareness for their product.
So a manufacturer of televisions as opposed to somebody who sells televisions, somebody who is trying to take
their brand and branch out into a new market, someone who could historically might have a strong male following,
but not as much females; trying to go after females. Those are examples where someone would use our
descriptive product powered by the Shopographics.
AdExchanger.com: Any plans for Akamai to open up the ADS data to third parties for targeting
purposes? - maybe letting demand side platforms or ad networks use your data for targeting?
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Let me kind of step back, which is as I look at the ecosystem right now. I see three really exciting trends I think we
are well positioned for. One trend is the shift of brand dollars online which will happen more and more overtime,
which is why the Descriptive product powered by Shopographics is really important and valuable for us.
Another really exciting trend for us is the proliferation of types of media. So you see certainly mobile becoming
more and more important, video becoming more and more important, certainly our targeting technology is
something that we leverage across all forms of media.
We focus on display today, but you should expect to see overtime that same technology, that same information,
that same data being leveraged across a variety of different forms of media, and obviously a variety of different
sorts of devices. And we as Akamai sitting in a neat place to actually be doing that across all forms of media and
devices given what we do as a business, what fraction will that be powered.
Another exciting trend for is the separation of data from media. That is a place that as data becomes more and
more valued as an important dependent asset. We are certainly going to be exploring opportunities for the models
that our customers have to be leveraged in a variety of different ways.
Now there is obviously a lot of different things we can do. We are going to really focus on ultimately what our
customers want us to do. And so that is a case where we work with our customers and understand as they build
models, as they run those models on the Acerno network, how else might they want to use those models is a
conversation that we're having with our customers today.
AdExchanger.com: How is real-time bidding impacting your strategic thinking?
I think real time bidding is a great trend that's a good thing for the industry. Obviously there's a lot of challenges
and a lot of details that have to be worked out by the industry. But certainly in a world in which people can do
things more efficiently and at scale I think is good for the industry in general. Certainly as we want to shift offline
dollars online, obviously one of the challenges the advertisers and marketers had is being able to deploy those
dollars efficiently at scale. And so certainly automated systems, real time bidding systems were a good example of
those, are a great thing for the industry in general, regardless of targeting anything else.
I think certainly real time bidding platforms also provide an interesting opportunity for people to layer in other sorts
of factors as they buy, and certainly targeting being one of them. And so we certainly think that real time bidding
systems will only allow people to do more with targeting over time, which ultimately is a good thing f
AdExchanger.com: Let me go take us into the media network again. As I recall, you work on a CPA basis
with your clients and one part of the optimization cycle is creative. How do you handle creative for your
eCommerce clients through the media network?
So, we don't produce creative, typically, for our clients. We work with the creative that they supply us. That said,
obviously our optimization system provides some really interesting perspective in terms of what creatives are
working well and what creatives aren't working well. They're typically conversations we're having with our
customers. Helping them to optimize their own creative strategy as they think through, either A) the data we give
them or B) at the scale that we're at today, we see across our customer base, what sort of trends work well, what
sort of trends don't work well.
For example, the impact of free shipping versus 10% off - we're able to provide those insights to customers.
So I'd say that we provide raw data to them in terms of what's working/what's not working. We can provide specific
feedback to them, on those campaigns, based on what we're seeing. And we can also provide some interesting
cross industry viewpoints given the spectrum of customers that are working today.
AdExchanger.com: Can a client use multi-variate creative such as the solution provided by Teracent?
How does that work?
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Our strategy is that our clients give us their creative. And really, when they give us the creative, they give us the
tag. So our strategy is to focus on making sure that we're finding the right user who's in market and making sure
we're placing that ad tag, if you will, in front of that user. Then, obviously, the more rich, the more interesting, the
more powerful that creative is. Obviously, we try to work with our clients and make sure they have a good strategy,
but we'll defer to them in terms of, if they want to have a static creative, if they want to have a more interesting
creative.
AdExchanger.com: Is it essential that eCommerce retailers use other Akamai products such as your
Edge serving capabilities in order to sign up and use parts of your ADS business?
So, certainly every customer gets to make a decision about what products they want to build. Obviously, we're
biased and we think we have great products and our customers should use all of them. And I think, frankly, we
have a great track record that supports that value proposition across all of our clients. Certainly, we allow the ability
for clients to buy particular products on their own. We are spending a lot of time, frankly because many of our
clients do buy so many of our products. They're really seeing opportunities, helping us find opportunities where the
price and work better together.
So, clients, I think, over time will have more and more reasons to buy those products together because of the
inherent value that it will give. Great example is today's announcement around Pixel Free; which is certainly a
client could buy DSA and not use ADS. The client could buy ADS (Advertising Decision Solutions) and not use
DSA (Dynamic Site Accelerator).
But more and more, we're seeing a tremendous value of those two products working together, making DSA more
effective, making ADS more effective, and ultimately helping to drive, really what our customer's want, which is
more transactions and a better site experience for them.
AdExchanger.com: What's your view on the Google acquisition of Invite Media? Any concerns?
No. Google has and will continue to offer a variety of tools to advertise their agencies. Certainly expect them to be
building technology. To be partnering to have more functionality and to be buying more companies, over time, that
build out their tools. I think [the acquisition is] certainly a natural and logical extension of the tools that they're
offering in the marketplace today.
AdExchanger.com: Overall, and Akamai aside, how do you see the media landscape evolving in the next
12 months?
I think some key trends are the shift of user consumption to online, particularly video playing a bigger, bigger role
online. With that, ad dollars should shift online if we, as an industry, can do the right things to get there. I think the
industry needs to focus on tools that allow for automation, scale, and tools that ultimately help to tap into the
unique potential of online - the ability to have that one-to-one, direct conversations with a particular audience. This
is where targeting plays a very important role.
And these ultimately have those tools that make it easy for advertising agencies to do all of these things at scale. I
think the question and the challenge for the industry is: Will that happen over 12 months? Will that happen over six
months? Will that happen over 36 months?
I think that's the challenge that we as an industry face, where I'm absolutely convinced that these trends will play
over time. I'm convinced that these trends should play out over time. I think the opportunity for us, in this industry,
is making it easy for advertiser's agencies to be doing more of this, doing it more effectively and to help to
accelerate that shift online, which I think ultimately will be good for everybody in the space.
By John Ebbert
June 17, 2010 – 9:06 am
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Ad Network Roll-up: AudienceScience CEO Hirsch On
Consorte Media Acquisition
May 6, 2010 – 8:10 am
On Wednesday, online ad network AudienceScience, announced
the acquisition of Consorte Media, an ad network targeting
Hispanics online. According to the release, "Consorte Media
employees will become part of the AudienceScience team, and
Consorte’s San Francisco headquarters will become the newest
branch location of AudienceScience." Read more.
CEO Jeff Hirsch of AudienceScience discussed the acquisition and the expected benefits to the company.
AdExchanger.com: Can you quantify the incremental benefit to AudienceScience in terms of revenue or
profit?
JH: All reports suggest, and what we have been keenly aware of is that advertisers aren't leveraging the full
potential of Hispanic marketing as we see continued acceleration in the growth of online users and purchasing
power for this group. By leveraging the quality offering that Consorte has developed and integrating it within our
platform, we are capitalizing on this phenomenal opportunity by enabling advertisers to purchase the Hispanic
audience at scale through our targeted segments.
TechCrunch has already reported that Consorte Media's founder will leave and their San Francisco offices
will become AudienceScience's. Will the strategy for the Consorte Media team be directed toward the
Hispanic market alone or include other demographic and geographic client targets, for example?
The acquisition includes the entire Consorte team except Alicia Morga (Consorte founder and CEO) who is helping
with a smooth transition. Our new AudienceScience employees will continue to focus on the Hispanic market and
with a new office in strategic San Francisco; we enhance our overall client relations and service.
Is AudienceScience getting any proprietary technology in the deal which may be useful? Or is this
primarily about the publisher and advertiser client relationships?
We are acquiring technology that was developed by Consorte and are currently evaluating how to integrate
components of their system into our platform. With our combined and integrated technologies, we are able to
provide marketers with the ability to accurately target Hispanic consumers and enabling them to realize significant
potential for a robust consumer channel. All in all, the acquisition incorporates valuable new audience intelligence
into the already robust data offerings of The Audience Gateway.
How do you plan on scaling the Hispanic-targeted business?
Consorte Media’s foundation of relationships with dozens of advertisers and hundreds of Hispanic-focused
publishers will enhance our network and add to a variety of Hispanic-focused targeting segments available to all
AudienceScience partners.
By John Ebbert
May 6, 2010 – 8:10 am
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Consolidation: AudienceScience CEO Hirsch On
Wunderloop Acquisition
July 5, 2010 – 6:57 pm
AudienceScience announced that is has acquired ad network,
Wunderloop, as AudienceScience looks to broaden its reach in the
European market. According to the release, "Wunderloop offers the
possibility to precisely reach target groups on the Internet and was
the first company in Germany to qualify for the European Unionbacked 'EuroPriSe' seal for exemplary privacy protection." Read
the release. Click here for the German reaction (translate to
English here).
AudienceScience CEO Jeff Hirsch discussed the acquisition.
AdExchanger.com: Why buy Wunderloop?
JH: Consolidation of the industry is underway, and
AudienceScience is leading the way. Wunderloop has been a key
player in the EU market, and we have admired the company as another leader in the targeting space, so it is
exciting to bring the two companies together. The wunderloop acquisition turns AudienceScience into the
worldwide market leader in targeting technology.
What will the Wunderloop office look like in terms of number of employees and how it interfaces with
AudienceScience?
The wunderloop business will become a wholly owned subsidiary of AudienceScience and will operate under the
wunderloop brand at this time. AudienceScience is the ideal buyer. The combined strategic direction, technology
and - not least - the mentality of all management and staff are an excellent match. wunderloop’s staff and
management are looking forward to working with their US colleagues.
How will you overcome sensitivities to audience targeting in the EU?
Wunderloop has always operated under stringent compliance with EU privacy regulations, and AudienceScience
will be maintaining that compliance. In fact, we are two of the industry's leaders in privacy standards.
By John Ebbert
July 5, 2010 – 6:57 pm
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AudienceScience CEO Hirsch On Guaranteeing Data And
Audience Validation Reporting
June 23, 2010 – 8:40 pm
Known as the "Quality Data Guarantee program," AudienceScience
has announced that it will start verifying its own data as well as
those of other vendors in order to guarantee for clients that they're
really getting the audience they wanted. New audience verification
reports will also be offered. Read the release.
AudienceScience CEO Jeff Hirsch discussed the new program and reporting as well as its implications.
AdExchanger.com: What has pushed AudienceScience to offer the Quality Data Guarantee?
JH: There are several reasons. First, we are strong believers in the notion that the creator of data has the right to
determine how that data gets used. The industry needs standards to support this. AudienceScience has spent
years developing relationships with thousands of data sources that specifically and contractually, spell out our right
to utilize data to power campaigns for our advertiser and publisher partners. We think it is important for marketers
to know, with absolute certainty, that they have the right to utilize the data powering their campaigns. Secondly, we
are concerned that data collection does not always adhere to privacy guidelines. It is absolutely essential that we
get this right as an industry. We have invested in a significant way to protect consumer rights and we want
marketers to ask the tough questions of any company utilizing data - are consumer rights protected? Lastly, we
want our partners to know that their own data is protected and that they have complete control over its collection
and utilization.
The ad verification space has looked at page data. Now you're looking at cookie data - potentially adding
another layer to a complex business. Does it all come together at some point or does the marketing dollar
keep getting split?
It is almost impossible to read a cookie and understand the components of the data utilized to make that cookie of
value. Our guarantee is more around the transparency in the process of collection, the rights for data usage, and
the focus on consumer protection. The separation of data from inventory costs has already taken place, and the
company that provides the means to integrate them in a meaningful way will provide tremendous value.
Regarding pricing, what does your new Audience Verification Report cost the marketer? Any cost to have
the Quality Data Guarantee?
There are no costs for this type of quality offering. It is part and parcel of everything that we do.
How will you define "quality data"?
The quality of data will be defined by the ability to leverage data, and organize it, in a way that assures the
marketer reaches their target audience. The proof is in the pudding in terms of efficiency against marketing spend.
What recourse does an advertiser have if the data isn't of the quality suggested when they bought it?
That won't happen with us. That's the guarantee. We are absolute in our processes. Other vendors I cannot speak
about.
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How do you overcome the perception of a conflict of interest where you are verifying the data's audience
and guaranteeing its quality - and at the same time, AudienceScience is selling its own data?
We don't sell data. We aggregate data through our platform that sees 200 billion audience events a day to power
the organization of that data into meaningful audience segments. We then make those segments available to our
advertiser, agency, and publisher partners via controlled distribution channels.
By John Ebbert
June 23, 2010 – 8:40 pm
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Brand.net CEO Blair Discusses Latest Capital Raise,
Positioning And Media Futures Platform
June 23, 2010 – 12:07 am
Brand.net announced yesterday a $14 million Series C round of
funding led by Focus Ventures, with participation by existing
investors InterWest Partners and Norwest Venture Partners.
Brand.net CEO Elizabeth Blair discussed her company's new funds
and plans for the future.
AdExchanger.com: What will the new funds be used for?
EB: Expanding agency adoption of our proprietary online Media Futures Platform TM. Andy (Atherton, COO at
Brand.net) and I are very fortunate; InterWest and Norwest (our A and B round investors) 100% supported building
the platform in a smart and scalable way from the start, frontloading the technology investment versus the
proverbial “throw bodies at it”. We've been in the market, with the biggest brand advertisers and agencies on the
planet, "doing it right" for two years. That has given us an enormous time to market advantage, and by collecting
and analyzing data on every campaign trafficked from day 1, the biggest independent brand campaign data asset
in the industry.
Working with Brand.net, brand advertisers and agencies have the ability to plan, purchase and manage web-wide
media buys up to twelve months in advance. On the quality side, we've offered SafeScreenTM, proactive pagelevel filtering, on every campaign we’ve run for 18 months. On the campaign management side, we guarantee in
writing impressions, price, reach to target, smoothness and breadth of delivery, and we have had over 99%
accuracy in delivery over the past two years. Finally, Nielsen and comScore studies continue to confirm that
Brand.net's campaigns drive the highest offline sales ROI on the Internet. Our campaigns sell real products to real
customers at high margins. That's true success to true brand marketers.
With Focus’ investment, we can make our footprint bigger in several ways. First, cover more agencies, more
geographies and more verticals than we’ve been able to thus far. Second, continue to expand our format
offerings, as we most recently did when we added pre-roll video to our product mix. We entered video because
agencies were asking when we would “do for video what you do for display”; as digital media keeps converging
there are more great opportunities to address. Finally, and perhaps saving the best for last, respond in a bigger
and faster way to an increasing stream of requests from agencies to offer applications that allow them to access
our forecasting, analytics and management tools more seamlessly, either directly or integrated with their
proprietary demand side platforms.
We are thrilled that this latest round of investment will allow us to tackle all those opportunities in parallel.
Why is Focus Ventures a good match for Brand.net for leading this round?
We love the team at Focus, what they do and how they do it. Two specific things I’d call out, interrelated. First,
Focus is held in high regard by our previous investors InterWest, Norwest, and Dave Strohm. They are straight
shooters who do what they say and say what they do. Second, we need to stay laser-focused on our business –
our customers and the market opportunity – so we need investors who demonstrate (in actions not just words) up
front that their #1 priority is to keep us executing with spending customers. We had rave reviews on Focus in that
regard, and the process from first meeting to signing the definitive documents was fantastic – smooth, nondistracting, completely professional. Focus is absolutely the right match for the Brand.net team.
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What's Brand.net's positioning today? Are you an ad network, a DSP, both – an agency?
We are an advertising platform that our customers, primarily agencies representing the top brand advertisers in the
US, use to manage their web wide brand intent campaigns. “DSP” is (or perhaps was) the word of the moment,
but it is so broad a term that it can apply to a wide variety of companies with a wide variety of capabilities. I prefer
to focus on our target customers and their core marketing needs. Our target customers generate on average 95%
of their sales offline, in brick and mortar stores - CPGs and big box retailers, quick serve restaurants, pharmas,
entertainment companies among them. A straightforward, accurate definition of “success” for them is proof that
they are selling more products, at a higher margin, on a sustained and sustainable basis, than they are doing
today.
So what is the biggest challenge to achieving that “success” using online media today? I’d say an explosion of
“media opportunities” that, while nominally terrific, were not matched with an explosion in either headcount or
technology. In just the past few years these marketers, who already may be juggling dozens of brands in dozens
of geographies, have seen an unending stream of new media, new formats, new buying capabilities, new data
availability and analytics. However, the economy has dictated flat headcount, at best, across marketing
departments and advertising agencies.
Technology should step in, but in brand marketing it hasn’t. Silicon Valley has been extremely good at two things:
(1) what at Yahoo! we called “Audience” - consumer facing media/content (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter,
everything Apple) – much of which actually creates fantastic environments for brand marketing. However (2) for
what we called “Monetization”, the Valley has gone gangbusters on one piece of it – direct response ad technology
– and has made virtually no progress on brand ad technology, certainly not brand ad technology that works across
the ever-broadening pool of publishers, media, formats and opportunities.
The irony is that a venture capital and technology community that claims to be “all about the math” is failing to
serve the biggest piece of the marketing pie. 2/3 of marketing spending in the US is intended to drive awareness,
consideration and preference. And again, on average 95% of those transactions will occur offline, in a brick and
mortar store. “Success” is proof that brand marketers can use online advertising to sell more products at a higher
margin on a sustained and sustainable basis than they are doing today. Can that success be defined
numerically? Absolutely, by showing more sustainable sales at higher sustainable margins. Is it possible to
architect a scalable, web-wide ad platform that delivers and proves it with respected independent third party
verification? Yes, and that is what the Brand.net team focused on 100% from day 1. That is who we are, and that
is what our customers look to us and trust us to do. Our growth is a reflection of listening to, understanding, and
meeting the needs of brand advertisers and agencies.
With the Media Futures Platform, are you ready to say that advertising is becoming like the financial
markets? How do your brand marketers react?
The advertising market has been becoming more efficient and effective for some time. Beyond that I think the
analogies between the advertising market and financial markets are overused (often incorrectly), so I try to be both
careful and specific when I make them.
Again I start with our target customers and their core marketing needs. On average 95% of their sales occur
offline, in brick and mortar stores. They need to prove they are selling more products, at a higher margin, on a
sustained and sustainable basis, than they are doing today. It surprises most people what a big percentage
“media” is of the controllable cost structure for CPGs, retailers, quick serve restaurants and the like. It is right up
there with key inputs like wheat, packaging, transportation and electricity. These companies have complex
operating structures and supply chains, and increasingly we are seeing them bring best practices to media buying.
In many instances, central procurement has now taken over co-ownership of media purchasing with the CMO and
the media agency of record.
One immediate result is an increase in futures planning and analytics, and in actual forward media-buying.
Because our proprietary online Media Futures Platform TM permits brand advertisers and agencies to plan,
purchase and manage web-wide media buys up to twelve months in advance, we are getting strong traction with
many large brands, and the agencies that represent them. Their reaction has been great. Our brand customers,
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faced with exploding opportunities to market online, and the gap in technology, data and expertise to allow them to
do so successfully, are excited by what we are doing together. In several cases they approached us with ideas
about how to do things better, faster and smarter, they are actively engaged in prototyping our next generation of
products, and their interactivity lets us build the best possible solutions for their marketing needs. All the incentives
are aligned, and we win together, and that makes it fun and successful.
By John Ebbert
June 23, 2010 – 12:07 am
53
Chitika Offering Local Ad Exchange And Ad Network
Models To Marketers Says CEO Kolluri
August 30, 2010 – 12:05 am
Venkat Kolluri is CEO of Chitika, an advertising technology
company.
AdExchanger.com: A bit of history first - what pivots has
Chitika made in its strategy since it was founded?
VK: There was one major, defining moment in Chitika’s history –
that’s when we decided that knowing when NOT to show an ad is
the most valuable asset in our inventory. Since then, we’ve been
refining and evolving our understanding of when not to show ads.
We’ve begun incorporating ideas like technographic segmentation
to create something of a click oracle that will tell us whether or not
someone is likely to take action on an ad.
Chitika just launched a local ad exchange. Why?
As we evolved our prediction technologies, we found one particular
area that we saw as a huge opportunity for advertisers, publishers,
and users – the intersection of search, mobile, and local. We
found this intersection to have some of the highest intent that we
couldn’t serve. Over 100 million monthly local search mobile
impressions, and we needed something special that would make
everyone involved happy. That’s LAX.
How is the local ad exchange different than the search retargeting you offer across your display ad
network? What transparency do you offer through the exchange that the network does not have, for
example?
Our existing ad network is our bread and butter, but there’s always a way to make key segments convert better.
Since we recognized a key, growing segment that was performing below what we thought its potential was, we
devised a way to target that traffic specifically and make it work better. The exchange model allows us to be more
open-ended in this sector. We set it up this way because it allows us to explore and optimize across a wide variety
of models and options. So our local ad exchange, LAX, is really a part – albeit a different-looking part – of our
program. Both advertisers and publishers can choose how and where ads are shown, with the ability to choose
the cost model – pay per click, CPM, pay per call, etc. Our revenue reports detail which model works best for the
individual publisher/advertiser.
Please provide a typical use case of how marketers use Chitika today.
Chitika concentrates on the who, not the where. We want to help marketers find individuals. Rather than
approaching this like a traditional ad network, where marketers come in and request users on X site who have
searched for keyword Y, we offer them users with a known intent. No matter where they are or what they’re doing,
we know intent, and can provide marketers with individual users.
Do you offer search retargeting data - i.e. cookies associated with search keywords input by consumers to demand-side platforms, ad network and/or data exchanges? Any plans here?
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We’re not in the business of directly selling our data. However, we absolutely will and do collaborate with
companies and agencies who want to use our data to make their campaigns that much more effective. We’re very
flexible and creative when it comes to coming up with a solution that, utilizing our unique data set and our
experience in utilizing it, makes for a winning partnership
What types of publishers and inventory does Chitika provide access to? Do you worry that Google can
steal them away someday?
We don’t worry about that at all. In fact, most of our publishers also run AdSense – we simply step in and diversify
their revenue streams. We’ve never billed ourselves as an AdSense replacement. In fact, internally, we have
always held to the mathematical belief that Google + Chitika > Google (or Chitika) alone.
In response to the first part of that question, our publisher base is huge and diverse. We love our publishers, but in
terms of inventory, we are working to build an audience bank. I mentioned earlier that we don’t target the where,
but rather the who, and every publisher who comes on board helps us build our audience bank of users. The
users are the most important thing to Chitika, and we’re well on our way to building up one of the biggest audience
banks – that is, collection of Internet users – available anywhere on the Web, over 200 million individuals in North
America alone. We know what America is searching for.
Are you seeing the audience buying trend with your clients? Or do they want to know where their ads are
going to run?
Absolutely. Our clients love the fact that we can find an individual with a known, targetable intent, anywhere in our
network, and that they don’t have to worry about the brand impact of the sites in our network thanks to our
proprietary ad-safe technology. They love the fact that they’re really grabbing on to the long tail of Internet traffic –
and they’ve seen the results of targeting the who and the what (they want) rather than the where.
Do views and view-throughs matter to Chitika and its clients? Is it possible to run a brand awareness
campaign through Chitika?
In a word, no. We focus on measurable, tangible results. We work with people who have clear, explicit goals that
we can focus on.
How many employees is Chitika today? Are you profitable?
After bootstrapping this company in 2003, we’ve grown past 40 employees and continue climbing. We’re
absolutely profitable – we have been since 2005, and have done so without any VC funding.
What one key trend do you expect to see a year from now that isn't happening today?
Mlocal: Mobile plus local
Follow Venkat Kolluri (@venkatkolluri), Chitika (@Chitika) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 30, 2010 – 12:05 am
55
New Collective Display Ad Study Points To Audience
Buying Growth Through Social Media And Portals
May 9, 2010 – 12:36 pm
Ad network and technology platform, Collective, released its "2010
Collective Display Advertising Study" here (PDF). Among the
findings, "About two-thirds (64 percent) percent continue to use
click-thru rates (CTRs) to evaluate ad network performance. The
study finds a disparity between senior- and lower-level agency
decision makers, with the latter relying heavily on CTRs and the
former leaning on other metrics."
Collective VP of Marketing Peter Weingard discussed the study's results.
AdExchanger.com: Why do you think social media and portals are seeing growth and content sites are
experiencing declines as it relates to audience buying?
PW: The study points to secular shifts in media buying techniques. Whereas traditionally advertisers have had no
choice but to use content as a proxy for audience, they can now buy audiences directly. To be clear, advertisers in
our study did expect to increase spending on big branded content sites this year (verses last year). However, the
rate of increase seems to favor more audience-centric plays. Social media has some of the desired characteristics
of audience-driven buys deep, such as data around users and their behaviors. More importantly, incredible amount
of page views and ad impressions ripe for data segmentation and audience monetization via 3rd party data.
Among the findings, which one surprised you the most?
I think we were most surprised by the continued reliance on Click Through Rate as a measure of campaign
success. Given all the research disproving CTR as a reliable performance metric, the thought that sophisticated
digital agencies are still giving it credence is disappointing. For our part, Collective has been measuring audience
interactions and time spent with the ads we manage. We’re also the first company to deploy Nielsen’s new
Immediate Consumables research to measure the offline sales impact of online display advertising. When I
wondered aloud why advertisers were still using CTR, a well-known advertising journalist, replied, “well, why are
TV networks still stuck on using Nielsen 60 years later?”
Do you think verification companies can allay the concern "by agencies and advertisers that the quality of
inventory available on exchanges does not measure up to that which can be found on a network?"
Possibly, but I suspect the issue has more to do with the general lack of quality inventory historically available and
current lack of transparency on exchanges. Publishers are still reticent to merchandise their inventory here for fear
this sales channel might compromise their direct sales channel. However, as these brands recognize the display
demand comes in two flavors (sites and audiences) and each will likely make up 50% of total display spending in
near future, they’ll see ad exchanges as a necessary complement to their direct sales channel to maximize share
of audience demand. Ad Exchanges will continue to advance to provide publishers with the control they require to
bring inventory through this channel in a way that is differentiated from their direct sales efforts, but still meets the
needs of agencies and advertisers.
What do you think the tipping point will be when advertisers stop using CTR as a critical performance
metric?
Well, you would think that if 99.95% of ad impressions aren’t clicked, the industry would quickly figure out a way to
value the ad impression. This is working for direct marketers, thanks to quantifiable post-impression conversions.
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However, for brand advertisers, the industry is not providing a universal metric that they care about. They are
looking for attitudinal metrics (lift in ad awareness, purchase intent, etc.) and impact on sales (offline/online) so that
they can better optimize their marketing mix. The industry has a long way to go to standardize reporting on these
other core branding metrics.
By John Ebbert
May 9, 2010 – 12:36 pm
57
Collective EVP Fitzgibbons On AppNexus Partnership;
Says Collective Already Is A DSP
July 1, 2010 – 1:05 pm
Real-time ad platform AppNexus and Collective, "a media and
technology solutions provider for display advertising," announced
yesterday that Collective will integrate with AppNexus' ad platform
and leverage its tools and inventory, which includes the major ad
exchanges like Google's DoubleClick and Microsoft's AdECN.
Read the release.
Collective EVP Jerome Fitzgibbons discussed the partnership and
Collective buying strategy.
AdExchanger.com: Do you consider AppNexus infrastructure
the basis for Collective’s demand-side platform? Will AMP run
"over" or "through" AppNexus?
JF: Collective already is a demand side platform if you think about it. We serve agencies and advertisers seeking
targeted online audiences at scale, and we manage that demand through our platform, AMP. Appnexus has done
a great job providing access to ad exchanges, Collective brings best-of-breed data, brand protection, analytics and
metrics that are most meaningful to brand advertisers. In this way, exchanges can be a great complement to our
proprietary network of publishers.
Why is buying via real-time bidding important to Collective?
It’s not the real-time bidding that is important, so much as it it is access to audiences and ad impressions that work
for advertisers at scale. Like most of the major ad networks, Collective has achieved around 70% reach of the US
Internet audience. What our relationship with AppNexus adds is best-in-class access to ad exchanges, through
which we can significantly increase the frequency of ad impressions to key audiences.
Generally speaking, are your brand advertisers ready for RTB-enabled buying? What are some of the ways
you're winning them over?
Brand protection and safe ad environments are critical to our clients, most of whom are large brand advertisers.
Because AMP tests the ad environment before an ad is served, taking into account the publisher (is it on our white
list), the ad environment (is it above the fold), the context of the page (using our Personifi semantic classification
engine) and of course, the audience (analyze the attributes of the user, demos, psychographics, in-market
behavior, etc.), we can offer a new level of brand safety to exchange buying. This combined with our proprietary ad
effectiveness metrics, like engagement and time spent, and audience insights, including AudienceHD, give brand
advertisers the efficiency and analytics they desire without compromising their brand in any way.
By John Ebbert
July 1, 2010 – 1:05 pm
58
ContextWeb’s Subramanian On PubVantage And
PerformancePrice
Email This Post
June 4, 2010 – 1:40 am
ContextWeb announced PubVantage.com which it positions as "a new
destination integrated into ADSDAQ, that enables publishers to research,
rate and review any ad network and connect to them via ADSDAQ." Read
the release.
Anand Subramanian, ContextWeb's Founder and President of the ADSDAQ
Ad Exchange, discussed PubVantage as well as a new solution called
PerformancePrice which "works by automatically monitoring what a publisher earns from its back-up ad networks
and lets other buyers compete for that inventory" according to the release.
AdExchanger.com: With PerformancePrice, are you advocating that publishers not implement price
floors? Can publishers still name their own price? Multiple floors allowed?
AS: ContextWeb’s business model is to create open and transparent ways for buyers and sellers to work with one
another while providing full control of their pricing, budget and targeting. With the AskPrice, sellers are still able to
name their own price for inventory that they sell. With the addition of the PerformancePrice, the exchange
automatically monitors what a publisher earns from its back-up ad networks and lets other buyers compete and bid
for their inventory. As a result, the PerformancePrice can deliver higher eCPMs for publishers than they get from
their back-up ad networks. So the PerformancePrice is not a static floor but a dynamic rate based on the eCPM of
the publishers back-up ad networks. The end result is that that publishers see increased revenues and higher fill
rates.
Is PubVantage available to your large publishers, too? Why wouldn't they go direct to the ad network after
discovering who is best?
PubVantage is open to publishers of all sizes, both large and small. Publishers can research, rate, review and
connect with buyers on the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange. As an open, bi-directional community resource, PubVantage is
a single source that buyers and sellers can use to discover one another.
Can you discuss the PubVantage reporting available to publishers on each ad network? Will you identify
ad networks by name with overall CPM, for example?
As part of the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange, PubVantage provides an open community for buyers and sellers to review
more than 450 ad networks based on their experience with the network’s ad quality, payout, advertising type and
category. All information in PubVantage is determined by the community. For example, Ad Quality and Payout
ratings are measured as an averaging of all community votes on a scale from 1 to 5 stars with 1 star being the
worst and 5 stars being the best. Publishers can also add specific comments regarding their experiences with
those ad networks and discuss the overall CPM they experienced if they feel that is relevant.
Publishers that sell inventory on the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange also have access to reporting that shows them the
eCPM they earned for the inventory that they sold to specific networks. This reporting is tied to their individual
accounts. ContextWeb does not publish CPM data for networks.
By John Ebbert
June 4, 2010 – 1:40 am
59
Measurement And Data Driving Strong Growth For Datran
Media’s Aperture Says SVP Knoll
August 11, 2010 – 12:05 am
Scott Knoll is SVP of Display Media for Datran Media, a digital
marketing technology company and owners of Aperture.
AdExchanger.com: Looking at the industry as a whole since last
we spoke, what surprises you about what's happened in the
industry in the past year?
SK: There is a graph that I like to draw (often on a cocktail napkin) that
helps to illustrate my biggest surprise. The graph shows two bar charts
comparing the amount of money spent in advertising online vs. the
major media offline--broken down by direct response and branding
activity. The first thing that stands out is pure brand advertising makes
up only about 20% of online bar chart yet over 70% of the offline bar
chart.
In the late 90’s my former boss Kevin O’Connor used to always say
that the internet advertising industry was a good bet because “ad
dollars always follow eyeballs.” Historically, he is correct. Today online
makes up 50% of the average US person’s media consumption hours
(according to IDC), but still receives only 15%-20% of total major
media ad spend. While online’s share of media spend appears to be
expanding rapidly, you get a different story if you look at the media mix
for direct response dollars and brand dollars side by side. Online direct
response is more like 35% of the total direct response spend and online branding is less than 5% of the total brand
media allocation despite the fact consumers are spending so much time on the web.
This confirms that increasing brand spend is by far the biggest untapped growth opportunity for the online ad
industry. Yet surprisingly it seems that most of the innovation and focus in this industry continues to be placed on
direct response, despite the fact we are getting relatively close to the equilibrium point of dollars to eyeballs. In the
last year we have seen countless articles, conversations, conferences and investments poured into businesses
such as demand side platforms, supply side platforms, exchanges, optimization engines, real-time bidding,
behavioral targeting, trading desks, social graph targeting, look-alike modeling and re-targeting. Yet these are all
technologies aimed largely at further improving direct response. I understand why this is the case, the web is a
proven entity at direct response and the demand for such services is currently at an all time high. It’s clear however
that the industry also needs more focus and innovation geared towards improving online brand advertising if we
want to capture the bigger media opportunity
What is Aperture today? Is it a data company, ad network, DSP, and/or measurement company?
Aperture at its core is a rich demographic, psychographic and transaction-based collection of data that we leverage
for measurement, verification, planning, analytics and targeting. The data is truly unique because it’s more
accurate than the self reported, survey and look-alike data the internet industry has been forced to rely on. And
Aperture data has an unprecedented combination of depth and breadth. From a measurement and planning
perspective this means that Aperture can identify the make-up of an online audience at the site, section, placement
or page-level and provide these results with statistical significance. For many of our brand and agency clients,
Aperture has become the preferred method for accurately measuring verified audience data across banner ads,
video, rich media and web sites.
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How does your revenue breakout for Aperture on a percentage basis per offering - i.e. measurement, data,
media is ...? Where's the momentum here?
Up until late last year our revenue came mainly from our full service ad network. This year our measurement
usage has exploded and we are experiencing nearly 100 percent quarter over quarter growth. The same can be
said about our self service data solution. As we continue to launch new products in measurement and custom
data, I expect a majority of our revenue to come from measurement solutions and data services next year and
beyond.
How is Aperture positioned within Datran Media today?
Aperture is one of several independent business lines that operate under the Datran Media corporate umbrella. It
is among the most strategic as online audience targeting, measurement and analytics are the cornerstones of
brand and direct response growth requirements. We have integrated Aperture across some of Datran’s other
businesses including StormPost, Datran Media's top-ranked Email Service Provider (ESP). Aperture is a key
differentiator for this business as ESP clients can now leverage audience analytics to enhance customer
communications and cross-sell, up-sell opportunities. We are also integrating PreferenceCentral into our
framework. PreferenceCentral is the first solution to provide consumers with the ability to control their experience
with targeted advertisements across, publishers, agencies, brands and networks.
What client trends are you seeing today? How has your target market evolved in the past year?
When you and I conducted our last interview a year ago, Aperture had just launched its audience measurement
solution, Audience Discovery. The solution was a first of its kind for marketers and provides insights into the
various attributes of the audience that viewed, clicked, engaged with or converted on advertisements. The initial
buyers of the solution were direct response advertisers looking for new data segments to target in order to
increase the number of quality conversions. At the same time we approached brand advertisers – those who
couldn’t measure success in terms of click or conversion rates – as we felt that Aperture could address an unfilled
need in determining which of their placements were being viewed by the specific audience these brands were
attempting to target. We needed to do a lot of evangelizing at first and it took more than six months to get our first
few clients using the solution for something other than direct response targeting. However, our evangelizing paid
off and at the beginning of this year as word got out about our unique value proposition, brands started coming to
us. More than 400 brands are now using Aperture and this number keeps growing as we continue to expand our
offerings for brand and direct response marketers alike and integrate our solution within ad servers, networks,
exchanges, video and DSPs.
Datran was an early leader in visualizing marketing data with its Aperture platform. How important is that
to your strategy going forward?
The amount of data available to today’s online marketer is staggering and growing every day. Data overload is
definitely a problem facing everyone in the industry from ad planners to the marketers in charge of analytics. Our
goal is not only to get the best, most accurate data available in the hands of marketers, but also to give them easy
to understand insights that are actionable in multiple ways.
Why are brand marketers hesitating online with brand dollars? How is Aperture addressing the challenge?
One reason consistently cited is that the web is great at measuring what online action a person takes once
exposed to an advertisement, but not good at identifying “who” is exposed to, responds to or engages with an ad.
This makes it a tremendous direct response medium and consequently we have seen billions of dollars migrate
from traditional direct response channels to the web. As strong as the web is in measuring response, it lacks
specific details of the individuals exposed to advertisements due to the veil of anonymity the internet provides. For
most direct response focused campaigns this is not a problem as direct marketers care primarily about immediate
outcomes (e.g. leads and sales). For brand advertisers who measure a campaign’s success in a large part based
on the percentage of their target market reached, this is an issue. Some people will say audience data has existed
for some time on the web, but this legacy data suffers from two main problems: scale and accuracy. Traditional
panel methodologies imported to the web from radio and television lack the scale necessary to allow marketers to
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navigate the complexity and robustness of the web. By relying on these solutions a marketer is forced to treat the
web like a static medium and cannot leverage its true power. On the other hand, methodologies based on the
extrapolation of self reported data or derived from similar look-alike surfing patterns are fraught with inaccuracies
and sample bias.
So Brand marketers today are forced with a difficult challenge. Their target audience is spending increasingly more
time on the web and less time consuming traditional mass media, but the medium does not allow them to measure
targeted reach and define success in the way that they are used to. For all the attention the web gets for being the
most measureable medium ever, its failure to provide even a standard branding metric like Target Rating Point
(TRP) on a given campaign is a real barrier. Not to mention that today’s brand marketer wants to combine TRP
with user engagement metrics such as time on a page or video viewing time and ad effectiveness metrics like lift or
purchase intent. This potent combination would allow brand advertisers to leverage the true power of the web
without having to create separate audience definitions.
I’m excited to say that at Aperture we are in the process of making this vision a reality. Our data has both the
accuracy and scale necessary to tie demographic-based targets used in traditional media to engagement and
effectiveness metrics on any site or placement across the web in near real time. And in many situations we will be
able to deliver the results at the DMA level so that the brand marketer can adjust targeted reach and frequency on
the fly. While it will take time and other changes to generate a significant shift of brand dollars to the web, we
believe standard, reliable and accurate audience metrics will be a big step in the right direction for our industry.
What's your view on the self-service tools space? Does Datran's Aperture offer solutions - are they even
important to your agency partners?
The industry has changed rapidly over the past couple years, especially in terms of targeting. When we launched
our first solution in 2007 it was full service ad network where we leveraged publisher relationships, demand side
platforms, supply side platforms and ad exchanges to deliver targeting against our data. At that time, very few
networks had the experience or infrastructure to offer such a solution let alone agencies or publishers. Today it’s a
different story. Whereas we still offer this full service network solution, a portion of our advertisers have decided to
take the ad operations functionalities in house. For these clients we license our Aperture cookies for targeting and
of course provide them with measurement and analytics to help their efficiency.
Where are the next "sweet spots" in terms of data-driven marketing channels for Aperture - beyond
display?
Aperture was developed with multiple marketing channels in mind and online display is just a starting point. We
will aim to leverage our Aperture data and methodology in everything digital. In display we are already integrated
with video ad servers, PointRoll, ad networks, ad verification solutions, ad buying platforms, a digital marketing
research solution, DSPs and an exchange.
Furthermore we are integrated with our email service provider, StormPost, which provides Aperture measurement
for stand-alone email offers, customer communications and newsletters. We have also looked at several mobile
opportunities and will likely move in that direction in the not so distant future.
August 11, 2010 – 12:05 am
62
Growing Direct Response Budgets Driving DSNR Media
Group Revenues Says CEO Peles
August 27, 2010 – 12:09 am
Tsafrir Peles is CEO of DSNR Media Group, an interactive advertising
services provider.
AdExchanger.com: A bit of history. How DMG pivoted in recent
years to meet market opportunities?
TP: DSNR Ltd., as a large scale international advertiser, was the first
international advertiser on the right media network back in January of
2004, helping Mike Walrath and his team monetize their growing
international inventory.
In mid-2007 we decided to spinoff our media department to create DMG
– DSNR media group; a results based, international, interactive
advertising service provider. We got onto the game field with one big
advertiser, trained a team of media professionals, mainly in the fields of
media buying, campaign optimization, search and email marketing. We
needed to add some sales people and started to roll. DMG was
incorporated in October of 2007, surpassed its challenging goals in
2008, doubled its revenue for 2009 and is on its way to double again in
2010.
We have always been capitalizing on remnant inventories, first as a
large advertiser, from 2002, and then as a service provider since 2007 and on. As a service provider our focus is
on the demand side, serving our advertising clients, aggregating media for them from many different media
sources, adding our unique optimization “flavor” that consist of our post click optimization technology, and our
holistic approach to campaign value chain optimization.
We have been capitalizing on three main trends in recent years: 1. Growing budgets in results based advertising.
2. Decreasing budgets (08 and 09 economic slowdown) in brand / premium advertising what made more
“premium” inventory remnant. And 3. Overall internet usage continues to grow constantly, in our view, this means
more impressions created and need to be monetized.
Additionally, we became pretty good at trading with our competitors, on and off exchange platforms, on a local (in
our main markets) and on a global basis and in most cases we buy more than we sell.
Now DMG has 3 lines of business:



Results-based online advertising,
Results-based mobile advertising, where again, we aggregate a lot of supply on behalf of our advertisers.
Here, our post-click optimization platform, traffiliate, serves not only as post click optimizer per se, but also
as an aggregation platform that enables conversion tracking in mobile campaigns.
Post-click optimization platform – where we license our technology – traffiliate utilizing SaaS model, or as
we call it, TaaS – Traffiliate as a Service.
How do you position and differentiate DSNR Media Group today? It would appear to be part ad network
and part agency considering the services component.
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We are a Demand-side, results-based, interactive (web and mobile) advertising service provider. We aggregate
media from 3 different ad exchanges and dozens of ad networks including our own, 8 different mobile ad networks
including our own and we optimize and distribute this aggregated media to our advertisers based on mainly
performance.
We have a relatively large account management team that runs all this “magic” for our advertisers and that uses a
consultative approach to grow the partnership with our clients. We use proprietary technology, to manage those
campaigns on multiple platforms and to optimize them.
We have become significant player in our main markets: Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK.
On the publisher side, in addition to just buying large volumes, we offer our publishers some unique monetization
vehicles in the form of unique ad formats and integration with third party monetization platforms that adds on the
media they already have. Our publishers also enjoy a dedicated account management team that is geared towards
increasing their ecpm’s as well as their volumes.
So yes, to answer your question, we are a network+, a service provider but NOT an agency and NOT a DSP.
"Digital" moves quickly, obviously. What has surprised you about the world of digital marketing in the past
year?
We have been around close to 10 years now, me personally more than 10, and witnessed the previous bubble
blast, so it is hard to surprise us. There is one thing that surprised us, a year and a half ago, where we predicted
that remnant inventory cpm will continue to decline, in conjunction with premium inventories cpm’s. We actually
noticed an opposite trend in which in the last 18 months we saw a hefty increase of more than 50% in our cpm’s. I
must say that this is only what we see in the areas where we trade. In retrospect, I think I can explain this by the
conversion of more premium inventory to remnant, and the improved targeting and optimization, there is much
smaller “waste”. Also we have grown up a bit, and we now understand that our solution doesn’t fit all advertisers,
and that it is perfectly okay to turn down advertisers and publishers that don’t fit our model.
Where does display advertising fit in your strategy? Are you seeing a convergence of search and display
which is affecting your business?
We are display! Back in 2008 we ran search and email for our advertisers, but in 2009 we decided to focus on
display. We think that partially, this concentration supported our aggressive growth. These days, with the growing
convergence, we see ourselves getting back to search but from the perspective of better targeted display.
Google’s ADX2 also supports it with the availability of GCN inventory on it and the participation of adwords as a
buyer on the exchange.
Our post click platform also supports both search and display campaigns, looking at the search phrase as well as
at the creative or ad group as parameters that need to be taken into account when optimizing post click action.
Who is your target client market?
Our clients are direct response advertisers, performance agencies and the performance budgets of brands, mainly
focusing on reaching audiences in diversified geographical markets. With the introduction of TaaS and our mobile
advertising network, we have more to offer to this segment, ROI focused advertisers and agencies.
Have ad exchanges become an important source of inventory? How has this evolved for DMG and where
do you see it going?
The first ad exchange enabled our spinoff and allowed our growth and basically provided us with an almost ready
made media source to start and run our campaigns. Since we are a Demand side service provider, the growing
availability of inventories through exchanges is to our benefit. Based on our experience, we believe, that
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aggregators and optimizers will continue to play a significant role in the media /audience trading and optimization
ecosystem.
Is DMG using third-party datasets for ad targeting today? Is it working?
We are always testing different things including these third party data providers. I must say that we still haven’t
found anything that provides us with the lift we need in order to really integrate. We are sure that this day will
come, and hence we are keeping ourselves open and always running to at least discuss opportunities with these
guys.
How many employees does DMG have today? Is it mainly in Israel? Any thoughts about expanding more
globally?
We are now 75 full-time employees, all working from our office in Raanana, Israel. In addition, we do have some
free agents working for us in some of our markets and also some dedicated out-sourcing technology development
teams in Bulgaria and in Israel.
Needless to say, that our main markets are outside of Israel, and we are always looking at the right timing to open
field offices in our target markets. So far our model of not having physical presence in our market has been
working nicely, it does require quite a bit of travel and a lot of web and call conferences with clients, publishers and
third party service providers.
What are some of the unique benefits to being an ad tech company in Israel as opposed other hubs like
Silicon Valley or New York City?
We are an international player, the US market for us is almost the rest of the world. We do business regularly in at
least 6 languages, and if you walk into our office you will probably at any given moment hear at least 4 of them
spoken. Israel is an immigrant based country, where technology is no stranger, provides us with great talent that
nicely accommodates our need for diversified languages and cultures.
Follow Tsafrir Peles (@Peles_dmg), DSNR Media Group (@DMG_interact) and AdExchanger.com
(@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 27, 2010 – 12:09 am
65
Goodway Group Leveraging Local Advertising And The Ad
Network Model Says COO Friedman
July 23, 2010 – 12:05 am
Jay Friedman is COO of Goodway Group, a marketing services and ad
network company.
AdExchanger.com: Please discuss the transition to digital advertising
for Goodway Group. What have been the challenges?
JF: In 2006 we added digital media to Goodway's core services but we didn't
really begin to transition away from the direct response business until 2008.
Because Goodway was a 77 year-old company in 2006, there was so much
heritage - client relationships of over 30 years - it wouldn't have made sense
to simply abandon a successful ship just because a new, untested (within
our company anyway) and shiny boat arrived at the dock. What we found,
was that every single one of our existing clients, and many more that we had
been calling on but hadn't done business with yet, were eager to discuss
digital and how we could help them. I give a lot of credit to our 3rdgeneration owner, and then-25-year President Dave Wolk for recognizing the
potential for digital and making such a sweeping change to his family
business. As far as challenges, unquestionably the biggest challenge in a
transition like this, and I would guess with any digital media company today,
is finding great people. Many team members from our existing team are still
with us today and have made a brilliant transition. Since we've grown, we've
also brought on some of the highest quality talent in the industry in Dan
Mauch, Susan Emmens, Arwa Saifee, David Kertesz, Lindy Jones, Mark Meade, Chris Idell, and Charlie Gill.
How do you position the company today? On a percentage basis of revenue, how much of the company is
devoted to non-digital?
Goodway has evolved from a network to become a DSP Operator which blends the use of inventory and data
exchanges with its own publisher and data relationships to offer unmatched reach, accuracy, verification, and
performance. Goodway is now 95-98% digital media revenue which is derived from working with 18 automotive
brands, dozens of political candidates and advocacy groups, and numerous clients in other verticals.
What's the target market for Goodway Group?
Goodway has been about geo-targeted marketing in the retail/performance sector for 35 years and that continues.
We have experience running multiple campaigns in every one of the 210 DMAs (yes, even Glendive, MT, where
we once ran a CPC campaign of 39 clicks and delivered in full). This many years in geo-targeted marketing has
trained us to think ZIP by ZIP, county by county, and so on. As a result we're very well positioned for local and
regional automotive, political, hospitals, banks, and anyone else who has wanted to drive local store or business
traffic.
Looking at your political ad network, SWAY, what's peculiar or unique to this "politics" vertical from a
buying standpoint?
The need to make changes at 11 at night or on a Sunday for one! Political work is thrilling but its late arrival to
digital combined with its high stakes make it more frantic than any other business. Many industries consider their
work fast-paced, but one thing politicians will quickly point out is that corporations that miss their goal in a quarter
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by $1 usually don't fire anyone. Anyone in political who loses by one vote is out of a job immediately. From a
buying standpoint, this means no wasted impressions, and the need for every site to be 100% politics-safe. A
good example would be a high quality healthcare site. Most brands would love to see their ad running there, but
an ad for a politician on a page within that site related to an unattractive disease - or worse, one with political
implications - and their campaign could be done. The site pool is significantly smaller and the attention to details is
ratcheted up 10-fold.
How do you scale the company? Is it about feet on the street? Do you use your own technology, license
and/or outsource, etc.?
First let me say we run our company as though we're not allowed to sell it for 100 years. That forces us to make
the best business decisions for our own team members and our clients without being distracted by any short-term
potential. Because of this strategy, every decision is a balance between internal resources and external bestpractices. As we add people in sales, we know we'll need to staff up internally in three months. As new technology
becomes available in the marketplace we need to identify whether someone else will build it more quickly, cheaply,
and close enough to our desired specs, or if we need to build it ourselves. So, we have built some technology on
our own. Our RealZIP(r) technology more closely aligns clicking users with their real zip code, not simply what
their IP address says. Our DDL(r) technology (Direct to Dealer Link) routes those clickers to the closest
dealership. Our data warehouse, internal campaign management system, and reporting system, are a blend in
that they're all purchased products but then highly customized for our own use.
Is audience buying happening on the local level? Or is it about buying sites?
Audience buying is very much happening on the local level. In fact, as I provide this answer we'll buy a couple
hundred thousand impressions, all locally, and all user-based. In fact, the biggest challenge to buying audiences
locally tends to be client perceptions more than technical functionality. For instance, most politicians would much
rather run on a local news site in their market or state than on a national news site using geo-targeting. Partly they
believe that a user seeing their ad on that site will imply an endorsement from that site. Most, though, is simply
that they have been trained for 50 years that local users can only be found in local content. The first politicians to
abandon this will gain a huge advantage over their competitors and have the chance to buy much less
expensively.
In general, can you see the ad network and agency models overlapping?
Whether I do or not, The large holding companies certainly do! It's certainly a case of "he who has the gold makes
the rules" in that agencies are now building or buying in-house networks but strongly discourage a network acting
like an agency. One thing that has helped Goodway be as successful as it has is to "act like a network but think
like an agency." Many folks on our sales team come from an agency background. They know whether or not a
certain response would fly with a client, so they are careful to ensure all their campaigns are sold with fair
expectations and a good understanding of the likely outcome.
How useful to Goodway Group is auto-intender data currently available through data exchanges today?
What are your auto ad buyer clients looking for?
Goodway most often layers BT with its BehaviorMatch(tm) product which is derived through our predictive
modeling partner, Compete, Inc. Our BehaviorMatch(tm) product outperforms straight BT about 70% of the time
and we believe this is due to the fact that automotive shoppers often narrow their consideration list significantly
before they even begin shopping online for a vehicle. That said, agencies and clients love BT and we certainly
offer it. As far as what ad buyer clients are looking for, that very depends on the type of client. A dealer is looking
for leads, a regional director is looking for straight sales, and a corporate client is looking, in general, for qualified
actions. Our view is that at the end of the day it's sales and the rest are just leading indicators. We always prefer
to see sales data from our clients when possible to look at markets in which we ran and markets in which we didn't
to see whether or not there is a correlation. Clearly, one month's worth of data or a slight lift isn't good enough, but
when we see multiple markets who partner with us outperform multiple markets who didn't partner with us month in
and month out, the client at least smiles at the correlation.
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How big is your company today in terms of employees? Please discuss why your virtual office works.
We are up to just over 50 from the 35 we had a few years ago. And, yes, 2/3 of the team is virtual. We have a
main office in Philadelphia with "people hubs" in San Francisco, LA, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, and NYC/Jersey.
Virtual management where you truly let your employees do their best is the highest risk form of management, but
also the one with the highest reward. Someone could completely disappear for a couple hours without anyone
knowing, but it will become clear very quickly if someone isn't doing their work. We very much trust everyone on
our team. We provide them with the training we need and an open door (well, phone line, IM, and email at least) to
their manager as well as our owner, me, and our SVP of sales. The SVP of Sales and I try to check in with all the
virtual folks as often as possible, at least a couple of times per month. Building this personal relationship allows
them to know we care about them, the job they're doing, and their development.
What milestones would you like Goodway Group to have accomplished a year from now?
The vision statement at Goodway is to "Make Clients Heroes." This drives everything we do. Sales, profit, and
technological growth are all great but only if they're done within within the vision. To this end, we do have very
specific goals around client retention, sales growth, process improvement, speed to market, and employee
satisfaction. So, I can't say there is one specific milestone we'd have liked to achieve. It's vital that every one of
these growth areas takes one step up their respective ladders at the same time and if we achieve that, Goodway
will continue to earn as much business as it desires and deserves.
Follow Jay Friedman (@jaymfriedman) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 23, 2010 – 12:05 am
68
Google’s Spencer And Miller Announce DoubleClick Ad
Exchange Enhancements; Discuss Verification Space,
Display Strategy
Email This Post
August 20, 2010 – 2:08 pm
Scott Spencer, Group Product Manager, DoubleClick Ad Exchange
and Jason Miller, Group Product Manager, Google Display Network
discussed the display media space as well as DoubleClick Ad
Exchange enhancements with AdExchanger.com today.
AdExchanger.com: What is Google announcing today?
SCOTT SPENCER: Basically, we’re going to be rolling out a few
more tools to help DoubleClick Ad Exchange buyers buy quality
inventory, and to check their campaigns.
Taking a quick step back; when we launched the exchange about a
year ago, we engineered it with best-in-market buyer and publishers
controls, as well as extensive crawl-and-verify inventory screening.
Together with the real time bidder, these were the biggest upgrades
we made.
As part of a long line of improvements in this area over the past year,
we’re taking the wraps off a couple of additional features to give
buyers even more control, quality and transparency.
The first is “Site Packs” – these are manually crafted collections of
like sites based on DoubleClick Ad Planner and internal
classifications, vetted for quality. These allow buyers to get a set of
high quality sites for their particular campaigns, covering anonymous
and branded inventory.
Second, we’re making some changes to our Real-time Bidder (in beta). The biggest change here is for Ad
Exchange clients who work with DSPs. Historically, Ad Exchange buyers were hidden from publishers behind their
DSP. By introducing a way to segment out each individual client’s ad calls, inventory can be sent exclusively to an
Ad Exchange buyer even when that buyer uses a DSP. It increases transparency for publishers and potentially
give buyers more access to the highest quality inventory, like “exclusive ad slots” – high quality inventory offered to
only a few, select buyers as determined by the publisher.
Thirdly, we’re soon going to be rolling out a beta of what we call “Data Transfer” – this is a report of every
transaction bought or sold by a client on the Ad Exchange. Effectively, it’s a daily log file of everything that
happened. Clients can then review every branded URL that they purchased to ensure everything was what they
expected.
A recent report suggested that exchange inventory is unsafe for marketers. How does Google respond?
SCOTT SPENCER: You won’t be surprised to hear this, but when it comes to the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, I
disagree. We have high quality DoubleClick and AdSense publishers.
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Of course, it’s always possible to find a single page among millions that is objectionable in one way. But we’ve
built extensive checks to ensure the quality and safety of our inventory, including strict participation policies,
continuous automated scanning of all publisher sites, and automated inventory review to identify improper traffic
patterns. A flag can trigger either a human review or an automatic blocking. These validation tools apply to our
combined pool of AdSense and Ad Exchange publisher inventory. They operate at a page-level granularity, prescreening individual ad units, then report to the client in great detail afterwards.
We’ve also developed ways for marketers to choose high quality inventory, like through the Ad Planner 1000 filter,
and the ability to buy or exclude specific publishers, URLs or categories of content.
What are you investing in as it relates to providing a brand safe experience for advertisers across the
Google Display Network?
JASON MILLER: On the Google Display Network, we genuinely believe that marketers and agencies get access to
the most brand-friendly network out there.
It’s important to emphasize that Google's technological expertise is in doing two things very well: first, crawling and
analyzing content at great scale (as a search engine that’s Google’s core competency) - and second, targeting ads
precisely at massive scale. We’ve applied this to the Display Network for quite some time.
We broadly invest in 4 areas to ensure brand safety:
First, strict policies. We don’t permit sites with content that violates our program policies.
Second, technology. Several layers of review - before admission to the network, the precise time of ad serving,
and continuous automatic scanning - uphold our program policies. We do real-time blocking of ads if the page
violates policy. We do this at massive scale and at a page/URL level - not just a site level.
Third, transparency. We offer domain - and, importantly, URL - level reporting. This provides deep insight into the
sites and pages where our clients’ ads were served, on-demand. Major advertisers regularly get a report that
shows what their ads looked like in the context of a given page.
Finally, advertiser controls. We give advertisers a robust set of controls to closely manage their ad delivery across
the GDN, including hand-picked bundles of sites (such as the Ad Planner 1000) or individual sites, an above the
fold filter, specific site and category exclusions.
Recently, we signed up to the standards and practices under the IAB’s Networks and Exchanges Quality
Assurance Guidelines.
Do you allow the use of ad verification technology from companies such as AdSafe Media or DoubleVerify
across all inventory of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange including the Google Display Network? What's the
plan here?
SCOTT SPENCER: Yes, we allow Ad Exchange buyers to use these companies if they want to and if certified. Of
course, sellers can decide whether they allow the tags - it replicates the situation elsewhere on the web. Some do,
some don’t. We have no plans to change this. The Google Display Network is treated like any other seller on AdX.
JASON MILLER: We’re working through these issues methodically for our network, with a view to coming out in
the best place for users, marketers and publishers. There’s very significant privacy, methodology and accuracy
issues to consider, but importantly, there’s also the issue of significantly slowed ad and page load times caused by
third parties’ site-level (as opposed to page level) blocking. We know a lot of other publishers are going through
these same considerations. If an advertiser is getting highly inaccurate reports from a third party, as we have seen
happen, and all these tags slow network performance, it’s not value-adding.
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So, in short, we have provisionally certified a third party verification provider and are running some tests with
them. But mostly, we’re continuing the investments I’ve described earlier and providing those services to
advertisers at no extra charge. We believe that Google has a unique strength in crawling, content analysis and ad
targeting across the entirety of our network and that this puts our marketers in an extremely safe place.
How do you justify for publishers the use of buyers' ad verification technology which may compromise the
anonymity of their inventory in the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and present potential channel conflict issues
with their direct sales team?
SCOTT SPENCER: Ad Exchange publishers make their own decisions on transparency and the allowance of 3rd
party validation tags, over their branded and anonymous inventory.
The first point to make is that the anonymous inventory in the DoubleClick Ad Exchange typically belongs to the
most brand sensitive publishers and is among the highest quality inventory - by definition, publishers make this
space anonymous because they’re selling the same space directly. For these clients the prospect of any exposure
of their brand of course makes them wary of ad verification technologies.
We unapologetically prohibit the identification of anonymous inventory. Verification companies that have adequate
protection of publishers’ anonymity are more likely to be accepted by publishers than those that attempt to expose
the anonymous inventory’s underlying site.
I understand that you only allow one pixel in a DoubleClick Ad Exchange served creative. Does that mean
that a client needs to decide between an intender data pixel, agency pixel, ad verification beacon, etc.? If
so, why limit the buyer?
SCOTT SPENCER: Again, we’re balancing the needs of marketers, publishers and users. We want to protect
everyone from latency issues and from having a daisy chain of 10 or 20 pixels show on their site when an ad is
delivered. That’s a lose-lose-lose scenario for user, advertiser and publisher.
Our policy is that there can be one network and one pixel delivered per call. This is to enable, when allowed by the
seller, post-impression reporting or data collection for subsequent remarketing. It’s up to the marketer if they want
to use a verification pixel on all, none, or a sample of their impressions.
Can you share the types of fraudulent activity in the DoubleClick Ad Exchange today? Any trends concern
you?
SCOTT SPENCER: There’s always a tiny number of bad actors in any network, and our job is to pre-empt and
detect them, using technology and human review. This sort of activity is bad for the whole ecosystem. Because of
not wanting to tip my hand about the specific security and anti-spam measures we have, I’d rather not go into the
attempts at impression and ad spam that we’ve detected - you can see some of what we monitor for here. I can
say that we pick almost all of it up proactively and punish offenders, and in terms of trends, I can say that on our
exchange, the proportion and volume of this stuff is falling.
August 20, 2010 – 2:08 pm
71
Grocery Shopping Network CEO Robinson Says Platform
Increasing Performance By 30%
Email This Post
June 28, 2010 – 12:05 am
Andy Robinson is CEO of Grocery Shopping Network, an online ad
network.
AdExchanger.com: What problem is Grocery Shopping
Network solving?
GSN enables grocers to significantly expand digital shopper
engagement, value and total in-store and online sales. Likewise
GSN provides a means for advertisers to reach and target their
best customers on a per store basis and/or at a critical "Moment of
Purchase Decision" on the grocer's website, right when shoppers
are making their shopping list and purchase decisions. GSN does
so by providing a state-of-the-art suite of shopping planning and
saving solutions for grocers' websites. This platform provides their
customers with tools which makes the grocery shopping
experience easier for their customers to plan their shopping trip to
the store (or, in some cases, order from home delivery). These
shopping solutions help customers save money, save time, learn
new recipe or cooking ideas, and shop for healthier choices.
Grocers who have deployed GSN's platform to power their
websites typically see an increase of 30% or more of the best
customers spend. These websites now reach over 7 million people
planning 21 million shopping trips a month. This, in turn, creates a
"Moment of Decision" advertising opportunity for CPG brands that
want to influence the purchase, and is the essence of GSN's Ad
Network, ‘GSN StoreSite™'. GSN's unique access to online and
offline purchase data provides advertisers tremendous insight to
sales impact, audience makeup, and product brand/category
performance, including measurable ROI from the advertising
spend.
Do you consider yourselves an ad network? What is your view on the oft-cited view that ad networks are
on their way out?
The advent of DSPs, RTB, and ‘audience buying' are the new trends that are causing some to say that ad
networks are old news. GSN offers a strong product in this new area, GSN OutReach™, which delivers audience
in unique geo-targeted clusters which are identified via GSN's extensive shopper data integrated with other
demographic and lifestyle data. Our GSN StoreSite™ is an ad network, but is a unique product in the network
world. It is not a network of loosely related sites, but is a network of grocery store websites all providing GSN's
platform functionality. For the CPG advertiser who wants to reach as many shopping dollars as they might reach
via the large chains, this network allows a single buy to reach 7 million shoppers planning 21 million monthly
shopping trips at over 6,000 grocery stores.
How do you differentiate among your competitors? And, is proprietary technology key to your pitch?
GSN's primary difference is the level of insight and direct shopper behavior that drives both the GSN Ad Network
solutions. GSN starts with the deepest set of online activity to offline purchase knowledge in the industry. Our 1.7
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million shopper online panel members are also part of GSN's database of 35 million shoppers' offline purchase
data – this depth of shopper data provides a true end to end measurement and insight that is second to none
within the industry. When applied to the GSN StoreSite™ ad network, this shopper data enables GSN advertisers
to target and impact category specific shoppers at the precise time they are deciding what to buy. GSN
OutReach™ uses this depth of knowledge to accurately define neighborhood segments of Product/Category
Purchase Cluster Behavior as a basis to overlay the demographics, psychographics, and social behavior in a way
that has never been available before.
What are you seeing on the client-side today? Any trends you can share?
We continue to have excellent results with clients that understand the combination of impact from reaching
premium grocery shoppers and insight backed by offline purchase results and data. Both CPG marketers and their
agencies are increasingly demanding the insight to a real connection between online behavior and offline sales –
and we're delivering on this. For promotional efforts and shopper marketing programs – we're seeing a reaction to
the realization that grocery shoppers need to be influenced prior to entering the store – and our platform is a
perfect fit for extending promotions and shopper marketing tactics beyond traditional in-store promotion. We are
seeing a great interest in ways to tie online communication with offline purchase results.
Are you able to help clients tie their online advertising to offline sales? What are your thoughts here?
Yes, definitely online activity to offline purchase behavior is in our DNA. It is a core difference to the GSN offering
into the marketplace. GSN collects transaction level data (t-log) from many grocery retailers across the USA,
currently over 6 billion transactions over two years. GSN already enjoys the largest online to offline purchase
database. GSN plans to expand our online panel to 5 million members and our offline transaction level data to over
60 million shoppers in the next 12 months. This growth will continue over time. At the same time, we are already
looking for ways to provide advertisers with custom insights to their products and categories through the
development of their own custom shopper panel. In a recent proposal we were able to provide a baby products
manufacturer shopper insights from a database of 55,000 households buying baby formulas. Their comment was
they had never seen this level of measurement for a category that represents less than 3% of the population.
Please discuss your data strategy. For example, among participating grocery store websites, will you
leverage aggregated cookie data for ad targeting purposes?
Yes we will use cookie and offline purchase data for ad targeting purposes. GSN uses data to serve the shopper
and make their shopping experience better. In doing so we expand the average households shopping basket by
45% by understanding the attributes of what they buy and their unique behaviors in each product category. We
make nearly 700 million "buy" suggestions a week to consumers based on what is on sale in the stores. This
program will be expanding in the future to include implicit offers to highlight seasonal items and offers directly from
the CPG brands. It is a win-win-win capability to maximize the value provided to shoppers, while increasing sales
to the retailer and market share to the CPG brand.
On the media side, will you use ad exchanges and/or networks to buy media on behalf of grocery store
clients in order to target shoppers?
Absolutely! GSN OutReach™, uses the knowledge of online locations to determine the precise market area around
each store and fine tune selection based on the desired target audience. We just announced a turnkey ad product
that displays the current week's advertised specials in an ad unit to create the first digital distribution option for the
traditional weekly circular.
What needs to happen with CPG advertisers and the grocery stores to make this an even more compelling
proposition? Any key drivers you're looking at?
This digital landscape for advertising is new and advertisers need more information – specifically to know that
traditional broad communications techniques now can have a second placement at the time of decision. In the
traditional "funnel" most advertising focused on the top of funnel or mass approach. In the digital world of websites,
social and mobile, folks like GSN have created a ‘bottom of funnel' compliment at a critical moment of shopper
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purchase decision. With the generational trend in consumer behavior towards pre-planning purchases, this second
placement needs to find a mainstream acceptance. This advertising category already exists, it is just not widely
recognized. Once the brands within the grocery space become aware, I do believe the migration will be fairly quick.
Those who get there early will be able to drive influence of their products and grab market share and household
penetration with unprecedented success. The ROI measurements GSN provides, as well as other measurements,
will ultimately drive advertisers to the most efficient spend. The economy will change the messaging but not the
use. For example, in an improved economy the message will be used to find market share for new products, while
in a down economy the focus maybe on maintaining market share. The introduction of causal areas, like Health
and Wellness, where brands want to have a platform to express a point of view and highlight their offerings will
also be a key area where this "bottom of funnel" placement will cause a migration of advertising focus.
Re: growing the business, how many employees are you today? Any plans on reaching out for funding in
the near future?
Our base of employees is a total of around 55 people today. We plan to grow commensurate with our footprint and
reach. Our company raised series A funding in 2007 with VantagePoint Venture Partners which helped enhance
the platform to its current state. Based on the continued growth of market demand placed on GSN, we are open to
new strategic funding discussions.
A year from now, what milestones would you like Grocery Shopping Network to have accomplished?
We are striving to reach 20 million shoppers planning their monthly trips, and impact a significant percentage of
shopping decisions. We have an initiative to increase the registration of users and our database of registered users
to nearly that level. Lastly, we have new initiatives in critical areas for consumers beyond saving time and money,
particularly in food choices related to health.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 28, 2010 – 12:05 am
74
IDG TechNetwork Targeting Enterprise, Consumer and
Gaming Audiences Says CEO Longo
July 9, 2010 – 1:03 am
Peter Longo is CEO of IDG TechNetwork, a vertical ad network.
AdExchanger.com: Why was IDG TechNetwork started and how did
you get involved?
PL: IDG TechNetwork was started to engage the distributed content
universe that existed outside of our parent company, IDG. There are
literally thousands of websites that are focused on technology, and IDG
around the globe operates 450 of them, which leaves a lot of the market
available to monetize. IDG has a long history of selling advertising on its
own websites, and deep relationships with the largest technology
advertisers in the world. By adding quality websites from outside of IDG, it
grew our monetizeable inventory dramatically, and gave our advertisers
confidence that they could access that inventory in a safe, reliable
environment.
I personally became involved quite by happenstance. Bob Carrigan, the
worldwide CEO of IDG, and I have known each other for years as competitors when I was at Ziff Davis, and we
met at a conference and shared some ideas which led to my joining the company.
Does IDG TechNet own the sites within its ad network? Are they owned by IDG?
We do not own the sites in our network, and all of our inventory comes from sites that are not owned and operated
by IDG. Our strategy from the very beginning was to build a third party network of technology websites.
What differentiates IDG TechNet?
There are lots of things that are different about what we do at the IDG Technetwork, but first and foremost we are
exclusively focused on the technology category. Most networks offer two flavors of technology audiences, business
and consumer. At the IDG TechNetwork, we look at the world of technology the same way our advertisers do, with
many different vertical segments. Unlike any other network, we are comprised of three primary audiences:
Enterprise, Consumer and Gaming. Within those audiences, we have developed over 50 specific vertical
channels. Whether an advertiser is looking to target developers or virtualization buyers in the enterprise market,
digital camera buyers in the consumer space, Xbox gamers in the gaming market or any one of over 50 different
vertical segments we have the channels and sites to make it happen.
Another significant differentiator for the IDG TechNetwork has been the diversification of our product line. The core
of our business will always be our premium advertising relationship with our technology advertisers, however we
have also developed some additional key platforms:


Lead Generation: We have relationships within our network that allow our advertisers to have a direct
relationship with the same unique technology purchasers they have targeted with their advertising. In the
month of May alone we generated well over 10,000 qualified leads for our clients.
International: Our parent company IDG has always considered international media a cornerstone of our
company. At the IDG TechNetwork we have adopted the same strategy. We operate 9 independent ad
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

networks outside the US with in-country teams and local websites and we have a pool of inventory that is
worldwide in reach. It is possible through our owned and operated networks to advertise through the
TechNetwork in virtually every country around the globe. For advertisers, we are truly the only global
technology advertising network.
Content Syndication: We bundle content and advertising relationships together and separately to create
unique environments for clients. We have these types relationships with many major media outlets
including the NY Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek the LA Times and Chicago Tribune to name a few.
Video and Data: We have just launched advertising platforms in both Video and Data. For advertisers
looking to place video advertising, or for clients looking to target specific verticals through data-enhanced
inventory, we can now offer solutions in both areas.
What is your ad network's data strategy?
Our data platform continues to develop, but our core strategy has been to use publicly available data, combined
with our own proprietary data and the unique visitor histories on our network to compile data profiles. The publicly
available data comes from the data partners we have integrated with through the AMP platform including Bizo,
Exelate, BlueKai and others. We append that data with data collected from our IDG Tech Panel. The IDG Tech
Panel consists of business and consumer purchasers of technology who have completed extensive questionnaires
as background so that they can later participate in surveys from any number of technology companies. Finally, we
use unique visitor histories from our network to track the topical technology interests of visitors to the websites
comprising our network. Once all that data is compiled, we can build out audience segments for our advertisers
and a wide variety of technology targets.
Do you use ad exchanges either to extend reach for advertisers or sell excess inventory for your ad
network's publishers?
We have tested exchanges just to be as smart as possible about all opportunities for inventory utilization, but its
not a core part of our strategy and doesn't represent a meaningful inventory source for us. We tend to to focus on
deep relationships with our sites and to push for exclusive relationships.
How do you insure brand safety when buying for your advertisers or selling for your publishers in
exchanges?
Any buying we have tested has been on a site-specific basis from sites that we know and approve.
How do publishers make money with IDG Tech Net? And, how sophisticated are they? Do any have ad
servers, floor pricing, etc.?
We work on a revenue share with the sites in our network. Each site that joins signs a contract that gives them the
opportunity to share in our success, the more money we earn on a CPM basis the more money they earn. Our
sites run the gamut from large sophisticated sites to those that are smaller and primarily focused on content. We're
a premium network and tend to focus on higher priced inventory, so floor pricing isn't usually a topic.
What's your view on how the ad network business will shake out? How will the ad network model need to
morph to survive?
I think the ad network model will continue to evolve as it has done already over the last few years. Some of the
trends that have already begun and I will expect they will continue i.e.: site transparency, more exclusive
relationships and increased ability to target audiences. In the future, ad networks are going to have to be
increasingly reliant on data to drive their targeting capabilities and to drive their interactions with DSP's if they are
to be successful. Its hard now to gauge the impact that exchanges will have on the market, but I think it will be
significant. Certainly the horizontal networks focused primarily on display advertising will be the most affected. The
vertical networks like the IDG TechNetwork that have deep category knowledge will be less affected initially. We
consistently focus on having multiple lines of revenue, not just CPM display advertising alone, and a high degree of
exclusivity with our websites in order to maintain an identity outside of the ad exchanges.
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Finally, is IDG Tech Network profitable today? How many employees do you have -any thoughts on next
year? Please discuss your anticipated growth.
We are growing at a rapid pace right now in the middle of our second year and so all employee growth has been
tagged to revenue growth. Two years ago we had four employees, now we are at 30 and I expect to exceed 50 a
year from now. Most of our growth has and will come in sales, business development, marketing and ad
operations, however we need employees next year to support our new lines of business as well. Yes we are
profitable.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 9, 2010 – 1:03 am
77
CEO Chenard Says Image Space Media To Intro Self-Serve
For Company’s In-Image Ad Network
Email This Post
May 18, 2010 – 10:43 am
Jesse Chenard is CEO at Image Space Media, an in-image ad
network.
AdExchanger.com: Given your experience at Tremor Media,
what key learnings are you bringing with you to Image Space
Media?
In order to present a scalable offering to advertisers, we need to fit
into their entire online and offline ecosystem. This means
measuring results using the tools that they are used to, serving ads
using ad serving tools they are used to, and presenting it on brand
safe and friendly sites.
Image Space Media is great at providing that well-lit environment
that makes advertisers feel comfortable. We have a very
sophisticated categorization application and we make certain that
the content brands appear next to is relevant and appropriate.
What problem is Image Space Media Solving?
We’re actually solving two problems. We give publishers a solution
to their growing revenue problems as CPMs keep declining, and
we give advertisers a new cost-effective solution that provides
massive scale.
Please discuss how ISM differentiates and how the technology
is defensible.
In-image advertising is unique because it combines relevant content with an evocative visual experience. Our
network has more than 4,000 publishers, generates more than 740,000 clicks and serves ads to more than 50
million unique monthly visitors per month.
We are building effective relations with publishers, providing a stable revenue source and innovative tools. Most
importantly, we’re able to give publishers a stable revenue source that doesn’t compromise content integrity or
cannibalize their ad sales or any other revenue. So we have a very low churn rate.
For example, can’t the ability to serve ads over images be easily replicated elsewhere? Is rich media
possible “in image”?
Yes, serving ads over images can be replicated, but it’s not easy to determine where to run ads, what ads to run,
or where the images are located. As early movers in the space, we have learned a lot in the last year and a half.
So, yes, absolutely anything is possible in in-image: rich media, telescope into video. Once the user engages with
the creative unit, anything is possible.
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Is it possible to target specific image content through Image Space Media. Such as I just want to target
pictures of Lance Armstrong?
Absolutely. We feel that the addition of image and keyword targeting to our standard arsenal of targeting methods
gives advertisers and publishers significantly higher relevance.
What are the benefits to publishers? And how do you prevent channel conflict? Does Image Space Media
offer a version of its product for a publisher’s direct-sold inventory?
We took a space that had no benefit to publishers and created an incremental revenue source. We don’t offer a
product for direct-sold inventory right now, but we are in the process of creating this ability for larger publishers.
What’s your view on the demand side platform trend/and, are DSPs able to target users through your
network and still manage a global frequency cap to your knowledge?
Well, it’s interesting and it’s definitely something we’re exploring. We’re talking to several of them now to see how
we might work together. But we haven’t actually integrated with any yet, so right now they can’t target
their users through our system.
What are you seeing on the client side today? Any up to the minute trends you can share?
Our advertisers have proven that the image space is a very viable medium with incredible potential. Our
performance advertiser base is extremely happy with the quality of traffic and conversions with conversion rates
higher than some of the search providers. In the long term it will also be good for the brand advertiser because of
the tremendous reach and relevance we can offer.
How does pricing work for the advertiser and on what basis are publishers paid?
Pricing is based on the type of ad, placement, targeting etc.
We are about to introduce a self-serve ad product that any advertiser can go in and set up their own campaigns
and set their own price based on a CPC or CPM model.
Most ad networks distribute payments every 60-90 days, but at Image Space Media we pay our publishers during
the first week of the month for their previous month’s earnings.
How many employees do you have today? You recently raised 2.9M in Series A funding. Any plans on
reaching out for funding in near future given your plans to scale the business?
Right now we have 15 employees. We’re very financially secure, so we’re not looking for more funding.
A year from now, what milestones would you like Image Space Media to have accomplished?
We plan to grow to a significant enough size to provide major advertisers with the reach and frequency necessary
to provide real value to move aggressively into the in-image space.
As publishers look for guaranteed revenue sources, we plan to continue to increase eCPMs and the value of these
massive amounts of completely unmonetized inventory.
Follow Jesse Chenard (@jchenard), Image Space Media (@imagespacemedia) and AdExchanger.com
(@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 18, 2010 – 10:43 am
79
Katz Reviews New Release Of InterCLICK’s Audience
Targeting Platform, Says DSPs Are Failing As A Whole
May 2, 2010 – 6:45 pm
Ad network InterCLICK announced last week the "second
production version" of the company's audience targeting platform
known as Open Segment Manager (OSM). According to the
release, "OSM can create any audience that a client can articulate,
and determine how that audience impacts their campaigns'
objectives." Read more.
InterCLICK president Michael Katz discussed the product release
and its differentiation within the marketplace.
AdExchanger.com: How do you differentiate Open Segment Manager (OSM) 2.0 from other audience
targeting solutions in the marketplace?
MK: It’s first important to clarify the types of solutions that exist in the marketplace currently:



First, there are earlier generation solutions that were purposefully built to consume vast quantities of a
single type of data (i.e. content consumption or shopping data). Simply stated, these platforms were never
architected to be highly flexible which ultimately prevented the business application from achieving any
significant scale.
Second, there are a handful of platforms that use basic Boolean logic to build audiences by combining
data sources. These are certainly a step in the right direction, but they do not address how to effectively
value data, which is fundamental in determining which sources to combine.
Third, there are the usual vaporware providers. Great marketers but not technologists… “High definition
audiences”, “3D audiences”, etc.
As I alluded to, the biggest issue with audience segmentation in the past has been the inability to truly deliver
scale. OSM was built to address the shortcomings of other solutions by having the ability to ingest any type of
data, quantifying the influence of data on media, and lastly, analyzing the results properly. All of this ultimately
leads to far greater efficiency - finally at scale.
Maybe the biggest differentiator of OSM is that it actually does the math completely differently from any other
solution on the market. We largely believe that everyone that we have spoken to in the industry has been applying
flawed treatment and analysis of data and inventory. We have uncovered some extremely ground breaking
findings which have led to tremendous campaign performance and we will be releasing case studies in the coming
months.
We are very fortunate to have an amazing product team which architected this solution over 20 months ago based
on a wealth of industry experience and a tech team which has successfully delivered its 3rd major platform within
the past 12 months.
Are there any sweet spots for the platform in terms of target markets? Is it best for e-commerce marketers,
brand/DR marketers, etc.?
Actually, I think this is a question based on assumptions from earlier generation solutions that ingested a single
type of data. These solutions were limited in scope because of the flawed design principles (as well as improper
analytics) so often times they would align well with a very specific type of campaign such as automotive or
shopping based on the single type of data that was consumed. OSM was designed to be able to ingest any type of
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data, allowing us to build a very complete understanding of the users that we see within our network. This enables
us to develop solutions for a wide range of clients no matter what the campaign objective or vertical may be.
What is the platform able to do with creative?
Again, everything that the platform does centers on quantifying and optimizing the influence that certain inputs
have on a campaign’s performance given any campaign objective. In some cases we’ll help the marketer develop
messaging strategies based on acquisition or retention objectives while other times we’ll analyze creative exposure
data to see what type of impact that has on the campaign.
How has real-time bidding considerations impacted the development of OSM?
I think you have the question backwards. OSM and the successful application of data is what drives inventory
procurement, not vice versa. Real-time or not, it actually makes no difference to us or our clients for that matter.
Matt Greitzer wrote a great article on ClickZ last month on how “real-time” is not what is driving successful
innovation in the marketplace. It would appear he and I are on the same page these days... His point is that microsegmentation and de-averaged pricing are the keys to driving success. I would add that it’s actually more important
to de-average the value of impressions rather than the price for a number of reasons. That said, in order to
successfully determine the value of each impression, you must understand the combined value of inventory and
data. Deciding what to pay for an impression is simply just a bidding strategy and is very different from determining
what an impression is worth.
This is one of the reasons that the DSP’s are failing as a whole, and yes they are failing. Inventory aggregation by
itself does not fully address marketers’ needs; it makes no difference whether you access inventory in real-time via
an API call or whether you swap ad tags. Proper inventory aggregation must be lead by a coherent data strategy.
Such a strategy requires both a platform as well as an organization with domain expertise.
By John Ebbert
May 2, 2010 – 6:45 pm
81
InterCLICK Prez Katz On Strong Q2 Results; Says
Company Goal Is To Align Data, Inventory, And Creative
August 6, 2010 – 4:33 pm
Online advertising network InterCLICK announced its second
quarter 2010 earnings on Wednesday. According to the release,
"Revenue was $21.7 million in Q2 2010, a 103% year-over-year
increase. (...) Gross profit was $9.6 million in Q2 2010, up 102%
year-over-year." Read more.
InterCLICK president Michael Katz discussed his company's
financial results and industry trends.
AdExchanger.com: Looking at InterCLICK's 100% year-over-year Q2 growth and projected 2010 revenues
of $90 million + , are there any observations you can share about how clients are spending?
MK: Delivering the most effective audience-centric campaigns is dependent on our ability to properly value
targeting data and solving the operational challenges associated with running data enabled campaigns. We won a
record amount of new business this past quarter and client retention reached a new high watermark. This is a
hyper competitive space and I believe that our investment in our technology and our team has paid off
tremendously, as evident in our results.
What about data? Has using data exchanges and other third-party providers been a key part of your
offering? How do you see this playing out for InterCLICK?
The challenges in display advertising require effective supply chain management. The goal is to find the optimal
alignment among data, inventory, and creative. Quality inventory has been accessible for quite some time, and
through data exchanges like BlueKai, rich targeting data has been made quite accessible. So data exchanges
allow for easy access and implementation. The real challenge is in the execution, which is what we have invested
significant capital and resources in addressing.
How important is it for an ad network to build its own technology? Or can it license technology from
others and stay competitive? Are 40% to 50%+ gross margins still possible for the ad network model?
Depending on your goals, licensing ad serving technology may be fine; however, this is about so much more than
just having an ad server. Its about being able to organize data properly, performing the appropriate analysis, and
solving the operational challenges that are associated with achieving scale. The reason I have been so skeptical
on the self-serve display model is that successful execution requires much more than having access to a nice
looking UI. The way that companies manage their information, the tools they build, and the organizational
alignment is how success is achieved.
As for gross margins, we have stated that our gross margins will continue to remain consistent over the coming
quarters.
On the earnings call with Wall Street analysts, you said revenue growth is outpacing impression growth
(bought impressions) for InterCLICK for 6 consecutive quarters. Why do you think that is? How is this
playing out for your network publishers?
We continue to invest in technology that allows us to accurately align each ad impression with the right message
based on a set of facts that we know about a user. The primary benefit is our ability to deliver more effective
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results for our advertisers. The ancillary benefit is that it has led to increased monetization of our publishers' underutilized inventory.
Do you buy and serve more impressions through your network or through exchanges? Where do you see
this going?
Our network connects to and consists of publishers, exchanges, and the optimizer platforms as key suppliers of
inventory. The idea is to maximize the value of each input to achieve maximum productivity and although the large
majority of our inventory is sourced directly from publishers, the model is not reliant on having direct relationships
with publishers. Identifying, organizing, and optimizing the raw materials (data and inventory) and transforming
them into something consumable (responsive audiences) on behalf of our customers (advertisers) is what we do.
Are you starting to see brand marketers with awareness campaigns or is it mainly DR? How does
InterCLICK make the case for brand marketers?
We have a healthy mix of both. All advertisers want to reach an audience, its their objectives that vary campaign to
campaign.
We have been heavily investing in a very unique solution for brand marketers leveraging the vast amounts of
targeting data that is available. We have a couple clients that we are doing pilots for currently and I will provide
further updates as continue to make progress.
Is the online media buying world starting to look like the financial markets? How do you see this playing
out?
Comparing digital display advertising to the financial markets is an over-simplified analogy that's factually
inappropriate. In the financial markets, while there are many different valuation methods, they are all primarily
based on financial performance and an element of time. In digital advertising, an impression is literally worth
different amounts to every single buyer, all of whom have different information available about the impression.
Second, in the financial markets there is a premium for growth potential while an ad impression is an instantly
perishable commodity. Third, there is no notion of the impact of ad server decisioning in the financial markets.
Fourth, while stocks get sold at the highest available bid, digital advertising doesn't require an impression to go to
the highest bidder. Often times large buyers of inventory such as ad networks will guarantee fill rates, offer
accelerated payment cycles, or may offer other compelling commercial terms in exchange for better placement
than other buyers who may offer a higher bid.
A much more appropriate analogy is that of supply chain management.
By John Ebbert
August 6, 2010 – 4:33 pm
83
Kontera CEO Shaham On Results, Company Strategy, InText Ad Exchanges And More
July 8, 2010 – 8:26 am
Yoav Shaham is CEO of Kontera, a pay-per-click ad network.
AdExchanger.com: What trends are you seeing from your clients
today?
YS: We are seeing “classic branding” verticals adopting and investing in
our category at a faster pace. This includes CPG, Automotive, Consumer
Electronics, etc. One of the stories unfolding for us this year is the power
and ability of In-Text to deliver on the brand-awareness and engagement
front. Accordingly deal sizes are going up and CPCs are now augmented
by focus on engagement metrics and CPV (Cost per View) pricing. All the
good things one would expect as brand advertiser dollars flow to online,
and specifically to effective and proven online brand-building methods.
Why will Kontera continue to thrive in spite of some who say that the
ad network model doesn't have long to live?
It is true that we are an “ad network,” but there are some key
characteristics that set us apart from the vast majority of ad networks in the
marketplace:



We have a significant technological advantage with Kontera Synapse, our core web-relevance engine,
which analyzes, learns, and links actual page contents to related information and ads. This is not
something that a website can just build on its own, and traditional display networks do not have a
comparable core offering.
Kontera In-Text has been shown to deliver 4 to 5 times the advertiser efficacy of traditional display ads
(comScore, July 2010), and this is provided to publishers with no opportunity cost, in that they need give
up none of their other display real estate.
Our network is exclusive. We are the only in-text provider within the pages of our publishers. One of the
challenges that display networks and exchanges face is that a web site’s participation in the network may
not mean much, since each site works with multiple networks and only choose whose ad to use “on the
fly.” The true scale of the networks, their member sites, and inventory are vague concepts, and smaller
then they often appear. In our case there is absolute clarity, as we are the sole In-Text technology provider
to each of our member sites. There is no arbitrage, inventory shifting, commoditization or brokering
transactions within the In-Text domain.
I think that these make us very compelling to both publishers and aadvertisers. Moreover, I personally am not so
convinced that ad networks will fall by the wayside.
You raised $15.5 million last July. What have you used the funds for to-date? Any more fundraising in the
future - or any thoughts about an IPO?
The funding allowed us to significantly scale our field operations, R&D, and overall go-to-market stance. We’ve
also expanded geographically into Europe. It’s been a business accelerant, to support organic growth and it
enables us both to grow and to deliver greater value to our advertisers and publishers. We’ve also maintained
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plenty of dry powder, as we value nimbleness and the ability to hyper-focus our investments when we need to do
so.
We do not comment on future financing, be they through private or public markets, but that was a good try.
How many employees do you have today? Is Kontera profitable today?
We currently have about 145 employees. As a private company, we avoid discussing profitability.
Can you see in-text advertising becoming part of an ad exchange model? Why or why not?
That depends on one’s perspective. I think that it would be very hard for an exchange to attempt to become an
intermediary that represents In-Text players to publishers. The main challenges would be that there are few in-text
players, and there is a very high bar in terms of the technology investment required, for the exchange to do in-text
analysis on millions of pageviews in real-time.
On the other hand, I can see In-Text players participating in exchanges to receive display ad inventory and hypertargeting those ads across our network of sites, within the most relevant topical context.
What has surprised you about digital advertising this year?
The strong brand advertiser demand that we saw surge in the 4th quarter of last year continued right into the first
half of this year. This was gratifying to see.
It was also good to see the brand-awareness and engagement-focused advertisers, that I mentioned earlier,
seeking new modes and high-impact formats that can deliver verifiable brand-lift results. Historically we’ve seen
that focus on performance from direct response advertisers, and now we see an increase in marketer focus on the
efficacy and results from a brand-lift and market-awareness perspective.
How do you differentiate from competitors such as Vibrant Media or Infolinks?
Advertiser Results.
Time and again we’ve delivered superior results to key advertiser metrics; both engagement and brand lift on
awareness campaigns, and back-end behavior metrics in the case of response oriented campaigns. This is
because of the technological edge in which we’ve invested.
As I mentioned earlier, the in-text players represent exclusive inventory, and we have basically “split” the publisher
inventory and audience with one of the players that you mentioned (comScore May 2010). Our networks are of
comparable size and we represent similar advertiser spending within the US.
Can a marketer buy audience with in-text advertising?
Yes, they can with Kontera.
We massively aggregate a highly qualified audience from across the web. These are large numbers of consumers
who are currently researching and engaging in content related to the detailed topics of interest that a marketer
chooses to target. We call this topical targeting, and it goes beyond the more primitive notion of specific keyword
buying, since we identify and deliver the users based on their true topical interests and current intent. This
approach allows our advertisers to advance consumers through the purchase funnel, and to make a significant
impact to the audience at all stages.
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When we reach the marketer’s audience in this targeted way we see five times the brand-awareness impact that
traditional online display delivers, we see a high double-digit lift in purchase intent, and 2.5 to 5 times the impact on
actual consumer behavior 3 weeks after they see our ads (comScore, July 2010).
What do you see as the next growth area for Kontera?
Several large initiatives are underway. I’ll save most of them for a future conversation, but one area that is front
and center is our geographic expansion. Until this year we catered to a global publisher network through a largely
U.S.-based ad-sales organization. This year we are expanding our agency and client-facing organization to
Europe. We are doing this at a fairly fast rate, and the local markets are responding very nicely.
The company was begun in 2003. If you could do one thing differently in the past 7 years, what would it
be?
Given the reception we’re seeing in the European market, I’d say that we probably could have done this particular
expansion earlier.
Follow Kontera (@kontera) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 8, 2010 – 8:26 am
86
Legolas Media Offers Sellers Opportunity To Leverage
Their Data In Display Marketplace Says CEO Arnstein
August 19, 2010 – 6:45 am
Yoav Arnstein is CEO of Legolas Media, an online display
advertising marketplace.
AdExchanger.com: What problem is Legolas solving?
YA: We are looking to address two main challenges:


The growing publisher concern and friction created by the
current methodologies for trading audiences
The need for a holistic buy-side audience management
platform that will provide both audience auditing and the
ability to leverage readily available data assets. These
assets include the unique buyer historical campaign data
as well as the available 3rd party data in the market.
In what category do you see Legolas Media fitting in the ad
ecosystem? Any three-letter acronyms appropriate? (such as
DSP or SSP)
Legolas is first and foremost a marketplace. As such, for the sake
of the customary pigeon holing, we can be defined as an ad
exchange albeit a different one.
The trading floor Legolas created is however, using vastly different
methodologies than other marketplaces such as Google AdX and
Right Media Exchange.
We believe a marketplace should always aim to find a price point that correctly represents that value of the goods
traded. As such, and when applied in our industry, it should allow sellers to accurately leverage all relevant
attributes of their inventory. We are confident the Legolas marketplace is finding the right balance between the
buyers and sellers' needs.
In what key ways is your company different than an ad exchange such as DoubleClick Ad Exchange or
Right Media Exchange?
In several ways: A. It is more direct and transparent B. the methodologies for trading are different, price and spend
are set up front and there is no buy-side bidding (or real-time bidding for that matter) C. It allows for better
forecasting of reach and frequency against the specific audience segment traded D. It is allowing the seller to
leverage more effectively ad products, ad format and other attributes such as exclusive reach E. it is providing the
buyer with a controlled, safe and segregated environment for trading.
How do you define the rich media which Legolas is addressing? Couldn't a larger ad exchange, maybe
DoubleClick Ad Exchange, provide functionality to allow for buying and selling of rich media?
As mentioned above, one of the key differentiator of the marketplace, stemming from the technology, the mode of
integration with publisher and the trading methodologies is the fact there are no restriction on ad products or ad
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formats sold by the publisher. As such, rich media format are integral to the marketplace and we are encouraging
both buyers and seller in the marketplace to deploy them as we see it is helping both parties in generating returns.
Is the product live today? What is the key target market for Legolas Media for the buy and sell sides?
Our audience management platform has been live since late last year. The marketplace, in its initial form, is live
since April this year. Exciting enhancements to both will be released through the next 3 months. We are currently
focusing on the large buying agencies and all publishers that provide a premium and brand safe inventory. As
liquidity in the marketplace is increasing, we will be able to address smaller buyers.
Do you have a product strategy around data? A data exchange, perhaps?
We are currently working with great data partners. Our solutions are looking to provide buyers more exposure to
effective data and by that serve both them and the data providers well. As to the exchange question, if we will
believe there is a need for a new methodology for trading data (mostly data that is relevant to mid and top funnel
marketing activities), and be convinced we can address such a need, we will consider developing it. I feel more
experience is needed with regards to usage and pricing of this type of data, but I can see this happening very
quickly.
How important is real-time buying and selling? Is there a real-time bidded aspect to Legolas' offering?
We all agree it is about ROI and effective marketing. Real-time buying makes sense when the marketing problem
can be represented using one or series of equations that machines can solve. We feel that there will always be
demand for solving such marketing problems. Specifically, I feel real-time buying is helping address audience,
price and frequency (recency to some extent). For many marketing activities, we believe there are alternative
trading methods to address these issues and the Legolas marketplace is definitely aiming to do so. In other words,
the Legolas marketplace doesn't support real-time buying and selling at this time as it is not as crucial for our
clients at this point.
How is your company funded? Any plans you can share here?
We are backed by Greylock partners who provided the initial support at the end of 2009 and Blumberg Capital. We
are confident we have the required resources and support to achieve the goals we set forth.
What milestones would you like to have seen Legolas Media accomplish a
year from now?
Two of them: First, have a significant amount of buyers and sellers that are happy with the returns the marketplace
delivered. Second, see the industry acknowledging that Legolas introduced an innovative and alternative methods
for trading audiences that are viable to the development of the eco system.
Follow Legolas Media (@Legolas_media) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 19, 2010 – 6:45 am
88
Lijit CEO Todd Vernon On Series D Funding And Data
Strategy Roadmap
June 22, 2010 – 7:43 am
Lijit announced that it has raised $6 million in Series D financing
from existing investors Foundry Group, Boulder Ventures and High
Country Venture. This put their total to-date for funds raised at
$18.3 million. Read the release.
Lijit CEO Todd Vernon discussed the new funds and the product
road map as it relates to data.
AdExchanger.com: For what do you anticipate the $6 million
of new funding for Lijit will be used?
TV: The use of proceeds is to fund operations of the company,
specifically our direct sales effort.
Please share trends you're seeing with buyers of Lijit ad
network placements recently. Any vertical strengths, brand,
DR, etc.?
Lijit's sales efforts are focused on brand sales. The great thing about the lijit publisher base is the engagement of
the audience. Our sites tend to be in the mid and long tail with very loyal readers. This translates to greater
reader affinity with content and ads that appear on these sites. One of my favorite content verticals is the lifestyle
segment with Mommy publications. CPG really performs well in this segment and all you have to do is read some
of the sites to know why. These publishers have opinions and that really propels the performance in this segment.
Overall, the great thing about the Lijit Network is we have a relationship with every publisher not requiring us to buy
media on exchanges. Because of this relationship we give advertising clients complete transparency where their
campaigns and running and complete control over optimizing those campaigns. Having a relationship with the
publisher is a key differentiator that allows us to do more creative things for Agency's that would not be possible if
simply bought inventory on an ad exchange.
TechCrunch's Mike Arrington reported that you anticipate $4-$5 million in revenues this year. Of the $4-5
million, how much is selling display ad placements and how much is selling cookies-alone for targeting
purposes?
The data we capture in the network is currently used for two things. First and foremost to help our publishers
create better content. This is what much of publisher base has known us for over the last 3 years. Second, we
use that data in aggregate to find key audiences that our direct and channel ad partners need to reach. When we
find those audiences we align those opportunities with our publishers who wish to take advantage of that revenue
stream.
Currently Lijit does not sell data to third parties. We are exploring those kinds of relationships today, however one
of the hurdles for us is identifying how to correctly attribute revenue for this back to our publisher partners. To
maintain the proper transparency back to our publisher partners we have to be able to compensate them for the
use of that data. We don't have a complete offering yet in this area that works for all parties but continue to
explore.
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How do you anticipate Lijit's data business scaling in the future? Do you plan on selling through data
exchanges like BlueKai or Magnetic, or will ad networks and demand-side platforms buy directly?
We have been approached by nearly every DSP to form direct relationships in this area. We have also talked with
nearly every data exchange. Due to the complexities of attribution it's unclear which (if either) is a better (or viable)
opportunity for us, our publisher partners and the agency's we sell to. The problem of disintermediation of the
publisher has to be solved before we can do anything meaningful in this space.
Does Lijit offer retargeting of Lijit search audience segments through exchanges and other non-Lijit
inventory sources to marketers today? Or will it soon?
Lijit currently only uses data and media from within our own network. The real value we have built since 2006 is
building a very large network based not on money but on value. We don't need to buy media on exchanges and
doing so breaks our promise to our ad partners. A major differentiating for us now is we know exactly where the
data came from, us. We also know exactly where the media came from, us via our installed publisher partners.
Lijit is always open to new revenue streams but it has to be consistent with our brand promise to our publisher
partners. By definition class ad networks have an adversarial relationship with their publisher base. This is where
Lijit diverges with Ad Networks. We view ourselves as partners to the publisher and that means a healthy
ecosystem involving transparency and attribution.
By John Ebbert
June 22, 2010 – 7:43 am
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LookSmart Looking To Sustain Profit, Grow Revenues
Says VP Gill Brown
Email This Post
August 12, 2010 – 12:05 am
Gill Brown is vp of ad sales for LookSmart, an online advertising network.
The company recently reported second quarter 2010 financial results.
Click here (PDF).
AdExchanger.com: What is LookSmart’s core focus today?
GB: The core focus for LookSmart is growing our PPC advertising network
to the benefit of both our advertiser clients and our publisher partners. On
the publisher side, we’re focused on optimizing current traffic and actively
seeking to acquire new traffic sources, which will help bring quality and
volume to our advertisers. On the advertiser side of things, we continually
strive to deliver the best quality traffic to our advertisers to meet their
search metrics and goals, whether that be unique visitors, conversions,
pageviews, or other metrics that matter to them. And, of course, we
maintain a commitment to provide best in class customer service – we
allocate dedicated account teams to ensure clients meet their goals.
What is LookSmart doing about a data strategy that will enable
advertisers and inventory suppliers?
We have a dedicated science team focused solely on data strategy, led by Chief Scientist Dr. Vincent Granville.
Dr. Granville has more than ten years of experience in predictive modeling, data mining, machine learning applied
to Internet search technology, keyword and business intelligence, online advertising, web analytics, fraud
detection, and market research.
We focus on the measurement of traffic quality, which to us, means being able to grade traffic and grade clicks and
offer clicks at a price that relates to their quality. We take a very granular approach to traffic quality measurement,
and aim to better match supply and demand through right pricing. As an example of this, we create a customized
distribution channel for our advertisers – so they receive the traffic that performs well for them – driven by behind
the scenes data analysis. We also use intelligence about our network driven by analytics.
Can you see an opportunity for real-time bidding on paid search inventory? In other words, letting
advertisers bid according to who the user is (via a cookie) in addition to a keyword request in real-time?
This raises the issue of privacy, which is a big topic in Congress right now, and also a concern to us. We don’t
collect a lot of demographic data, the reason for this being that search advertising is keyword based, and the user
is already signaling intent. That being said, there are certain data sets, such as location, that are very useful in
regards to understanding what the user is searching for. Knowing some demographic data does increase the
relevance, and it makes sense to use it because a more relevant match is a win-win for everyone. However, the
match needs to be done taking privacy and privacy laws into account.
Who are LookSmart’s key advertiser clients (verticals, horizontals or specific companies)? And on the
inventory side?
Our advertiser clients and traffic sources span many verticals. We have ones that perform especially well for us –
including finance, insurance, travel, and health – but our coverage is across the board.
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One of the things we do really well is helping retailers and other conversion-based advertisers showcase their
products to a unique audience and drive additional sales and sales leads. We also have had great success helping
publishers drive new, interested visitors to their relevant content.
In terms of our inventory, we aggregate a number of diverse traffic sources, including meta-search engines,
toolbar, direct navigation/domains, and in-text advertising.
Is creative evolving in paid search today? Or can it?
With the advent of more sophisticated testing options available, there is definitely some room for creativity there. At
LookSmart, we offer a feature called SmartRotation, which allows advertisers the ability to test different creative
within an ad group, and serve the ad creative with the best CPA in a campaign.
In addition, we’ve also seen advertisers take a creative approach to their PPC campaigns by using social media to
boost awareness and drive more search queries about their brand or product.
Finally, as the needs of advertisers (such as pharmaceutical companies) shift, we need to adopt new creative
opportunities such as multilinking within the text ad to meet evolving needs.
Does it make sense for LookSmart to get into graphical display, online video, and mobile in the future?
At LookSmart, we’re constantly evolving, and always like to keep our options open. Expanding into other
advertising formats offers more opportunities for clicks on ads, so this is something we’re interested in exploring in
the future.
Specifically, we are looking at graphical display opportunities, which would require the adaptation of our ad formats
to meet the requirements of our advertisers and publishers. We’re also interested in how LookSmart can potentially
add value for our advertisers in the evolving mobile advertising space.
Is malvertising or malware an issue for LookSmart? What is LookSmart doing to ensure quality?
LookSmart stands apart from other paid search networks with our industry-leading commitment to traffic quality,
which permeates every facet of our business. We are relentless about quality. Click fraud and malware are
unfortunately pervasive, unavoidable issues in the search advertising industry. We’re a traffic aggregator and
because there are people and companies out there who abuse the system, we have to look out for our partners’
best interest.
LookSmart tirelessly monitors its network for traffic quality through proprietary processes, built-in AdCenter
controls, and click scoring technologies. Our goal is to protect our advertisers and their campaign performance .
With $20 million in cash at the end of Q1 2010, are strategic acquisitions a possibility for LookSmart?
Yes, but the question is - what would make the most sense? We have cash and stock, and if/when the stock price
increases, this will give us even more currency to leverage for acquisitions. We are focusing on what disruptive
advantage the acquisition would bring to LookSmart.
A year from now, what milestones would you like to have seen the company accomplish?
Sustained profitability is a goal that is top-of-mind. Next is revenue growth, which can be best achieved by bringing
on more quality distribution partners, and advertisers to bid on their traffic. We’ll achieve those goals through
specific additions to our teams, including building out our publisher acquisition team, our analytics team, and our
sales team, among others.
Follow LookSmartSearch (@LookSmartSearch) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 12, 2010 – 12:05 am
92
MainStreetSocial Helping Local Governments Pay The Bills
Through Advertising Says CEO Townsend
Email This Post
May 17, 2010 – 1:32 am
C. Eoin Townsend is CEO of MainStreetSocial, an online
monetization platform for local governments, residents and
advertisers.
What problem is MainStreetSocial solving?
CET: Right now, 90% of local governments are suffering serious
budget shortfalls while spending 20 billion dollars a year on
technology outsourcing in an attempt to increase communication
and connect with their residents. At the same time, brands and
small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) spend over 13 billion a
year looking for ways to connect with local communities to increase
the relevance and effectiveness of their online advertising.
MainStreetSocial solves both these challenges by connecting local
governments, residents and advertisers for the benefit of all parties.
Where did the idea come from?
The idea was born out of a desire to try to help our own community, when budget shortfalls forced our local
government to lay off police officers. We knew there had to be a better way to raise revenue without raising taxes.
From our experiences working for DoubleClick, Yahoo and Right Media, we knew online advertising was an
obvious solution, as we were aware of the huge demand by brands to target effectively at a local level. We also
understood the potential power of aggregating relevant publishers to form a local-level network. The combination
of helping local government generate revenue and giving large brands and SMB’s access to local residents was
the perfect solution.
How is the data that is harvested from and the users of local government websites uniquely valuable?
Local governments, communities and non-profits provide a unique brand safe environment for advertisers, and the
opportunity to target truly relevant advertising. Local community sites provide a very detailed view of their target
segments. These segments can cover a variety of consumer market categories, including travel, eating out,
shopping, auto purchases and demographic characteristics such as education, income and housing all based on
their location. MainStreetSocial allows advertisers to target “action scenarios” where they can reach users as they
interact with the site. This creates a tool for advertisers by accessing consumers that have a direct interest in their
products and services. For example, Home Improvement advertisers could target individuals researching the
building permit process.
How will advertisers be able to retarget users of the local government websites?
· MainStreetSocial offers multiple retargeting options to advertisers with site level granularity. We drop a cookie on
the browser of a user who visits a local government site. Our publisher site and section hierarchy allows us to then
allocate the user to a particular segment and these segments can be packaged to sell to an advertiser. For
example, a common practice for a new homebuyer is to visit the community websites in a suburban geographic
area they would like to live in. A new home buyer could be inferred, based on their visit to one or more community
sites in a 5 mile radius and this would be an attractive prospect for a realtor. Through our platform, we offer the
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ability for the agency to target users with any combination of one or more cookies. This creates a robust
segmentation offering that can be customized, depending on the advertiser’s campaign goals.
What is Main Street Social's target market? Are there any competitors in the space?
Our target market is comprised of local US governments, community associations and marketers with online
display and search advertising budgets.
In total, there are 38,967 general-purpose local governments, including 3,034 county governments, and 35,933
general-purpose governments (including 19,429 municipal governments and 16,504 town or township
governments). This represents a $33 billion dollar market opportunity.
Although there are a number of companies throughout the government 2.0 movement that provide pieces of the
‘connecting communities’ puzzle, none offer a truly integrated solution that helps the local governments connect to
its local citizens and generate unrealized revenue opportunities.
Can you talk about the current rollout and when you plan to broaden it?
Our current plan is to build out a regional publishing network in the east (NY, NJ, PA, OH, CT) with the eventual
expansion to the west coast (CA, NV, WA) since both areas have very similar challenges. We have focused initially
on a target group of small to medium size communities. We have already partnered with a major national brand
advertiser and have successfully scaled local sales to allow small local businesses to engage in online advertising.
MainStreetSocial will be introducing a self-service display platform to help small to medium business create, target
and track online adverting on our publishing network; and a free publishing tool for small communities of less than
5000 residents, helping them build powerful online solutions for their residents and create a more transparent and
connected community.
How does the revenue opportunity breakout with your publisher platform? Please discuss how you share
revenue with clients.
A set-up fee and a monthly technology fee support the publishing platform while a revenue share model supports
the network. Currently most local governments have a web presence that is visited on average by 11% of the
residents. We help by providing them the platform to help increase engagement to over 25%. Our goal is to help
local governments realize a profit in the first year of implementation by adding the ability to increase resident
engagement on the site and introduce online monetization.
Can you envision a local government ad network? Is there any pushback at this stage to adding display ad
banners to local government websites?
Absolutely, we see our publishing platform enabling the creation of a local government ad network that provides
premium advertisers an ideal brand safe and targeted audience. Local governments see the advantage of taking
the proven private sector model and using it to raise revenue, rather than taxes. As a result, we have seen very
little pushback on adding display advertisement to their site. We have also built in quality and privacy checks that
ensure the advertisers are safe and relevant to the community. We are committed to supporting local business and
have a dedicated unit for local advertisers which local governments see as a great way to promote their local
businesses and help them succeed.
Follow MainStreetSocial (@mainstsocial) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 17, 2010 – 1:32 am
94
Online Data Explicitly Devoid Of Value; Value Determined
By Rocket Fuel Tech Says Prez Frankel
Email This Post
July 25, 2010 – 4:16 pm
Ad network Rocket Fuel announced success it has seen using
intender data from consumer intent data exchange companies
such as Blue Kai with results showing a "lowering cost per action
and engagement metrics by an average of 43.75% versus other
targeting methods." Read the release.
Rocket Fuel President Richard Frankel discussed the findings and their implications.
AdExchanger.com: How does Rocket Fuel achieve scale with intent data?
RF: Rocket Fuel achieves scale in two ways. First, we aggregate data from
many third parties. Second, we use modeling techniques to project the
data we have onto large and scalable audiences.
For recent auto intender campaigns, you say in a release that "Using BlueKai data, Rocket Fuel achieved a
64% lower effective cost per action (eCPA) versus the second best performing targeting method." What
was the second best performing targeting method?
Rocket Fuel tests many different kinds of targeting, data, and combinations of data for every campaign. In this
particular test, the second best performing targeting method was an autos contextual channel combined with a
recency/frequency/demographic scoring function.
In your opinion, can 'brand awareness" campaigns make use of intender data effectively?
One of the startling characteristics of data derived from online activity is that it is remarkably devoid of evaluative
markers. For example, "autos interest" data may indicate curiosity, immediate purchase intent, enthusiast interest,
or something else entirely. Attaching marketing value to an arbitrary set of data is what we try to do at Rocket Fuel,
and that means connecting the data to a marketer's particular objective. If a marketer is trying to drive brand
awareness for a new model, then a wide variety of data could be useful, whether it's data about in-market shopping
activity for similar vehicles, or psychographic data related to likely use cases for that vehicle. Overall, we think that
terms like "intender" are used very loosely in the business. The real question is -- how can any particular data help
a marketer achieve his/her goals? A brand goal like awareness is just another objective that online data can be
used to reach.
Is valuation a challenge? How do you value intent data?
Online data is explicitly devoid of value -- it just has some rough associations, and a price. Determining value of
data -- specifically in relation to a particular ad campaign and marketing objective -- is what Rocket Fuel's
technology is designed to do. Like many worthwhile tasks, it's challenging! Rocket Fuel uses a wide variety of
proprietary techniques to determine that value.
By John Ebbert
July 25, 2010 – 4:16 pm
95
ValueClick Media Enters Platform Game; GM Todd Says
Company To Simplify Fragmented Display Ad Market
Email This Post
August 15, 2010 – 6:47 pm
Last week, ValueClick announced its new Platform Services
offering with its first implementation being the Retail Performance
Platform which was launched at eTail last week. Read the release.
ValueClick Media GM Bill Todd discussed the new platform and its
positioning.
AdExchanger.com: Why introduce this platform services
group now?
BT: A combination of factors were involved in the timing, led by the fact that the largest advertisers in the industry
want to work with fewer partners and so many of the services they need have resided within ValueClick, Inc. for
years. There were only a couple of things we needed to add to what we already have to provide them with the
whole package in one stop, without all the extra intermediaries. The main example of this is real-time bidding – we
had the inventory, both on- and off-network. We had the delivery, tracking and optimization technology. We had
the data. All we needed was to add the real-time component for bidding on the impressions themselves. Given the
level of fragmentation in the display advertising market, the timing could not be better to simplify the equation by
bringing several services and solutions to advertisers in one unified package.
How is Platform Services different than what ValueClick Media has always offered? For example, is the
company making any special, additional investments? If so, where?
Unlike our core media network, which is only one part of a marketer's program, Platform Services takes a holistic
approach to managing a client's entire performance advertising program. This includes a full-service suite of
solutions from strategy and planning, to real-time bidding technology to access inventory outside of ValueClick
Media to complement what we can provide within our network, the ability to leverage our proprietary, enterprisewide data plus the client's own data. In addition to significant improvements to our underlying database and
reporting infrastructure, we will be using the best technologies from across ValueClick, Inc., especially the
audience targeting and analytics capabilities of ValueClick Media and Mediaplex, to serve the evolving needs of
our Platform Services advertisers.
Regarding your proprietary data, can you see offering that data to third-parties such as ad networks, DSPs
and even data exchanges?
Generally, we find our internal data performs at higher levels than data acquired through third-party sources,
something we think is due in large part to its scarcity. Data sold on the open market is not adjusted based on realtime performance feedback and is open to being over utilized by multiple sources, thus decreasing its relative
effectiveness. Because we are committed to providing our clients with solid performance, we purposely do not
make our data available to third parties.
Where do you pull the proprietary datasets from? Do they come from your e-commerce and affiliate
marketing clients, for example?
Yes, our proprietary data is cultivated from anonymous web browsing, ad interaction, shopping, searching and
buying behaviors from across many of ValueClick, Inc.'s properties worldwide. In addition to the 28 billion
impressions we serve across 8,000 sites on the ValueClick Media network, at any given time our systems are
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managing around 750 million anonymous consumer profiles. Within this large audience targeting pool we have
access to 122MM entertainment enthusiasts, 31MM travelers, 27MM automotive intenders and 23MM retail
shoppers, just to name a few.
What will be the target market for the Platform Services business?
Platform Services is being targeted to marketers and agencies who want to fully leverage a turn-key digital
marketing solution that includes near total audience reach, unique and predictive data sets, proven performance
focus, dynamic messaging and creative, continual campaign optimization and back-end profiling, analysis and
attribution modeling.
By John Ebbert
August 15, 2010 – 6:47 pm
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Right Media Exchange Update From Yahoo! VP McGrory:
New Pilot For SEMs, Demand-Side Platforms And Demand
Media Partnership
Email This Post
July 22, 2010 – 12:50 pm
The following is an excerpted interview with Ramsey McGrory, Yahoo!
VP and Head of Right Media Exchange. McGrory discusses recently
announced plans for Yahoo!'s display advertising exchange - Right
Media Exchange.
Topics covered include:




The results of the Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Pilot Program…
A new Search Engine Marketing pilot on Right Media
Exchange…
Demand Media, a publisher for RTB participants on Right Media
Exchange…
On Right Media Open, an event produced this week by Yahoo!
for its Right Media partners…
On the results of the Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Pilot Program…
RM: The specifics on DSPs are actually pretty good. We expected to see
improvements in targeting. We expected to see, conversely, that would
mean higher bidding, which is valuable to the publishers. And so I think
we generally got what we bargained for. Which is the targeting efficiency, the control of frequency, the control of
cost. The DSPs are, by and large, moving directionally on executing on that vision. That's a good thing.
AdExchanger.com: What kind of intelligence did you see on the pricing? OK, it's higher, but did you see
dynamic pricing per impression? Could you see that sort of valuation taking place?
RM: We saw both. We saw static pricing, and dCPM pricing. And I think that's just the nature of where we are. The
DSP pilot, out of the gate, was about enabling the holding company agencies, which were creating the
audience-based buying strategies. And the agencies tend not to be technology builders, they were looking at this
new class a year ago. But I think some of the same thinking and process still exists in the agencies about how you
price and how you book campaigns. So we saw a mixture of different pricing types, tended to be CPM or dCPM. I
think overall the CPMs that we saw through the pilot were 3X what the CPMs were coming through ad networks.
So for us that's said a couple of things. One is that targeting efficiency using audience based buying platforms,
where there are audience insights coming from the buyer, the seller, potentially a third party, can drive greater
efficiency in targeting. On these types of buys, no longer do you have to buy composite like you buy television.
And there is no implied waste. If you have an audience segment that defines the audience, that's 100 percent
valuable. I think the DSPs are also acting as ad servers in some cases, that the ability to control frequency is
important to big brands who view excessive frequency as waste, you know, wasted message.
And then cost control, the ability to use a biddable marketplace to engage the audiences is valuable for large
marketers.
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AdExchanger.com: Did the pilot involve real time biddable inventory only, or did it involve both, or was it
non-RTB?
RM: Both.
AdExchanger.com: And was there a difference in performance there or even pricing?
RM: We didn't break it out. Remember that some of the DSPs use our platform as their underlying ad server and
when they do that, they are already bidding in real-time. So, real-time bidding is, in great part, when the
decisioning is sitting outside of the ad server where the supply is.
(…) When you’ve got a separate platform, rather than pushing all of your audience definitions from that platform
into (Right Media’s) Yield Manager, the bid request sends a... In this case, Right Media sends a bid request to the
buyer's platform and says, "Hey what do you bid?" And, so it's a more efficient way of completing a transaction, but
it is not always needed. If you already have your segmentation in there, you're fine.
RTB is such a complex topic, it is hard to spend five minutes on it. But, it is a piece of the pilot. I think people tend
to underestimate the value of stuff like the right sales engagement between the publisher and the DSP, given that
the DSP is acting in some cases as an agent and some cases as a network. (…)
On a new Search Engine Marketing pilot on Right Media Exchange…
RM: We’ve augmented the DSP Pilot in two ways. One is that we've created another track with SEMs [which
includes] Kenshoo, Marin, SearchIgnite and Efficient Frontier. They're all significant partners of Yahoo! They all
have either already said, or they are moving towards a more integrated product and service around a combination
of search and display.
We love the fact that they are already significant partners and we've got great trusted relationships. They, by and
large, have the DNA of a technology company that understands algorithmic, bid-based systems.
I think relative to the DSPs, they probably don't have the same level of fluency yet in all of the different variables
and all the different things that happen in display. So, we'll be working with them more collaboratively on things like
pricing strategy where they'll take the knowledge that they have in search and try to apply it in display. (…)
AdExchanger.com: So, with the SEMs they could technically be creating demand in display and then
fulfilling it in search. Is there any sort of work in that area that you're going to be doing with them?
RM: Well, we already have. Yahoo has a search retargeting product which has been very successful. I think the
other way we’ve been bringing display into search, is part of why we're calling it a pilot. There are some things that
we know and don't know. And, there's collaboration to figure out all the pieces.
But, it's fairly clear that one influences the other. And, there's been enough research that shows that it definitely
does and that there's value in having a more holistic look at overall digital marketing.
Yahoo Right Media stands in a great place. Yahoo's got search capabilities and massive display capabilities.
We've got a platform to actually enable it through Right Media. So, I think we're in a great position to lead how the
SEMs evolve their practice beyond search. And, I think that's good for everybody.
On Demand Media, a publisher for RTB participants on Right Media Exchange…
RM: Regarding real-time bidding (RTB) in the DSP pilot, Demand Media has agreed to be a publisher in RTB for
the DSP participants. What I like about Demand Media is that, along with the acquisition by Yahoo of Associated
Content, it’s getting integrated into the overall Yahoo Ad network with Demand Media and all of the websites and
ad inventory that they have. We're going to continue to see the Right Media Exchange grow. That's a set of
inventory that hasn't been that widely available.
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On Right Media Open, an event produced this week by Yahoo! for its Right Media partners…
RM: I love the opportunity to get our participants, our marketplace participants, together. And to do it with an
agenda of not grinding facts, and having it not be one Right Media sales pitch after the next, but actually an open
discussion about what's going well and what's not going so well. It's what made Right Media what it was - the
ability to have that open conversation and make changes that fit. It's good for the marketplace for that to happen.
(…) Relationships matter in this market. Technology is great, but relationships and understanding partners and
competitors and all that, that matters.
By John Ebbert
July 22, 2010 – 12:50 pm
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Analysts
Bank Of Montreal’s Salmon Sees Digital Marketing Hub
May 18, 2010 – 10:43 am
Dan Salmon is an equity research analyst at BMO Capital Markets and
covers advertising and marketing services.
AdExchanger.com: Please provide a bit of background on you and
how you and Bank of Montreal got into the marketing services
space.
DS: BMO Capital Markets is the investment banking arm of BMO
Financial Group (aka Bank of Montreal) and it has been providing
advisory and capital markets services in the media, advertising and
marketing services industry for some time. However we increased our US
focus in recent years including the creation of my role: equity research
analyst. I began covering the industry for BMO in April 2008 and continue
to add new companies to my coverage list. As for some background on
me, I am a Canadian citizen and have worked in the equity research
business since graduating from college. I began my career at Saloman
Smith Barney on the Hotels and Casinos team from 2000-2003 and have
been with BMO since 2004, where I began working on the Broadcasting
and Internet Media team.
What has surprised you about the digital media space in 2010?
Slowly but surely, many people are beginning to expand their definition of "digital media" to include things like
addressable IP-based television (IPTV) and digital-out-of-home (DOOH). For so long, the term was confined to
lead generation, search, display and email, and then eventually rich media and mobile. It's no secret that the media
and marketing ecosystem is evolving into an all-digital one, but up until recently my discussions with "digital media"
companies were normally confined to "the internet" and maybe mobile. Now when I ask if they're beginning to think
about evolving their offerings to handle DOOH and IPTV, the answer is increasingly 'Yes!'
How do you view the digital media space?
My research covers a wide swath of companies that ranges from ad agencies to direct marketers to interactive
marketing services/technology and market research companies. To me, the point at which all of these subindustries come together is a concept I like to call the digital marketing hub: it's the point at which the buying and
selling of media and marketing messages -- traditionally a relationship-driven endeavour -- meets technology
platforms. It's been underway for many years, but continues to accelerate and it affects nearly all companies I
research, from the agencies of Madison Avenue to the start-ups of Silcon Valley. Whether you call it a dashboard,
a hub, or an on-demand client, we're moving to the point where marketers will have real-time data about the
majority of their marketing spending pumped to their screen of choice and be able tweak bids and shift budget
instantly and seamlessly. This will also help accelerate the breakdown of the three traditional silos of customer
relationship management (CRM): marketing, sales and customer service. Eventually the digital marketing hub will
be rolled into a digital customer hub.
Regarding M&A, do you see it taking place in 2010, 11, 12? What will be the key drivers?
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We see it already underway in 2010, but expect it to accelerate and carry through 2011 and beyond. The key
drivers include recovery of the global economy, actions taken by by the largest players (Google, Microsoft, etc.)
and the anxiousness of venture and private equity investors to exit and monetize their investments. Importantly,
with the stock market remaining volatile, M&A continues to appear more attractive than IPOs at the moment.
Is the value chain too cluttered? Are there too many players?
Yes, but that's perfectly natural and to be expected. As value chain elements like creative optimization and data
exchanges emerge, entrepreneurs are rushing to the opportunity, as would be expected. But eventually the equity
returns will begin to be constrained and winners and losers will emerge (as they have in areas like ad serving).
After that, consolidation begins in earnest and continues until dominant players and some amount of
standardization emerge. A good sign that the process is approaching completion is when we begin hearing
complaints about a monopoly somewhere in the value chain. This is the natural cycle for any new innovation that is
added to the ecosystem and I expect many more to come, so there will always be new, cluttered areas emerging.
In regards to your upcoming BMO conference on June 10, what makes an effective conference from your
research POV?
The key for our conference is the same key for my research: at BMO, we make no distinction between traditional
and emerging marketing services and we don't believe investors should either. For many of your readers that will
seem obvious, but my investor clients tend to focus on sector silos, in particular Media, Technology and Business
Services, and sometimes that can limit their view to immediate competitors/opportunities but not more distant ones
in emerging areas. I believe advertising and marketing services draws on elements of each of those traditional
investment specialties and I enjoy breaking down those silos with clients. Our conference will be successful if we
can demonstrate this concept to the investment community.
When will display advertising catch search in terms of total ad dollars spent, if ever? Why?
Display may catch search when we begin to expand its definition. What's the difference between a banner ad
shown at the top of my friend's blog and the graphic prodding me to order Domino's pizza via my TiVo? Or the
digital sign above my subway stop that reminds me that the NHL Playoffs are on later that evening? Yes, the
infrastructure is still different and those ads are certainly bought and sold differently today. But those boundaries
will continue to fade and we'll move on from narrow terms from like search and display, and focus more on where
the ad is delivered and whether or not the marketing message is passively targeted around infotainment or actively
sought out by the user.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 18, 2010 – 10:43 am
102
Buying Platforms
Adapt.ly Addressing Fragmented, Social Advertising With
Self-Serve Platform Says CEO Sethi
August 18, 2010 – 4:01 am
Nikhil Sethi is Co-Founder of Adapt.ly, a social advertising platform
company.
AdExchanger.com: What gave you the idea for Adapt.ly?
NS: I founded a company while studying Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science at Northwestern University, focused on self-serve direct
mail technology, and about 9 months in, I realized I wasn’t focused on the
reasons I started the company for, I wasn’t focused on the passion for the
product, or in the innovation of what we were creating, rather I was
spending 90% of my day focused on customer acquisition efforts through
our marketing/advertising efforts. With our limited budget, I was spending
my day making new creative on several social media properties trying to
attract, measure, and monitor performance and continue to improve the
results we were getting. I remember opening up a word document and
jotting down, “There has to be a better way to do simultaneously social ad
deployment and optimization without me doing anything.” And Adapt.ly was
born.
What problem is Adapt.ly solving?
Social advertising is broken, fragmented, hard to use, impossible to understand, difficult to monitor and practically
impossible to hit the entire audience you’re trying to reach. Many advanced tools and services exist out there, but
they end up costing businesses thousands upon thousands of dollars every month for marginal technology
improvements. Just to get on board many of these services requires multiple calls to their sales team, minimum
monthly ad spends, and a long and cruel vetting process.
We believe that self-serve is the future of advertising. Just as Youtube broke the prehistoric video industry, and as
blogging broke the newspaper monopoly, advertising is getting disrupted by self-serve ad platforms. Many selfserve ad networks exist in the market, however each is creating their own isolated advertiser experiences and data
silos.
Adapt.ly aims to connect all these social self-serve ad networks and let advertisers create a single ad unit and
deploy on multiple self-serve ad networks. We monitor all the relevant data in real time and give actionable insights
to tweak performance.
Given its scale, why does a marketer need anything other than Facebook as a self-serve ad tool? Also,
how does Adapt.ly add value to Facebook's self-serve platform?
To best answer this question you have to take one step back and look at the search advertising space. The great
thing about search, in terms of direct response, is intent. So we started thinking about how to recreate intent in the
social space, and ultimately realized that there is a huge correlation between the product and industry of the ad
being served and at a very high level which social ad network it was served on. For example Facebook is a very
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generalist site in that regard. If I enter in golf as an interest of mine on Facebook, and proceed to serve golf ads
against that user, there is no increased likelihood that that user is going to click on a golf ad. Understanding the
context of the ad in the social space becomes incredible important. Ultimately, social self-serve platforms are very
immature, and Adaptly is building a lot of intelligence ontop of these self-serve platforms.
Why can't another company come along and do what you're doing? How will Adapt.ly differentiate?
We are laser focused on social ads, which allows us to build a complete product just around social. Many people
tend to just dump social and search ads in the same bucket. However there is an entirely different psychology
around deploying and optimizing social ads from search ads. There is an inherent emotion that has to be elicited
from the ad unit, which goes towards, what we believe to be the true innovation in online advertising: The evolution
of the ad unit, and we are seeing some of the first glimpses in the social space. Secondly, we have core
technology under the hood the powers our end-to-end solution.
Where in the funnel does the social marketing platforms your aggregating address? Why?
If you think about the current set of analytic tools available on the market today (Google analytics, Coremetrics,
Kissmetrics, etc) + all the landing page optimization tools out there; they are all focused on the conversion funnel
of landing page to a sale or some other measured action. Adapt.ly is sitting one level removed and looking at the
funnel from a customer acquisition to a sale. We are working on bridging the conversion funnel gap in these tools,
as it becomes very powerful for a business to view the complete funnel: Customer acquisition to a sale from within
a single interface. As well as prolonged conversation with the end customer, the ad unit is just the beginning.
What about adding other channels such as display ad exchanges and aggregators? Is that on the product
roadmap - if so, when?
We want to focus on social ads. The idea isn’t to maximize on any and all advertising property out there, but more
so to leverage the next wave of advertising innovation. It is our thinking that the future of advertising isn’t a land
grab, however an innovation on the ad unit itself. The social ad unit is becoming a very powerful entity and
something that is still in its very early stages.
Who's the target market for Adapt.ly's product? Are agencies a good fit?
We’ve created a central system to deploy a businesses ad inventory across self-serve social ad properties. In that
sense agencies are an awesome fit, as they can leverage their client’s social media strategies across the millions
of users locked inside of multiple self-serve ad networks. We are working on building some custom solutions just
for agencies and are looking for a few agencies to pilot our technology.
Can you see developing a services layer at Adapt.ly at some point?
We have two modes of our product. A self-service tool that allows a business to manage all aspects of their ad
deployment and targeting on their own, as well as a full end-to-end solution, which asks a business two questions:
What are you advertising, and who are you trying to reach. With that information Adaptly deploys and optimizes
their campaign across social ad properties automatically and continuously.
A year from now, what milestones would you like Adapt.ly to have accomplished?
The real goal is to go beyond the ad. The deployment part is straightforward. In a year I hope that I can tell you,
that Adapt.ly is not an advertising deployment and optimization engine, but the social pulse of the internet.
Follow Nikhil Sethi (@nsethi) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 18, 2010 – 4:01 am
104
BLiNQ Media Offering Social Media Ad Platform On CostPer-Social-Action Basis Says CEO Williams
May 26, 2010 – 2:42 pm
Dave Williams, is CEO, president and co-founder of BLiNQ Media.
AdExchanger.com: As a co-founder of 360i, were you
surprised that Dentsu acquired 360i's parent, Innovation
Interactive?
DW: I was not surprised by this because I know Innovation
Interactive was looking to expand its global footprint, diversification
of service offerings and revenue opportunities.
What made you start BLiNQ Media? And is there any special
meaning with the spelling of the company - why B-L-i-N-Q?
I left 360i in mid-2007 with the interest in starting another Internet
marketing venture. When I left, I became quickly intrigued by the
social media space due to the large amount of profile data
available for ad targeting combined with the massive shift in social
network usage and ad impression availability. I was especially
fascinated by the auction-based media buying dynamics because it
reminded me a lot about the early days of search. The name
BLiNQ was conceived based on our focus of rapidly delivering large-scale ad campaigns by making use of
sophisticated analytics—thus the use of the “Q” in the name. The lower case “i” is used to highlight our focus on
interactive.
What problem is BLiNQ Media solving?
We make it easy for big brands and agencies to produce break-through results on social networks, such as
Facebook. Right now, it is very difficult to effectively manage and optimize large-scale social media ad campaigns
on Facebook and other social networks. We are solving this challenge with a powerful and easy-to-use media
management solution. Our technology solution is called BLiNQ Ad Manager (BAM) and is in private beta release
right now.
Any similarity between what you're doing and say an ad network of social media websites or a demandside platform buying impressions from social sites?
Our focus is on placing and optimizing advertising on the premium social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn
and others, while providing significant control over campaign targeting by using available profile data. What we do
is different from other ad networks and demand-side platforms. They typically deliver ads on application inventory
and other second- and third-tier inventory sources. Our advertising platform offers transparency and control not
typically provided by these other systems.
How is BLiNQ addressing the de-coupling of data from media?
Through our BAM technology, we can easily match the most relevant creative against the most relevant target and
then optimize and report performance based on this. We store this performance data on our end for real-time
reporting and optimization purposes.
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Looking around the display ecosystem and given your company's social vision, what is your view on
Facebook's potential in display advertising? Can it be the big player in display ads someday?
We think that the potential of Facebook’s ad platform is massive. Given some of the recent changes it has made
(i.e. making it very easy for publishers to integrate with Facebook), we believe that this opens up tremendous
external advertising opportunities. We believe that we are very well positioned to take advantage of this
opportunity, if and when Facebook allows advertisers to place ads on other third-party websites.
BLiNQ Media is in Atlanta. What are some of the benefits being in Atlanta for a digital media company?
I founded 360i in Atlanta in 1998 and am very well connected in the community, which helps from a new business
and recruitment perspective. There is a wealth of experienced digital marketing professionals in Atlanta to provide
us with a very talented recruitment pool to help launch a company. Atlanta has one of the largest interactive
marketing organizations, the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA), which I have been involved with for
more than 10 years. Additionally, there are some excellent academic institutions: Emory University, Georgia
Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, and University of Georgia. Additionally, Atlanta is home to many
Fortune-500 companies, including AT&T, ING, Home Depot, Coca-Cola and others. This provides us great access
and visibility to a number of business leaders.
How is your search background at 360i helping you today? Why is this experience relevant?
We find that our search marketing experience is very relevant to social media advertising. Instead of keywords, we
are focused on user profile data for ad targeting and optimization. This experience provides tremendous value in
understanding the interactive media ecosystem and how social media best fits into the overall media mix. We are
applying not only what we have learned from search, but also what we have learned from social to help marketers
produce break-through results.
How does the BLiNQ media pricing model work?
We typically charge on a performance basis, what we call Cost Per Social Action (CPSA). Ideally, we like to price
campaigns based on results achieved within the social network, such as cost per fan, cost per application
installation, etc. We also offer other more typical pricing models such as CPM and CPC.
In terms of funding, do you anticipate seeking venture capital?
No. We plan to self-fund the business and work with local angel investors as needed.
How is the company funded today?
The business is currently 100 percent funded by management, employees and the work that we perform for our
customers.
Twelve months from now, what milestones would you like to have seen BLiNQ Media accomplish?
We would like to have multiple large-scale Facebook advertisers, brands and agencies using our BAM system and
working directly with us to help them optimize their social media advertising. We obviously want to service U.S.–
based campaigns, but given that Facebook is a global platform, we also want to be running large-scale, multinational campaigns. We are very excited about this space and look forward to seeing how it continues to evolve.
Follow BLiNQ Media (@BLiNQMedia) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 26, 2010 – 2:42 pm
106
DataXu Data Showing Wide-Swings In CPM Prices For
Display Advertising Says VP Simmons
May 23, 2010 – 2:45 pm
Demand-side platform DataXu has released a new monthly study
called "DataXu MarketPulse." Among the insights: "DataXu
analyzed the price paid for ad impressions across ad exchanges
over the past 30 days, and discovered that the average daily price
varied by over 100% during the period."
The company also compared CPM pricing volatility to other
markets:
DataXu VP of Technology Bill Simmons discussed the studies findings and the use of financial market constructs
in digital advertising.
AdExchanger.com: How do you determine a 100% fluctuation in CPM pricing? Isn't every impression
potentially different so an apples-to-apples comparison is impossible?
BS: You are right, all impressions are different. However, the graphic in DataXu’s MarketPulse shows an overall
average CPM across all of our campaigns. What this is showing is that even when you aggregate this average
across billions of impressions bought on multiple exchanges; you might expect the cost of media to stay fairly
steady over a thirty-day period. However, this is not the case. Over thirty-day periods, we typically see the average
cost of online display media change by over 100 percent.
If we break down inventory into to smaller and smaller buckets, like individual content categories or audience
segments, the volatility measurement increases dramatically (sometimes as high at 500 percent). This finding is
significant, since traditional media planning methods --- where change orders may take days to execute --- can’t
keep up with these kinds of price swings on a day-by-day, let alone a second-by-second basis.
Please discuss how the variables involved with CPM pricing differ from the pricing in other markets.
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Billions of dollars have been invested in technologies to predict and react to price swings in financial markets.
However, one could argue that predicting price swings in advertising markets is actually a much harder problem.
As you pointed out, each impression is unique and fleeting. In financial markets, one share of IBM exists today and
the next day. You have more than one chance to predict the price correctly. You can look at pricing trends over the
past 30 days, and you have a pretty good chance of being able to buy that share at +/- 1% of yesterday’s price.
However, in exchange-based advertising, each opportunity is unique and rare. On top of that, price swings of
similar impressions can vary up to 100 percent day to day. If you want to reach a particular consumer with a
particular ad three times a day, above the fold, during his or her lunch break, on particular types of content, you
have very few chances to win that bid. It may be very valuable to you, but it’s very difficult to predict if others will be
competing for that same impression. You don’t want to overpay, but you also don’t want to miss the opportunity.
There’s an opportunity cost as well as an expected value, all which depend on tens or sometimes hundreds of
variables. All of this makes valuation difficult.
How are all markets similar?
A market is simply a place where buyers and sellers meet to exchange goods or services. All markets are similar in
that the more efficient they are, the more volume of goods can be exchanged. More volume of goods being
exchanged, more rapidly, causes an industry to grow.
Although online ad markets are getting more efficient every day, they still have a ways to go. As many people have
stated, we’re really still in the “wild west” phase of exchange-traded media, where if you are willing to take some
risks you can get great returns. You need to be well-equipped to succeed beyond simple tactics like statically
bidding for cookie segments.
Given your financial markets comparison, can you see the use of "tickers" in digital advertising, if you will,
for audiences someday? For example, a CPM price that is tracked for impressions of men 30-45 who like
golf.
There is plenty of evidence that markets work better when information flows freely. However, “tickers” might not be
that useful where you have high variability of the goods being bought and sold. In any case, if ad price tickers
could be implemented in a useful way, they would be run by someone who is neither a buyer nor seller. This way
the information could be verified.
By John Ebbert
May 23, 2010 – 2:45 pm
108
DataXu Data Showing Creative Impacting Campaign
Conversions More Than Audience, Context Says VP
Catanzaro
June 30, 2010 – 9:14 pm
On Monday, DataXu released insights from a recent sample of client
display ad campaigns that showed creative has more impact on
conversions than context or audience. Read more on the DataXu blog
about "Beyond Audience: What Drives Campaign Performance?" And,
download the one-sheeter (PDF).
Sandro Catanzaro, VP of Products at DataXu, discussed the study's findings.
So are you saying that if context and audience remain equal (or remain the same) that nearly 1/2 the time, a
change in creative led to a conversion? How do you pull out the fact that creative is the key here nearly 1/2
the time?
To provide some context, we initially conducted this analysis as an engineering effort. We wanted to see if our data
would reveal any insights about which type of impression attributes are most important to a campaign. We
analyzed converting impressions across a set of 19 of our campaigns for 30 days, and we found that for almost
half (48%) of the campaigns, creative attributes of those impressions were more correlated to conversions than
attributes related to context or the consumer. In the other half of the campaigns (52%), context or consumer
attributes were more frequently correlated.
So, getting back to your question, for the 48% of campaigns in which creative was the most important attribute,
with all else being equal, choosing the best creative was the most important decision driving the increased
conversion rates.
While creative attributes were the "winner" in our study, the real takeaway is that there is not one approach or
dimension of optimization that fits all campaigns, as campaign performance drivers can be unpredictable. Ideally,
you need to consider all three data domains, at the same time—and for every impression— if you want to
maximize performance.
Given the limitations of certain inventory sources and exchanges, did any of the campaigns run across
non-RTB-enabled inventory? If so, do you have any estimate of the performance impact of a non-RTBenabled environment?
The analysis in MarketPulse was completed using data from both types of exchanges, but we didn't break out the
data according to RTB and non-RTB to see how that impacted results. Maybe that will be our next topic!
This issue, however, really does get at the heart of the difference between RTB (impression-by-impression) and
non-RTB (static rules-based) buying. The RTB market means that advertisers who have partnered with a
technology provider (like DataXu) are given the opportunity to apply finely-tuned optimization strategies to each
and every impression, and adapt quickly in response to results. In a non-RTB environment, you must pre-define
"segments" for your buys, with flat pricing; this forces you to use approximate optimization, which limits
performance. Advertisers who are not using RTB aren't getting the insights, performance, or ROI that they could be
achieving in a more dynamic buying and optimization environment.
Are clients able to take full advantage of RTB-enabled buying today? Where can they be more aggressive
around optimization?
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Many advertisers are not taking full advantage of RTB yet. The majority of potential customers we talk with are
either not using RTB in their media mix, or they are using it for simple audience buys and retargeting only. This is
leaving a lot of potential on the table, since they are not taking full advantage of RTB's capabilities.
Even simple campaigns can benefit from RTB-enabled buying. The right platform partner definitively makes it easy
to manage scale and complexity (such as hundreds of creatives!). Although it may feel counterintuitive, one way
that clients can be more aggressive about optimization is by shifting more of the burden to an advanced demandside platform—one that can quickly assess campaign performance patterns and put that knowledge to work
immediately. This can eliminate some guesswork at the outset or reliance on broad insights derived weeks—or
even months—into a campaign to adjust a campaign's strategy.
We're not suggesting by our results that advertisers abandon their preferred optimization tactics related to
consumer, context, or creative. It's really more of a recommendation to not assume too much at the outset and to
also take advantage of the more comprehensive, dynamic optimization capabilities available in the marketplace
today to maximize opportunities for success.
By John Ebbert
June 30, 2010 – 9:14 pm
110
LucidMedia Announces $4.5 Million In Funding; CEO Ajay
Sravanapudi Discusses Plans
Email This Post
June 3, 2010 – 2:45 pm
LucidMedia announced today that it has raised $4.5 million in new
funds led by MMV Financial (MMV). Read the release.
Ajay Sravanapudi, CEO at LucidMedia, discussed the new funding
and the company's plans.
AdExchanger.com: Please discuss your new round of funding
and why you chose MMV.
AS: We had many options available to us in this round but MMV was the ideal funding partner at this stage in our
execution plan and capitalization strategy. MMV is truly dedicated to providing timely and effective growth capital
to emerging technology companies like LucidMedia. They are focused on the North American market and the
amount of capital they typically provide ranges from $1.5M to $10.0M which was also a perfect fit for us.
Where do you see the $4.5 million going? Any critical needs such as "feet on the street"?
We are applying the proceeds from this funding round to expand on our recently launched self-service platform
that gives agencies and advertisers more control and enables them to more efficiently manage their display
advertising campaigns. The funds are being used to bring additional capabilities to market and to do so sooner so
we can better capture the escalating DSP opportunity. And since we own the full technology stack in our demandside platform, with the additional funds we are launching new capabilities not as disparate products but as unified
new features within our platform. It allows us to be more nimble and responsive to our advertiser’s requirements.
Are there too many demand-side platforms today and how will LucidMedia differentiate?
There are not really all that many demand-side platforms out there. Much of the static in the DSP space today is
centered around attracting attention in the venture capital circles. But when it comes to getting in front of an
advertiser and demonstrating real capabilities in a real product that you can actually use to deliver value and
efficiency, the number of DSPs can be counted on one hand (minus a few fingers). There are too many
companies calling themselves a demand-side platform though. We have run hundreds of successful campaigns
for the majority of Fortune 500 companies out there over the last 18 months that we have been operating as a
DSP. In that time we have proven that several capabilities are unique to what LucidMedia offers. This includes
our proprietary contextual and audience targeting, ability to police a true universal frequency cap (UFC), and realtime assessment (RTA) across all sources. In addition, our DSP provides dynamic inventory allocation across
RTB sources and even premium buys, true preemptive brand safety, and campaign optimization at the page-level.
We also offer custom integrations with all 3rd party data providers, real-time bid (RTB) inventory availability
insights by channel, and a server-side cookie store for proprietary audience targeting.
By John Ebbert
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June 3, 2010 – 2:45 pm
112
CEO Sravanapudi On Licensing LucidMedia Contextual
Technology To ValueClick
Email This Post
August 20, 2010 – 12:09 am
LucidMedia is providing its contextual ClickSense technology "to
enable enhanced contextualization services within ValueClick’s
online advertising platforms." Read the release.
LucidMedia CEO Ajay Sravanapudi discussed the ValueClick deal.
AdExchanger.com: Does this deal represent a strategic shift
for LucidMedia? Are you moving away from the DSP model
you announced earlier in the year?
AS: No, our demand-side platform is still our core solution. This
represents an evolutionary advancement to what we feel is now the
single most comprehensive digital advertising management
platform in the marketplace. Our platform includes our
ClickSense(R) patented page-level contextual analysis
technologies, and features like intelligent real-time bidding (RTB), a
consolidated buying seat on all the major exchanges, unique
insights into inventory avails, preemptive brand safe filters, a universal frequency cap, and reach into 95% of the
online population. Our self-service and managed service DSP is another component of this comprehensive display
management solution. Our partnership with ValueClick is another way in which we are going to market with our ad
management platform.
What does it say about the state of the industry that LucidMedia is providing contextual technology to
what could be seen as a competitor in ValueClick?
It's more "co-opetition" than direct competition. Our comprehensive platform strategy has always included
embedding our contextual engine as broadly as possible making our categorization the industry standard. We
began this strategy in 2008 when we integrated our contextual engine with Yahoo's RightMedia Exchange.
ValueClick is one of the select strategic partners leveraging our data services. Advertisers may be able to benefit
from our contextualization with several of our partners, but our clients come to our demand-side platform for a level
of control, efficiency, and scale that they cannot get elsewhere.
How does pricing work for your ClickSense contextual targeting in deals such as this?
Each deal is structured differently, but they can range from flat-fee licensing arrangements to
revenue sharing models. We are not at liberty to discuss the financial structure of this specific
deal, but we have a variety of structures in which we are compensated for deploying our
technology to our many partners.
By John Ebbert
August 20, 2010 – 12:09 am
113
Eyeblaster Becomes MediaMind; CEO Trifon On New
Company Name, Direction
Email This Post
June 15, 2010 – 8:02 am
CEO Gal Trifon discussed his company's new name and direction
as Eyeblaster changes to MediaMind and focuses on data-driven,
media buying solutions.
AdExchanger.com: Where does MediaMind fit within the
company's product set? Do you expect it to be the focus for
revenue generation for the company? Or is this just a re-brand
and all of Eyeblaster's products essentially get folded into this
platform?
GT: MediaMind is the gateway to our full suite of digital marketing
solutions, including ad serving, search, rich media, dynamic ads
and other capabilities. All these solutions benefit from an integrated
advertising stack that includes management, analytics, attribution
and optimization. Hundreds of advertisers already use the platform
as a primary ad serving and campaign management platform,
instead of products like Google's Doubleclick DFA. But the scope is
much broader, and involves a cross channel buy-side solution for
optimized media and creative.
What's the target market for MediaMind?
MediaMind's target customer is an agency or advertiser looking to
maximize their opportunity and partner with a one-stop-shop digital marketing platform that is marketer focused
and inventory-neutral. We have a great constituency within the advertiser and agency community globally. Our
neutral position is also a benefit for publishers, as it enables friction-free partnerships with innovative inventory
suppliers.
What did the Eyeblaster brand represent and what is different about the MediaMind brand?
Since 1999 Eyeblaster has stood for innovation in consumer experiences, whether by new rich media formats or
cutting edge interactive capabilities. We remain committed to this space, and the Eyeblaster trademark will remain
and provide rich media service for our clients. However with everything we've been doing with MediaMind to push
the boundaries of media optimization, customers have told us that we've exceeded the scope of the brand. And
since everything we do nowadays has to do with the platform and the broader vision (including our ongoing rich
media solutions), this brand change made a lot of sense.
Is MediaMind a demand-side platform (DSP)? How will MediaMind differentiate from other platforms in the
space?
Traded media is growing in importance to our customers. However, even our most progressive users foresee
traded media as a portion of a greater scheme that involves premium media, search, social and emerging media.
And in this greater scheme, marketers need smart data mobilization. They need streamlined management and
analytics, as well as integrated creative optimization. Thousands of agencies use our solutions worldwide. Most of
these planners and account managers understand the importance of traded media, but they have no way of
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introducing it into the mix because of this lack of integration. This is where MediaMind will differ. We have a
strategy and solution to simplify the whole process.
Eyeblaster, Eyewonder. MediaMind, MediaMath. Is this coincidence?
It's a coincidence in the sense that over 91,000 companies in Yahoo's company directory have Media in their
name. We're excited about MediaMind because it represents intelligent advertising, something that we see as a
theme in our research and development as well as client service.
Please discuss your cross-channel attribution solution. How does it work? Does it address digital and
traditional channels or digital only?
Our cross channel attribution approach consists of three elements:
a. universal tag solution that collects conversion across different digital channels
b. user level data warehouse that retains a cross channel path to conversion
c. flexible attribution logic ranging from existing tools and reports to custom integrated solutions. Flexibility is
important since we don't believe a single vendor can necessarily determine attribution logic for all
situations.
We've also introduced visibility tracking so marketers know which ads come into sight, not just delivered within a
browser.
How does MediaMind help with campaign insights for the marketer?
There are a number of challenges marketers face trying to gain insights from the piles of digital campaign data.
a. cryptic metrics: the old metrics of CTR or interaction rate are unclear. In this space, for example, we've
introduced Dwell metrics, which represents time-spent on ad, and have worked with companies like
Microsoft and ComScore to validate its business impact. On reach/eGRP, we've implemented the IAB's
Audience Reach Measurement Guidelines, again to offer reliable assessment of campaign reach.
b. access: critical data needed for campaign performance is often hard to detect or not accessible. We offer
the industry's only real-time monitoring tool to address this issue, so marketers can optimize their
campaigns on the spot, before their budget is spent inefficiently.
c. cross platform: MediaMind collects and reports data from multiple channels, whether or not our ad server
is used for banner delivery or keyword bidding.
d. a great portion of our campaigns feed data to or extract data from an external system so that data can
move around, placed in context and acted upon.
What is the status of the IPO? How might funds from the IPO affect
the company's strategic direction?
At this time, we cannot comment on the IPO.
Are you concerned about Google's recent acquisition of Invite Media and the competitive pressure it puts
on Eyeblaster and its MediaMind platform?
We are not directly affected by the Invite deal, but it has certainly generated a lot of interest in the issue of
inventory-neutrality and transparency. We are extremely focused on an inventory-neutral platform for the buy side.
Follow MediaMind (@mediamind_chat) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 15, 2010 – 8:02 am
115
Permuto CEO Shamim Discusses Recent Client
Performance And E-Commerce Opportunity
May 12, 2010 – 4:04 pm
In a release last week, Permuto, a CPC, display ad retargeting
company, announced that through its ad platform, the company
had shown return-on-ad-spend results "within three percent of
SEM" for e-tailer Heels.com. Read more.
Shaukat Shamim, Co-Founder and CEO of Permuto, discussed the
company's services and shared observations about the ecommerce landscape.
AdExchanger.com: When working with Permuto, what can a marketer/publisher, such as a company like
Heels.com, do to help drive performance?
SS: We use a very “search-like” mechanism in display advertising through our Buyer Channel where retailers can
target buyers with certain intent and get a return on ad spend on par with Search. They provide us with product
feed (images, prices, etc for all of the products they want to sell through our channel), pixel their site and set their
budget for the campaign. Participants in our channel are able to collectively benefit from shared, anonymous and
blind intent data that is extremely granular and timely. Our channel helps clients reach new buyers with high
buying intent.
Can you discuss Permuto's pricing model and how it evolves in a relationship? Are viewthrough
conversions ever involved?
Our pricing model is primarily based on cost-per-click (CPC). We found that the traditional display advertising
pricing model, CPM, was cost-prohibitive for many of the retailers we’ve worked with/spoken to. That’s because
CPM leaves all the risk with the retailer – they pay every time the ad is displayed, regardless of how that
impression performed. With CPC, we take all the risk. We are driven to maximize the performance and relevance
of each ad through our channel, because if that ad doesn’t get a response, we don’t get paid. We do not believe
in view through conversions, it is a hoax that is used by some when return on ad spend is harder to prove.
What trends are you noticing in e-commerce retail today?
Retailers are limited in two of their highest performing channels. Today, retailers are using SEM and comparison
shopping sites almost exclusively to acquire new active buyers for their online storefronts. Although highly
effective, SEM and comparison shopping sites are severely limited in reach (less than 8% of online population) and
impact (text-based, word-limit restricted ads). Online display advertising is of great interest to merchants because
it offers the greatest reach (80%+) of any online distribution mechanism. Historically, it’s been limited due to poor
performance, with declining click rates and return on advertising spend. But several companies, us included, are
starting up and/or gaining momentum because they are solving the various challenges of traditional display to help
open up the channel for retailers.
Is real-time feedback critical to optimization and driving clicks?
Yes, extremely important– accurate, timely and granular knowledge of consumers’ real-time buying intent is an
essential piece of the solution we offer to retailers. Today, we are successfully customizing ads and scoring the
real-time purchase intent of approximately 40 percent of the U.S. online shopping population. We understand a
buyer’s purchase intent for millions of products and provide insight into their current activity and past browsing and
shopping history. However, just having this knowledge is invaluable unless you are able to connect retailers with
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buyers on a wide-spread scale and deliver relevant, personalized ad creative in a timely fashion. Providing these
three key pieces – knowledge, the automated marketplace to facilitate connections and the real-time ad server – is
how Permuto drives unparalleled return on ad spend for retailers.
How do you scale Permuto's business model? For example, is there an opportunity through video?
Given the high demand for the solution, we are selectively adding well known merchants and eCommerce vendors
to our channel. We will also be adding more categories in our channel. Video is a very desired distribution
channel, and we definitely have plans to test the performance metrics of that shortly.
By John Ebbert
May 12, 2010 – 4:04 pm
117
Triggit CEO Coelius On New Funds, Emerging Real-Time
Bidding Channels, More
Email This Post
June 24, 2010 – 12:02 pm
Triggit announced today that is has raised $4.2 million in Series A
financing led by Foundry Group and Spark Capital. Read the
release.
Triggit CEO Zach Coelius discussed the new funding and his
company's plans.
AdExchanger.com: Please share the details on your latest
round of funding.
ZC: Santo Politi from Spark Capital and Seth Levine from Foundry Group approached us this spring about a
potential investment and the round came together very quickly. We were impressed with their knowledge of the
space and how similar their views about RTB were to ours. From there coming to terms was easy and we
accepted an investment their firms. Also participating in the round through the conversion of their previous
investments were Brett and Scott Crosby, the founders of Urchin; Asher Waldfogel, the founder of Peakstream and
Tollbridge Technologies; Ben Narison, founder of Fashionmall.com; Joe Spieser and Alex Zhardanovsky, founders
of Epic Advertising; Gilad Elbaz, the founder of Applied Sematics; Reid Hoffman, the founder of Linkedin;
TriplePoint Capital; DG Incubation; Joi Ito; Charles Sprincin; and Eric Stein. Our plan is to use the proceeds of the
round to continue building the Triggit team and to begin international expansion.
What was your central thesis to investors on why they should invest in Triggit?
As a function of some of their other investments in the space around real time bidding and digital media, Spark and
Foundry have unique insight into what is happening in the space and the actual capabilities of the various players.
Their view and ours is that RTB and the underlying technologies will be the key differentiator in this market and
that Triggit’s early bet on RTB technology provides a significant advantage. Seth and Santo believe that RTB has
proven that it will become the standard by which all digital media is transacted and there is significant value in
building a robust platform for marketers to buy using RTB. Since Triggit was the first pure play RTB platform the
technology we have developed over the last year and a half was apparently attractive.
Beyond display, where do you see the next digital channel emerging for audience driven marketing? Why?
We are starting to work on RTB for video. I think it is pretty clear that video is next. The reasons are mostly
technical. Adapt.tv and others are already rolling out RTB for video and the requirements for us to integrate video
are straightforward. We are hoping to have it in place sometime this summer.
What types of clients are taking advantage of Triggit services today? Any verticals, tactics, etc. that you
can identify?
We work with clients of all shapes and sizes who wish to take advantage of RTB to run campaigns with full
transparency and control while utilizing data to drive superior performance and targeting. Our clients included
Fortune 500 companies, agencies, and tiny local merchants. The great thing about all the hard work that we put
into technology over the last year and a half is that our system is scalable and can easily support clients of all
sizes.
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When evaluating a vendor which provides real-time bidding capabilities across exchanges and other
supply sources, what is the one key question they should ask as it relates to RTB?
This question goes back to the conversation we had on Ad Exchanger this winter about what defines a DSP. I still
stand by the comments I made then and think that they still serve as a useful way to think about the space.
We have sadly entered a period in the DSP marketplace where there are many firms claiming to have RTB
technologies when they actually don’t, or their technology is immature and able to execute only a few thousand
impressions a second (QPS). I think the best way to sort through the vaporware and evaluate a DSP is to run a
test. Be wary of any DSP that requires a minimum spend or has a contractual obligation for the test. That is
usually the sign of a young business that wants to use your marketing dollars for learning. If a DSP performs well
it should want to demonstrate their capabilities to prospective clients as simply and easily as possible and a test
campaign can be conducted using RTB for as little as a few thousand dollars.
By John Ebbert
June 24, 2010 – 12:02 pm
119
DSP Turn Targeting Brand Dollars With Optimizer Not Just
Direct Response Says GM Smolin
July 16, 2010 – 1:17 pm
Philip Smolin, GM, Platform Solutions of demand-side platform Turn
discussed the company's recently announced ROI Optimizer (read the
release) as well as offline data integration with AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: Please identify what verticals the ROI Optimizer
might be best for - or will get initial traction?
PS: The ROI Optimizer is available immediately and relevant for brands
across a variety of verticals. The shopping cart feature is high value for retail
brands, specifically those that sell products online with a range of price points.
This includes goods that fall into apparel, electronics, food, health, home and
other product categories.
The other half of the ROI Optimizer is multiple beacon support, which allows brands to track multiple engagement
events along the consumer’s path and value each one uniquely. Multiple beacon support is extremely effective for
those advertisers focused on generating brand awareness and engagement or which have a much longer sales
cycle, such as the automotive, education, financial services, real-estate, and telecom verticals.
Impact on eCPA performance is likely to be in the double digits for many campaigns. But more importantly,
campaigns that never previously had effective ways to measure brand engagement can now do so.
Do you see a brand marketer application for the ROI Optimizer?
Absolutely, the ROI Optimizer is just as vital for branding campaigns as direct response. In fact, branding
applications may become the primary use over time as they’ve traditionally not been able to leverage ROI-based
measurement and optimization strategies for their campaigns. With the ROI Optimizer, advertisers now have a way
to map and measure how a consumer is engaging with the brand, and to use that data to improve ad targeting and
bid pricing in real time.
A great example of this is when an advertiser assigns different ‘point’ values to various engagement events. Did
the consumer interact with a rich media ad, did they watch a video on the site, did they interact with a product
configuration widget, and/or have they spent more than five minutes on the web site? All of these activities have
different levels of brand engagement value to the advertiser, and the ROI Optimizer makes optimizing media
against this type of strategy now possible.
When do you expect to be able to bring offline data such as in store sales data to the ROI Optimizer? What
are the challenges?
It’s really a question of whether the advertiser already has the information in their CRM database, and if it’s
connected to their online systems. From there the data can be easily synchronized with Turn’s platform to power
audience segment design and media buying. If the data is not yet available, then you may have to get the
advertiser’s Marketing and IT teams to work together, which is typically easier said than done! Another part of the
equation is consumer privacy. As a member of the NAI, Turn has a responsibility to ensure the data is transferred
properly, completely anonymous, and fully compliant with the NAI’s privacy guidelines.
By John Ebbert
July 16, 2010 – 1:17 pm
120
GM Smolin On Turn Demand-Side Platform Update, Service
And Real-Time Bidding Trends
August 4, 2010 – 1:18 pm
Earlier this week, Turn announced a major update to its demand-side
platform, Turn Media Platform v2.5, which "includes a streamlined
workflow and automated campaign analyzer." Read the release.
Philip Smolin, GM Platform Solutions at Turn, discussed the update
to Turn's DSP as well as his company's approach to service, and
industry trends.
AdExchanger.com: Beyond simplified workflow, how important
is service to a platform such as Turn's? What's Turn's approach
to service especially as it relates to agencies?
PS: Although display advertising is becoming much more technologycentric it still requires a blend of art and science. So regardless of
who is providing the staff, knowledgeable campaign managers are
required to drive the process.
Our approach is to provide a self-service platform that streamlines a campaign’s complexities into an intuitive
workflow for planning, buying, optimization and analytics. For clients who don’t have the staff or plan to build out a
‘trading desk’ core competency, Turn provides fully out-sourced campaign management and consulting services.
Other clients are in transition, with Turn providing partial service as they staff up. In addition, we have a Media
Services division that’s available to assist agencies with media strategy and buying for publishers who are not
currently available via the exchanges.
It’s important to note that regardless of whether their staff or ours is managing the campaigns, the client always
has direct access to the platform and 100% transparency into inventory sources, performance and audience
segmentation strategies.
Can you see guaranteed (or futures) inventory becoming a part of the DSP model - and Turn's, in
particular?
Absolutely. Exchanges today are spot markets that represent a more efficient way to conduct the buying and
selling of remnant inventory. We fully expect these spot markets to evolve into ‘forward markets’ that also support
the buying and selling of premium, guaranteed inventory.
It’s important to keep in mind that display advertising is different from search, and marketers use it to engage in the
upper funnel events of brand discovery and engagement. Large scale display campaigns require building audience
strategies and media plans weeks and months in advance, especially when the campaign will span multiple media
channels. This is why agencies have purchased media on a guaranteed basis in the past and will continue to do so
in the future. Turn is actively working with our strategic clients and the media providers to evolve the DSP model to
support the concept of forward markets, and do so in a way that is compatible with the audience targeting
strategies now being embraced in the spot markets.
What can you say about access to real-time bidded inventory today compared to the first of the year? Is
there more scale? Any sense of momentum for RTB inventory sources that you can provide?
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Adoption has been explosive. Virtually, every major auction-based inventory market has either deployed RTB
access for 100% of its inventory, or is in the process of doing so. Turn’s platform is already bidding on several
billion brand-safe impressions via RTB per day, and we expect that number to exceed 20 billion impressions per
day over the next 12 months. By the end of 2011, RTB access will be ubiquitous and the de facto standard for
buying non-guaranteed inventory on auction markets. At that point, I think the RTB acronym will fade in industry
conversation as it becomes synonymous (and redundant) to the term ‘ad exchange’.
By John Ebbert
August 4, 2010 – 1:18 pm
122
x+1 CEO Nardone Discusses Robust First Quarter 2010
Performance
Email This Post
May 20, 2010 – 8:13 am
Demand-side platform technology company [x+1] announced earlier this week
that it's first quarter results for 2010 were strong in comparison to 2009 as
"revenue increased 77 percent over the first quarter of 2009," according to the
release.
[x+1] CEO John Nardone discussed the details of the company's first quarter
results.
Among your Fortune 500 clientele that you reference in the release, what
common traits do they share beyond the need for [x+1]'s services?
The most common trait is that these companies are increasingly taking a
customer-centric view of their online marketing. Because of this they are
becoming more data-driven – their data is incredibly valuable to them; it’s their life blood, and now they are finally
able to use it online. They make decisions around their customer, and the data that can validate it.
In that you're working with Fortune 500 clients, do you see a growing opportunity to work directly with
brands as opposed to going through agency partners?
Yes and no. All indications are that the next surge in digital marketing growth will be driven primarily by consumer
behavior. All content is moving online, and with devices like iPads and smart phones enabling real-time, anywhere
digital access, brand marketers are already preparing to take advantage of that. We will work directly with clients to
enable the linkage and optimization of all of those touchpoints. But it will be the agency’s job to take advantage of
that enablement and data to create compelling customer programs. We think agencies that can develop multitouchpoint programs will lead the industry and make a lot of money. We want to enable them and their clients.
Will another round of venture capital make sense or can you scale off the profits of the business? In what
areas will you scale next - more "feet on the street," for example?
We are cash flow positive, and do not have any current plans to raise more money. But there are so many
opportunities for us to expand into that I would not rule out more capital in the future. We have the investor
support to be opportunistic. If something makes sense, our investors will enable us to take advantage of it.
Is self-service part of the [x+1] offering? Do agencies and/or advertisers need self-service today given the
complexity of the space and their own limited resources of time, people and money?
Yes, self service is a part of the [x+1] offering. Our view and vision is that there is a spectrum of user demand and
we don’t see a one size fits all, but instead we see a shift to self service over time. There are many organizations
that are ready for self service now, and we are ready to enable them.
By John Ebbert
May 20, 2010 – 8:13 am
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Creative Providers & Optimization
CEO Beriker On New Dapper DisplayDR Product, Search
And Display Insights
August 3, 2010 – 11:40 am
Dapper announced its new Dapper DisplayDR, as a full- or selfservice option, and which offers among other capabilities the ability
to transform "a product catalog into an automatically updating, live
feed" which can then be used for ad targeting.Read the release.
Dapper CEO James Beriker discussed his company and the new
self-service offering.
AdExchanger.com: Why offer a self-service option for Dapper DisplayDR now? Why is the time right?
JB: Our objective has always been to empower marketers to create dynamic ads based on their valuable content products, offers, and other dynamic content on their site - without the frustration that often comes with the long
turnaround times,custom development, and lack of sophistication of most solutions.
Dapper DisplayDR gives marketers and agencies the tools to create better ads that show relevant products and
offers matched to user intent -- and makes it dead simple to execute. We feel that putting this in the hands of
marketers and agencies, in a consolidated platform that includes efficient media buying and user intent, is a big
step towards transforming display advertising into an accountable, efficient marketing channel.
Do you consider Dapper a DSP? How do you define the company?
When we developed our dynamic ad creation solution, we saw a major opportunity in utilizing real-time bidding to
assign different bids to each impression based on the products we show in the ad creative. To that extent, we
approach media buying the same way a DSP would. However, our true value is in the consolidation of
technologies that do efficient media buying, user intent determination, and dynamic ad creative- all on a single
platform. There is considerable value in uniting the stack of those powerful technologies. The performance is
there, and marketers don’t need to manage several point solutions to run a single campaign.
Dapper DisplayDR sounds like a direct response tool. Does the tool and technology speak to brand
marketers? How?
I always think back to first time that I met the CMO of one of our large travel clients. I asked him what he liked best
about Dapper’s ads, fully expecting him to talk about performance and profitability. But the first thing he said was,
“I like how Dapper engages with my customers by putting my site content in front of my customer in a way that is
true to my brand.” Although he went on to talk about performance and profitability, the largest benefit in his mind
was the brand equity we were creating by more effectively engaging with his customers.
Beyond that, our technology enables optimization based on brand metrics as well – mouse overs, time on site,
buzz on the social networks, white paper downloads; any metric that can be measured to drive brand performance
can be optimized by Dapper DisplayDR.
Now that you’ve been at Dapper for over 6 months, what are some of the things or insights that you
weren’t expecting?
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The speed of the innovation and development of this landscape definitely surprised me. Things are moving much
faster than they did in the early days of search, and despite the fact that the marketplace is so fragmented,
sophisticated marketers are actively seeking solutions that bring them profitability, efficiency, and accountability to
display. It’s a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs with real technology.
Give your experience as CEO of Efficient Frontier, do you see search and display as such a great fit?
Why?
Search has been a tremendous performance channel for many brands – I would argue that entire categories like
OTAs, classifieds, and comparison shopping, built their brands and businesses on the back of search. This was
enabled by innovative technologies that enabled data driven decisioning and scale.
The time of sustainable, double-digit year-over-year growth in search has ended, and many marketers have long
since maxed out their ability to efficiently scale their business through SEM. Sophisticated marketers that use data
and technology to manage their marketing initiatives are actively looking for the next performance channel that can
scale. I think display- especially as mobile, social media and video evolves- is it. New technology such as ours
can leverage what worked in search to drive efficiency in display- and this is resonating with large, sophisticated
advertisers.
By John Ebbert
August 3, 2010 – 11:40 am
125
Oggifinogi Prez Rosen On New Funding And Real-Time
Rich Media
August 19, 2010 – 6:32 am
Michael Rosen is President of Oggifinogi, a rich media technology
company.
AdExchanger.com: What's the problem Oggifinogi is solving
today?
MR: Brand marketers face a major obstacle when interested in
buying exchanged-based media. We’ve addressed this obstacle
with our Real Time Rich Media (RTRM) products. RTRM are the
only rich media solutions that function within a real-time bidding
environment. The technology natively supports the high technical
demands of agency trading desks and exchanges, solving one of
the major obstacles for brand marketers interested in buying
exchange-based media.
In addition, the rich media market has been plagued by legacy
technology, poor service and a slow reaction to market needs.
Oggifinogi provides a cost effective solution together with a focus
on complete creative development and laser-fast turnaround.
I know you've been there a short time, but how do you think
OggiFinogi differentiates itself from others in the video ad
platform tech space such as TubeMogul, Tremor Media,
BrightRoll, etal.?
Combined with our expertise in rich media, video plays a significant
role in defining Oggifinogi. In fact video ad platforms are working
with Oggifinogi to provide higher-quality video for their clients; at lighter weights that can run within real-time
bidding environments. Our goal is to continue to work with video ad platforms to use Oggifinogi’s technology to
propel their video strategies.
In general, what's wrong with video creative today? What improvements can be made?
Video quality and speed dramatically impact the user experience. Consumers don’t want to wait for video content
(let along an advertisement) to load on the page. Oggifinogi's video platform and transcoding provides world class
playback experience. Users often note that the video is significantly better than that they see in the industry. Not
only do we provide great quality video, but our platform delivers great flexibility with how many videos appear in
units, how they appear, and the rapidity with which we can change them.
And with technology that can enable video ads to be bought over real-time bidding platforms, video creative can be
seen why a wider swath of internet users, thus challenging creatives to innovate beyond re-purposed :15 and :30
spots. Furthermore, rich media allows users to have a higher level of interactivity with video creative such as
providing immediate feedback on the brand and/or creative through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
What are the key markets which OggiFinogi targets?
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We are focused on working with marketers who buy audience-based media through advertising exchanges,
demand side platforms, agency trading desks, ad networks and branded publishers. Therefore our outreach is to
all of the above players.
What will OggiFinogi do with the new funds (see release) that the company just raised? Any key areas to
grow such as "feet on the street"?
Oggifinogi is using the funding to expand its New York City office and engineering and creative talent. As far as
our New York City office, we’re building a dynamic sales team to drive our RTRM efforts at the agency and brand
level.
When do you expect the video ad space to take off? –I’m talking about grabbing those TV dollars.
There are tremendous opportunities for RTRM in both the video and display space. More and more players in the
video space are evangelizing the benefits of moving broadcast dollars to online. And this evangelizing will
continue. The measurement and insights gained through buying online video trumps those of broadcast. But
only when there’s scale in video inventory, will the dollars start to flow. Enabling video advertising to be bought
through exchanges is one of our key initiatives to help generate such scale.
You've been at Babelgum, WeatherBug, Bloomberg, News Corporation and Showtime Networks. How will
these experiences inform the decisions and strategy you use in your new role?
As a branded publisher, I experienced firsthand the opportunities (and pain points) of growing audiences,
responding to advanced technology, proving ROI and finding new revenue sources. Plus, I believe that powerful
creative fuels audience interactivity. I now have the opportunity to help a wider footprint within the digital
advertising space to efficiently marry powerful creative with proven products that grow audience and add
revenue…while proving ROI for brand marketers.
Are you seeing other marketing channels such as online display or mobile merge with the video ad space?
Or is still a silo'd marketing world online?
In certain instances, display is being merged with video. Publishers are always finding ways to leverage display
by incorporating video into these units. Innovation will continue to blur the lines between display and video...all
focused on the maximizing interaction and engagement.
What is the difference in responsibility in what you do (president) and what the CEO (Michael Hyman)
does?
Michael Hyman is the co-founder and the technological brains behind Oggifinogi. In addition to leading the
company as CEO, Michael will continue to develop market leading products, technology and analytics that are
superior in performance, speed and creativity.
My role is developing the go-to-market strategy of the company and executing against that strategy. Basically,
ensuring that that brand marketers, advertising exchanges, demand side platforms, agency trading desks, ad
networks and branded publishers are all partnering with Oggifinogi.
A year from now, what milestones would you like to have seen OggiFinogi achieve?
Oggifinogi is the market leader in RTRM driving a significant portion of rich media through real-time bidding
platforms.
Follow OggiFinogi (@oggifinogi) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 19, 2010 – 6:32 am
127
Data & Measurement
CEO Jakubowski Discusses New Aggregate Knowledge
Audience Management Platform
Email This Post
July 19, 2010 – 8:05 am
Aggregate Knowledge (AK), a data management and ad
optimization platform (DMP) company, announced its "AK
Discovery Platform, which provides the foundational audience
management infrastructure to collect data, configure audiences,
and track campaigns across any connected digital channel." Read
the release.
Aggregate Knowledge CEO David Jakubowski discussed the
announcement and the company's strategy.
AdExchanger.com: What problem is Aggregate Knowledge looking to solve today?
DJ: Here’s the reality of the situation. There has been very little innovation and accountability in display technology
for advertisers. The current toolsets are built on an outdated model in favor of the inventory provider. We’re out to
fundamentally change that by solving 2 key problems:
First, create a single view of an advertiser’s campaign that clearly illustrates what aspects of the campaign are
driving performance. While this may sound simple, it’s an incredibly complex process of amalgamating disjointed
data. The reality today is that media buyers spend most of their time figuring out how to get the information into
something digestible, much less on what actually happened, let alone make it better. To make matters worse,
we’ve now split display again adding bidded inventory as yet another disconnected piece. It’s not separate. The
users don’t see them as disconnected, so why do we?
The only way to fix this problem is to eliminate the tech goo around bringing it together. We’ve solved that
problem. Lets empower media folks to get out of IT hell, get back to strategy and marketing, and maybe even get
home before midnight.
Second, we’re out to fix the “trust” problem. Today, the media folks must rely on measurement and reporting tools
from the sell side who are incented to keep rates up and often give the view that “their own inventory works best.”
Player-Umpires litter the ecosystem by providing a distorted view of campaign level reality. It’s no wonder
attribution has been a mystery for so long, the folks building the tools have the most to lose by revealing the truth.
Because we’re a technology company, we’re not masking our inventory, protecting an antiquated click model,
arbitraging media, hiding an ad network, or selling data anywhere. We’re tools. Period. End of story.
Why is the timing right for the AK Discovery Platform? And, how will AK differentiate with the platform? after all, it feels like many in the space today are doing data management and ad optimization in the space.
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Frankly, it’s overdue. The whole methodology on which display is measured is incoherent. Everyone knows there
are good things and bad, but no one can figure out which is which. Display should not be surprised that Search
has dominated for so long.
Look, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if there weren’t something fundamentally wrong with current
solutions. The industry has taken people that are trained in marketing, customer acquisition, strategy, and forced
them to learn how to normalize ad server logs!? Who’s idea was that? No wonder we’ve been working off of the
same models for 10 years. Who has time to think about it? …And we want TV dollars to shift?
Having said that, processing very granular, fragmented data at scale is incredibly difficult. In order to do it right,
you are increasing the amount of processing necessary on each impression served by an order of magnitude. The
distributed data-warehouse, ad serving, and decisioning processes in the ecosystem today have a math limitation
that prevents this. Advertisers are in for a rude awakening when they try to apply current ad network and vendor
solutions to 100,000’s of requests a second that an inventory provider like Google can offer. People are claiming to
offer data management, etc., but they’ve just repackaged the same old systems with prettier UIs. What we’re doing
is a fundamental change to the way you look at a campaign.
Further, most of these solutions are coming from those motivated to keep rates high. They make money on
spread, they don’t want the advertiser to see the inefficiency and cost savings. When was the last time your
technology solution drove price down?
Until now, it has simply been easier to just “let someone else do it.” Retargeting is the classic example. It’s about
as simple a concept as there is and about the easiest thing on the Internet to execute. Retargeting has been
renamed and repackaged numerous times but at the end of the day, it’s the same simple process. So why would
any advertiser or agency let someone arbitrage them? Because as the market stands today, the tools available to
advertisers are inadequate to do it any better.
What is the target market for the new platform? And can you drill into a use case?
There are two major use cases:
1. I spend a lot of money online and I’m really not sure what I’m getting or if it’s making a
difference, I just know I spend a lot of time justifying it.
2. I manage several accounts and I have great ideas about what I should be doing.
However, I spend 99% of my effort just figuring out what happened last month, much
less doing anything that I actually believe would be good for the client.
Break it down….
AK Discovery Platform is a simple JavaScript implementation that becomes tracking code in the media buy. It’s
simple to set up and is already part of the everyday process; cut and paste for the average trafficker.
Once AK Discovery is in place, a typical day looks like this: I’m a media planner, I sit down in the morning with my
coffee, pull my Campaign Summary Report where the AK Discovery Platform has pulled together and indexed all
of my campaigns. In about 2 minutes, I know exactly which campaigns are doing well, and which campaigns are
trending downwards. From there, I likely focus on the poorly performing campaigns. I pull my Campaign Details
Report and I begin to investigate the campaign interplay between my inventory sources, audience performance,
and creatives. I figure out answers to questions like:


Which attribute is performing best?
I targeted “young moms.” Was it the fact that they were “female” or the fact that they
“had children” that was more indicative of performance?
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



How much did I pay for that? Did I see the same user on Yahoo as I saw on MSN as I
retargeted in the exchange?
I negotiated a 3x24 frequency cap, is that what I received?
Who was my most efficient reach vehicle? How did their data stack up vs. my own?
If I cut this chunk of my campaign that doesn’t seem to work, how many sales will I lose?
Each one of these questions can be answered every day for every campaign in literally minutes. I then spend the
rest of my morning making optimizations to improve my campaign performance. I’m now empowered with the
information to affect performance and strategy every day instead of at the end of the campaign when it’s too late.
I finish optimizing or cost cutting, then go to lunch.
After lunch, I have to prepare for a meeting with my boss or my client to show them what’s going on. Back into the
AK Discovery Platform. I click the data point I want, choose my graph, it’s already formatted, I copy and paste a
half dozen charts and graphs into a PPT deck, and I’m ready.
In the afternoon, I’ll set up tests to see how I get those people who abandoned their cart to come back and actually
buy. Imagine that, its mid-afternoon and I’m working on making more sales for my company. When was the last
time you had that luxury?
What is the pricing model for the AK Discovery Platform? Is it available today?
Yes. We offer two options.
One. CPM if the client wants to tie it to their media budget; or two, a monthly licensing fee if they want it as part of
their own infrastructure.
By John Ebbert
July 19, 2010 – 8:05 am
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Bizo CEO Glass On New Data Partnership With BlueKai
Exchange
Email This Post
June 16, 2010 – 1:01 am
B2B data provider Bizo announced that it was partnering with BlueKai and making
Bizo's B2B data available through BlueKai's exchange. Read the release.
Bizo CEO Russell Glass discussed the deal and its implications.
AdExchanger.com: What does this partnership say about the data business model as a whole?
RG: Industry leaders are specializing on their core competencies. Bizo is producing premium quality B2B data, and
BlueKai is creating the world’s best data distribution platform. Together, it means that BlueKai can offer the best
B2B data and Bizo can ensure its partners can get that data wherever and whenever they need it.
Why partner with BlueKai? Can we expect more data deals likes this
from Bizo?
We’ve worked with BlueKai for almost a year already, but we expanded the partnership because we had mutual
clients, partners and prospects. With Bizo and BlueKai working together, the distribution synergies are powerful.
This really allows us to continue to focus on creating the world’s best B2B data, rather than having to worry about
integration iterations that need to be done to deliver data to hundreds of partners. It’s a huge strategic advantage
for us.
When Bizo "verifies" data before being sent to BlueKai, what is Bizo technology doing?
Bizo’s platform is designed to create quality data at scale. When we verify data, we’re putting it through a series of
algorithms that compare and contrast the raw data to the billions of data points that we process monthly. Ultimately
this feedback loop allows us to deliver the high quality data that our clients are used to. With this deal, all B2B data
that goes through the BlueKai platform will go through this same process.
For your DSP and ad network clients, how does the new BlueKai partnership affect those deals? Is it
cheaper for them to buy through BlueKai than direct from you?
The partnership doesn’t affect our deals with DSPs and ad networks from a business model standpoint – they will
be paying the same as they have always paid, and there is no economic advantage to working with BlueKai or
Bizo directly. They will be working with us exactly as they always have and we will continue to service all of our
accounts directly. The big difference with this partnership is that BlueKai’s platform will be powering a portion of the
Bizo distribution system and will be give us more throughput on data and better reporting than we provide today,
so our partners will benefit from the investments BlueKai has made in their distribution and reporting.
By John Ebbert
June 16, 2010 – 1:01 am
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BlueKai Launches White-Label Registry To Promote Data
Collection Transparency Says CEO Tawakol
Email This Post
June 3, 2010 – 6:34 am
BlueKai announced the roll-out of a white-label version of its
consumer data registry that may be used by publishers as "an outof-the-box solution for supporting transparent consumer data
collection." Read the release.
BlueKai CEO Omar Tawakol discussed the white-label registry.
AdExchanger.com: Why is white-label important as opposed
to a branded offering?
OT: Many sites do not want a customer to confuse data collected by them with data that may have been collected
elsewhere. The white label registry is a solution made for publishers and marketers to communicate site-specific
data collection to their visitors. The white label registry is complimentary to the BlueKai Registry. In fact, we
encourage our clients who adopt the white label registry to link to the BlueKai Registry, which provides a
comprehensive view of web preferences across all BlueKai partner sites who contribute sell-able data to the
BlueKai Exchange.
The other reason to provide a white label solution (as opposed to a BlueKai branded solution) is that BlueKai is a
B2B company that doesn't have a consumer brand. Our partners, however, are some of the strongest consumer
brands on the Internet. It makes much more sense for the registry to be surfaced by the publishers with strong
brands at the point of data collection.
How does this fit with self-regulation efforts such as those proposed by the National Advertising Review
Council and the platform monitoring services offered by Better advertising among others?
This is complimentary to that. Our goal as an industry should be to provide choices and options to the marketers
and publishers so that every page that collects data and every ad that uses data would link to some transparency
tool. We don't care which solution is adopted (BlueKai doesn't generate revenue from the Registry). We only care
that transparency tools are widely adopted.
How close do you think the digital advertising industry is to draconian regulation as it relates to consumer
privacy?
As an industry, we have a chance to step up to the plate, to strategize and execute on data disclosure and
collection that consumers understand, and can control. Government involvement can provide a false sense of
protection to the consumer. If you think about today's privacy policies, it's the result of instilling laws to protect the
consumer, but the solution is not consumer-friendly at all - the details are hidden in pages and pages of legalese
that the average person does not take the time to read. I hope the industry seizes the opportunity to self-regulate
in the next couple of years so that Washington is not forced to step in with regulations that may not end up serving
the consumers.
By John Ebbert
June 3, 2010 – 6:34 am
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BrightTag Data Management Platform Addressing
Consumer, Advertisers And Publishers Says CEO Sands
Email This Post
August 9, 2010 – 12:05 am
Mike Sands is President and CEO of BrightTag, a data
management platform company.
AdExchanger.com: What problem is BrightTag solving?
Website owners have lost control of the data on their site. They
increasingly don't know what data is being collected, what it is
being used for or if third parties are in compliance with privacy
regulations. The Wall Street Journal and others have recently
written about this and it has become a real pain point for website
owners. We solve these problems.
BrightTag gives site owners control over the data collected from
their sites, protects them from unintended data access, and
instantly connects them with services and partners that make their
data actionable. We are delivering an independent and holistic data
rights management platform that will enable site owners to work
with any marketing partner they want in minutes, secure in the
knowledge that their data is safe.
Who is the target market today? Where are you seeing
particular strengths in your client base today?
E-commerce sites have been wholly receptive to our technology.
Data is the lifeblood of their business, and they understand that our
technology helps them work with hundreds of partners more
seamlessly than ever before. We are also doing very promising
early work in Travel, CPG, Automotive, Online Education and
Telecom. And, in the wake of the WSJ article, several major content publishers have contacted us to examine our
solution.
All of the website owners we are working with have hundreds -- and even thousands -- of tracking tags on their
sites as a natural course of conducting their business. These tags represent real partnerships, made stronger
through the implementation of our technology. For those situations where data is being pulled from a site without
the site owner’s knowledge, our technology helps to plug the leak. Either way, the site owner and their current and
future partners both win.
How do you differentiate from TagMan or others you consider in your competitive set?
A number of service providers – ad servers, analytics packages and attribution management tools to name a few –
have created “tag containers” as a side feature of their core product. Many of our clients have tried using these tag
containers, only to conclude that they don’t tackle the real problem. From a website’s perspective, the way data is
collected and distributed is fundamentally broken. We fix this by giving site owners a better way to share data,
including the transparency and control that is needed to build strong relationships with service providers. As a
neutral third party, we also work with the entire ecosystem of service providers, enabling them to connect more
easily with their clients and stay focused on their core businesses of making data actionable.
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Many of the companies that are often described as “competitors” we see as partners. Some have even told us they
would like to discontinue their “tag container” solutions so they can work with us to help create one standard for the
industry to connect websites and service providers. Our approach is to focus on reducing friction between seller
and buyer – which we expect will help grow our industry.
Through our simple interface – literally in seconds - site owners, agencies and service providers can decide on a
campaign-by-campaign basis how best to implement, collect and share data. We think that these are key
differentiators, and getting this deeper functionality right is a big reason why we’ve been so quiet up until now. But,
we’ve got it, and we’ve got big users who are realizing benefits from it now.
How do you anticipate the business of tags playing out in the future? Does it get more complicated or
consolidate in the future?
We believe the “business of tagging” will be made a lot simpler in the next few months as more people work with
our technology. Every person we talk to in our industry acknowledges the pain. Buyers, sellers, and site owners all talk about how difficult it is to transact business because of the friction referenced earlier. If we don’t make it
easier, our industry simply won’t grow the way we all want it to grow. We envision a day very soon where our
customers can turn on a service provider during the sales meeting without ever talking to IT. Imagine a day when
marketing and IT live in harmony. That is our vision.
Please discuss the company's funding. And, is it profitable?
Our investors include the Pritzker Family, Tomorrow Ventures, Epic Ventures, and I2A. In regards to profitability,
what we can say is that our list of clients and our pipeline are pointing in the right direction.
How does the services and technology that BrightTag provides benefit the consumer?
BrightTag technology benefits the consumer by reducing site latency. Today, when a user accesses their morning
news online or makes an airline reservation or buys something from their favorite e-tailer, they experience a lag
time that they would not have experienced a year or two ago. This is due to the myriad of tags and server calls
being made from every browser visit on these sites. All these profiles being built occupy small bits of bandwidth,
and these small bits add up to a fast-worsening user experience across the web. Our technology stops this decline
dead in its tracks, and provides a triangle of benefit to consumers, sellers, and buyers – who won’t have to worry
about data leakage, data management or consumer privacy anymore.
What is the Chicago start-up scene like? What are some key benefits of being in the Chicago area?
Our office is a few blocks away from Starcom, one of the largest media buyers in the world. In fact, just among
digital buyers, roughly 40% of all media spend comes from Chicago. So, while people know about Groupon,
37Signals, and some of the other startups here that target the consumer or retail sectors, the case could be made
that Chicago is truly the center of the interactive advertising economy. I helped to found and build Orbitz as its
CMO and COO and collectively our founders come from; Avenue A, Atlas, Right Media and Google. And we all live
in Chicago.
Is BrightTag a solution needed across marketing channels beyond online display? Which ones? Or what
are the plans here?
Yes, absolutely. Every online marketing channel – display, search, video, social, affiliate, email – comes with data
collection overhead. Our solution addresses this head on, and we’re not stopping there. Ad hoc tagging quite
simply doesn’t work in emerging channels, so we are integrating with mobile, IPTV and digital out-of-home platform
and service providers to help make unified data a reality.
A year from now, what milestones would you like BrightTag to have achieved?
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A year from now we would like to have a number of well-known website owners and marketers using our
technology who are committed to making the online advertising ecosystem a better and more productive space for
all parties. If we can achieve this, then we will have improved the way that interactive media operates and helped
grow the digital media category.
Additionally, if we achieve our goals, we will have made a discernable difference in the overall web user
experience and brought more control and protection to both the buy side and sell side, as well as to consumers.
That’s what we mean by the triangle of benefit – and we’re serious about making that happen fast.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 9, 2010 – 12:05 am
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CEO Cimino Says Brilig Is An Audience Commerce
Platform With An Open Transaction Marketplace
June 24, 2010 – 12:07 am
Paul Cimino is CEO of Brilig, which formally announced its
audience commerce platform today. Read the release.
How has Brilig's model pivoted since last we spoke a year
ago?
PC: The basic concept of our audience commerce platform and
open marketplace hasn’t changed but the ecosystem around us
has. A year ago the agencies we were talking to were concerned
about reach, not using data to better target their ads to increase
ROI. To achieve this they needed audience sizes that matched the
media reach – meaning segments needed to be in excess of 5
million. The problem was that there were very few segments around with that scale. The emergence of DSPs and
smarter data-enabled, performance driven ad networks changed the game.
These new buy side companies helped them see the value of optimizing media with real time bidding and
audience data. This changed the market 180 degrees from a broadcast mentality to a targeting approach. So, the
real change for Brilig is who our buy side partners are.
The sell side has also evolved. A year ago the concept of selling non-PII data to an ad network was a tough sell
because of fear that data leakage would cannibalize publisher’s premium ad space. But they’ve come to see that
the economic upside outweighs the risk. So, just about every publisher has or is developing a strategy to sell and
buy audience data.
It’s been an exciting year, to say the least.
Please share what you've seen in your Alpha stage (prior to this public beta). Any trends on the buy or
sell side? Anything surprise you?
A big surprise for us has been that the sell side is often also the buy side. Large publishers, with greater than 10
UVMs, are acting like mini ad networks and are buying data to strengthen and protect their premium ad space. In
concert, media buyers now expect targeting from them, because they are able to get it from traditional ad
networks.
I’m also amazed at the emergence and success of the DSPs and the emergence of DSP specialization, like what
we’re seeing with search DSPs who combine search data with other targeting data to optimize display or
retargeted ads.
An interesting trend is the shifting of supply side platforms from optimization of below the fold non-guaranteed
inventory, to optimization of above the fold, premium inventory. This is a positive development for the overall
market as it brings more premium inventory into the larger optimization supply chain.
One frustration that is finally being addressed is the ability to do creative optimization using data. This is big
because no matter how “smart” the buy is, if the ad unit is “dumb”, meaning a one-to-many style creative, money is
being wasted.
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I touched on this already, but publishers have been hesitant to sell data because of potential cannibalization of
premium inventory. Brilig solves this because we enable their data to be combined into segmentation models that
leverage dozens of sources, creating new segments that naturally protect the integrity of the individual publisher’s
data.
Finally, in the highly interconnected world we live in, it was hard to grasp just how unbelievably huge and
fragmented the data market is.
Marketers just want to put their ads in front of the right people, and they want the data to do so. But wanting the
data and being able to get the data are two completely different notions, because the non-PII data to enable this is
scattered across the web and in thousands of offline databases – not to mention the issue of data formatting. This
is one of the most vexing problems that Brilig is out to solve. Our mission is to provide marketers with a common
view of this data, tools to mine the data, and a free and fair market to transact audience data commerce.
DSP, ad network, data exchange, creative optimizer, etc... how would you classify Brilig in two or three
words and why?
Brilig is an audience commerce platform with an open transaction marketplace. If you look at other successful
marketplaces like eBay or the NYSE – the purpose of these marketplaces is to facilitate transactions between
buyers and sellers, create liquidity opportunities, and to ensure a reliable mechanism for settlement. We believed
that a fair and open marketplace for data that provides transparency and oversight was inevitable in digital
advertising – that’s why we created Brilig.
In terms of differentiation from other competitors in the space, how do you make the case for Brilig?
There are several points of differentiation. First, Brilig is the only company that is focused on the “digital data
laundry” – by that I mean the sourcing and normalizing all available data instead of creating the data or reselling
the data. Our competitors stick to a limited set or type of data they’ve aggregated or created which means they
can’t access the vast array of data sources we can. Because of this our competitors could become some of our
biggest customers by acquiring data to expand their offerings, rather than gathering it from scratch.
Second, unlike data exchanges, Brilig oversees but does not participate in the marketplace. By taking on a
organizing and oversight role, rather than being a data reseller, Brilig has no inherent conflicts of interest with data
sellers or segment makers. The Brilig transaction marketplace is an open, transparent and predictable audience
data “shopping center” for buyers and sellers.
Third is our focus. If you think about it, there are three steps involved in serving relevant advertising. Doing the
“digital data laundry,” segmentation modeling and ad serving. We focus on the first steps and have built tools for
people who make segments. Specialization is important in supply chains and we feel that the focus on data and
tools will make us successful.
What about funding? Will Brilig seek a round of funding from the venture or angel community?
We just closed a pre-A round in the spring and have begun discussions with investors for our next round which will
close in the fall.
How important is the concept of "real time" to Brilig's offering?
Real time is central to Brilig because audience assessment and matching it to every ad event is the heart of what
we do. This goes for both the sell side relationships as well as the buy side. On the sell side data refresh is
dictated by the type of data. For example, in many cases search data is worthless if it’s not mined immediately, so
our platform is set up to “crawl” search data providers in a nearly real time manner. For our buy side partners we
have the ability to provide answers to real time audience data queries.
What is the target market for Brilig? How does one get "in" the public beta? Any caveats with this beta?
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Our market is comprised of sellers (websites, retailers and data companies), buyers (ad networks and DSPs) and
segment makers (buy side or independent analysts). We are working on an online registration function, but for now
companies just need to contact us at www.Brilig.com to participate into the public beta. The only caveat is that we
are not charging any fees during the beta, through September 1st.
How will Brilig drive revenue for itself with this model?
Brilig makes money when other people make money. We are starting with a transaction fee which will be a costper-thousand-targeted fee, or CPMT. This is a fee charged to sellers based on the number of times their data is
utilized in targeting events by buy side partners. As the year goes on we will release more tools and transaction
types.
June 24, 2010 – 12:07 am
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CEO Radfar On Clearspring Audience Platform For
Advertisers And Publishers
Email This Post
August 5, 2010 – 11:47 am
Hooman Radfar is CEO of Clearspring, a social data and solutions
provider.
AdExchanger.com: Why are you entering the online audience
space now?
HR: Clearspring has always been focused on creating innovative
data-driven, technologies to connect publishers and advertisers to
users of the social web. Over the last couple of years, we have
done that by creating the largest content sharing platform for
publishers. Through our network, we have built a tremendous
audience reach and a highly scalable data processing engine. This
engine processes terabytes of data daily to expose a broad range
of real-time insights, which we will leverage with our Audience
Platform. Recently, there has been a dramatic shift in the
advertising business as agencies increasingly move spend to ad
exchanges. The key differentiators for media buyers in this new
environment are deep and broad audiences, as well as the ability
to find those users in real-time. This disruption has put us in a
fantastic position to leverage our existing capabilities, to enter the
market as a major player in the audience business – providing tools
to both publishers and advertisers.
Can you walk us through how Clearspring's Audience Platform helps identify audiences? A use case,
perhaps?
Via our platform, we gain aggregate insights from over 200MM US users monthly. We synthesize those insights
using our proprietary technology to generate keyword-based segments characterized by intent and influence
characteristics. Our Audience Platform is integrated with the largest DSPs in the space. Using our platform in
conjunction with a DSP, like Invite Media, we can find the audience at the right time.
What would you say differentiates the Clearspring dataset from other datasets such as intent data
provided by BlueKai and eXelate or data from ShareThis?
What differentiates us is scale. We reach 200MM users. In terms of our ability to understand the activities of
influencers and those they have influenced, we have the largest reach of any platform. Specifically, per Comscore,
we have approximately 3x the reach of ShareThis and over 10X the number of domains. That scales gives us
significantly better insight into both intent and influence especially in highly competitive markets like movies,
automotive, and telecom.
How does AddThis technology benefit the consumer?
AddThis benefits the consumer by providing the easiest way to share any content, to anyone, anywhere with a
simple point and click. With AddThis, users can share web pages, widgets, and photos to friends using 300+
social services like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and more. In addition, AddThis supports over 57 languages –
making us not only the largest sharing network, but also truly global. Users are very passionate about the things
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they share and the places and people they share things with. We provide more options for users than any other
sharing platform and providing those very granular options keeps them more engaged.
How will you marketers buy your data? Will you sell direct or go through partners?
Our Audience Platform will be used by both publishers and advertisers. With advertisers, our plan is to sell
audiences direct via best-of-breed demand-side platforms. We plan to work with publishers directly as well and will
work with them to get them these insights via the optimal channels.
Do you share data revenues with publishers? Any plans here?
We are committed to continuing to add value to our publishers. AddThis increases traffic to publisher’s sites
through the social optimization of link-backs. Our technology personalizes the service options for any given user
based on a number of factors. The user wins because they see the only the right services at the right time. The
publisher wins because the user is more likely to generate links via sharing. Moreover, we provide valuable
analytics to the publisher that enable them to understand how their content is being virally distributed and what
content is driving the most new traffic. As such, our model today is a value exchange. We leverage the data in
aggregate to provide audiences to advertisers. We are committed to continuing to add value to publishers, which
is why our audience technology will be available to publishers as well. AOL, one of our largest partners, is
partnering with us in this capacity. Whether, it’s new technology or revenue sources, we are committed to making
our publishers more successful.
Follow Hooman Radfar (@hoomanradfar), Clearspring (@clearspring) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on
Twitter.
August 5, 2010 – 11:47 am
140
Compass Labs Identifying Purchase Intent Through Social
Conversations Says CEO Venkatachari
Email This Post
June 16, 2010 – 9:36 am
Dilip Venkatachari is CEO and co-founder of Compass Labs, a
real-time targeting technology company.
AdExchanger.com: Please share some background on you.
And, where did the idea for Compass Labs come from?
Prior to co-founding Compass Labs, I led Google’s mobile
monetization business and had responsibility for all of PayPal’s risk
and fraud management, card and bank processing relationships,
and regulatory compliance. Compass Labs is not my first start-up. I
also co-founded and led two successful start-up companies –
CashEdge and CommerceSoft – after stints at McKinsey and
Goldman Sachs.
As a casual user of social networks, I noticed people beginning to
use Facebook and Twitter to ask product questions of their friends
and total strangers. It seemed that people were unable to find what
they wanted by themselves, despite the wealth of information
available online, and so were turning to others for help. Arjun
Jayaram, who was at that time working on product search, Kittu
Kolluri, a general partner at NEA, and Ajay Vashee, another NEA
venture capitalist, joined me in brainstorming the potential of a
solution. The scale and scope of this business opportunity
gradually became clear – and then we set about forming the
company and fleshing out the strategy and technology.
What problem is Compass Labs solving?
Compass Labs identifies which products and/or services a specific user is interested in purchasing, and connects
that user with an advertiser or merchant.
To do this, Compass Labs extracts meaning from users’ social conversations about products and services.
Specifically, Compass Labs can identify who is about to buy a product or service, which product or service are they
about to buy, what are the user’s interests, and what does the user feel about specific products and services
Describe how Compass Labs identifies purchase intent? Where in the purchase funnel is intent derived
from social streams/messages? How does this compare with Web search?
Compass Labs monitors social streams 24/7 and scores each user and each social stream for readiness-to-buy.
For example, a readiness-to-buy score of 95 indicates that the user is very likely to buy the product in the
immediate term – i.e. the user is an imminent buyer. On the other hand, a readiness-to-buy score of 70 indicates
that the user is seriously considering purchase but is still trying to decide, say, which brand to purchase. Thus, we
can identify the user’s state of readiness.
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These scores then make it possible for different types of advertisers to efficiently target the right customers. For
example, a merchant will be interested in targeting imminent buyers (e.g. a score of 95), while a brand like Sony
would be interested in targeting people who are trying to identify the brand preferences (e.g. a score of 70).
Users are increasingly asking product and service questions on social media before they conduct a Web search.
Through analyzing these interactions across public networking sites, Compass Labs is able to identify users who
are about to buy even before they visit a search engine. This means that advertisers using Compass Labs are able
to reach users before Google.
Who/what is your target market?
Our target markets is the online advertiser – both brand advertisers and performance advertisers—as well as
publishers (both social media clients like Seesmic, and web publishers like the NY Times) who want to maximize
their monetization.
Will you use data exchanges to sell your data?
Possibly. We are evaluating this opportunity.
And, in addition to your datasets, do you plan on selling media? Why or why not?
Our information includes targeting information (which is of value to advertisers), and social content (e.g. who are
the “experts” on each specific product, what do users think about specific products or specific merchants, etc). We
will be offering this high value social content to publishers (so that they can increase user engagement).
How will you access social media conversations through Facebook and Twitter, for example? And, how
does this work with their terms of service?
We access the social streams via APIs provided by services like Twitter. In this capacity, we only cull data from the
users that have made their information, including their Tweet streams and Status Updates publicly available. Our
access is fully within the parameters determined in the Twitter and Facebook Terms of Service.
Is the product available today?
Yes, we are able to deliver this product today and is priced on CPC or CPA basis for performance advertisements,
and CPM basis for brand ads. Prices are competitive with online equivalents, meaning CPC for a category will be
similar to the related AdWords average price.
Given the nature of conversations, how will you balance what's public and what's private?
We only use the parts of the conversations that have been marked as public by the user. We do not attempt to
access any private conversations.
A year from now, what milestones would you like to have seen Compass Labs accomplish?
A year from now, we hope to have built a strong base of advertisers and publishers, established ourselves as the
market leader, and realized strong revenues and margins.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 16, 2010 – 9:36 am
142
Demdex CEO Nicolau On New Financing
Email This Post
May 11, 2010 – 12:03 am
Audience management company, Demdex, announced that it has
raised $6 million in Series A financing in a round led by Shasta
Ventures and also inclusive of existing investors First Round
Capital and Genacast Ventures. Read the release.
CEO Randy Nicolau discussed the new financing and the
company's plans.
AdExchanger.com: From your perspective, what is the funding
environment like today for ad tech companies?
RN: The funding environment reminds me of early 2007 (i.e. pre-crash). Ad tech companies who can clearly define
and differentiate their product will find a very receptive audience in the VC community. Good companies are seeing
a lot of competition from VCs and valuations are the highest they've been in nearly two years.
Why Shasta?
I prefer partnering with proven operators who have become successful investors rather than investors who lack
relevant operating experience. Our seed-stage investors, First Round Capital and Genacast Ventures, have deep
executive-level operational experience at companies like eBay and Tacoda, and I've found their impact to be
instrumental in shaping Demdex's strategy. The folks at Shasta Ventures bring operational experience from
companies Walmart.com and Yahoo which I believe will be critical as Demdex continues to define this rapidly
evolving landscape.
Can you expand on what may be some low-hanging ideas that you want to address with this funding
beyond (from the release) "aggressively expand Demdex's market-leading audience management
capabilities"?
Right now we simply plan to hire exceptional talent. I can't say much more than that.
Everyone is saying they have audience management capabilities. How does Demdex differentiate itself in
its positioning?
Most companies claiming this expertise are merely offering "Cookie Management" and they are typically combining
it with another service/technology like ad serving or network optimization. Demdex uses technology to make
audience data predictable across each online channel rather than to simply map pixels to cookies. This gives the
data consistency which is critical as the market evolves towards more real-time bidding. Additionally, being 100%
focused on "just" audience management allows us to effectively partner with all the technology providers in the ad
tech space without competing with them, thus giving our customers total flexibility with respect to where they can
"action" their data.
By John Ebbert
May 11, 2010 – 12:03 am
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Online Publishers Can Get Private Data Exchange Thru
eXelate Says CRO Zagorski
June 16, 2010 – 8:10 am
Data exchange eXelate announced that it's putting the power in the
hands of publishers by allowing them to create "stand-alone,
exclusive, transparent data exchanges" for advertisers and
agencies. Through eXelate, publishers control who gets access to
its data according to the release. Read it.
eXelate CRO Mark Zagorski discussed the announcement.
AdExchanger.com: Please define what you mean by "private marketplace." And, how is this different than
a "private exchange"?
MZ: eXelate's Private Marketplace is part of our Data Management suite that provides online publishers with their
own private exchange, enabling them to create a new revenue stream by directly managing access to their data for
advertisers, agencies, and ad networks. The creation of the system was driven by feedback from data buyers
asking for more transparency in the buying process, and by data sellers who wanted to create their own sales
relationships outside of the eXchange environment, in which they could control access, promotion and pricing.
Publishers using eXelate's new offering can market targeted data pools, set prices, and even close data
transactions - on their terms. Beyond this, they can now provide data source transparency while making pixel
management more efficient and reducing latency. Furthermore, publishers can centralize all of their consumer
privacy functions in a single implementation, making it easier to adhere to industry standards by offering
consumers a single management point for their data.
How do publishers make money with the Private Marketplace Solution?
Publishers who have been reluctant to participate in the traditional data exchange models now have a way to
create audience extension relationships directly with their key advertisers and agency partners. For example, if a
publisher wants to enable hand-selected accounts to have the ability to target branded segments based on their
data, they can do so and charge a fee (which they set) for this data. It enables transparent, one-to-one
relationships between publisher data suppliers and both current and future partners.
Is this service available on a per site basis to publishers? According to audience size? Rev share? How
does pricing work?
Yes, the solution is available on a per publisher basis as long as the publisher has scale that would enable a
feasible market for their data. eXelate partners with the site to set up their "storefront" and works with their teams
to generate new data revenue. We share in this upside based on a set of usage fees that make sure we are both
driven to make their efforts a
success.
What kind of reporting is available?
We have tried to mimic the media buying and reporting functions of an ad server as closely as possible, as that is
what both sides of the process are most familiar with. Through the system, buyers have access to detailed preand post-buy reporting including segment size, reach, delivery, pricing, campaign cost, etc. Sellers can create
campaign-by-campaign billing
reports, track data sales by segment, review direct vs. eXchange sales and even get a snapshot of the
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demographic, interest and purchase intent characteristics of their own audiences via an overlap analysis available
in the system interface.
In terms of privacy legislation, does the Private Marketplace address any of these concerns? How?
This is one of the most exciting aspects of the system. As pending legislation could potentially make compliance
from a publisher perspective pretty onerous, eXelate's Data Management tools in the Private Marketplace simplify
the entire process. Our Private Marketplace enables a publisher to centralize privacy features such as notice,
profile modification and opt-out via a single implementation. For example, without our offering, a publisher
providing data or retargeting via a third party pixel to a dozen different ad networks / agencies would need to
provide a dozen separate opt-out links and references to a dozen different profile modification pages (if they were
even offered) to comply with industry standards. With eXelate's Private Marketplace, the publisher implements a
single tag on their page which centralizes all pixel drops and standardizes the profile modification and opt-out
process making it available on a single page / link.
By John Ebbert
June 16, 2010 – 8:10 am
145
eXelate CEO Zohar On New Funding, The Consumer, And
Publisher Platforms
Email This Post
August 3, 2010 – 4:00 pm
eXelate announced today that it has raised a "$15 million second
round of funding led by Silicon Valley's Menlo Ventures with
participation of Israel's Carmel Ventures, who led the company's $4
million 'A' round." Read the release.
CEO Meir Zohar discussed the implications of the funding as well
as impact of the data market on the consumer.
AdExchanger.com: Beyond enhancing eXelate's "data marketplace footprint, as well as expand[ing] the
functionality of its robust data management toolset," for what will eXelate use the $15 million in new
financing ?
MZ: One of the areas we’d like to commit to is end-user education, which is as important to us as sales and
marketing. Beyond that, we’ll commit resources to R&D so that we can offer our publisher and advertiser partners
better tools to manage and utilize their data. We strongly believe that publishers need better tools to centralize
audience data management, pixel monitoring and privacy functionality.
Why was Menlo Ventures the right firm to lead this round?
We were really impressed by the Menlo team and felt they would be a great complement to our initial investors
from Carmel Ventures. Menlo Ventures has a very strong digital media portfolio, which includes companies like
Invidi, DataXu, and YuMe who are really shaping the future of online advertising and helping to drive the data
driven ad ecosystem. With this experience comes a lot of industry knowledge, insight and connections, which is
already helping eXelate. Beyond that, having a strategically-focused guy like Mark Siegel on your board adds a
great deal of value and strong presence in Silicon Valley that we can leverage from our New York “home base”.
Is eXelate profitlable? If not, when do you plan on being profitable?
As a privately held company, I can’t really comment on profitability. But I can say that revenue is increasing
exponentially every quarter, and revenue-wise, we’re ahead of our current forecast for 2010.
How is eXelate data benefitting the consumer?
Internet consumers have gotten used to free, vibrant content, yet content creators, have been hurt by declining
advertising CPMs and subscription revenues that have failed to materialize. By working with publishers, eXelate is
enabling them to generate more revenue for their content, ensuring that they can continue to deliver great content
under their own terms. Additionally, I am sure we all have reached the saturation point with irrelevant ads that
clutter a page. Data can help to deliver more relevant, higher value ads so that less real estate can be used to
generate the same impact – creating a better user experience across the board. A big failure of our industry has
been clearly communicating this benefit to consumers and being transparent about what we are doing and how it
really impacts them.
Do you see a publisher-focused, white-label data management platform from eXelate as an important part
of its future? Is it difficult to target advertisers and publishers as clients simultaneously?
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Yes, we believe that in many cases the transparency provided via a publisher driven “white labled” market place,
such as eXelate’s Private Marketplace (teXi:PM) enables publishers to get into the audience data game on their
own terms while adding a great deal of confidence to buyers who seek premium, directly measured data straight
from the source. We are bullish on this segment of our business and feel like it is a great complement to our overall
eXchange.
Truth be told, publishers and advertisers understand that they need each other, and both play an important part of
the targeting process. Therefore, it’s been far less difficult than what one might imagine, even though each has a
distinct value proposition that we appeal to. Publishers are concerned about control, access and revenue;
advertisers are driven by ROI. Both want efficient and effective ways to deliver bottom line results while respecting
consumer privacy at the highest level. I think we have done a great job balancing these demands . . . and as
shown by our growth our investors, partners and customers seem to agree!_
By John Ebbert
August 3, 2010 – 4:00 pm
147
Feeva Neighborhood Level Dataset Speaks To Brand
Marketing Strategies Says CEO Shah
Email This Post
July 27, 2010 – 12:19 am
Nitin Shah is CEO of Feeva, a provider of targeting data for online
ad campaigns.
AdExchanger.com: Where did the idea come from for Feeva? and, where'd the name come from?
NS: Feeva is a play on the word fever. The idea is to spice up
Internet networks with a new ingredient that heats them to a fever
pitch. Feeva is also reminiscent of the song name Fever made
popular by Little Willie John in the 1950s. Feeva’s technology adds
intelligence to any type of IP based network (broadband, mobile
and IPTV). So for the online advertising industry this means Feeva
can supply accurate and privacy-safe geo-location and
demographics in a way that has never been possible.
What problem is Feeva solving?
Feeva is solving problems for both the telecommunications and
media industries. We have spent a lot of time with marketers from
large brands to local businesses to understand what they need to
better advertise online. There is a giant void in the online
advertising world for accurate and scalable geo-location and
demographics. Feeva fills that void. Feeva provides 100% accurate
and privacy-safe geo-demographic data without the use of cookies
or IP addresses. This data helps drive local and hyper-local
advertising online, but also drives more accurate demographics, reporting and analytics to stimulate large brand
marketers to invest more in online advertising. Feeva also generates new revenues for the Internet service
providers, who have been left out of the online advertising and content ecosystem.
It seems Feeva has been under-the-radar until now. Why?
Feeva has concentrated on the foundation areas of our business that will later drive scale and revenue as a trusted
data provider. For instance, we have been working with Juniper networks for almost a year to develop the software
to support their ISP customers. We have also spent many months working with Richard Purcell, who is one of our
privacy advisors, and the privacy groups and consumer advocacy groups in Washington to ensure that Feeva is
building a privacy and consumer friendly platform. Feeva has also spend a lot of time with advertisers from big box
retailers to hyper-local businesses to better understand the need for things like radius targeting, geo-location and
demographics. We do not intend to fly under the radar for long!
What is the Feeva dataset? And, how do you differentiate among other data providers?
Feeva’s dataset is derived from accurate location at the neighborhood level. The concept of “birds of a feather
flock together” has been the backbone of brand marketing for decades in order to reach particular communities
with similar socio-demographic attributes. With accurate location at the neighborhood level Feeva can rely on
census and other offline data that has been widely used and accepted for decades. Feeva’s data is highly accurate
geo-location and demographics at the neighborhood level. The current data ecosystem is heavily reliant on
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cookies to track individual user behavior, searches and clickstreams. Behavioral data is valuable as an indicator of
intent for some marketers, but does not scale well and is increasingly questionable from a privacy perspective.
Generally speaking, is accurate "Zip +4" targeting possible today? How close are we?
No, accurate zip+4 targeting is not widely available today. There are currently two ways to geo-target online today
1) use the IP Address to reverse map or 2) ask the user through registration or geo-specific services like
Weather.com or Autotrader.com. The IP address is most commonly used to geo-target, but is only accurate to the
Metro/DMA level and increasingly questionable from a privacy perspective. Large companies like Yahoo, Google
and Microsoft have massive registration databases and can sometimes target to the Zip+4, but only a small subset
of users are signed in at any given time and large marketers and agencies question the accuracy of registration
data bases. Feeva solves this problem and allow businesses to reach users in their neighborhood much like a local
newspaper.
Who is the target client for Feeva data?
Everyone! Because Feeva provides accurate geo-location and demographics we can help everyone from local
mom and pop pizza joints to large corporations like Bank of America, Target and Lowes. We are currently working
with several data providers, networks, exchanges and publishers and intend to sell our data across the ecosystem.
Does Feeva use cookies?
NO! Feeva’s technology does not use cookies or IP addresses. Netscape first introduced the cookie in 1994 to
enable and store user's inputs for virtual shopping carts, when the Dow was below 4000! Instead of continuing to
innovate the industry has simply extended the use of the cookie as the only means of targeting and tracking users.
If you look at Terence Kawaja’s now famous ecosystem chart…..all of those business models are highly
dependent on cookies. With cookie deletion rates rising well above 30% and privacy legislation looming, having a
business model predicated on cookies is a highly vulnerable position. We have two pending bills in congress that
would severely inhibit the use of cookies to track individuals. The Do-Not-Call-List put the $20 billion dollar
telemarketing business under overnight. Feeva has been very focused on innovating the next generation of
advertising online that offers widespread value and, most importantly, protects consumer privacy.
How does Feeva address concerns around consumer privacy for data-driven marketing today?
Feeva aggregates and anonymizes users at a neighborhood level and offers a persistent opt out via the service
provider. We do not target or track individual users or ever see their online behaviors, searches or clickstream.
Think of Feeva much like you would think of a local newspaper or bus stop advertising in your neighborhood. At
the Right Media Open last week Randall Rothenberg addresses concerns that this industry is too focused on direct
response advertisers and not providing the tools for large brand marketers to spend money online. While there is
tremendous value for some advertisers to target individual behaviors or intent, Feeva is focused on providing the
fundamental data that the online advertising industry has been lacking since the beginning, accurate geo- and
demo-graphic data.
The valuation of data remains a challenge. How do you propose marketers value your data?
Yes, we are still in the early evolution of data online. As the industry gets better at understanding data and how to
more effectively apply it to audiences we will likely see a rise in data value. In many cases the data value now
exceeds the impression value. Most of the current data available is behavioral and stuffed into a cookie. As Feeva
scales our data will be more widely applicable because we focus on core demographics and geo-location. Safe,
simple, transparent and most importantly, what all marketers heavily rely on in the offline world to buy scalable
audiences on TV, Radio, Print and Outdoor.
The marketplace is very focused on Mobile right now. Does Feeva have a mobile strategy?
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Absolutely, Feeva is very focused on Mobile advertising as our technology is IP based and can supply the mobile
advertising ecosystem with the same demographic accuracy at the neighborhood level as land based networks. of
course Feeva does not need to provide geo-location because of GPS enabled phones, but we can help marketers
understand the generic demographics of the person carrying the phone.
A year from now, what milestones would you like the company to have accomplished?
A year from now I would like to see the entire ecosystem using Feeva’s accurate and privacy-safe geographic and
demographic data. Our customers will expand to include everyone in the ecosystem, inducing RTB platforms,
DSPs, search engines, ad verification, audience metrics, content delivery and much more. With highly accurate
geo-location Feeva enables the multi-billion dollar local advertising industry to more accurately and effectively
reach consumers in their neighborhoods.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 27, 2010 – 12:19 am
150
Localeze Prez Beard Discusses Powering New Places
Feature In Facebook
Email This Post
August 20, 2010 – 12:05 am
In a press release, local business data provider Localeze
"announced its Enhanced Business Registry, which includes 14
million business listings, will be featured in Facebook Places."
Read more.
Localeze president Jeff Beard discussed the implications of the
Facebook deal.
AdExchanger.com: What is the market opportunity that you
see for Localeze?
Localeze's market opportunity is vast. Localeze provides
businesses with tools to verify, enhance and manage the identity of
their local listings across the Web and offers those listings to its
100+ search platform partners (the largest network in the industry) including search engines, mobile apps, social
sites, yellow pages publishers, GPS manufacturers, etc. Localeze currently provides 14 million local search
business listings to partners, including nearly 600,000 verified and managed by local businesses.
Localeze plays a critical and necessary role in establishing accurate and consistent listings that are the foundation
and anchor that make search interactions like restaurant reservations, social network check-ins and user reviews
possible.
How do Facebook and Localeze work together?
Facebook selected Localeze to power its new Facebook Places "check-in" feature. Facebook will use Localeze’s
premium business content, including nearly 600,000 business-verified and managed listings, which have been
enhanced directly by local businesses, to offer accurate data for people to easily share where they are with friends
on Facebook, find friends who are nearby and discover new places from a mobile device.
Can Localeze be used for ad targeting?
Localeze is not an advertising, marketing or local search platform. We primarily manage and deliver business
listings information that is used by local search platforms, focusing on creating and disseminating consistent
anchor identity information - Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP) - and a more descriptive enhanced identity
that establishes a foundation for business listings across the local search ecosystem. Localeze works directly with
businesses on an ongoing basis to ensure the accuracy and depth of information.
What about privacy concerns? How does Localeze prevent PII from being a part of the equation?
Localeze only provides public business listing information to its search engine partners (100+). Listings information
is gathered from a variety of available public sources like printed directories or supplied by business themselves.
By John Ebbert
August 20, 2010 – 12:05 am
151
Magnetic CEO Shatkin-Margolis On New Search
Retargeting Partnerships Through Ad Networks
May 24, 2010 – 9:33 am
Magnetic has announced partnerships with a number of ad networks that
it says will result in giving "advertisers and agencies search re-targeting
capabilities for every campaign, using search data as the key indicator of
intent to find customers in purchase mode..." Read the release.
Josh Shatkin-Margolis, CEO of search data exchange Magnetic, discussed the announcement and its implications.
AdExchanger.com: Is there any difference in the way traditional ad networks are using Magnetic's data
versus that of a demand-side platform?
The demand-side platforms are using Magnetic's search data as a key indicator of intent in order to determine
which inventory to buy on the exchanges and serve high-performing ads targeted at users in purchase-mode. Ad
networks are using it to re-target users across the inventory that they represent, which may not overlap with
inventory they access through exchanges. Various ad networks focus on aggregating certain types of inventory like
comScore top 250 sites, or perhaps specific inventory for travelers. Ad networks are using Magnetic's search data
as an indicator of intent to help their advertisers build a premium brand with the right users at the right time.
Have you seen any traction with search engine marketers who want to use your data for display
advertising whether through your partners or directly? What are your expectations for traction here?
There has been growing interest from search engine marketers because they want to leverage search data in
display due to SEM's familiarity and efficacy. We expected this because search engine marketers are now able to
advertise in display with the same targeting ability as within a search engine. Also, search engine marketers now
have more targeting and creative options in search re-targeting than what they would have in search engine
marketing. Here are some scenarios of how to use search re-targeting for reaching the top-of-the-funnel and
conquesting respectively: an advertiser would target credit report campaigns at "credit card" or "mortgage"
searchers, or target "iPhone" searchers with a Blackberry ad, and reach their targeted customers in purchasemode while on premium inventory of top rated websites found in the ad networks of Collective Media, interCLICK
and Undertone Networks. If users spend 98% of their Internet time away from search engines, there has to be a
more effective way of taking what you know in SEM and applying it to the display side.
Can you elaborate on how Magnetic's bottom of the funnel search data is appropriate for top-of-the-funnel
demand generation and branding?
Depending on the advertiser, a keyword may be considered top-of-the-funnel or bottom-of-the-funnel. If you sell
computer graphics cards, a search for "3D graphics card" may be considered toward the bottom-of-the-funnel.
However, if you sell video games that require a high-end graphics card, that "graphics cards" search would be
considered top-of-the-funnel. Magnetic collects searches at all stages within the funnel and allows our customers
to reach their customers on any form of media. Search has predominantly been considered bottom-of-the-funnel
because it is well targeted at any topic, and because text ads are limited in their ability to create brand awareness.
Now that display ads can be just as targeted (i.e., showing a graphical ad for a specific brand and model of
television that you previously researched), we believe search re-targeting will change the way people think about
display advertising. Magnetic helps target at any point in the funnel, and the top quality publisher inventory and
varied ad formats of our partner ad networks will allow marketers to build their brand with target audiences the
various cycles in the purchase-mode, thus satisfying both branding and demand fulfillment.
By John Ebbert
May 24, 2010 – 9:33 am
152
Magnetic Raises Another $4 Million; CEO Shatkin-Margolis
Discusses Search Re-Targeting Usage
June 16, 2010 – 7:55 am
Magnetic CEO Josh Shatkin-Margolis discussed the company's $4
million in Series A funding led by Charles River Ventures, Ron
Conway and NYC Investment Fund bringing total investment todate to $5.25 million. According to the release, existing investors
Founder Collective and IA Capital Partners also participated.
How will Magnetic use the $4 million in Series A funding?
Magnetic will leverage the new capital to further build our core search re-targeting technology and expand with
new solutions for advertisers and marketers that bring synergy to display media and search data. We will expand
in three areas: product capabilities, sales team and business development team. We now have the resources to
push forward on our mission to make search re-targeting easy for all types of media buyers.
Why is the NYC Investment fund a good fit as part of your Series A?
All of the investors in this round were a perfect fit. Lead investor Charles River Ventures, and more specifically
Saar Gur from CRV who sits on our board, understands our business extremely well. Saar co-founded BrightRoll
and worked at Adteractive before joining CRV — he has a great background for providing guidance to Magnetic.
NYC Investment Fund’s board includes Kevin Ryan, former CEO of DoubleClick, and is another huge value add.
We have always sought investors that understand our business and who can provide value well beyond capital.
We are extremely excited to be partnering with CRV, NYCIF, Ron Conway and our seed investors, including Roger
Ehrenberg, Founder Collective, and NYC Seed.
Since last we spoke, any recent buyer trends you can share in your search re-targeting business?
The biggest trend is that search re-targeting has many uses. Advertisers are most excited about what you can do
with search re-targeting that you can’t do with traditional search engine marketing. For example: reaching users
with a premium graphical display ad on a premium website, targeting users at any point in the purchase funnel
(i.e., show credit report ads to home loan and car lease searchers) and conquesting.
Is education a big part of the Magnetic sales pitch? Or do you sell through intermediaries and they do all
the heavy lifting? Is it getting any easier for buyers?
As with any new ad technology, education is the majority of the sales pitch. The majority of our data is sold through
intermediaries (i.e., DSP’s, ad networks, publishers). As another option for advertisers and agencies who prefer to
work directly through us, we can also facilitate buying media through those intermediaries because this may be a
less-confusing process for marketers. The process is getting easier as the aforementioned data buyers now
thoroughly understand what we do, while advertisers and agencies will have the option of working directly through
us if it is easier for them to buy media and data from a single company.
What’s the reaction on the sell-side been like?
The publisher reaction has been good. They understand the value proposition and are excited to receive an
increased CPM for their inventory. Search engines are getting eCPM’s of $10,000 for some keywords (i.e., 50%
CTR with $20 PPC). Publishers know that these users often leave the search engines and go to their sites, but can
only command a CPM of $1. By applying search re-targeting on these users, the publishers stand to make a lot
more money. The large publishers are quickly catching on.
By John Ebbert
June 16, 2010 – 7:55 am
153
MarketShare Partners Acquires JovianData
Email This Post
August 25, 2010 – 2:17 pm
Marketshare Partners announced today that it has acquired
analytics company, JovianData (AdExchanger.com Q&A from
earlier in the year). Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read the
release.
Wes Nichols, co-Founder and CEO of MarketShare Partners
discussed the deal and the benefits of the combined companies.
AdExchanger.com: Explain the fit between JovianData and
MarketShare Partners from your potential, future client's
perspective.
WN: Marketing “ROI” has never been more critical to marketers. There has never been so many paths to
consumers, and it has never been as hard to accurately measure.
Data is fundamental to advanced marketing optimization. However, handling the increasingly large volumes can
take valuable time and money. Adding JovianDATA's capabilities automates and streamlines MarketShare’s data
processing and analytics, allowing faster, immediate decisions for our clients. This will help our clients and agency
partners by providing more frequent, detailed, on-demand updates to objectively make cross-marketing decisions.
As an example, a global travel company with great analytic capabilities now uses MarketShare’s platform after we
found nearly 10% improvements in new customer acquisition by more accurately attributing impact of both offline
and online marketing activities on one another. By adding JovianDATA’s platform, it will help us optimize their
online and offline marketing decisions faster for this client and our other our clients.
The combination of MarketShare and JovianDATA will create a powerful, predictive marketing investment
optimization platform for our clients.
Was the Jovian Data acquisition a cash or stock deal? What was the value of the transaction?
The terms of the deal were not disclosed as both companies are privately held. All JovianDATA employees from
San Jose and Bangalore have become MarketShare employees, and Parveen Jain, the founder (and former EVP
Strategy and CMO of McAfee), has joined our Advisory Board.
In your release, you note the challenges of handling "big data." In general, can you characterize the
efficient use of data in digital advertising today in comparison to what is possible a few years out? What
will be the differences?
Until today, it has been virtually impossible to connect all the dots across digital marketing investments and then
further connect these to on and offline sales. With MarketShare’s analytics platform combined with Jovian’s
capabilities, not only will it be possible to do this with an integrated set of metrics and capabilities but we also are
able to connect to offline. We will now be able to integrate billions of data points and optimize across them very
quickly.
The obvious benefit is real-time resource allocation and decisioning for marketers, which leads to better results
and more sales. And, for the first time, actual transparency and objectivity fuel the decision-making.
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In a nutshell, and in light of today's acquisition, what is the positioning for MarketShare Partners today?
Any acronyms applicable?
The only acronym our clients care about is ROI! And with the economic challenges continuing, the pressure is only
mounting so our focus is on helping companies more with less.
MarketShare makes marketing activities more efficient and effective by marrying advanced analytics with our
client’s intuition. Intuition has never been more important but it also has never been as challenging to make the
best decisions considering the complexity of the landscape.
Our analytics drive budget decisions at the marketer level – how much should we invest, which products get what
investments, which markets get what level of investment, how much should go online versus offline, and within
this, how much should be in television, search, display, video, print, social, mobile, out of home, in-store, and the
like. Our platform is the navigation system for our clients.
As the world’s consumer behavior, marketing options and technologies continue to rapidly evolve, the requirement
to help enable these investment decisions become more complex, more data intensive and more computationally
extensive. MarketShare is building the platform that will ultimately enable these decisions in a just-in-time,
fragmented world.
By John Ebbert
August 25, 2010 – 2:17 pm
155
Netezza GM Terrell Discusses Digital Client Momentum
And Common Data Strategy Misconceptions
May 19, 2010 – 2:38 pm
Brad Terrell is VP and general manager of digital media at
Netezza, a data warehouse and analytic appliances company. He
recently discussed his company's client momentum in the digital
media space including their ongoing deal with Acxiom (PDF).
AdExchanger.com: Can you quantify the scope of working
with Acxiom either in dollars or by number of machines? Given their vast resources of data, is this a very
large client for Netezza?
BT: Acxiom has been a valued Netezza customer since 2004, which was about a year after Netezza first launched
the data warehouse appliance. Acxiom’s recent initiative utilizing Netezza to power their next-generation InfoBase
platform is the latest of many in Netezza’s long-standing partnership with Acxiom, and it’s one that we’re
particularly excited about. As our case study describes in greater detail, Acxiom’s next-generation InfoBase
platform benefits from a Netezza-powered zero-latency data model that now makes data updates available to
clients in near real-time.
When integrating with a data supplier, particularly big data, what are the best practices for integrating with
Netezza technology?
One best practice we see involves a trend toward performing more of the data transformations required in a data
integration pipeline inside the Netezza appliance due to the processing speed and simplicity that Netezza offers.
Netezza's high speed loading and unloading capabilities are natively integrated with all of the leading data
movement, data integration and data quality platforms. The benefits for big data suppliers and consumers can be
summarized as the ability to quickly move large volumes of data in and out of the appliance via off-the-shelf tools
or home grown code as well as the ability to rapidly transform and prep that data for ad hoc analysis.
Is a huge, independent manager of data like Acxiom where you see the opportunity for Netezza? Do you
think certain verticals such as agencies will ever be a sweet spot for Netezza considering the data they
collect?
Netezza is a great fit for any firm that requires quick access to high-volume, low-latency data analysis. The
price/performance that Netezza’s latest TwinFin appliance offers makes it just as compelling for small startups as it
is for larger firms like Acxiom. In addition, given the media industry’s rapid transformation, the simplicity of
deployment and operation offered by Netezza’s appliance approach is particularly important, since it is proven to
accelerate time-to-market for startups and established firms alike.
Netezza’s sweet spot is with any firm that leverages data as a source of competitive advantage. While many of
our customers fall somewhere between agencies and publishers within the advertising value chain, the most
innovative agencies and publishers are already utilizing Netezza data warehouse appliances to fuel their data
strategies. Agencies and publishers recognize the need to better capture the value in their data assets, and
Netezza helps them achieve that goal. I expect our growth rates in those segments of our business to increase
over time.
AdExchanger.com: From Netezza's point-of-view, what's the biggest misconception that potential clients
have about creating an effective data strategy?
156
We often meet potential clients operating under the misperception that unlocking the value in their data will be
complicated, expensive and time-consuming. One big reason why this may have been true in the past was
because traditional data warehouse architectures simply were not designed for high performance terabyte-scale
data analysis. As a result, a hugely elaborate set of database tuning heuristics evolved in an effort to squeeze
performance out of these older architectures. Loads have to be balanced, indexes created, disk partitions and
logical volumes defined – and each setting almost invariably interferes with all the others. This multi-step tuning
process takes weeks…and often months. With Netezza’s appliance architecture, all of these problems go away.
Another misperception we see is that potential clients assume that they need to make a significant investment in
pulling together the entirety of their enterprise data into a single data warehouse before they can begin creating
value with an analytics strategy. The reality is that opportunities often exist to achieve local optimizations that
solve specific business challenges without “boiling the ocean.” Netezza simplifies this approach to executing a
data strategy and delivering a rapid return on investment.
Follow Brad Terrell (@bradterrell), Netezza (@Netezza) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
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May 19, 2010 – 2:38 pm
157
CEO Schigel Says ShareThis Leveraging Data For
Publishers, Advertisers And Consumers
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June 9, 2010 – 6:40 am
Tim Schigel is CEO of ShareThis, makers of web content sharing
solutions.
AdExchanger.com: What problem is ShareThis solving?
Reaching over 400 million consumers and helping them share their
favorite content on 800,000 sites, ShareThis helps publishers and
marketers to understand and tap into the real value of sharing.
Critical to this value is the idea that everyone who shares is an
influencer. We recently debuted a complete segmentation
methodology that helps advertisers and publishers reach and
identify their social influencers – those who are sharing about
millions of topics they care about most.
When is a user cookied by ShareThis? Is it anytime a
ShareThis button is present? Or does there need to be
interaction?
Users are cookied by ShareThis anytime there is a ShareThis
button present on the page. ShareThis values the privacy of our
users first and foremost, so all data we keep is anonymous and
identifiable only by the cookie and not any of our users’ personal
information.
Please provide a use case for ShareThis data in a typical
media campaign.
ShareThis influence segments can be used by either a publisher or a marketer. Here’s an example of a campaign
we recently worked on with an agency partner, Empower MediaMarketing. Empower was searching for new ways
to connect their clients’ brands with social behavior online. They partnered with us to create an influencer
campaign for their client Mederma, a leading U.S. scar management brand. Empower and Mederma selected
targeted, custom topics that would appeal to women with scars and stretch marks. ShareThis then used our
segmentation methodology to create custom groups of Mederma “Influencers” (the people who share), as well as
the “Listeners” (the people who respond). The results showed that the Influencers and Listeners had a higher
intent to redeem a coupon than similar search and contextual display campaigns done by Empower for the client.
You can see complete results here.
Does ShareThis have a media business in addition to the data business? Any plans here? After all, no one
may know how to use your data better than ShareThis.
We’re definitely charting new territory here, and we absolutely see the value of a direct media business. The
reason ties directly to your comment about the best usage of the data. Unlike many data aggregators, we have a
direct social signal from the consumer: a share. But this business comes down to more than just data. For media
to work well, it’s about insights and a delivery capability that lets marketers engage consumers in the right way,
then adjust based on what is working best. We feel that our quality advertising results will come through working
directly with brands, agencies and publishers.
158
What type of client is most appropriate for ShareThis?
We currently work within all key verticals (finance, auto, entertainment, CPG, etc) across 800,000 sites so we are
able to find influencers at scale regardless of a client’s industry. Our ideal client probably depends more on the
type of marketing goal than anything else. We believe social data, such as sharing, is well positioned at the top of
the marketing funnel, as marketers try to reach social audiences at scale. In addition, we are working on more “mid
funnel” campaigns where we can tie sharing to intent, as we did with the Mederma campaign with Empower
MediaMarketing. Finally, since we can start a campaign using a list of 25-50 keywords, it’s easy for any marketer
to get started with no creative barriers and very little setup time.
Is there any difference between how demand-side platforms and ad networks use your data?
We are being cautious and deliberate about working with partners who appreciate the unique nature of our sharing
data, and generally we favor more direct opportunities with publishers and advertisers so we can optimize our own
data for higher results. That being said, it’s easy for us to buy media ourselves and create segments, or, with the
right partner, allow our segments to be consumed within a larger demand-side platform.
Do you compensate publishers for data that is collected and used for targeting?
ShareThis works directly with our publisher partners to help them identify and segment their audiences based on
sharing data to help them monetize their content and increase advertising revenue. We believe sharing will help
them either lift CPMs or add new types of inventory to their existing advertising deals. If publishers are interested in
segmenting their audience, they can sign up for our closed beta for this service.
Where in the purchase funnel do you see ShareThis having the most benefit?
ShareThis has a range of advertising products that touch all parts of the funnel, from the top, where it’s important
to reach influencers in the awareness phase, to the mid-funnel, where intent becomes important, and eventually to
the bottom of the funnel, where conversion metrics are proven. We’re actively working with several brands to tie
campaigns to their ideal metrics.
How does pricing work?
Pricing depends on the campaign details such as audience size and targeting that advertisers or publishers would
like.
How many employees are you today? And are you near profitability? Any plans for more financing?
We are 25 employees, most of them in Mountain View, CA and a few sales and business development team
members now in New York. We can’t comment on financing or profitability but we’re encouraged by the strong
demand for sharing-based campaigns from both advertisers and publishers.
A year from now, what milestones would you like ShareThis to have accomplished?
For publishers, we hope to be delivering revenue, engagement, traffic and analytics, probably in that order. We
want publishers to know that ShareThis is their best partner for really understanding the social behavior of their
audience and the impact of their content. For brands, we hope to be one of the main standards for tapping into
influence on the web – at scale. For users, we will continue to focus on simple, seamless sharing.
Follow Tim Schigel (@schigel), ShareThis (@sharethis) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 9, 2010 – 6:40 am
159
VisualDNA Launches New Publisher-Side Audience
Targeting Platform For Mirror News Group
Email This Post
August 4, 2010 – 9:47 am
VisualDNA announced a new product it just launched with the
Mirror Newspaper Group (see it) in the UK. The company calls it a
"new publisher product that effectively provides them with a form of
DSP (demand-side platform) for their entire audience."
CEO Alex Willcock of Imagini Holdings Limited, an advertising
technology company and makers of VisualDNA, discussed the
publisher-side product's strategy.
AdExchanger.com: When you say "Demand Side Platform
technology for publishers" - what do you mean? Publishers
are on the sell-side, after all.
AW: "DSP" is clearly an overused term. By "Audience-based DSP
for publishers", what we are setting out to mean is a platform that is used directly by the demand side, i.e. agencies
and advertisers, to buy audiences, but one that puts publishers in control and enables them to sell their audience
on the network aswell as their own site.
Is it fair to say Visual DNA in the sell-side platform business along side companies such as AdMeld,
Pubmatic and Rubicon Project?
To us a sell side platform is a platform that optimises remnant inventory for a publisher by enabling multiple
networks and exchanges to compete for inventory.
We don't compete with the sell side platforms (and are actually partnering with them). The sell-side platforms focus
on monetizing remnant unsold inventory whereas we focus on enabling publishers to generate higher CPMs from
their directly sold inventory. Technically, it is 'the same' but the way we a re doing it is quite different. We're actively
aligning ourselves with the Publishers and handing over a very rich tool set for them to describe their audience in a
powerful new way.
What's the target market with the product?
Our target market is any publisher that wants to concentrate on selling audiences rather than impressions. Large
publishers with broad audiences that we are able to turn into a rich and varied set of individuals. News sites like,
mirror.co.uk, and general interest sites (we are launching with a big one in the US soon). Retailers with large
audiences who want to derive extra revenue by monetizing their audience off their site will also benefit.
How does this product provide a data strategy for the publisher?
Our profiling technology is complimentary to other data strategies for publishers, but is unique in the market in
enabling publishers to monetize their audience by collecting high value user data such as offline interests, tastes
and brand preferences.
Why do UK or European publishers in particular need this type of platform? What are key challenges that
UK or European publishers face?
160
UK and European publishers face similar challenges to those in the US. In particular their is now a clear shift
beginning in Europe from publishers selling impressions to publishers selling audiences and publishers recognise
this will allow them to generate significantly higher revenues per user.
By John Ebbert
August 4, 2010 – 9:47 am
161
Digital TV, Video and Radio
Adap.tv Gets RTB: Real-Time Bidding For The Online Video
Marketplace
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May 6, 2010 – 8:33 am
Online video ad marketplace, Adap.tv, announced on Wednesday
that its marketplace was now real-time bidding-enabled. DSP
partner [x+1], Publicis' VivaKi and CineSport LLC each discussed
its importance in the release here. The potential for marketers to
track cookies across multiple supply sources as well as multiple
channels presumably makes online advertising even more efficient
than before.
Teg Grenager, founder and VP of Product at Adap.tv, provided
perspective on the implications of the announcement.
AdExchanger.com: Can you discuss the current and future
plans regarding creative formats available for real-time
bidding (RTB)?
One of the primary goals of the adap.tv marketplace is to make buying and selling video easy and efficient for all
parties. To do this, we have had to overcome one of the main challenges of online video: the lack of format
standards adoption. We currently offer the most common in-stream video formats: 15 and 30 second (linear) video
spots, with and without a 300x250 companion banner. However, we are expanding to include overlays, viewer
choice ads, and other formats that our customers want.
How do you vet real-time bidders on your inventory? Can anyone participate?
In order to participate, real-time bidders must agree to our legal terms, provide a certain level of financial
commitment, and meet our technical requirements. Then they can use the adap.tv console to set up an RTB feed,
and specify the sites and placements they would like to bid on. The publishers that manage those placements then
receive an email notification, and can return to the console to review. Every publisher has the option to approve or
deny a buyer.
What types of performance metrics might be particularly important to bidders that the adap.tv marketplace
will provide?
The adap.tv marketplace tracks a rich set of ad metrics that buyers can use to gauge performance. In addition to
CTR – which for better or worse most advertisers still care about – we find that ad completion is a very useful
metric.
What kind of volume can be expected here initially and where will this be by the end of the year?
At present, we're serving hundreds of millions of in-stream video impressions per month, and that number is
growing quickly. There are over 700 video sites available for bidding today.
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In terms of inventory quality, what types of publishers are RTB-enabled through the marketplace?
All of our publishers are technically RTB-enabled, however, they have the option to approve or deny RTB from
certain buyers. The sites participating in the adap.tv marketplace run the gamut – from major television
broadcasters and content portals, to newspapers, to local television stations, to some user-generated sites. All of
the placements are labeled using a sophisticated ontology that enables buyers to choose only the inventory they
want for each campaign.
And, do publishers have controls on their end in the RTB-enabled adap.tv marketplace?
Of course. Adap.tv began by delivering publisher ad serving and yield optimization tools through our onesource
product, and we continue to empower publishers. We help publishers to separately enable or disable RTB for each
buyer in the marketplace and, if they want, they can choose not to be available to certain buyers. Even after RTB is
-initiated, we enable publishers to block ads in the RTB feed based on rules that they define.
By John Ebbert
May 6, 2010 – 8:33 am
163
Adap.tv President Gabriner On TidalTV Partnership And
RTB-Enabled Marketplace
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June 20, 2010 – 3:18 pm
Adap.tv announced last week that TidalTV, an online video ad
platform, will be "the first to utilize adap.tv's recently-announced realtime bidding (RTB) interface" and buy from Adap.tv's "premium"
inventory pool of online video ad placements. Read the release.
Toby Gabriner, President of Adap.tv, discussed the new partnership
and details on the Adap.tv marketplace.
You note that TidalTV will be able to buy "premium inventory"
through adap.tv's marketplace. How do you define "premium
inventory" in the marketplace?
TG: We define premium inventory as ad opportunities associated with
professional or semi-professional content, which makes up
approximately 85 percent of the available inventory in the adap.tv
marketplace.
How does the RTB interface that adap.tv provides differ from the
way that DSPs currently buy from Adap.tv?
It's not different. Adap.tv provides a single RTB API that can be
leveraged by both ad networks and DSPs.
How is the marketplace scaling? Any recent stats you can share?
The adap.tv marketplace now has over 800 publishers and more than 500 million monthly ad opportunities. We are
growing approximately 25-30 percent each month.
Will TidalTV use data provided through the marketplace such as the eXelate data that you make available?
How does that work?
While we cannot disclose specific users of our third party data providers, it is easy for any buyer within the adap.tv
marketplace to leverage our relationships with these data providers and quickly select any combination of
audience segments for targeting of campaigns.
By John Ebbert
June 20, 2010 – 3:18 pm
164
BBE Looking To Automate, Make Video Advertising Simple
For Clients Says CEO Wasserlauf
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July 28, 2010 – 7:07 am
Matt Wasserlauf is CEO of BBE, an online video advertising
company.
AdExchanger.com: In a nutshell, what problem(s) is BBE
solving today?
MW: BBE is providing efficiency and effectiveness in online video.
Efficiencies are captured by price, but not only price. We built
VINDICO, our proprietary video ad-server and tracking system to
remove the speed bumps and make buying in video more efficient.
We’re solving effectiveness by aggregating premium content with
in-stream video advertising and helping grow that content by
producing quality video such as our Webby award winning series,
Jen & Barb: Mom Life.
How are the key points of differentiation between BBE and
competitors such as Tremor Media, Adconion and others?
Key points of differentiation with our competitors begins and ends
with our focus: in-stream video. Companies like Tremor and
Adconion built their early success on rich media and video in
banners. BBE has always been focused on in-stream, high quality
video. VINDICO, our proprietary, MRC-accredited video ad-server
and our original programming, highlighted by our Webby awardwinning Jen & Barb: Mom Life, are other points of differentiation for
the company.
Can you see the exchange model becoming a part of the
online video advertising world? Under what circumstances?
The exchange model has been slow to gain momentum, however in the long term it will definitely play an important
role. I think we’ll see the biggest impact on the direct response side. As online video becomes mainstream, there
will be a tipping point where tier-two and tier-three advertisers place more importance on the quantity over quality
of content (tier-one advertisers will always keep quality in the forefront) . That’s when an exchange model will
emerge.
In your opinion, are there parallels between BBE's VINDICO subsidiary's demand-side ad server and the
emerging demand side platform model in display? What's causing this development?
It’s all being driven by the demand for automation. Our clients need their video investment to be made simple (like
display). Unfortunately video remains a labor intensive industry, however VINDICO makes it easy by automating
the process and removing the labors of manual delivery. In turn, this decrease some of the cost of doing business.
Which makes our clients very happy.
What is holding back more dollars being spent through online video advertising networks today?
165
The Big 4 are Education, Measurement, Creative, and Quality of Content.
How has your partnership with Quantcast evolved? Why is it important to BBE?
Measurement is huge focus for video networks. When we partner with companies like Quantcast, we are able to
build better measurement tools which deliver more targeted campaigns and more robust results to our clients. This
is a win-win for everyone in that it BBE is able to build a better product, Quantcast is able to captures more share
of the online universe, and our clients become more comfortable investing more of their budget in video.
It would appear that marketers are just starting to buy efficiently audience across marketing channels - e.g.
mapping individual user cookies across video, display, mobile. Is BBE ready to help the marketer understand
attribution across all these channels?
Absolutely. We adamantly believe that cross-platform is where the future will be. In fact, we’ve just begun testing
methodologies for showing scale against user data in video. It’s very exciting stuff. Can’t say much more beyond
that.
What is BBE's target market today? And can you share any trends that you're seeing with your clients
today?
Our client roster is primarily composed of the Fortune 500 companies, however we are seeing a distinct trend of
video running deeper and bleeding quicker into Fortune 1000+ companies than we initially predicated. Online
video is truly becoming a standard part of all media plans. Its now more familiar and in turn is more generally
accepted. A crucial element fueling this evolution is the interest from smaller and regional companies who have
limited funds, but need to be incredible efficient, effective, and targeted with their buys. Those are the clients that
are really pushing the boundaries of the industry.
Last question - when does convergence happen between TV and online? Where is it on your roadmap?
Truth be told, everyone thought I would happen before 2010. It didn’t. But NOW we are really starting to see the
acceleration. If I had to guess, I believe a complete convergence will happen in the next 2 -3 years. It’s definitely
on the forefront of our roadmap.
Follow BBE (@BBE_Media) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 28, 2010 – 7:07 am
166
blip.tv Gets $10.1 Million From Canaan Partners And Bain
Capital; CEO Hudack Discusses Funding And Plans
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May 19, 2010 – 3:15 pm
blip.tv, an online video broadcasting company, just announced a
$10.1 million round of funding led by Canaan Partners and existing
investors Bain Capital Ventures. Read the release.
Mike Hudack, CEO and co-founder of blip.tv, discussed the new
funding and upcoming plans.
AdExchanger.com: What can you share regarding the funding
environment today?
There's less irrational exuberance in today's funding environment, but that's a good thing. There's less noise and
froth, and so I think it's easier to get deals done if they're backed by good fundamentals.
Why was Canaan Partners a good fit for blip.tv?
With venture capital firms it all comes down to the partner. I've known Warren Lee for a couple of years now and
he's extremely smart, extremely capable and an all-around good guy. I think that's what matters most. Warren and
his partners at Canaan also have deep domain expertise and contacts that will be very helpful as we continue to
grow our business.
Regarding international ad sales expansion, why do you see this as an opportunity for growth?
Like most Web companies, blip.tv is an international business. There are no borders on the Internet. But there are
borders when it comes to advertising. Some companies are buying and planning across national borders, but most
aren't. We have a lot of viewers in Western Europe and we think there's a huge opportunity there.
International ad sales isn't the only area we're expanding, though. We're also growing our content and audience
development team significantly. We're focused on providing services for independent show producers. Advertising
and audience are two very important pieces of the puzzle.
Are advertisers today buying audience or content through blip.tv?
Both. We have a unique competitive advantage over traditional television shows: traditional TV needs to be
targeted to the widest possible audience because of the opportunity cost of broadcast. Web shows can hit very
specific, homogenous audiences. On television advertisers buy audience indexes. On blip they can buy audiences.
We aggregate together shows with very specific, well-defined audiences to offer both incredible targeting and
scale. And because of the type of content we work with we can offer that targeted audience along with contentbased context. The combination is incredibly powerful and leads to industry-leading engagement rates.
By John Ebbert
May 19, 2010 – 3:15 pm
167
CEO Sacerdoti Announces BRX – The New BrightRoll
Exchange For Video
Email This Post
August 4, 2010 – 9:15 am
Tod Sacerdoti is CEO of BrightRoll, video advertising technology
company, makers of the BrightRoll Exchange (Read today's
release.).
AdExchanger.com: Why does the exchange format lend itself
well to video?
TS: The primary reason the exchange format lends itself to online
video is because the automation of media buying and selling
provides efficiencies and liquidity for all players involved. In
addition, the total numbers of buyers at scale in the video category
is still small relative to display because building video ad serving
technology and aggregating video ad inventory is really hard. The
exchange format will significantly increase the number of total
buyers of video advertising, which will fund further content
development and will raise the total dollars received by large
inventory owners.
How will BrightRoll Exchange differentiate from other video ad
marketplaces such as Adap.tv?
At this time, there quite a few large supply side sources of video
inventory. Some of these sources call themselves marketplaces,
some call themselves ad servers, some call themselves mediation
layers and then you have the big video ad networks. We are
primarily focused on solving two problems -- aggregating the
largest pool of brand-safe video ad inventory in the world and
making buying video advertising as efficient as buying display
advertising. In order to achieve these objectives, we have been
aggregating and will continue to pursue inventory from many
sources, including those who call themselves a marketplace, ad
server, mediation layer or ad network. Finally, BrightRoll Exchange is built on the strong foundation of our
technology stack, which has been honed and refined based upon four years of market feedback using real-world
conditions.
What is the target market on the buy and the sell sides? And, when will exchange be open for business?
Given that we already operate one of the largest video ad networks in the business and that we have built
automated access to what we believe is the largest pool of pre-roll video inventory in the market, we are focused
nearly exclusive on the buy side. Our target customers are large buyers of media, whether those be advertisers,
agencies, ad networks or large publishers. The exchange has been operating for nearly six months and was
opened for business in Q2.
What are key differences between a display ad exchange and a video ad exchange?
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The most fundamental difference between display and video is that video advertising is much more of a branded
medium. For example, in display the majority of ad impressions on exchanges are user targeted, whereas in video
the majority of ad impressions on exchanges will be site targeted. In addition, buyers of video are much less direct
response-focused, meaning that quality of inventory, category of content, transparency and brand research are
very important. Lastly, the ad units are fundamentally different and less standard. The pre-roll ad unit has lots of
variants, such as whether it auto-starts or is clickable, and these variants change the price dramatically.
What about enabling effective cookie mapping between display inventory that a demand-side platform may
do between BrightRoll Exchange and display inventory? Is it possible?
It is not only possible, it is the most likely long-term strategy for sophisticated media buyers. We expect many
buyers over the next few years to use cookie mapping such that they can buy display and video inventory from a
single platform. That all being said, the volume of video inventory available today is still tiny relative to display, and
RTB buyers will be disappointed with the budgets they are able to fill on narrow targets. In order for DSPs to really
scale their buying in video, we will need to see continued growth in inventory in the category over the next few
years.
Will you allow third-party data for targeting purposes such as BlueKai or eXelate?
We already allow buyers to create segments and target those user segments whether they are from their own data
or from third party data providers. In addition, we also have multiple data providers completely built into the
platform such that you can target their entire segments immediately, without the the need to build the segment or
develop your own independent relationship with that data provider. We will have some announcements around
data providers coming soon.
What publishers will be providing inventory? Will it be transparent to all buyers?
The BrightRoll Exchange includes hundreds of publishers with more than 1000 unique URLs that are targetable by
buyers. Transparency has been an essential part of our ad network business and will always be a key value to all
that BrightRoll has to offer. Our inventory model is nearly identical to that of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange by
Google, in that publishers on the exchange are most often transparent but do have the ability to be anonymous.
Either way, all site placements are targetable, such that buyers have the complete control they need to execute
their campaigns.
Where does BrightRoll Exchange fit with your ad network strategy? Does the ad network also buy through
exchange? If so, how do you manage the apparent conflict of interest?
To put it simply, our ad network is an essential part of our strategy. Video ad networks control the majority of
unsold video ad inventory in the market today, and it is very unlikely that any non-network player could aggregate
enough video inventory of value. This is nearly identical to RightMedia, where Yahoo! ad network inventory is a
key part of the exchange and the Yahoo! sales force sells into the exchange, making Yahoo! a buyer. We operate
our exchange similar to the way the large display ad exchanges operate.
Overall, what surprises you about the video ad market today?
What surprises me most about the business today is how little sophistication there is throughout the market.
Essentially, you have less than 20 publishers or ad networks doing more than $20M a year in online video
advertising today, and very few internationally, so most of the expertise is clustered in these organizations. I
believe in two years there will be more than 50 companies doing more than $20M a year in revenue in the U.S.,
and probably an equal or larger number internationally, which will raise the education, awareness and knowledge
throughout the entire industry. The real lesson from online video is that it is good to be in a category that will grow
40 percent or more for each of the next five years.
Follow Tod Sacerdoti (@todsacerdoti) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 4, 2010 – 9:15 am
169
Kantar Video CEO Lederer Discusses Videolytics Platform
Email This Post
June 4, 2010 – 1:39 am
Bill Lederer, CEO, of WPP Group's newly-created Kantar Video
discussed the company's new Videolytics platform "an online and
mobile video advertising and program platform offering content
identity, syndication, tracking, measurement, analytics, and
optimization for marketers and their agencies, media companies, and content creators and distributors."
What target market is VideolyticsTM for and why?
Kantar Video's Videolytics has been developed to effectively and efficiently measure and monetize online and
mobile video worldwide.
1. We help brands understand the audiences for and effectiveness of
their video campaigns.
2. We help media companies better understand their own inventory and
audiences while identifying and targeting specific advertiser categories and
opportunities.
3. We help agencies plan for and verify that the videos are reaching and
engaging the right audience achieving the desired objectives.
4. We help content creators and developers better understand the actual
distribution of, audience for and response to their content.
Why are syndication controls important?
Video viewership is exploding across multiple players, platforms and channels. Advertisers, agencies, content
creators and media companies need a free, simple syndication tool that enables them to easily distribute their
video content (ads or programs) to hundreds of sites to increase virality and reach as well as fully monetize its
value by providing powerful cross-player, cross-platform, cross-channel content identification, metadata support,
audience description and tracking, competitive behavior, and advertising effectiveness metrics and analytics.
By the way, one of the many issues we are tackling is solving for metadata consistency of data across all video
portals, ensuring client content is properly represented through all channels.
Will GroupM adopt it for all of its agencies? What are the plans for market roll-out?
Currently in private Beta, Kantar Video is engaging key content creators and distributors, media and video
technology stakeholders, in conjunction with agency and brand partners from both WPP and non-WPP entities. We
are underway with limited-run consumer engagement studies as we complete the first phase of our platform
development and testing. Expect the Videolytics platform to roll out by fall 2010.
Anything you can share regarding product development down the road?
Stay tuned. Kantar Video intends to capture all video, its audience and its impact, in all formats, in as much detail
as possible, and in all places. We're a global company with global ambitions.
Will the platform integrate buying someday?
170
We intend to make Videolytics the leading source of objective, third-party audience intelligence for online video
and mobile distribution, viewership and engagement. As such, our comprehensive suite of metrics, analytics and
optimization tools will support and seamlessly interact with any planning, buying, or ad exchange platform our
clients utilize.
By John Ebbert
June 4, 2010 – 1:39 am
171
Video Ad Network Open Book Video To Offer Property By
Property Transparency Says CEO Prohaska
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August 31, 2010 – 12:09 am
Matt Prohaska is CEO of Open Book Video, an early-stage digital
video ad network.
AdExchanger.com: Can you talk a bit about how Open Book
Video was "born"? How is the company funded? And, what
happened in your previous role at Smartclip?
MP: Open Book Video was born after hearing from publishers and
advertisers that there was a strong desire for more transparency
from their ad network buyers or sellers, respectively. We are
forming new partnerships and relationships with each group to
bring more visibility and confidence into each deal.
Open Book Video is privately funded right now and we've had
several investors approach us so we ideally announce both funding
partners and breaking profitability by the end of this year.
Regarding Smartclip, after a few months of solid traction at the
company where I was running North America, what I wanted us to
continue doing differed from the board and the inherited team. So
we decided to part ways, and I wish them well.
The Open Book Video website says you're the "most transparent digital video advertising network."
Beyond the marketing hype, what makes Open Book Video "transparent"? Will you provide site lists, for
example?
Yeah a bit bold there, I know, but we are confident about the statement. Think of Doubleclick pre-DART, when they
and several others in the late '90s were top-tier rep firms. That's closer to what we are than the typical ad network.
So we don't just show a site list to an advertiser and say here's where you will "likely" be running, like those who
actually do show a site list when requested. We show you what we offer property by property, and your media plan
pre-sale and delivery report post-sale reflect exactly that. Advertisers tell us that no one does that today as
completely as we do.
Who is in your network of video publishers today and what's your strategy for expanding?
We will be announcing our first 5-10 publisher partners in the next couple weeks, keeping in mind we just started
talking to them about Open Book Video, so it's early but our message has been very well received so far. Our
strategy is to catch up to others on reach quickly by staying short-tail and going deeper with bigger publishers for
now vs. automating and going long-tail. If we execute, we should have competitive reach with far fewer partners,
also making it easier for advertisers to know exactly where their ads are running.
What proprietary technology do you have? Or will you license technology? Ultimately, how will you
differentiate?
Since it's so early for us on the tech front if you look at the usual corporate strategy options of buy/build/partner, we
are certainly going to leverage what others have done very well independently and partner to scale with great
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services out of the gate. That's why we announced the Lotame deal for solid audience targeting, and we'll have our
ad server and product development partners announced in the next week or two. There are many super
companies already out there that are very established and/or looking for ways to scale their offerings by
connecting with premium publishers and advertisers faster.
Can marketers bring third-party data to your network? How about other ad networks and DSPs - can they
buy from you?
There is definitely a BYOD opportunity, since advertisers can buy us by property brand, content channel and/or
audience. And our Lotame friends are critical to providing that audience segmenting very seamlessly. The
pendulum is certainly swinging a bit to audience-specific buying but we feel the combo of contextual environment
and audience targeting is the even bigger win. I don't think it has to be either/or. We've had a couple ad networks
reach out already to buy from us and we certainly know where the DSPs have been doing a great job as well,
mostly in display to this point. If our publisher partners want us to offer their inventory to those groups as well to
help with fill rates, we'll do that and actually be transparent about it, though our main focus is working with
agencies and advertisers directly.
Can you see video ad exchanges or marketplaces, such as those provided by Adap.tv and Bright Roll
Exchange, as helpful in providing inventory to the Open Book Video network?
Perhaps but again it's a little outside the playbook just like selling to other ad networks is not what we're about at
our core. I really respect what each company is doing, and as someone that ran sales for a fledgling ad exchange
back in the day, I get the value for publishers and advertisers. We're just looking to provide a different service by
offering publishers' inventory much more upfront and almost as an extension of their own in-house sales team.
A year from now, what milestones would you like OBV to have accomplished?
Here are 4 milestones that I would love to hit in 12 months:
1. Be one of the most valuable video monetization partners to publishers collectively
representing at least 100 million uniques in the US
2. Have earned the right to be in the automatic consideration set of top 3 online video ad
networks for all key agencies and advertisers
3. Be planting seeds with publishers and advertisers for multi-screen and global initiatives
4. Maintain our core values laid out from day one.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 31, 2010 – 12:09 am
173
YuMe CRO McLernon Says Company’s Brand Security
Initiative Helps Set It Apart From Video Ad Platform
Competitors
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June 22, 2010 – 12:07 am
Scot McLernon is Chief Revenue Officer of YuMe, a video ad
platform and network.
Looking at your experience with CBS Marketwatch and CBS
Interactive, what key learnings are you bringing to YuMe?
It certainly feels as though I’ve seen this movie before. In 2000,
when I was at CBS MarketWatch, we were breaking new ground
with marketers and evangelizing a new advertising medium: online.
We had to demonstrate the value of online advertising to
marketers, provide them with guidance, and ultimately help them
find ways to engage with their customers. Now brands are present
on the web, but they’re still looking for guidance around new
media. Our team at YuMe is fluent in video advertising – we do this
every day – but it’s up to us to sell marketers on online video
advertising. My experience in helping advertisers successfully
explore new media is something I’m bringing to bear at YuMe.
What problem does YuMe solve?
Advertisers spend $70B each year on TV advertising, but as
consumers spend more and more time online or interacting with
mobile devices, an “online-only” audience is being formed that isn’t
exposed to TV ads. As such, it is becoming harder for major brand advertisers to reach the national-scale
audiences they need to sell their products. YuMe helps these advertisers round out their TV buys. Our video
advertising technology allows brands to efficiently buy national-sized audiences at scale. Moreover, we can
repurpose marketers’ existing assets, giving them an easy, effective way to either augment their TV advertising or
reach the audience that they are currently missing.
How does YuMe differentiate in comparison to a varied, competitive field such as Tremor Media, Joost,
Auditude, Adap.TV and others?
Most video ad networks operate by purchasing inventory from publishers at one price and selling it to advertisers
at a mark-up, without having any deeper technology relationship with their publishers. By comparison, YuMe has
invested heavily in our ACE technology platform, creating ad operations tools that help publishers take control of
their video inventory. As a result, a tremendous number of publishers – including some of the biggest brands in
media – have chosen to equip their video players with ACE technology. Because we have deep technology
integrations with our publishers, we are able to offer advertisers a variety of capabilities that standard networks
can’t. These capabilities include the new brand security initiative that we announced today, along with real-time
campaign optimization, advanced targeting, and high-impact ad units that can help set a brand apart. For instance,
we recently launched an ad unit called the Triple Play, which pairs a short pre-roll with an end slate that features a
menu of options for viewers to engage with the advertiser’s brand. Advertisers can use the end slate to let users
watch additional videos, learn about promotional offers, or even interact with the brand through social media
channels like Twitter and Facebook.
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We understand that marketers want their ads to be associated with brand safe content. That’s why our network is
exclusively focused on high quality publishers, like NBC, MSN, and Hearst Interactive Media. It’s why we regularly
audit our publishers’ sites and syndication domains to make sure they meet our high content standards. And it’s
why we’re investing in proactive technology to keep brands even more secure, such as the technologies we
announced today, which include domain detection and blacklisting for syndicated players, to prevent ads from
running in undesirable syndicated environments. We are constantly investing in the technology and manpower we
need to deliver the most comprehensive safeguards and greatest performance available to advertisers for online
video campaigns.
What's your view on the ad network model? What do ad networks need to do to survive?
In order to survive, ad networks need to be either the first mover in their space, the best at what they do, or the
only available option. Video advertising is a rapidly maturing space with a lot of competition, so we are focused on
being the best. We think our technology is innovative and is making the process of buying and selling online video
inventory more efficient. Our ACE technology platform enables advertisers to start buying national audiences at
scale in online video with the same efficiency and brand security they get from TV. By creating technologies that
make it easier for advertisers to move portions of their multi-billion dollar TV budgets into online video, we are also
helping to make online distribution of premium quality video content profitable for publishers.
Will YuMe participate in the demand-side platform world where a buyer can map a single cookie across the
multiple digital channels in any ad campaign? If so, how?
We are certainly evaluating our options. Since so many publishers have chosen to equip their video players with
our ACE technology, we are in a unique position to help advertisers and publishers find deeper, more effective
ways to connect with each other.
What key traits are you looking for in a digital ad salesperson today? How does this differ from, say, 5 or
10 years ago?
There are a lot of similarities between my ideal digital ad salesperson in 2010 and my ideal from 2000. I am
building a world-class customer service and sales organization at YuMe, so as I did back at CBS, I am looking for
service-oriented salespeople who consistently strive to ensure that our advertisers are happy. The biggest
difference, of course, lies in the details of what they need to know to conduct that customer service. The world of
online video is very dynamic, and our team is entrenched in this space, so it is easy for us to take our knowledge
for granted. But some of the most sophisticated buyers out there don’t understand video – yet. It is our job to make
sure that they do going forward.
How will YuMe encourage brand marketers to spend their brand awareness dollars through YuMe
products?
This is something we are already working on. As it stands, there is a lot of research showing that brands’ ad dollars
will work harder in online video than in TV alone. For instance, recent research by Nielsen showed that the
combination of advertising through both TV and online video improved brand recall from 26% to 44% and message
recall from 19% to 39%. We find that to be a compelling story for advertisers to augment their TV advertising
through online video. And as I mentioned previously, we have developed a strong competitive advantage through
our sophisticated technology, our innovative ad units, our focus on premium publishers, and our commitment to
brand security. So we are actively communicating those messages to brand marketers, and steadily encouraging
them to spend more money through YuMe products.
Are advertisers asking you and your team to help with attribution across all their digital marketing
channels?
That’s not something we’re hearing from advertisers yet, but it is something that we think about here, both in terms
of conducting research and determining how we can best leverage our broad publisher technology distribution.
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What's the hardest part about leading a sales team?
For me, the biggest challenge is managing each of the different parts of the customer service and sales
organization – that and needing to be in three other places in addition to being engaged wherever I am on any
given day.
What milestones would you like YuMe to accomplish a year from now?
This time next year, we hope to be the best possible partner to our advertiser and agency clients; be a point of
pride (and revenue) to our publishing partners; and always be the first call from our advertising clients when they
have problems, additional budget, or just need to talk to an expert about how they can get the most out of their
video advertising efforts.
Follow YuMe (@yumevideo) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 22, 2010 – 12:07 am
176
Search Engine Marketing
Acquisio Co-Founder Poirier On The Trade Desk
Partnership, SEMs And Display Media
June 23, 2010 – 12:05 am
Marc Poirier, co-founder and CMO, Acquisio, discussed his
company's new partnership with buy-side platform The Trade Desk
which will integrate the company's PPC platform into The Trade
Desk's platform (Read more in the release.).
AdExchanger.com: This is the first time I've heard of a search
PPC platform from one company being integrated into a DSP
of another company. Why does this make sense?
MP: Search marketers are going to play a major role in the success
of Display - though these 2 channels seemed like polar opposites
not so long ago, today they are clearly complementary. And as we progress in our understanding of how various
online channels interact together to drive performance, the role of display will certainly change from pure branding
and awareness to become much more accountable from a performance point of view.
The success of Display campaigns will be judged by its relative contribution to the success of online campaigns, as
measured by tracking and attribution technology. Also, and perhaps more importantly, search marketers have
been reluctant to engage in Display because of the way it has been priced until now.
With the arrival of Real-Time Bidding (RTB), where marketers can buy impressions "one at a time", so to speak,
display can now be purchased in terms the search marketer already understands and it can be optimized in very
similary ways as search bids are optimized.
What do Acquisio and The Trade Desk's future clients get out of this partnership?
The Trade Desk clients gain access to a leading SEM platform, with cross-engine campaign automation, bid
management, campaign optimization algorithms, report automation, bulk editing, KPI and budget tracking, and
much more.
But the truth is because we've been working so closely with The Trade Desk from their inception on building all the
right bridges between our respective platforms, we're very confident that our respective clients will gain access to
an impressive performance media procurement and optimization platform, the first of its kind.
How will sales funnel data be translated? What might be some typical data points? Do you consider the
tracking of view through conversions a critical part to the offering, for example?
Interesting you should ask. The sales funnel is actually at the center of the offering, and it's closely tied to the
attribution model being used (which is very flexible and can be entirely defined by the marketer). Further, because
The Trade Desk actually built their own ad server, Display view throughs are indeed available for consideration as
part of an attribution model. For years we've heard brand marketers say display views drive search, but there
hasn't been a whole lot of trustworthy data on this subject. Now everyone will be able to see for themselves how
various channels influence each other.
When will the offering become available?
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We will deploy ad serving, tracking and attribution within the next few weeks to a handful of Acquisio clients who
volunteered to help with testing. There will be many incremental additions over the Summer and Fall, it's early to
say with absolute certainty, but we do expect to have completed our integration with The Trade Desk at some point
in Q4 2010.
From your viewpoint, are search marketers finally capitulating and beginning to see the use for display?
Or are you anticipating such a move?
We surveyed our agency clients last November on a few key questions. Here are some of the results which we
think speak for themselves.
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
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79% of Acquisio agencies buy display advertising, and 12% more plan on starting soon. That's 91% in
total.
87% say they need to find an integrated platform to buy, manage, optimize, and report on Paid Search,
Display Advertising, and Social Media.
90% of our clients say they use Display for direct response and branding. Only 7% use Display purely for
branding.
70% feel they need to build an agency trading desk to buy and optimize inventory and data across
exchanges.
From these answers it seems to me they capitulated a while ago.
June 23, 2010 – 12:05 am
178
Perfect Market Matching Search Audience To Content Says
CEO Schoenfeld
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August 26, 2010 – 12:05 am
Julie Schoenfeld is CEO of Perfect Market, a publisher-side
technology company.
AdExchanger.com: With "Perfect Market," the allusion to
financial markets is hard to ignore. Is there a connection?
JS: Perfect Market is kind of a "good luck" domain for Idealab. It
was the original name and domain for two of Idealab’s success
stories. In addition to the good karma, we chose the name Perfect
Market because the Web provides a highly efficient (though not
quite perfect) market for content. In this market, the highest quality
content generally monetizes at the highest rates. Since our goal is
to ensure that the highest quality content also gets the most traffic
and makes the most money from search, we thought the name
Perfect Market, an allusion to the market for content on the Web,
would be a perfect name for our company.
What problem is Perfect Market solving?
Search engines have changed the way people consume
information.To survive in today’s search-based world, traditional
publishers need to focus on content creation, aggregation, and
monetization via search and other performance-based models.
Traditional publishers have not focused on effective ways to monetize users who visit their site through search.
When these users come in through search engines if they do not find what they are looking for, they leave-usually
by hitting the “back button”. This is one of the problems we try to solve. Our technology platform allows publishers
to identify the best articles that address the user’s query. We then help the publisher monetize that visit by
matching relevant advertising to the article and the term searched. Publishers do not have actionable information
about their content’s revenue potential. Perfect Market’s new Vault product is a powerful platform that provides
tremendous insight into the value of a publishers’ new and evergreen content.
Where do you see this product fitting with publishers’ search and display revenue optimization?
Perfect Market's solution is a complement to publishers' existing display optimization. Traditional publishers do not
target the search users with a tailored experience. Perfect Market's unique patented approach enhances the
optimization work that is being done for the Brand pages. By understanding what the user is searching for, PM
allow publishers to surface the content matched to that search as well find the best advertising for that query. The
results of this approach have been additive and significant.
What is your company's target market?
Professional publishers of online branded content. We work with traditional print and online publishers like The Los
Angeles Times and The San Francisco Chronicle, as well as online-only properties.
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What pricing models does Perfect Market use for its customers? Any thoughts around engagement
pricing?
Perfect Market delivers a complete search monetization service to publishers and shares in the revenues
generated. This performance model gives Perfect Market the incentive to work hard to make sure our technology is
delivering the highest ad revenues possible for publishers.
Is it possible to re-sell datasets collected through Perfect Market systems? It would seem publishers could
use this for ad targeting purposes that are resold to marketers, for example?
No. Our technology is used by publishers to analyze the monetization potential of their own content.
You've been involved in entrepreneurial enterprises before? What makes this one different?
This is my third time running a venture-backed start up. I am still on the board at OE Waves, which I founded in
2000, and I was president of Net Effect Systems that was sold to Ask Jeeves. Perfect Market is different because
it’s rewarding to focus on an important problem. The publishing industry is facing a time of upheaval and flux, so
it’s exciting to be part of a company actively helping publishers stay alive and thrive online.
Why do you think there aren't more women in the executive ranks of technology startups? How could this
change?
You couldn’t tell by looking at Perfect Market’s executive team. Half of our executive team is women including
myself. The best way to change the ratio in the industry is to analyze where women are succeeding in startups;
there are a lot of examples of this. Investors would do well to find women who are further along in their careers to
form the executive teams.
What surprises you about the world of online publishing today? Is there something that publishers still
need to catch on to, in your opinion?
I am surprised by the fact that approximately 10% of advertising dollars are being spent on the web. This means
that 90% is being spent offline. This does not match user behavior nor does it take advantage of how effective and
measureable online advertising can be. I think this is partly because advertising sales organizational structures
and processes are slower to change. Publishers need think about a world where online advertising matches online
engagement then design sales strategies that match. In particular, we’re helping top publishers get their fair share
of $11 billion dollar search advertising industry.
A year from now, what milestones would you like the company to have accomplished?
One year from now, I expect to be profitable with rapidly growing revenue. I hope to provide our current and
enhanced services to the largest web publishers on the planet. I also hope that the advertising ratio of dollars on
the web will begin to reflect where the readers are and that the content from major brands command the highest
advertising dollars. This will validate Perfect Market’s motto “Content Matters”.
Follow Perfect Market (@perfectmarket) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 26, 2010 – 12:05 am
180
CEO Lien Says Marin Software Bringing Display, Facebook
And Paid Search Ad Management To One Platform
Email This Post
August 2, 2010 – 8:25 am
Chris Lien is CEO of Marin Software, makers of a paid search
management application.
AdExchanger.com: How do you respond to some who say that
the world of SEM management has been commoditized? How
does Marin Software differentiate?
The only way the paid search management tools market will
become commoditized is if paid search were to suddenly become
less complex. So far that hasn’t happened, and we don’t see this
happening. At Marin, we are seeing increasing complexity for
advertisers and agencies as they deal with new aspects of paid
search, e.g., mobile, local, rich media, etc. In addition, there is a
desire to integrate paid search with multiple systems throughout
the enterprise, perform custom reporting and analysis, and
optimize to unique business goals. So, we don’t see
commoditization at all. One of Marin’s advantages is its ability to
meet advertisers where they are, adapting to their current business
environment and practices rather than forcing them to use a cookie
cutter solution. So far that approach has served us well with large
advertisers and agencies worldwide.
In general, do you see search engine marketing and display
advertising services beginning to merge? Why or why not?
As marketers look to have more accountable or performancebased media, there is definitely some pressure to merge display
with search. As of now, this is a small but growing portion of the display world. Paid search is a very large and
efficient market, with all ad inventory addressable via an API. In contrast, the majority of the display inventory in
the world is still being bought with paper-based insertion orders. As display inventory shifts to more manageable
channels such as API-enabled networks and exchanges, the opportunity for search and display services to merge
increases. I don’t think we’ve crossed the tipping point in terms of volume for that to happen as of yet.
Yahoo!'s Ramsey McGrory announced at Right Media Open that you and several other SEMs will begin
working with Right Media Exchange. How? Do you consider Marin a demand-side platform?
The starting point here for us is really around attribution. Paid search sits at the bottom of the funnel today. As a
result, in order to “value” display inventory correctly, you need to be able to measure how many downstream
searches and search conversions a display ad influenced. Marin is enabling that tracking for many of its
customers today. Over time, you’ll see Marin leverage what Right Media offers to more closely link display buying
enabled by Right Media with the social media and search functionality of Marin.
Beyond the RMX affiliation, what is Marin doing about display today? Any more plans for tomorrow?
From a pure display perspective, Marin offers the ability to view path-to-conversion or channel analysis in our
platform. We enable advertisers and agencies to upload their display ad metrics into Marin so that they can be
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viewed alongside search and social channels. We have deep integrations with DART and Atlas to enable Marin to
leverage the existing display tracking infrastructure for reporting and analytics within the Marin platform. In
addition to these display capabilities within Marin, we recently announced support for Facebook, which has more
similarities to paid search than it does to display. With our solution, advertisers get deeper insight into audience
performance at a very granular level. This transparency helps marketers to first find the right audiences on
Facebook, and then provides them with the tools to optimize for those audiences efficiently.
Looking at SEM, what recent innovations has Marin brought to its search engine marketing management
software that you see as critical going forward?
One of the more powerful innovations we have delivered to market is the ability to generate dynamic campaigns
using structured data feeds. This allows long tail advertisers with large product sets to automate the process of
advertising their entire catalog. The beauty of the solution is that it not only helps advertisers expand their reach,
but it also helps them improve the quality of campaigns by dynamically associating relevant product information
with ad copy. We also can leverage these data feeds to enable inventory-based bidding so that you are only
advertising what you have available to sell based on predefined business rules. Another Marin innovation is in the
area of Quality Score management whereby Marin has tools within its platform to enable the search marketer to
improve the Quality Score of the underlying search campaigns. Most search marketers forget that financial
performance is approximately half bid-based and half Quality Score-based. Everyone is very focused on bidding
properly – and Marin’s customers derive tremendous value from our advanced bidding. But, we also remind our
customers to focus equally on Quality Score, e.g., matching keyword conversion rates into tighter ad groups, as
this can lead to equally beneficial financial gains. A related area of innovation is in keyword management – both in
keyword creation and in suggestion of keyword negatives. By refining the keyword universe, including negatives
and match types, a search marketer can further improve financial performance. Marin has automated, transparent
functionality to execute these tasks.
What trends can you share that you are seeing from your clients today?
One trend we see is increasing CPCs across clients. This is a challenge for agencies and advertisers as they
attempt to scale programs while maintaining a consistent cost of acquisition. As a result of this trend, we see
advertisers increasingly turning to campaign-driven tactics for improving ROI. This includes a combination of
smart management of match types and negatives, structuring ad groups to improve quality scores, and testing
creative to maximize conversion. When done right, we have seen marketers able to offset increasing CPCs
through campaign quality, and often times manage to scale their programs while lowering costs.
Have you seen any benefits yet from Google approving Marin for preferred AdWords API pricing?
I think the real winner here is our customers. We’ve seen clients begin to rethink how they use our tool now that
API fees have been lifted, especially advertisers with large keyword sets. Many of our largest advertisers would
suppress small bid changes in an effort to avoid API charges. Now that fees are gone they are free to tune bids
more finely, adjusting them to even the slightest day of week fluctuation in user behavior.
How relevant to the overall search engine marketing mix is Yahoo and Microsoft today? Do you see
clients ignoring both and just running with Google? If so, why do you think that is?
The vast majority of our clients already advertise across Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. In fact, the very nature of our
platform enables this through more efficient cross publisher reporting and management. With the transition to the
Yahoo-Bing Search Alliance, I think we are likely to see these two engines become a lot more relevant. The main
reason for this is the efficiencies that marketers will realize. With the ability to access the combined inventory
through a single platform, the Search Alliance will receive as much attention as before, only it will be focused on
one program as opposed to two. That’s a lot of time saved for reinvestment in optimization and expansion.
We’re bullish on the Search Alliance and are impressed by the detailed planning being done by Yahoo! and Bing.
What will be the impact of Facebook's display ads on search engine marketing over the next year? How is
Marin responding?
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We see Facebook as a companion media channel to paid search. Facebook’s impact on advertising will be large
in our view. The sheer size of the audience dictates that ad dollars will shift to the platform, but no one knows if
this will be funded from offline or on-line budget shifts. A big opportunity here, is for the search marketers
themselves. Most of Facebook’s ad model is CPC-based, i.e., the right-hand box ads, so search marketers are in
the best position to become the leaders as well in Facebook advertising. And these people can help lead the
charge onto a new and emerging platform. Marin has already responded by building a platform that allows
marketers to manage paid search and Facebook from within a single interface. We will continue to invest in
Facebook and to work closely with their advertising team.
Where do you net out on the impact of search retargeting? And, is it something you see coming as an
important feature to your platform?
Google search retargeting has generated a lot of buzz in the search marketing industry. Retargeting is likely going
to be the gateway for performance driven marketers attempting to experiment with display. We also see early
successes playing a role in pushing search marketers closer to broader audience buying. We work hard to stay on
top of all of the AdWords innovations that Google pushes out and look forward to having Google incorporate their
retargeting features into the AdWords API. The challenge with search retargeting is that there is a limit to how
much incremental revenue one can drive through this new avenue. But, we would predict that all leading on-line
marketers will be practicing search re-targeting within a year or two. The results are compelling, and this will
become a standard set of marketing activities in the paid search toolkit.
Follow Marin Software (@marinsoftware) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 2, 2010 – 8:25 am
183
Searchandise Commerce Following In-Store
Merchandising Model Says CEO Federman
Email This Post
May 19, 2010 – 12:04 am
John Federman is president and CEO of Searchandise Commerce,
an online media network for product manufacturers and their retail
channel partners.
How did Searchandise Commerce come together?
Searchandise Commerce was founded in July 2008 by an
executive team with extensive advertising, retail, search and hightech experience. Our business model is based on the proven
technique of in-store merchandising, where manufacturers pay for
placement, and combines it with paid search tactics. We are the
first online media network allowing product manufacturers to boost
visibility through cost-per-click bids, and enabling retailers to
generate an incremental revenue stream via those clicks.
What problem is Searchandise Commerce solving?
Research shows more consumers are turning to the web to
research products and increasingly, they are spending a significant
portion of their search on retail sites. This creates a challenge for
the manufacturer to break through and be seen, and it creates an
opportunity for the retailer to monetize on-site shelf space. Until
Searchandise Commerce, retailers have not had a simple solution
to monetize Web real estate without moving into advertising. At the same time, manufacturers have never been
able to positively affect their position in site-side search listings.
Just as retailers charge for end-caps, kiosks and displays in the brick-and-mortar world, they can apply cost-perclick (CPC) bids in the online world. A CPC approach provides tremendous incentive for manufacturers looking to
increase their position “inside” the online store. This demand and network model has the potential to deliver
additional benefits to the retailer, beyond significant new revenue. As with search advertising revenue sharing
models, when a shopper clicks on a sponsored linked on a retailer’s site, the manufacturer pays the associated
cost to the network, which in turn pays the predetermined share to the retailer. This means that, unlike virtually
every other investment designed to increase or create revenue, retailers can adopt a site search monetization
approach without any upfront costs.
Who is your target market(s)? Any competitors in your space?
Product manufacturers, brand marketers and advertisers tasked with moving product through online retail
channels, and their search or ad agencies are our target market, while our partners are comprised of mass
merchant retailers and comparison shopping engines. We are currently working some of the world’s biggest
brands including many of the Top 50 Internet Retailers.
While Searchandise Commerce has no direct competitors, there are a number of solutions vying for the same
budgets include paid search, on-site advertising including some of the virtual boutiques and brand showcases that
you see on retail sites, and other enhancements like recommendations and personalization technologies.
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How has the consumer evolved in researching products available through ecommerce sites?
Over the past few years there has been a dramatic shift in the way consumers are researching and purchasing
products, moving from primarily in-store to online. Quite frankly, consumers are getting smarter. Long gone are the
days where consumers just walk into a store and make a purchase. There is more information available to
consumers and more ways to get it – whether it’s online or on a mobile device.
Consumers do the research before purchasing and often times after purchasing to make sure they got the best
product for their specific needs. In fact, Credit Suisse reports 87% of consumers conduct product research online
before purchasing in person. Additional research from Forrester Research also supports the significance of online
– in 2009 the Web influenced $937 billion in total U.S. commerce sales.
Retail sites have responded to the shift in behavior by improving what they offer consumers so there’s no wonder
more consumers start at the retail sites than anywhere else. On a retail site consumers can easily compare price,
functionality and consumer reviews thanks to robust on-site search solutions.
What's a common mistake online retailers are making today?
Retailers don’t often realize that their sites can work harder for them. Sure, everyone knows to select keywords for
SEO purposes and collect data for customer analytics, but there are other ways to monetize your site without any
heavy lifting. The 2010 holiday season will be here faster than we think and many retailers add extra
enhancements and features – often costing money. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something like CPC bidding
already in place as a supplemental revenue stream that would pay for the these features?
The bottom line is retailers monetize every inch of shelf space in a physical store – they should do the same on the
online store.
What's your view on display advertising- is there a Searchandise Commerce product that uses display
down the road given display's demand-generation potential as it pushes down to the demand fulfillment of
search?
There are many other display tactics already used by retailers, including display advertising. We remain committed
to a pay-for-performance model and have no plans to enter the display advertising marketplace.
What pricing models do you offer your clients?
We set our CPC bids for manufacturers based on the lowest price possible to move their product. Examples range
from $0.50 for a razor to $1.25 for a digital camera and so on. Our revenue share also varies per retailer.
How will you scale Searchandise Commerce's business?
We proved our concept in the consumer electronic category having worked with, and continue to work with, many
of the world’s leading manufacturers. We have now successfully moved into other categories such as consumer
packed goods. If a product category has competing brands – housewares, appliances, sporting equipment, tools,
shoes, etc., we expect we will be working with them.
Over the past year we’ve increased our network, known as CommerceNet, from approximately 131 million visitors
per month to 290 million visitors per month and we’ll continue to focus on the top internet retailers in order to grow
the network.
How many people is your company today? Also, please discuss your recent funding and how you're
going to use it.
Searchandise Commerce has more than 20 employees and we’re growing quickly based on our successes and
market demand. We just closed a $7 million Series 2 funding round in April 2010. The round was led by new
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investor Madrona Venture Group with participation from existing investors Cloquet Capital Partners LLC, DFJ
Gotham Partners, Draper Associates, Inflection Point Ventures, Milestone Venture Partners and Wheatley
Partners. The new financing will be used primarily to expand our sales/marketing and operations teams. We
previously raised $7.5 million in venture capital in July 2008.
A year from now, what milestones would you like Searchandise Commerce to have accomplished that it
hasn't already?
We’ve spent the past two years proving our concept works and building our network and customer base, so the
next year is focused around growth. The retail, search and advertising industries are evolving and we believe our
solution is at the forefront of these changes.
Follow Searchandise (@searchandise) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 19, 2010 – 12:04 am
186
Agencies Using The Crowd And Trada In Order To Provide
Marketing Services Says CEO Robertson
June 17, 2010 – 3:27 pm
Trada, a PPC marketing campaign marketplace, announced this week that
in the interest of servicing agencies who "were being asked by their clients
to offer paid search…and it wasn’t an area that agencies necessarily cared
about," the company has updated it's marketplace to make it easy for
agencies to use. Read more on the Trada blog.
Niel Robertson of Trada discussed the update to the marketplace and
momentum for the company.
AdExchanger.com: How is this new version of the Trada marketplace different than the old one in terms of
serving advertising agencies?
NR: We already work with a number of agencies from small 2 person shops to top ten agencies. After spending
nearly six months working with them, we came to appreciate that one of the primary functions they provide to their
clients is simplifying the vast data collection, integration and explanation required to understand what is going on in
a paid search campaign. This process across 3 ad networks (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) is incredibly cumbersome
for the agency. Once they have downloaded the data, normalizing it and integrating it into a custom agency
branded spreadsheet for the client is another arduous process. The first Trada agency feature set is focused on
simplifying this data extraction and normalization process. For any date range, the agency can extract their
customer’s data across all ad networks into one normalized spreadsheet which they can quickly repurpose into
their standard agency format. In the near future we plan to add multi-client overviews and branded interfaces for
those agencies that want to directly expose the Trada advertiser interface to their clients.
Any trends you can share about how agencies are using Trada? Are their particular verticals that make
sense for agencies to use Trada?
NR: We’ve been delighted at the breadth of customer types that we’ve seen adopt and succeed with Trada. We
have many retail clients as well as growing number of financial sector clients, real estate, software lead generation,
automotive, travel and local services (doctors, lawyers, hospitals). One of the reasons we are successful across
such a broad cross section of paid search advertisers is that our marketplace (now more than 500 experts and
growing quickly) is simply likely to have a number of PPC experts in it that already know your vertical. Because
optimizers (what we call our PPC experts) opt into campaigns that they are familiar with, the basic scale of the
market can fulfill demand in so many categories.
When are you launching something for display? It can't be far off it would seem. What might be the
peculiar challenges in display that might prevent crowdsourcing display ad service providers?
Frankly, there are a number of other advertising types (display, profile targeting, social, etc..) that present major
challenges and opportunities for our advertisers. The most common problem is simply the complexity of managing
these advertising forms against a specific CPA goal. Which blogs should you put an ad on? Which video? Who’s
Facebook profile should you target? How do they convert and thus how much should you pay for them? We feel
like there are some very common problems we’ve solved in paid search that apply to display and other forms of
performance based advertising. We also believe that our agency partners are incredibly well equipped to expand
the types of advertising offerings they can bring to their customers and the services that naturally come with those
new forms of advertising. We’re not ready to announce anything just yet but are excited about the possibilities.
By John Ebbert
June 17, 2010 – 3:27 pm
187
Digital Out-Of-Home
ADstruc Bringing Efficiency And Technology To Out-OfHome Advertising Says CEO Laramie
July 21, 2010 – 12:07 am
John Laramie is CEO of ADstruc, an out-of-home advertising platform.
AdExchanger.com: What gave you the idea for ADstruc and
addressing the out-of-home, billboard world, if you will?
JL: After graduating from Loyola University Maryland in 2006, I took
off for New York City and landed a job at a brand licensing agency,
The Beanstalk Group. Although licensing interested me and I gained
great experience launching consumer product brands and managing a
$400M retail program, I wanted to work on my own. In 2007, I started
my first “side project,” the JFL Group, which was a consulting firm
focused on grass-roots brand building. With that, I helped build the
brand Naked Ping Pong, now known as SPiN New York, and I also
became involved in an outdoor advertising campaign targeted
specifically to telephone kiosks outside of Bed Bath & Beyond stores
in New York. I found out that there wasn’t a place online to look up
the kiosk locations, so I rode my bike around the city and wrote down
notes. And then, instantly, I knew there needed to be a central
marketplace whereby buyers and sellers could meet.
What problem is ADstruc solving?
The current process of buying and selling outdoor advertising is
extremely inefficient and is one of the only ad mediums left that is not
operating online. The outdoor advertising industry is similar to the
real estate and travel industries 10-15 years ago. ADstruc solves the
antiquated, fragmented, and expensive process of outdoor advertising
by bringing it online, connecting buyers and sellers, and providing
them with the tools they need to do their job faster and more efficient. Plus, one of the greatest advantages of
ADstruc is that we make it easy for first time buyers to get involved in outdoor advertising.
Why hasn't this been before, do you think?
There is a right time for everything. It has been tried but we think the approach, product, and timing wasn’t right.
Being in TechStars has greatly helped us make sure we are hitting each one of those aspects. We have a strong
competitive advantage and are leveraging our technology to be the leader.
Can you give us a sense of scale to the Out-Of-Home advertising business?
Outdoor Advertising generated revenues of $5.9B in the U.S. for 2009 according to the OAAA and Kantar Media
and is projected to grow 5-6% in 2010 (according to Morgan Stanley Research and Barclays Capital Research).
Worldwide estimates are approximately $24B +.
What's your strategy around data? It would seem the marketplace will capture a ton of useful data.
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We love data and are really excited about the opportunities to leverage it. We are working with our partners on
providing them with real time data and analytics. Each user will have a dashboard providing current and historical
data across multiple data points. Ultimately, this information will be returned into the system for our buyers and
sellers to make better-informed decisions.
What's ADstruc's target market for inventory? And on the buy side?
First, we are targeting the 3 major categories: billboards, street furniture and transit. Alternative, such as stadium
advertising, is our fourth target market, and we will look to expand our focus there in the coming months. Today,
we have a growing presence across the U.S. On the buy side, we are currently working with local, regional and
national media buying agencies and are far along in talks with major ad agencies. Additionally, because there is a
definite social and viral aspect to ADstruc, we have growing interest from first time buyers because they are
realizing how easy and inexpensive it can be to buy this way. We look forward to driving this new business to our
clients.
What does your competitive set look like? Could digital-out-of-home systems disintermediate your
marketplace?
Digital out-of-home (OOH) systems are great and are bringing efficiencies to the expanding digital side of the
business. We see an opportunity to integrate with them through APIs to provide agencies with multiple cross
platform buys. This would be a major improvement in the outdoor advertising community. Since ADstruc is spread
across several ad mediums, we believe it will be more effective for our users if we can bring everything under our
umbrella.
How does ADstruc address creative? How is this different than the way it currently is for the out-of-home
industry?
The last parts of the buy process typically seem to be the hardest logistically; the process from finding/buying
space to designing creative to print, ship, install, and then ultimately remove the campaign can be time intensive.
Fortunately for us, we have partnered with the world’s largest out-of-home print company, Circle Graphics, to
enable our users to execute campaigns in one place. Buyers will be able to submit their creative through the site
and get it printed and shipped by Circle. Also, for our clients, we will offer a list of preferred vendors for installation,
maintenance and removal.
Can you provide a use case for the auction works for the seller?
Sellers have access to a portfolio of tools to help them manage and sell OOH inventory like never before. We
provide them with online tools to manage their inventory in real time, in rich media format, with report writing and
proposal generation capabilities. Unbelievably, the majority of the industry uses Microsoft Excel to manage their
business. By managing their inventory online, ADstruc provides sellers with two options to post their inventory.
First, the ADstruc Marketplace, whereby sellers can post their inventory in an auction or listing format and greatly
benefit by reducing their excessive amounts of remnant inventory, driving liquidity, and meeting new buyers.
Sellers receive emails when a buyer has purchased, placed a bid, or made an offer, and are able to accept,
decline, or counter offer. The second way is in their own privately branded marketplace. Here they can grant
access to specific buyers as well as receive additional requests for access. Buyers then have the visibility and
access to inventory across the private and public marketplace and are able to build campaigns with multiple units
from ADstruc’s various sellers.
Where does ADstruc make money? Do you charge for listings, get a percentage of transactions, etc.?
We don’t charge for listings. Our primary revenue stream is as a transaction processor – specifically, we make
money when our sellers do. ADstruc charges a minimal transaction fee when the inventory sells through the
ADstruc Marketplace. We are also honing in on several other revenue streams to be capitalized on.
How do you address billing?
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We are looking at ways to integrate with the existing billing systems. Ideally, we will bring it all in house and grab
this last step of the process.
What's your future plans around funding? Is that a focus for your upcoming appearance at TechStars in
Boulder this August?
We are really excited about the funding opportunities ahead and are focused on it as we head into Investor Day.
We are officially launching on August 5th at TechStars Investor/Demo Day. TechStars has been an incredible
program and provided us with valuable connections, insight and access to the start-up community.
Follow ADstruc (@adstruc) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 21, 2010 – 12:07 am
190
Shopping
WeShop Leveraging Purchasing Data With Group Buying
Says CEO Lee
August 9, 2010 – 9:00 am
Last Wednesday, WeShop, a consumer-focused, group buying
network currently in private beta announced a $4.25 million Series
A round of investment with participation from Jonathan Miller of
News Corp, and Martin White, and Carlos Sala, "respectively the
former Founder/CEO, and CFO, of Abacus Direct, which was sold
to Doubleclick in 2000." Read more.
CEO Antony Lee of WeShop discussed the group buying network,
its origins and the strategy ahead.
AdExchanger.com: A bit of background. What were you doing
prior to WeShop? And how did it inspire the new company?
AL: Mainly WeShop was inspired by my work at Abacus Direct,
where I was a client, consultant and board member. Abacus taught
me that actual purchasing data is the most predictive and useful of
all data, and properly applied can lead to substantial improvements
in the way the world shops.
What problem is WeShop solving?
There are three problems WeShop solves -
1. 1. It allows all consumer to collectively bargain
for all the things they buy.
2. It allows consumers to get the benefits of
collective wisdom where they can share
information on the things they buy, where they
buy, and how much they pay, with other consumers.
3. It reduces the costs and complexities of merchants finding new buyers, something that is
almost completely monopolized by Google.
Who do you see in your competitive set?
Facebook is the main competition, particularly if aided by commerce data from Amazon. We see ourselves as an
evolution of GroupOn and Blippy, and we see ourselves disruptive to Google and Amazon.
What is your target market(s)?
Everybody who buys online or who uses online functionalities to assist purchases offline.
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How does the revenue model work for WeShop?
WeShop receives a fee from the merchant if WeShop marries up a merchant to a WeShop member and the
member actually executes the transaction. A CPA model, and only applicable to new - as opposed to existing customers for the merchant.
Why do you think this is the right time for a company such as WeShop?
We can see that GroupOn has shown there is a public appetite for group purchasing, and the commerce models
provided by Amazon and Google becoming stale. We need innovation and disruption in the commerce space or it
will not grow. After 10 years of the same, it's time to bring online commerce into the age of the semantic web age.
What can you share regarding specifics for utilizing the $4.25 million of your new round of financing?
Create a seamless integration between members and the offers they receive through the WeShop platform.
Do you think your platform has benefits for brand marketers who are driving awareness or is it strictly for
direct response/branded offers?
It is made for brand marketers. For the first time ever it will allow all brands to connect directly with the actual
consumers who are buying their brands. Plus, it will allow brand competitors to directly approach the buyers of a
rival brand with an offer to switch brands. It will turn the world of brands upside down.
A year from now, what milestones would you like the company to have accomplished?
2 million WeShop members.
Follow WeShop (@weshop) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 9, 2010 – 9:00 am
192
ShopLocal Targeting In-Store Influence Of The Web Says
CEO Sharma
August 10, 2010 – 12:05 am
Vikram Sharma is CEO of ShopLocal, a multi-channel online
services company.
AdExchanger.com What problem is ShopLocal solving today?
VS: ShopLocal solves the problem of achieving in-store traffic
toward key promotions and deals in an age where consumers have
multiple options to purchase that don’t require them to actually
physically visit their local Walgreens or JCPenney. By helping
retailers connect with consumers both online and in-store,
ShopLocal helps to increase brand/consumer engagement and
positive brand sentiment.
ShopLocal’s business solutions including SmartCircular,
SmartCatalog and SmartDelivery API enable over 100 of the
nation’s top retailers, including Target, Best Buy, Home Depot,
CVS, Albertsons and Sears to deliver highly interactive, targeted
and localized promotions to shoppers through online circulars,
display advertising, search, social media, mobile and digital out of
home.
What are the advantages of being part of Gannett?
Through the Gannett family we are the retail division of PointRoll, which enables us to connect integrated
campaigns that tie in online circulars with rich media advertising and social marketing. Our campaigns deliver more
flexibility, reach and opportunity to our customers through the Gannett Digital companies like PointRoll, Ripple6
and the Gannett Digital Network.
Are you able to effectively close the attribution loop from online ads such as your circular to in-store
sales?
Yes. The influence of the internet to drive in-store is undisputed. Forrester Research estimates the internet
influenced $917 billion (US) in store sales last year alone. There are a number of solutions that exist to
demonstrate individual programs influence on store sales. We work with research houses such as Nielson and
comScore to show the effect of internet on store sales.
Why is local or hyper local targeting important to your solution?
Local targeting is key for our Facebook marketing solution because circulars are different depending on location.
For example, a circular in Alaska may have deals on snow blowers and shovels in March but a circular for the
same retailer in Florida will be seeking to drive consumers toward key deals on sandals, dresses and beach wear.
It’s all about driving in-store traffic to local stores, so if the circular isn’t relevant to each user, the process is
broken. Our goal is to work with retailers who may have a national or even international presence and help them
increase and drive traffic to each of their individual locations in order to increase sales and brand engagement
across the board.
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Can you provide a use case of online circulars in action?
You can check out the JCPenney Facebook example here by clicking the “Store Ad” tab.
When a user goes to JCPenney’s Facebook fan page, it recognizes the user’s zip code, gender and age (if
available) and will optimize the products shown that are most relevant to them.
Our latest offering SmartCircular 5.0 was released this week and provides a more personalized circular
experience. (See example.)
Do you see a day when ShopLocal can address brand marketers who merely want to drive awareness
rather than direct response tactics and branded offers?
Circulars, whether online or offline, are all about driving people to the store to get good deals – by online
advertising definitions that is direct response. So I don’t see that part of it going away but I do already see a major
shift toward tying direct response and branding together. That is a huge benefit of being the retail division of
PointRoll – we’re able to seamlessly tie together branding and direct response vehicles.
How does display advertising play a part of ShopLocal's strategies? Do you use exchanges for media
buying for example?
Our objective is to help advertisers reach consumers wherever they may be on the internet. Display advertising is
a huge part of this strategy. The average consumer spends 30 hours on the internet per week. We partner with
many leading agencies who as part of their media buying activities work directly with exchanges.
How does ShopLocal benefit the consumer- whether directly or indirectly?
ShopLocal gives consumers easy access to information they’re actually looking for and interested in. On top of
that, it helps connect consumers with deals and steals from their favorite brands. E-coupons and sites like
Groupon and BuyWithMe are extremely popular right now; consumers are looking to the Internet to connect them
with the deals they want. ShopLocal’s technology saves the consumer time by making deals and promotions
obvious on sites they already spend a lot of time on (rather than the consumer having to visit each corporate
website and search around for deals and products of interest). With the Facebook marketing suite, they can simply
log into Facebook, chat with friends, and also find out about great deals from their favorite brands.
With all the intent and transactional marketing data that you are capturing, is it possible that you could resell your data at some point through data exchanges whether on behalf of marketers or publishers?
We are not looking to re-sell data. We do use our own data to help retailers find their consumers wherever they
may be on the internet. We achieve this via Re-Marketing in display advertising. If a user has viewed the weekly
circular online and then later shows up on a publisher website, e.g. USAToday.com, we know what products they
have viewed and are able to accurately target product deals based on their past click-stream behavior. We
additional work with a number of partners such as Yahoo! to extend the advertising reach.
What milestones would you like the company to have accomplished a year from now?
ShopLocal’s focus is helping retailers to distribute their products to their consumers wherever they may be. Helping
retailers to reach consumers on any device or platform including web, social, mobile, display advertising and other
emerging mediums such as the iPad. For 2011, ShopLocal priorities are growing our distribution channels,
particular in areas such as Facebook, iPad, Android and display advertising to extend the reach of retailers
promotions.
Follow ShopLocal (@shoplocal) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 10, 2010 – 12:05 am
194
MyBuys Using Kinetic Ads To Engage The Consumer Says
CEO Cell
July 12, 2010 – 12:05 am
Bob Cell is CEO of MyBuys, a provider of personalization for multichannel retailers.
AdExchanger.com: How was the June 2010 Internet Retailer
conference for you and MyBuys? Any overall trends that you
sensed?
BC: Internet Retailer was a great event for MyBuys . We had the
opportunity to meet with many people, including potential
customers, clients and partners, and discussed a wide range of
opportunities and challenges that MyBuys can help to address.
Overall, there seems to be renewed focus with retailers to find
more efficient and effective ways to increase shopper loyalty, to
remarket to shoppers, and to activate new channels, such as
mobile and social media. Retailers are looking for ways to stimulate
new revenue streams through these new consumer channels while
maintaining the integrity and consistency of the shopping
experience.
What problem is MyBuys solving in e-commerce?
In today’s retail environment, merchants have to work hard to gain
the trust and loyalty of shoppers. MyBuys creates personalized
shopping experiences through relevant product recommendations
making the shopping experience better for each consumer. .
MyBuy’s partners with multi-channel retailers to help them engage
their shoppers and deliver compelling recommendations across
each consumer touchpoint – the website, in email, on mobile
devices and beyond. Retailers rely on MyBuys to increase
customer loyalty, increase conversion rates and drive higher revenues.
How will you differentiate from other retargeters in the space such as Criteo, TellApart, Dotomi, Permuto,
Fetchback and others?
Traditional remarketing is pretty simple minded. It only operates for a short period of time (typically a week to a
month) and it doesn’t understand much about the consumer. Essentially it says, consumer A was on site X. Let’s
show a generic ad for site X to try to get them to return. MyBuys delivers a much more compelling experience.
First, our ads are kinetic – they move and engage the consumer. Second, they’re fully dynamic and personalized –
they talk to the consumer about the products, categories and brands that they like instead of being simple, static
and generic. Finally, since MyBuys builds a deep consumer profile, we understand how those consumer
preferences can drive behavior over time, not just in the first few days after a visit. Bought a Halloween costume
last year? We’ll remember for next year. Bought a Nikon camera? We’ll remember to show you the right kind of
lenses later.
What types of e-commerce clients are the best fit for your platform? Any verticals make sense in
particular?
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MyBuys is 100% focused on retail. We’ve seen broad applicability across all sectors of retail and up and dlown the
size spectrum. We have clients in Fashion & Apparel, Footwear, Sporting Goods, Home Furnishings, Crafts,
Hobbies, Electronics, and more. If you have shoppers coming to your site and a product catalog, then we can
work with you.
Please explain what "kinetic advertising units" are and why they're important to MyBuys system.
A Kinetic Advertising Unit is a format that enables our display ads to incorporate movement, that let users interact
with them and see a dynamic set of products that fit their profile. The Kinetic Advertising Unit enables MyBuys to
populate a custom set of products and offers based off a shoppers interactions with a brand that are specifically
tailored to that individual. The format enables MyBuys to bring our dynamic approach to personalization to display
advertising, making the remarketing strategy much more effective than with static ads.
Where does brand advertising fit in the e-Commerce world? Does it fit with MyBuys products and
services?
Since MyBuys builds a deep understanding of the merchant’s assortment, we can help brand owners target
appropriate consumers too. Unlike other retargeters who just know that a consumer went to site X, we know which
products the consumer looked at. Which brands were represented. Which price points resonated. And much,
much more. All of that information is critical for brand owners who want to do a good job of targeting consumers
that will be receptive to their brands.
Do you use demand-side platforms (DSP)s or have you built your own DSP? Do you use all of the
exchanges - are there direct-to-publisher relationships?
Our infrastructure has many elements of a DSP. We have our own dynamic ad server and an API for ad agencies
and publishers who want to access & manage a personalized ad engine of their own.
Will MyBuys seek another round of funding any time soon?
As a privately held company, we do not provide financial information.
Do you consider Google a threat? They've opened up self-service retargeting - they may open up search
retargeting soon. How would MyBuys compete?
Actually, we think it’s great. Google’s presence in the space is educating merchants on the value of retargeting in
general. And our approach enables them to do a more effective job of reaching their consumers.
What milestones would you like the company to have accomplished a year from now?
I’d like to see MyBuys continue to lead the industry in providing retailers with innovative, profile-driven solutions
that create relevant shopping experiences that consumers have come to expect. Also, with consumer demand for
relevance across all channels, we will be looking to extend our expertise to the rapidly growing social and mobile
commerce.
Follow MyBuys (@mybuys) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 12, 2010 – 12:05 am
196
Performance Marketing
Cross Pixel Media Targeting In-Market Active Shoppers On
Ecommerce Sites Says CEO Pearlstein
May 11, 2010 – 1:24 pm
Alan Pearlstein is CEO and President of Cross Pixel Media, a datacentric marketing services company.
AdExchanger.com: How about a little background? How did
you get where you are today?
AP: I have always been a direct response marketer by training. The
first business I started was a mail order catalog, and in 2002 I
launched Flying Point Media, an interactive agency that has a
strong background in direct response media. I was focusing on a
retargeting campaign for a client about 2 years ago when I got the
idea for my new business. In June of 2008, we launched Cross
Pixel Media and in February of this year we spun off Cross Pixel as
a separate company.
What problem is Cross Pixel Media solving?
We are solving two problems that are important in the data space
right now – transparency and data quality. Our program is completely transparent – our advertisers select the data
partner that they want to target and they can optimize campaigns based on the specific data source. Nobody else
in the industry offers this level of transparency and this makes our program very attractive to media buyers. Our
partnership marketing model enables a data buyer to assess the value of an in market buyer by placing a value on
the brands and sources they are working with. It great to know you have an “in market” shoe shopper, but are they
shopping at a discounter’s web site or at a high end specialty store? We think it is the easiest way for a buyer to
find their target audience and maximize the performance of their campaigns.
The second problem we are addressing is data quality. Our data is on in-market active shoppers and our data
comes from leading specialty ecommerce sites that attract the highest quality site visitors that are ready to make a
purchase. By working with leading specialty sites, we believe we have raised the bar on the data quality of in
market shoppers that are available today.
What's differentiates the way you work with your clients and other data players in the space such as
BlueKai or Akamai's Acerno?
Cross Pixel has taken an agnostic approach to our data – we enable media buyers to access it the way they are
comfortable working with data. We work with large advertisers that buy the data independently (like Bluekai) and
we also sell the data packaged with media (like Acerno) through Cross Pixel’s own advertising programs. We have
two media programs right now for clients to access our high value data – one that utilizes media from the ad
exchanges and another that is a transparent network of quality sites. The key difference however is transparency –
in each case the advertiser knows the source of the data and can select the data sets they want to target.
Please provide a use case of how a client might work with you.
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Here is one example of how a current smart phone advertiser is using Cross Pixel with great success. First we
identified the data partners that we felt would work well for the client. We then created a targeted pixel strategy that
enabled us to identify the most appropriate shoppers on the partner’s web site (i.e. a Blackberry shopper vs a
prepaid wireless shopper). We are tracking the entire campaign on a partner by partner basis, enabling he
advertiser to optimize by data partner. Our partnership model is very similar to the offline list rental model that is
used by the catalog industry for direct mail where one company rents a mailing list to another. We are emulating
this model online - the cookie list is the new mailing list.
What's your view on demand-side platforms?
DSP’s are very important to the whole data ecosystem. They make it easier for a company like mine to jump into
data-centric marketing with scale.
Are you a demand-side platform? How would you label Cross Pixel Media in a few words and why?
We sell data, manage data and provide data driven marketing products and services targeting our data. From my
perspective a DSP is technology.
Do you consider Cross Pixel Media a services or technology company?
I would consider us a data-centric marketing services company that uses technology; our own and third party. We
believe the money will be in the marketing services sector of this ecosystem.
What does Cross Pixel Media's pricing model look like?
We sell on a CPM basis, whether the client is buying the data separately or with media.
What's your perspective on view-through conversions?
Viewthrough conversions are real and should receive fair credit when developing an attribution model. View
conversion spam is another story. I have a few posts/rants on this subject on my blog.
Publishers are stressing out about not having the same tech power as demand. What would you do if you
were an online publisher today with users in the 10s of millions?
If I was a publisher I would take ownership of my data, utilize third party data to enhance my own inventory and I
would get into the marketing services business. I think many of the publishers need to turn into marketing services
companies to survive. A few are already doing this – Gannett, Scripps and I read Hearst is looking at buying
Icrossing.
Who are your investors? Please discuss your new funds and how you're going to use them.
We are closing a $1.3 million dollar round this week and all of the money came from angel investors. The primary
use of the funds is building a large sales force across the United States, expanding our data partnership base and
building more advertising products. We are about to launch a keyword targeted product and we have a number of
other products coming this year.
What is your target market?
Our partnership model is really flexible and can apply to any company that is interested in targeted display
advertising. Our model is effective and scalable for the largest telecom provider looking to target active cell phone
shoppers on national ecommerce sites, to the local mortgage broker looking to partner with a local real estate
company to target their site visitors.
Follow Alan Pearlstein (@AlanPearlstein) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 11, 2010 – 1:24 pm
198
TellApart CEO McFarland Claims Vendors Pull ViewThrough 'Wool' Over Client Eyes
August 17, 2010 – 1:50 am
Retargeting company TellApart released a new case study entitled,
"Can Retargeting Yield Incremental Revenue" with its client,
Hayneedle. Download it here (PDF).
TellApart CEO Josh McFarland discussed the case study's results
as well as his company's strategic focus around incremental gains
through retargeting.
AdExchanger.com: It would seem that "incrementality" is core to TellApart's offering. What does it mean
for a conversion to be “incremental?”
JM: The simplest question a marketer uses to define incrementality is: If I turn off this marketing channel, what will
happen to my total number of conversions? Or conversely, if I turn on this channel, how many new conversions
will it yield? This litmus test applies as equally to keyword-based SEM as it does audience-based advertising. But
with retargeting, the question is especially acute as marketers are becoming wise to the fact that these visitors are
disproportionately likely to convert anyway. And it’s exactly the right question now, because many vendors have
been pulling the view-through wool over clients’ eyes for too long.
In the absence of an effective cross-channel attribution model, is it possible for marketers to measure the
"incrementality" of a particular marketing channel? If so, how?
A simultaneous A:B test fulfills this requirement of “turning off” the channel while accounting for variance in traffic
patterns and audience composition. This is done by splitting users into two groups: control and experiment. The
control group must view only placeholder ads (ex. public service announcements - PSAs), and then the conversion
rate between the two groups can be compared. It is especially important that both groups be sampled only from
the set of would-be retargeted users; marketers should not fall victim to the old trick of sampling control users from
all visitors and comparing them to the cherry-picked retargeting users.
Yes, this method undercounts the upside of display’s positive impact on search and other multi-channel lift, but it at
least answers the core question: how many new conversions were driven solely by the existence of this channel?
Are there use cases for when retargeting is/is not incremental? If so, please identify.
Retargeting can absolutely drive incremental conversions. One of the most common examples involves buyers
who heavily comparison shop many retailers’ offerings. In that instance, a well crafted/placed retargeted ad can
help “cut through the noise,” thus driving ad clicks that convert quickly. And these are conversions what would
have otherwise been lost to a competitor.
Unfortunately, there is a dark side of retargeting too. Every day, hundreds of online retailers pay for (or are
scammed by, depending on your POV) retargeting campaigns that take credit for sales that would have happened
anyway. The primary culprit is the over-attribution of credit to view-through conversions.
In the past, you have been a vocal non-believer in view-through conversions for retargeting campaigns. In
your opinion, is there any hope that a client can apply your ideas around "incrementality" to view-through
conversions? And how does "incrementality" compare to click-through conversions?
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Measuring view-through conversion lift through a careful A:B test can prove its validity as a metric, as I’ve stated
before. What marketers have to be wary of is the over-attribution of credit. And a vendor should never, ever be
allowed to combine retargeting and “prospecting” into a single line item; demand complete transparency,
marketers!
The problem with using view-through conversions as a metric for gauging retargeting’s success is that those users
are much more likely to convert anyway! A vendor need only get one cheap, below-the-fold ad impression in front
of a user before they checkout in order to collect credit. This is why you see many retargeting vendors cookie-stuff
their way through client sites and low quality inventory sources.
Even when the percentage of view-throughs that are paid for is negotiated downward, we continue to see them be
dramatically over-attributed. For example, in our recent study for one of the world’s largest retailers (see: “Can
Retargeting drive incremental sales?”) we saw a 24% lift in conversion rate with TellApart Transactional
Retargeting... of which view-throughs comprised only 2%.
This wouldn’t be such a an issue if retailers paid for just one view-based conversion for every 10 click-based
conversions. But the ratio is often inverted! This is one reason why a strict click-based vendor like TellApart can
provide a 10x ROI improvement while driving far more incremental conversions than a retargeting 1.0 vendor.
So what is the target market for TellApart today in terms of clients - is it ANY eCommerce retailer? Where
are you seeing strength today?
We are focused on working with large (>$50M) data-driven online retailers, focusing first on the smartest directresponse marketers. As these retailers learn of the tremendous volume and ROI that can be generated from
retargeting done well, we have seen strength in our new model: we’re compensated only via a click-to-conversion
share of revenue.
By John Ebbert
August 17, 2010 – 1:50 am
200
Publisher
Targeting Young Men, Publisher Break Media Concentrates
On Direct Ad Sales Says CTO Wilson
May 14, 2010 – 8:29 am
Nick Wilson, CTO, Break Media, a network of properties targeting
young men.
AdExchanger.com What problem is Break Media solving for
advertisers today?
NW: We offer clients the ability to reach a targeted audience of
young men by producing, promoting, and distributing clients’
original videos and branded content across the Break Media
Network of sites. Additionally, we provide cutting-edge technology
solutions to measure the effectiveness of client campaigns by
utilizing third-party research and metrics.
What do you think large media publishers should be doing
regarding data strategies these days?
Targetable audience data is a key component of our strategy from
both reach and optimization perspectives. It's a good idea for large
publishers to obtain as much useful, relevant data as possible
about how users navigate a particular site. From a sales
perspective, advertisers and agencies can leverage this data to
better inform their decisions, and because of this, Break Media
partners with data aggregators like BluKai and eXelate.
What is your view on demand-side platforms? And are they having an impact on your business?
Break Media is not directly impacted by demand-side platforms. We own and operate branded destination sites,
and our network is primarily comprised of sites that we have direct relationships with. We also offer highly
engaging, custom video-centric rich media executions. When you roll these things up with our ability to produce
branded video content through our in-house studio the Creative Lab, it is evident that our business is not based on
high volume "long tail" inventory like that of a startup display network's business.
How does Break Media manage yield optimization? Any solutions in the marketplace providing an
effective sell-side platform solution?
The Break sales team is extremely effective, and does an excellent job of selling the majority of our "tier one"
inventory. We have also in the past experimented with utilizing several of the primary vendors that offer
optimization for "tier two" inventory, with varying results. What is key to understand is that when a publisher
becomes part of the Break Media Network, they are accessing campaigns and deals that come through our direct
sales team.
Overall, what's your technology strategy for advertising whether display, video, mobile - do you build or
buy?
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Since its inception, Break Media has always pushed the envelope with innovative advertising solutions. We're
constantly building out new technologies across multiple platforms. For example, Break.com was one of the first
video sites to be fully-iPad compliant for content and also individual iPad-specific campaign creatives. To provide
the best service to our clients, we believe in ground-up engineering of all products to ensure maximum
customization.
Why did Break Media start Apogee Media Network?
Apogee Media Network is a new performance marketing division of the company that will work with advertisers on
a CPA basis. It was started in response to advertiser demand in the area of performance-based initiatives.
Apogee provides internal and external traffic channels with core strengths in customer acquisition, email marketing
and social media.
Is Break Media making its inventory available via ad exchanges? Why? Do you see real-time bidding as
providing a benefit to publishers?
If a buyer wants to access Break's inventory, they make a deal directly with our sales team. We believe that the
best way for a small to medium sized publisher to monetize their inventory is to join a quality network with a strong
and respected sales team like Break Media.
What's your view on Facebook's social graph strategy?
There's clearly a trend for the Internet population to expose much of a user’s online activities to that user’s circle of
friends and others. The Facebook open graph strategy makes it easier for site visitors, publishers, and ultimately
advertisers to access and share this data. Providing that there's a clear ability to "opt out" of data sharing—and it’s
important to remember that creating a Facebook account is optional—these steps are a positive thing for the
Internet overall.
Will there be Facebook "like" buttons all over Break Media sites? Does it concern you that "like" data
could be used for ad targeting off of your site without direct compensation?
Break Media has already adopted "like" buttons on millions of pages, with all content items being enabled in the
coming weeks. Within the first 24 hours of operation, we saw over 1M "like" button presses. It remains to be seen
the degree to which clicks on the "like" button can be used by third parties for targeting.
A year from now, what milestones would you like Break Media to have accomplished?
Speaking as the CTO, I'd like to see Break Media cement and grow its already dominant position as a leading web
publisher. I'd also like to ensure that we continue to be recognized as an innovator in the ad product space
designing and building products that both our site visitors and advertisers love. Also, some of the new initiatives
we're just starting on will be bearing fruit, particularly with other platforms such as mobile and consumer
electronics.
Follow Break Media (@break_media) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 14, 2010 – 8:29 am
202
Glam Media Migrates Its 3,000+ Sites To GlamAdapt Says
SVP Jacobs
Email This Post
June 21, 2010 – 12:05 am
Josh Jacobs is SVP of Brand Advertising Products & Marketing at vertical
content network Glam Media.
What will happen to Glam Media's publisher inventory? Does it all get
folded into GlamAdapt?
JJ: Glam Media has migrated the more than 3000+ sites in our Vertical
Media network to the GlamAdapt platform. Today, GlamAdapt is delivering
on campaigns for 100s of brand advertisers, in countries around the world.
GlamJapan’s mobile ad solution is also deployed on GlamAdapt. The
GlamAdapt platform enables new premium features for all Glam Media
publishers, allowing them to drive greater value from their inventory through
participation in high impact brand campaigns, and discovering and selling
new audiences on their sites.
How is the GlamAdapt platform different than an ad network?
GlamAdapt is an end-to-end ad serving platform that can be used as a
replacement ad platform by publishers, and provides buying tools and
analytics for agencies and advertisers. GlamAdapt is open to third parties
for extension, creating an ad-tech integration platform that allows publishers
to seamlessly create custom packaging solutions combining first and thirdparty targeting data, a broad array of third-party (and GlamAdapt built in)
creative solutions, and multiple brand effectiveness and retail ROI measurement capabilities. GlamAdapt’s focus
on brand advertising helps publishers maximize the impact and value of their inventory, by moving from
impression-based serving to page-based targeting -allowing smaller publishers to participate in large, high value
share of voice (SOV) based buys, and take advantage of built in support for high impact ad formats and
executions. Through our marketplace services, publisher inventory can be exposed to third-party media buyers
and can expose rich media capabilies and publisher data to differentate their inventory and increase its value.
In that you're targeting brand advertisers, what pricing models will you offer? Any engagement pricing CPE?
The GlamAdapt platform is unique in that it offers an extensible decisioning and optimization architecture, and
natively understands engagement metrics including expansions, user interactions, video plays, time spent and
more. Via the the platform’s extension architecture, GlamAdapt can be easily enhanced to offer packaging and
optimization against a host of brand objectives. Glam Media, and our developer and publisher partners, are
exploring multiple pricing models based on the objectives of advertisers in different industries, and we expect the
platform to facilitate significant innovation in the types of models offered.
What solutions are you offering for attribution? In other words, how will you report to brand advertisers
the effectiveness of their online campaigns across digital channels?
For years, brand advertisers have been looking for consistent ways to measure effectiveness of media buys and
up until the launch of GlamAdapt, they had to work with vendor specific, and often poorly correlated, metrics. A
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core feature of the GlamAdapt architecture is that engagement and interaction are directly linked to ROI for brand
marketers. As such, the GlamAdapt platform was designed to close the loop between audience targeting, effective
exposure, and brand and retail lift. GlamAdapt achieves this by normalizing all campaigns and creatives to a
common set of engagement metrics that can be measured and acted on while campaigns are running. GlamAdapt
includes a real-time campaign dashboard that allows campaigns to be analyzed and optimized for
performance against engagement metrics by content, contextual vertical, and audience segments. GlamAdapt’s
dashboard supports the discovery of new audiences with high engagement rates, and the optimization of
campaigns away from audiences that are not meeting campaign engagement objectives. A great example of how
GlamAdapt drives ROI via engagement is our partnership with IRI & Dynamic Logic for CPG & Retail brands. As
part of this strategic industry solution, GlamAdapt supports targeting based on consumer purchase behavior, and
closed loop ROI analysis of post campaign retail lift. Using the GlamAdapt platform, engagement metrics can be
correlated to offline sales, providing the analytic basis for brand marketers to shift budget to metrics that better
deliver on their marketing objectives.
How does GlamAdapt address creative?
Glam believes that creative plays a critical role in driving engagement and connection within digital advertising.
The platform is designed to support advanced creative formats, campaigns that can dynamically adapt to the
unique capabilities and placements on individual sites, and offers a standard set of engagement metrics, reporting,
and insights across all creative types. Our Engagement Services SDK allows third-party creative providers to
integrate their units into the GlamAdapt metrics system, plugging them into our optimization and insights
capabilities as equal partners. Creative executions are an exciting area of innovation, with a myriad of great
capabilities being delivered by different companies. We were excited to announce the platform with creative
partners like MediaMind, Pictela and PointRoll, and will continue to add the roster of third-party creative solutions
that are available through the platform.
Will GlamAdapt source inventory through exchanges in addition to its publishers?
Extending Glam behavioral audiences to other inventory sources is part of the value we can provide to our
customers, and as such, Glam will source inventory from non-Glam publishers as well as third-party marketplaces.
Can demand-side platforms (DSPs) and ad networks buy through GlamAdapt on a per impression basis? If
so, how? Will inventory become real-time bidding (RTB) enabled at some point?
Through GlamAdapt’s Marketplace Services APIs, DSPs and Agency Buying Platforms can gain access to
GlamAdapt publisher inventory on an impression or page targetted basis. Working with partners like AdMeld,
GlamAdapt is offering premium exchange services to buying platform operators, including capabilities such as realtime bidding, companion ads and takeovers, advanced creatives such as expandables and template-integrated
units like OPA pushdowns, and access to contextual and behavioral data for targeting.
Will you offer retargeting for marketers looking to target in-market consumers that they have identified on,
for example, Right Media Exchange or DoubleClick Ad Exchange?
The targeting platform of GlamAdapt allows advertisers to not only reach but to also to engage in-market
consumers with custom rich media across premium content. To continuously stay in front of the target audience,
GlamAdapt is capable of retargeting site visitors, users who were exposed to an ad and most notably, users who
have engaged or interacted with branded creative. GlamAdapt supports retargeting for third-party pixels, allowing
campaigns to be extended to the GlamAdapt marketplace. Additionally, through our open Targeting Services APIs
we have built in support for third-party data sources, like BlueKai, that provide in-market consumer data segments.
What's your view on the recent purchase of Invite Media by Google? Any concerns?
Anything that accelerates the move to buying digital as audiences is a boon to the industry. Glam Media pioneered
the vertical media model, and has built massive scale audiences in contextual verticals that marketers value. To
the extent that Invite/Google helps buyers to define and scale buying of valuable audiences, we think this benefits
the industry. Our hope is that Google will follow through on its statements that Invite will remain an open platform
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for multiple supply marketplaces, and that they will encourage innovation and differentiation in supply marketplaces
across their toolset.
Do you think upfronts will make sense for digital advertising someday?
Glam Media already works with large brand marketers in an upfront capacity, and we expect to see more upfront
buying as budgets move to digital. For advertisers who need to "own" key demographics and events as part of their
integrated marketing plans, upfront buying makes sense as it ensures they will have locked in access to high
demand audiences and content throughout the year.
Follow Glam Media (@glammedia), GlamAdapt (@glamadapt) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 21, 2010 – 12:05 am
205
Tyler Fitch of Mindjolt Talks About Publisher Opportunities
And Challenges
June 25, 2010 – 9:58 am
Tyler Fitch is Director of Yield Management at Mindjolt, an online
games company. Fitch discussed recent trends he's seeing on the
publisher side.
AdExchanger.com: What's the pitch on games advertising for
advertisers? Seems tough - considering people just want to
play their games and not look at ads.
Actually it’s quite the opposite. Our users are usually killing time, so
it’s seems they are much more willing to interact with ads.
Performance has been great. Plus Advertisers are always looking
for Pre-Game inventory.
Please discuss Mindjolt's audience and scale. What types of advertising work best?
Despite recent changes to Facebook policies which have crippled the growth of many games and applications,
Mindjolt continues to be one of the fastest growing apps on Facebook and all other Social Networks. Keep in
mind, that before the Platform G acquisition of Mindjolt in March, the company only consisted of four people that
managed to grow Mindjolt to over 20 Million Uniques. Since then, Colin Digiaro and Aber Whitcomb have done a
great job of hiring some the best people in the industry to grow the platform. So I believe the scale of Mindjolt is
just in its infant stages.
As for the audience, the "Soccer Mom" is our main demographic. This differs a little by which social network they
are coming from but usually we see close to 70% of our users are Female.
How is Mindjolt media addressing monetization of their inventory? For example, how much goes to a yield
optimizer? How much is sold direct?
Actually none goes to either. We are still trying to find the best fit for our direct sales, so right now I have only done
a few one off campaigns. The remnant portion of the inventory is managed by myself. I really like what the yield
optimizes are doing (maybe except for the Dick Cheney like “War on Malvertising” campaigns) and they have
some brilliant people working for them, but as long as you give yourself access to the same demand sources it’s
just not quite worth the cost. Pre-Game Video is also a big part of our monetization.
Have you seen any impact from the demand-side platform model?
Absolutely, I actually am having a tough time working with standard 3rd party networks because so much of my
inventory is bought up by exchanges. I tend to think of 3rd party networks as floors for the exchange now and not
actual advertisers.
Does Mindjolt have a data strategy as it relates to advertising?
As a publisher, it’s very hard to make data scale. Therefore I rely on DSP’s in order to sell data campaigns. My job
is to make sure that DSP’s have access and that they pay a premium for that impression.
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Mindjolt did just start bringing on virtual currency which makes our user data much more interesting. I can use my
own scalable gaming segments to serve house ads using Lifetime Value to figure out a true CPM. This not only
keeps users on the site (not pushing them to other 3rd party apps.) but also creates demand. This leads to an
overall increase in remnant CPM’s on the site. These data segments include things such as game plays, when
they play, and funding history.
What are the big trends you're seeing today on the publisher side?
RTB has revolutionized the way I look at my inventory. Before RTB, I considered my job managing a portfolio of
advertisers in a segmented and transparent environment. Now with RTB, I manage an “Imaginary” Portfolio in an
even more segmented and transparent environment. By “Imaginary” I mean that DSP’s have gotten so good at
arbitraging traffic that its detrimental to my business to use our true Managed 3 rd Party CPM’s. So now I have to
artificially inflate CPM’s to make sure that they pay a premium for those cherry picked impressions. This is a
slippery slope though, because you can price yourself out of some DSP’s range.
Please discuss creative -as in the ad. Is this evolving at all? Isn't the publisher at the mercy of advertiser's
creative?
Yes, creative is always evolving. Advertisers are getting smarter and smarter about what they want to get out of an
ad. No longer is CTR the only metric that people use to judge performance. Therefore you tend to see a much
more social feel to most ads. Also in the past year, the industry has done a great job of removing deceptive and
distracting ads that really hurt the reputation of digital advertising.
Can you identify some needs in the marketplace that need to be addressed?
Getting access to the marketplace is the toughest thing for Publishers. The big three (Google, Yahoo, and
Microsoft) only bid dynamically on their own ad exchanges. DART is expensive, Right Media is only a Marketplace
(not an ad server), and Microsoft is going radio silent. Layering a marketplace on top of another ad server loses 510% of traffic just from discrepancies, plus whatever else is lost from daisy chaining impressions. This puts
publishers in a very tough position.
How big is your team today? - How much can one person "run" as a publisher today?
I have had one employee under me in my life... I kept them for about 4 days. Not that they were a terrible person
or anything, but I really think this is a one man job. I know people that do my job for other big publishers agree,
your site becomes your baby and you do not want anyone else messing with it. Only somebody that works every
day with a site and knows their advertisers well can really make the right adjustments. If I have a direct sales
team, it changes the dynamic. Then, I need to work with the sales team and account managers so their campaigns
run smoothly.
Follow Tyler Fitch (@tylerwfitch) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 25, 2010 – 9:58 am
207
Exchanges, Networks and Optimizers Providing Revenue
Streams At Sporting News Says Exec Strauss
July 31, 2009 – 7:56 am
Gary Strauss is National Digital Sales Manager of Sporting
News.
Is it frustrating having a great brand, but needing to
compete against much larger sites such as ESPN and CBS Sportsline? What does Sporting News do to
entice advertisers who can get much better scale elsewhere?
GS: No I would not categorize it as frustrating. Challenging, yes, but we really do not see espn.com as a direct
competitor. Both CBS and ESPN have strengths as do we. Our strengths are audience engagement and great
content specifically about six main sports –baseball, football and basketball (college and pro), hockey, golf and
Nascar. We can and indeed do complement the vey large sports sites. Often we stand out on our own due to a
great composition story and the ability to integrate, customize and make a creative statement for a client; all at a
reasonable cost investment. We are not a reach vehicle but there are marketers out there who do not necessarily
want only reach, rather they also want people’s attention. That is a real viable asset for Sporting News.
Do you think using yield management platforms such as AdMeld, Rubicon Project, AdMeld, PubMatic and
others offer a viable option for publishers? How does SportingNews.com manage yield?
Ad Meld helps us monetize some aspects of our inventory more effectively. Like many companies we are "lean
and mean," so AdMeld gives us another revenue stream for inventory.
How has your revenue model evolved at Sporting News online? What are the key drivers of this evolution?
Our digital revenue model is similar to other properties. First provide unique online editorial content and unique
applications (for us fantasy games and editorial) and educate and offer clients unique opportunities to tie into this.
We also look at our digital properties as a different extension to our traditional magazine product-vastly different
content and audience.
What is your view on the advertising exchange model? Ready to put your premium inventory in the
exchange? If not, what needs to happen first?
No - in regards to the premium question. It is there to augment our existing revenue but reaching out to marketers
that we have not worked with. For us the ad exchange model is more effective for us and somewhat like a network
model in that it helps us monetize some of our inventory.
If you were looking to use an ad network, how would you ensure that an ad network partner does not
conflict with your direct sales channel?
It is all about communication. There are many advertisers who earmark most of their $$ to networks and we want
to obtain some of that, but overall, ad networks help digital properties with primarily DR advertisers along with
those that our direct staff either has not targeted or developed a relationship with.
Can magazines survive without a potent online strategy?
I imagine they may be able to but why would they want to. Magazines are not going away-rather, they like the
newspapers business will have to adjust and change their business model and product offering(s). Content that is
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unique and valuable to consumers will always have a place regardless of vehicle and as we know via media
consumption, the acceptance and use of digital is ubiquitous. So, established magazine brands should embrace
this challenge. Decade old established brands especially must adjust to changing media consumption habits and
build their brands online, with in my opinion with a focus on quality, unique content.
Does SportingNews.com try to extend its reach through online media buying? If so, what are some of the
tactics that are working (or not)?
Not at this time. We have an incredibly active and engaged user participatory audience. Even in an era of
economic uncertainty we have invested in product –redesign of magazine and a major new daily sports digital
property entitled "SportingNews Today." I imagine the tactics we would use is improved SEO methodologies.
Since you work at Sporting News, I'm thinking you can help me with this question from a Chicago Bears
fan... Is Jay Cutler for real or a bust?
Cutler is the real deal –about 9 months ago John Elway one of our frequent NFL contributors was raving about
Cutler in fact even stating that Cutler at his current stage of his career is even more advanced and accomplished
than Elway was at a similar stage. Cutler was on the Broncos at the time, we will see if John’s opinion changes as
he moves the Bears forward.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 31, 2009 – 7:56 am
209
Publisher Technorati Offering Brand Advertisers Scale
With Ad Network Says CEO Jalichandra
May 21, 2010 – 12:05 am
Richard Jalichandra is President & CEO of Technorati, a social
media search site and owners of Technorati Media, an ad network.
AdExchanger.com: Can you take us through some of the
pivots that Technorati has gone through and where it is
today?
RJ: Our evolution from a single site into a network serving billions
of ads on thousands of sites each month has certainly been
interesting and exciting. The company was originally founded and
centered on www.Technorati.com, the first real-time blog search
engine. In the company’s first few years, the site developed a
strong relationship with social media content creators, and we
constantly heard about their challenges in getting brand advertising
on their sites – in spite of the fact that the Internet’s audience was
spending more time in social media than mainstream media! So,
about a year and a half ago, we launched Technorati Media, our
social media ad network.
Please discuss the scale of the business today and how you
support it.
Since we launched Technorati Media, the ad network has grown
steadily in the number of publishers and the ads we serve on their
sites. To give a sense of scale, in April, over 200 million unique
visitors worldwide saw Technorati Media’s ads. How do we support
it all? Rubber bands and paper clips! No seriously, a variety of
proprietary and 3rd party technology, and of course, some very
dedicated people.
What's your sales strategy when it comes to display?
We enable social media at scale for brands. If you think about a brand trying to buy social media at scale, you
really only have two alternatives at scale (Facebook and Myspace). So we combine hundreds of brand-safe blogs
and niche social networks into a network that’s really easy and totally safe for brands to buy. Then, in addition to
standard display ad units, we offer a proprietary set of conversational media ad products that we call “Cmads”, mix
in a little audience targeting, and then, magic – a combination of site-specific and audience-centric conversational
media.
What's your view on the yield optimization space popularized by companies like AdMeld, PubMatic and
The Rubicon Project?
I’m generally a fan of their business models, largely because the demand side has gotten way too much attention
in the past year and a half, and it’s time for the supply side answer now. The “optimizers” are leading the charge to
bring balance to the marketplace, with publishers and networks also doing a variety of supply-side, value creating
tactics themselves. Hopefully we’ll see a healthy balance between supply and demand. That would be best for the
whole industry.
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Regarding demand-side platforms from your publisher perspective, do you feel you're "outgunned" by the
demand-side?
I understand the threat, but the answer is ‘not really’. Again, we offer a unique set of custom conversational ad
products – our Cmads – in a brand-safe social media environs. That would be hard to do entirely through a DSP.
Further, I’d even posit that some our internal ad operations emulate some DSP functions too, so while there are
some threats, there are certainly opportunities as well.
Can you share broad strokes about what you're thinking in regards to data and Technorati's data strategy?
Like many in the space, I see us integrating our own data with third party data to create differentiated segments.
Is real-time bidding a friend or foe for publishers? Do you think it improves CPMs for non-guaranteed
inventory?
I think RTB has both positives and negatives for publishers. It can absolutely help CPMs if a publisher’s inventory
performs well – everyone wants it. On the flip side, the sheer glut of inventory across the web has placed
downward pressure on CPMs. Given what happened on Wall Street last week, one thing that’s crossed my mind
is that instantaneous, real-time transactions don’t always help markets. That’s something to ponder in our parallel
universe.
What's your biggest challenge in guiding Technorati today?
Our current challenge is just getting our story out there. Technorati Media is only a year and half old. We have a
differentiated offering from many networks which results in a very high close rate with planners and buyers. So like
any start-up, we just need to tell more people about what we do.
Will you let Facebook "like" Technorati, and is there any concern on your part that your data is being
collected by Facebook for its own data and advertising strategies with its "like" buttons?
We’re still evaluating the impact of “Like”. There are some obvious opportunities across our network, as well as a
few downsides. But we’re still evaluating them.
A year from now, what milestones would you like Technorati to have accomplished that it hasn't already?
We have too many to list! That said, I’ll co-opt the cliché from Bull Durham and say, we just gotta take it one
campaign at a time – keep innovating, keep executing and keep building a large scale media business.
Follow Richard Jalichandra (@jalichandra), Technorati (@technorati) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on
Twitter.
May 21, 2010 – 12:05 am
211
Media Buying Ad Technology
New CEO Bill Wise Says MediaBank Aims To Give Media
Ecosystem Control Over Media Buying, Data Management
July 14, 2010 – 8:45 am
Bill Wise is CEO of MediaBank, "a provider of integrated
procurement technology and advanced analytics to the advertising
industry". Read the press release about Wise's recent appointment.
AdExchanger.com: What are the challenges that the
MediaBank CEO role presents that you wouldn't find in the
startup world or elsewhere?
With most startups, you’re enabling new opportunity or concept in a
new environment. With MediaBank, the model is a little different.
Media management systems ("advertising operating systems")
have been around for decades; it’s the problem of managing media
across such a wide array of touchpoints that’s new. It’s because
MediaBank works in such a well-established arena that we’ve been
able to have so much impact, so quickly. We’re a 6-year-old
company that already touches about 30% of the available US ad
market—in terms of spend, very few startups that I know can match
that kind of scale-- while we don't disclose it, we manage tens and
tens of BILLIONS in spend. The idea of applying my digital background to the entire advertising landscape of TV
broadcast, print, spot, radio, outdoor, barter, etc is incredibly exciting.
When do you start? Where will you be "stationed" and why?
MediaBank has offices in Chicago, New York City, Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, and Louisville, Kentucky; I’ll
be spending a great deal of time in all of them. We want to shift our customer-facing sales, marketing and
professional services offerings towards Madison Avenue—so I’ll be spending a lot of my time establishing a larger
MediaBank presence in New York and overseas.
What problem is MediaBank solving today?
Very simply put, the advertising landscape has outgrown many of the systems that are used for buying and selling
inventory. MediaBank is here to bring the media buying infrastructure up to speed, and to steward media buying
into the future.
Advertising today deals with an endless number of touchpoints that interconnect in ways we couldn’t imagine as
recently as five years ago. Those changes create enormous challenges in terms of managing data and workflow: if
I’m a media buyer, I suddenly need to sync mobile buys with outdoor ads, and search inventory with TV spots. If
I’m a vendor, I’m working under ever-greater pressure to generate greater revenue from ads—while buyers are
pulled in endless directions toward multiple channels, and potentially away from my inventory.
Everyone needs to work in ways that are more efficient where data can be leveraged seamlessly within existing
workflow. Legacy systems were not built for this and thus a lot of data is not actionable within existing systems.
Meanwhile, the inefficiencies of actually placing media buys prevent media dollars from flowing into the system at
full capacity. MediaBank will attempt to give everyone in the media ecosystem the fullest control possible over
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media buying and data management; the end result is media buying and selling that’s more efficient and intelligent
for both buyers and sellers alike.
What are the connections you see between what a DSP in display advertising does and the tasks
MediaBank facilitates? Is MediaBank the DSP future - cross-medium?
The commonality here is managing a very high number of data points to help advertisers and publishers connect
on the inventory that’s mutually valuable. The DSPs create those opportunities—and enable highly efficient
marketplaces—in the digital advertising environment. We want to enable those opportunities across all media. So,
yeah... I guess you can say we are a cross-medium DSP with a bunch more zeros at the end...
What are your thoughts about driving better attribution models for marketers? Can it be done crosschannels - digital and traditional?
I fundamentally believe marketing should be a cost of good sold, and not purely an operating expense. Crosschannel attribution is an incredibly complex puzzle to solve for, but few companies have access to the holistic
spend data across every medium that flows through our system. The idea of having a common token to attribute
sales and inventory back to source medium holistically is certainly a game changer; and would enable CMO's with
full P&L accountability with direct control and influence over operating margin and profit... I get goose bumps just
thinking about it!
Can today's media agency model be saved?
Yes, but it goes back to the attribution questions you asked above coupled with workflow efficiencies, successfully
leveraging data and insights, and the ability to embrace technology. Today’s agency is a collection of talent and
expertise across an enormous array of disciplines, trying to push a consistent advertiser message for their clients,
under a holistic budget, out to a dizzying number of channels at one time. In that kind of environment, even minor
problems of interaction between the moving parts can have very serious ripple effects. The only way to work
effectively is by the cross-channel management we just discussed, coupled with common workflow and data
practices. MediaBank is committed to helping ad agencies evolve in this ever-changing marketplace.
What surprises you about display advertising today?
First, its amazing how digital marketing, for the most part, continues to be managed as a silo from the more
traditional marketing channels. It’s also surprising how difficult it is to tie digital advertising data back to other
marketing channels, and vice versa—even at this late stage in the digital advertising game. I can serve a
behaviorally-targeted display creative based on real-time interactions with my website—which is fantastic; but I
can’t easily serve a display ad based on a TV spot a user watched. That lack of shared data places enormous
amounts of inefficiencies into the ecosystem, which is unfortunate, yet an opportunity.
What are some key learnings from your Yahoo!/Right Media Exchange experience that you will bring to
MediaBank?
The biggest takeaway for me is that, in any media buying system, you need to get everyone involved—the
advertisers and the publishers equally. The best systems come about by addressing both the supply-side and the
demand-side needs within a vibrant marketplace. The other key learning is that opportunity lies at every touch
point and data point; it’s just a matter of figuring out how to leverage that opportunity. At Right Media, the 'found'
opportunity was the real value in remnant inventory and ways to use data, targeting and technology to increase
yield for publishers while ALSO managing ROI for advertisers. But the concept is untapped value is universal—in
MediaBank’s case, the untapped value is media processing data that becomes the groundwork for media business
intelligence. And finally, it’s about the people. Smart, dedicated people are what transformed Right Media from a
great idea into a great company, and it’s the same caliber of people that makes me both extremely excited and
extremely honored to be here at MediaBank.
Follow Bill Wise (@billwise) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 14, 2010 – 8:45 am
213
MediaBank CEO Wise Discusses New Cross-Channel DSP
August 20, 2010 – 1:08 am
Mediabank announced yesterday that it has launched a demandside platform: "M|Buy DSP will be a central console through which
national advertisers can order buys on local TV, print, radio, out-ofhome, digital, and other advertising." Read more.
CEO Bill Wise discussed his company's DSP and its features.
Please discuss why M|Buy exists and its strategic importance
to MediaBank's overall strategy.
MediaBank is a business centered around using data to create actionable insights and greater efficiency for every
part of the advertising ecosystem. We’re also big believers in the concept that at root, local advertising, national
advertising, and online/offline are all remarkably similar at the core—they all boil down to making effective use of
the data and tools to reach the right audience.
At the same time, we saw that local advertising was a very underserved market: there’s not nearly enough clear
communication, standardized data, and streamlined processes between ad buyers and ad vendors to make local
advertising as efficient as it could be. Vendors have a very hard time making advertisers aware of quality inventory,
buyers have a hard time finding the best placements, and there are a lot of middlemen creating a lot of
unnecessary “taxes” along the way. M|Buy DSP eliminates those inefficiencies to help the entire marketplace.
Can you take us through how M|Buy is a demand-side platform?
Quick correction: M|Buy is the small business division of MediaBank; it uses technology, data, and services to help
advertisers run local advertising more intelligently. The M|Buy DSP is the new DSP product from M|Buy; it’s one
component of M|Buy overall.
M|Buy DSP is an interface through which advertisers can view all the data they’ll need to understand about what
local ad inventory is available, and what the value of each unit would be; and it lets them place their orders through
the interface. It’s the same model as online-only DSP, applied in a truly channel-agnostic for local media.
Another model we use a lot internally is Orbitz: pre-Internet, travelers had limited access to inventory and couldn’t
know what the real market value of a flight, trip, or hotel room would be; and travel agents were gatekeepers who
charged for providing limited access to that information. Travel aggregators made the inventory universally
available—travelers got a much better sense of the actual value of any piece of travel inventory, they got to see the
whole inventory, and a lot of smaller travel companies could compete on real value to the traveler.
Local advertising has been operating with the same lack of clear information and heavy reliance on middlemen as
the pre-Internet travel business. By providing access to the right data to all media buyers, we’re creating a level of
standards, removing “taxes,” and helping to define a true market rate to bring prices down.
What inventory sources will be available to buyers? Can you provide a few, specific examples?
For the first stage, we’ll have inventory from local newspapers and outdoor groups nationwide; we’ll be adding
more channels as the program progresses.
This is a big deal because there are a lot of local outlets that simply don’t know how to get their inventory in front of
major advertisers, which means that there’s a lot of great inventory that major advertisers could be buying, if they
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only knew it existed. M|Buy DSP connects the two sides of the marketplace to finally put the best advertisers in
touch with the best local inventory.
How does pricing work? Self-serve? If not, what service will be necessary?
Pricing is based on usage and inventory type. It’s a licensed product that’s interoperable with other media workflow
platforms (like MediaBank’s OX); ultimately, we’ll enable direct access to the product via MBuy.com.
Can M|Buy help with attribution modeling for the marketer? If so, how?
Since this is a cross-channel product, the vision is to use M|Buy DSP to watch interaction effects across local
audiences (we’ll be able to help answer questions like how much of an impact display and print advertising have
when used in tandem, for instance); we’ll also be able to use M|Buy to watch how creatives perform when they’re
uniquely crafted for specific DMAs. It’s worth pointing out that MediaBank’s analytics tools across media are
already very powerful—we’ll be able to do a lot combining them with M|Buy DSP.
By John Ebbert
August 20, 2010 – 1:08 am
215
Privacy Regulation
Better Advertising’s Scott Meyer On Privacy Survey
Concerns Limiting Online Ads
May 4, 2010 – 9:17 am
A new study released by The Ponemon Institute, and covered here
by The New York Times, says that privacy concerns are impacting
online ad spend. From the Times article: "Privacy issues have
prompted marketers to use online behavioral advertising — based
on tracking a user’s Web browsing habits — 75 percent less than
they would otherwise."
Better Advertising's Scott Meyer discussed the study as well as
marketers' perceptions of behavioral online advertising.
AdExchanger.com: What surprised you about the result of the The Ponemon Institute survey?
SM: We were surprised that the response was so close to unilateral. 88 of the 90 companies surveyed have
curtailed their spend. This has been keeping hundreds of millions of dollars of online behavioral ad spending out of
the market.
We expected some companies to report that they were staying on the sidelines, but not this kind of unanimity.
In a recent NY Times article, you said, "If we can bring transparency to this market, it will be a turning
point for the industry." What is the transparency you're referencing?
Right now, it's the transparency regarding which companies are involved in collecting and using consumer data to
target online advertising, and how they are using it; then empowering consumers to have control over how they are
tracked online. This is what's envisioned by the Cross-Industry Coalition Self-Regulatory Principles.
Meaningful transparency provides the immediate turning point for our industry, since we know it can engender
more trust in the online market among leading marketers.
Those who participated in this study made that very clear. Over time, the kind of transparency we're talking about
will expand to multiple platforms and geographic as well. In our view of the world, as markets for consumer data
become more prolific, it will have to.
When do you think the concern that certain advertisers have with behavioral advertising will be abated?
Care to take a guess on timing and specific circumstances?
I think by the end of this year, you will see real changes in perception among advertisers as the Cross-Industry
Self-Regulatory Program rolls out.
But, it will take longer than that to completely turn the tide.
By John Ebbert
May 4, 2010 – 9:17 am
216
Power I Makes Sense For Ecosystem Says Better
Advertising CEO Meyer
June 21, 2010 – 12:04 am
Better Advertising CEO Scott Meyer discussed the imminent
launch of Power I via multiple online ad campaigns. Read more
from Ad Age.
With the launch of "Power I," does this mean you've won the
competition to provide a self-regulation tool for the ad
industry as it relates to a consumer's online privacy? If not,
when is a decision coming in your estimation?
As far as we know, a decision will be made soon. We have not
received any official notification that we or any other company has
been selected by the Coalition.
What will be the impact of better solutions around helping the consumer control their data such as Power
I? Will brand dollars finally come online?
We know from the Ponemon Institute's study that privacy concerns are keeping at least $600 million of spending
on interest-based advertising on the sidelines, and perhaps many times more than that. While brand dollars are
coming online already, this study reinforces our firm belief that that more transparency will increase the confidence
that brand advertisers have in the online medium. I think AT&T's Steve Governale said it well: "'If people start to
opt out it makes our targeting less effective and it becomes more challenging to sell to people...But, long-term,
transparency can only do us good."
How did you come up with the name Power I?
The impetus behind the icon came from the Coalition. WPP, a member of the task force, offered to design an icon
for the Coalition, an offer the Coalition accepted. It's important that the industry understand the role played by the
Coalition, as they and the associations have been the primary interface with the Federal Trade Commission and
Congress. So, the Coalition's oversight of the icon, the principles, and the accountability program itself is part of
this larger effort.
Why do you think agencies are so willing to adopt Power I?
Creating a single icon just makes sense for the whole online ecosystem. If we deploy it correctly and consistently,
consumers can gain a much clearer understanding of how data is collected and used to target ads. The IAB and
NAI issued a joint specification for how companies can use the Icon correctly and display the data that needs to go
behind it. Better Advertising is the first company to offer a service that
deploys the Power I easily across any site, network, exchange or agency that is using a commercial ad server.
Behind it comes a lot of valuable reporting, and we have proposed that the Coalition recognize this service as
evidence of compliance with the Principles. Together, that's a strong value proposition for agencies.
What has surprised you about the self-regulation proposal process in which Better Advertising has been
involved?
217
I'm not sure I would say that I'm surprised, but I am very encouraged and maybe even gratified by the sort of
support we've enjoyed by the leading agencies and the leadership at these agencies. More people understand the
two sided coin that is privacy to consumers and brand protection to marketers than you would have thought.
Will the new system enable consumers to block ads - or block ads by advertiser? Do you see this ever
needing to become a feature?
Better Advertising's Assurance Platform doesn't enable ad blocking. There are a number of services that do enable
ad blocking, such as AdBlock Plus and Ghostery (which Better Advertising owns). The requirement is that
consumers can opt out of targeting, but not out of getting ads. I think that the ability to manage ones online profile
and to choose which individual advertisers you hear from will be something that the industry comes to embrace in
the future. The current system is just the start of bringing better transparency to consumers.
By John Ebbert
June 21, 2010 – 12:04 am
218
Targeting Technology
AdMeld And Peer39 Announce Semantic Data Partnership
June 9, 2010 – 10:03 am
Peer39 and AdMeld announced an agreement which will allow
AdMeld to "analyze every optimized impression against Peer39's
proprietary semantic data sets" to the benefit of AdMeld publishers
and demand partners (ad networks, exchanges and DSPs)
according to a release. Read it.
Peer39 President and Founder Amiad Solomon discussed the
implications of the deal.
AdExchanger.com: It appears a sell-side aggregator is offering
a data feed - Peer39 semantic data - to the demand-side as
well as publishers. Can a DSP or ad network use Peer39
independently of the publisher to understand page content, or does it need to start from the publisher's ad
server for some reason?
AS: Yes, DSPs and ad networks can utilize Peer39 semantic data independently of the publisher’s ad server using
Peer39's server to server integration API.
Please provide a use case of how this will ideally work for a premium publisher. And, how is this reported
out?
As the AdMeld platform optimizes impressions, it pings Peer39’s servers to analyze each URL in real time (we
process thousands of URLs in less than a second.) By enabling demand partners to target campaigns against
these semantic channels, AdMeld lifts the value of every impression for both sides of the transaction. Publishers
get higher CPMs, and buyers get superior targeting (and results).
The second major benefit for publishers is that all this semantic intelligence is available to them in AdMeld’s
interface. In addition to seeing the size of each channel in terms of uniques and impressions, publishers know
rates being paid for those channels, how those rates differ from buyer to buyer, and how they have trended over
time. This enables publishers to get a clearer picture of what their inventory looks like and which channels
represent the greatest untapped revenue potential. Having this kind of data at hand is absolutely critical for
publishers to achieve greater leverage in the marketplace.
How is Peer39 generating revenue through or from AdMeld in the deal?
In the last 18 months, yield optimization platforms have focused on audience optimization with targeting data, yet
few have focused on content-based yield optimization. Peer39, with our Semantic Targeting technology, enable
yield optimization platforms to also optimize the content / sell-side of the equation by matching ads with content
according to context and sentiment on the fly. And with the growing trend towards everything real-time, we can
also analyze 1000s of URLs in less than a second. Therefore, we’re creating increased revenue streams for
publishers by boosting the value of their remnant inventory.
By John Ebbert
June 9, 2010 – 10:03 am
219
Peerset CTO Kanigsberg Looks At Product Momentum And
Marketplace Positioning
May 28, 2010 – 1:15 am
Amit Kanigsberg. CTO & Co-founder of Peerset, psychographic ad
targeting technology company, discussed the advertising
landscape and Peerset's positioning with AdExchanger.com
recently.
AdExchanger.com: Given Peerset's reliance on social data,
how does the privacy debate and regulatory moves impact
your business and others in social media?
I think we're in a good position to weather any online privacy storms that arise. In the past we've seen regulation
introduced by congress restricting IP based data aggregators like NebuAds and Phorm. And in recent days, we've
seen more public dialogue on the subject than ever before. It stands to reason that we'll see more regulation over
the next couple of years. We have consumer advocacy groups and the likes of the IAB in the mix fighting to define
such regulation... no way to be sure what it will look like. But I believe Peerset can fit well into the whole spectrum
of possible outcomes.
The easiest way to see this is by contrasting us to a typical BT based data company.
First, we use UGC. In contrast, most BT companiescollect user data for their look-a-like modelling that is not
explicitly shared by users. In fact this behavioral data is most typically the kind of information people don't want to
share. Peerset's primary thesis and methodology takes data that a user generates for the purpose of sharing with
others and that explicitly expresses their interests. I believe that non-UGC is the low hanging fruit that an online
privacy bill might go after most vigorously.
Secondly, we can work tracking independent. Again, most BT companies, by the very nature of their modeling,
must track users across multiple sites. They cannot provide their level of segment building at a single publisher
level (i.e., as an ad-in to a publisher's site that does not share data between publishers). Peerset can produce realtime segments for a single publisher with no tracking (look ma, no cookies). This is less ideal, of course, but gives
us comfort none the less.
In short, I think that we are better aligned with the consumer/user and can play to their needs far better than most
of the companies in our business.
Will behavioral data and social data be handled similarly or held to different standards?
Expanding on the answer above, I'd say that this will definitely be the case whether it be at a regulatory level, selfregulatory level or in the court of public opinion. Social data is produced to share, is a direct expression of the
user's interests and at least partially controlled by the user. There's no doubt in my mind that it is held to different
standards. And that will only increase as users' data awareness increases. I think that increased awareness, or
enlightenment, will only act to improve our market by creating new opportunities to better engage the
consumer/user.
What more can be said about the role of the consumer?
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The consumer is already central to the whole gambit. He/she's just not a fully engaged member of the publisher,
audience, advertiser triad. Like a child watching the obfuscated machinations of his/her parents, the consumer
doesn't have any real perspective or understanding of the relationships at play in delivering them free content and
functionality. I feel like I barely understand them sometimes.
The consumer needs to be given the opportunity to play along as a full-fledged member and knowingly benefit
from the data they are creating - BT and/or UGC. This means that they will have visibility, control and perspective Visibility of the data they create and the value it represents to publishers and advertisers; Control over this data
enabling what is shared with whom and to what end; Perspective of the rewards they will receive for sharing data
(e.g., free online experience).
I can only see this shift ultimately benefiting all parties and think it will come along side a general trend towards a
decentralization of the overall near ubiquitous social networking experience.
Is the tolerance for targeted advertising inside social networks different than outside social networks when
Peerset is leveraging social data and how much should marketers care about where their ad shows up?
I believe that the tolerance for targeted advertising in social networks is higher as the consumer/user can more
easily see the connection. Marketers will always care where their ad shows up for brand safety reasons alone.
And, of course, sites perform better or worse for many reasons including nature of site interaction and ad
placement. But on this question of managing a consumer/user's expectation, it seems reasonable that you don't
want to piss off your audience by shocking them with too much fore-knowledge of their interests. It really comes
back to points I've made earlier in this discussion - until the consumer/user can fully appreciate his/her place in the
mix we have non-optimized relationship and there is room for conflict.
Consumers have accepted direct marketing techniques via the mail that clearly take into account and use
PII. Can the consumer ever evolve to this point online? Or should we re-think all direct marketing
techniques as it relates to privacy?
An interesting point and related questions... I have some insight into this as I sold my last company to a business
with a strong DM service offering and acted as their CTO for several years.
I think the consumer can evolve to this point given the right structures as I've expressed above. One of the
reasons, I suspect, that PII and non-PII use in DM has been more readily accepted than online is that the
consumer has a feeling that they can manage the relationship with the advertiser. They know who to call. Also,
they know why the marketer knows what they know about them. And, a DM piece is typically offering a more
significant value-add than online ads. The consumer has visibility, control and perspective.
DM will likely also evolve with regards to privacy, but it has naturally gotten closer to where I think things need to
go online.
Follow Peerset (@peerset) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 28, 2010 – 1:15 am
221
Attitudinal Targeter Resonate Networks Raises $5 Million;
CEO Gernert Discusses Data-Driven Landscape
June 23, 2010 – 8:32 am
Attitudinal targeting ad network Resonate Networks has announced a
$5 million series A round of financing led by Greycroft Partners and
iNovia Capital. Read the release.
Resonate Networks CEO Bryan Gernert discussed his company's
new funding and the data-driven advertising landscape.
How is the funding environment today in ad tech? Is data
resonating?
While venture firms certainly remain selective, we found the market
very receptive to companies like us offering an entirely new type of
ad targeting solution that isn't just another "me too" behavioral
targeting solution or data company. There is good amount of money
available for fresh ideas.
Why were Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital the right partners to lead your series A round of
investment? What were you looking for?
First, we were looking for depth of experience in digital media, and more specifically, firms who shared our
excitement about the opportunity to bring more sophisticated audience targeting to brand advertisers. Second, we
wanted to work with early stage venture firms that can help us grow the business from our very rapid start to a
much more mature growth stage company. Having spoken with many venture firms around the country, we think
our partnership with Greycroft and iNovia is a home run. They understood immediately the power of our model
and the value Resonate brings to brand advertisers.
What can you share about traction you're seeing for Resonate Network's attitudinal targeting offering?
Attitudinal targeting amongst brand advertisers has seen positive traction in the past year. As brand advertisers
continue to move more of their budgets online, they need a way to find the best and most relevant audience for
their brand. Traditional online advertising falls short for brand advertisers by primarily focusing on direct response
goals and short term purchase intent. By tapping the values, beliefs and attitudes which are at the heart of
consumers' purchase decisions and brand loyalty, advertisers are better able to identify, reach and connect with
their desired audiences on a level that isn't possible with traditional online targeting alone.
Where is the market today for the use of data in advertising and marketing? Is it still early days or has the
data opportunity "matured" enough that it can even attract brand dollars?
At a macro level, it is still early in the application of more advanced data to online audience targeting. One thing
advertisers haven't fully realized yet is the degree to which they can fine tune their messaging to precise audiences
within a campaign using more advanced targeting. Two key questions which remain to be resolved are whether the
data quality problems appearing from standalone data providers continue, and whether behavioral targeting
models can actually scale.
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Will Resonate Networks sell media along with its data? Why or why not?
In our view, brand advertisers are looking for a more sophisticated, thoughtful solution to their business problem,
not more cookies and point solutions. Resonate's model fundamentally includes both our proprietary attitudinal
data and targeting algorithms as well as the execution of these campaigns. There is simply no other way to ensure
high quality campaign delivery on the kind of premium inventory that both guarantees brand safe environments
and strong performance. The bottom line is that targeting audiences defined by who they are and what they
believe rather than simple demographics makes sense, and results in greater response to campaigns, whether
measured in clicks, conversions, engagement, or brand lift._
By John Ebbert
June 23, 2010 – 8:32 am
223
Traffic Tools: Serving, Quality and Attribution
AdSafe Media Expands Product Line And Into Europe With
New Capital Says CRO Wakeford
July 7, 2010 – 12:07 am
Ad verification company, AdSafe Media, announced a $7.5 million Series B
round of financing led by Atlas Venture and includes existing investors
Founder Collective among others. The funds will be used in part to roll out
products Network Monitor 2.0 and Content Rating API. Read more in the
release.
Co-Founder and CRO Kent Wakeford discussed the capital raise and plans
for AdSafe Media.
What made Atlas Venture a good fit as a lead investor in your series B
round?
Atlas has a great pedigree in the ad-tech space, having led investments in
other key display advertising companies such as DataXu. Moreover, Fred Destin, the lead partner on the
transaction, has deep experience it the ad-tech and consumer facing technology sectors and will be a tremendous
addition to the AdSafe team.
You've listed your Network Monitor update and Content Network API as key upcoming milestones that will
be funded by this new round. Any other plans?
In addition to our key product roll-outs, international expansion to the UK and Western Europe is a key near-term
strategic objective. We have maintained an operational and technological presence in the UK since our
commercial launch and we are now looking to step up our sales and marketing efforts abroad to more aggressively
support our global clients.
At some point in the future, can you see AdSafe Media delivering agnostic data APIs to whomever wants to
use your targeting parameters rather than productized for publishers, networks, agencies, etc.? If so, at
that point, how will you differentiate?
AdSafe’s governing mission is to become the Digital Ratings Agency of the Web and an agnostic, independent
source of content information for the entire ecosystem. The key to our rating system is that it is a standardized,
common source of information that can be utilized simultaneously by all sides of the industry. What the industry is
currently lacking are the metrics that facilitate common dialogue between all players. Our current productitization
strategy is driven more by the dynamics and needs of the industry players. In the long term we see our business
relying more on our ability to deliver these metrics in raw data form.
Do you anticipate you'll need another round of funding before you reach profitability?
No. We anticipate that this round of funding will sustain us through profitability, ideally within the next year.
By John Ebbert
July 7, 2010 – 12:07 am
224
ClickForensics CEO Pellman On New Financing And
Audience Verification
June 30, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Click Forensics announced that today that it has closed a "$6
million Series C funding round led by Austin Ventures with
participation from Sierra Ventures and Shasta Ventures." Read the
release.
Click Forensics CEO Paul Pellman discussed the company's strategy going forward.
AdExchanger.com: With the $6 million, what can you share about what you'll do with the funds beyond
expanding "development and marketing of new offerings"?
PP: We raised this round of financing to speed our build out of audience verification offerings for display
advertisers. We plan to bring transparency and accountability to the display advertising space, just like we’ve done
in the CPC space for the past four years. With the advent of ad exchanges, DSPs, and yield management
platforms, display advertising is quickly evolving – promising tremendous reach and ease-of-use. However, wider
syndication and automation also means increasing threats to audience quality and less transparency. This requires
that media buyers ensure their ads are seen by the right audiences. Our new display solutions will do just that.
What was your sense of the funding environment today? Any pushback for ad tech?
Quite the contrary, we’ve been approached by several potential investors this year seeking opportunities to invest
in ad tech. In the end, based on the size of the investment we needed, it made sense for us to simply accept an
additional round of funding from our existing investors.
What's the difference between looking at audience for display and looking at who is creating click fraud in
CPC campaigns?
In the search world, the quality of an audience is largely determined by measuring a click’s propensity to convert.
In the display world advertisers need to know a whole lot more, such as: How many times was my ad really
served? How many actual people saw my ad?; How many times were they in the target demographic or
geography?; and Were competitors displayed more prominently? These needs require a different set of offerings,
but much of the core technology we’ve developed for the CPC space can be leveraged to deliver this functionality
for display advertisers quickly.
How does current traction for your audience verification product for display compare to your CPC product
today? Where do you anticipate this to be a year from now in terms of revenue? 50/50?
We are currently in the beta testing phase for our audience verification product for display. Our offerings for search
advertisers make up the majority of our revenue. We believe that over the next year display will become a much
bigger part of our business.
Any plans on getting into ad verification (DoubleVerify, AdSafe, Mpire, Adometry, etc.)? It would seem to
be a logical extension of your product line.
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We believe the brand safety and ad verification providers are doing a good job. But we’ve always said that brand
safety is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ensuring that display advertisers get what they pay for from
their online media buys. Knowing if an impression is real, if you reached the desired demographic, and where your
leads came from are extremely important to the display advertiser. With that data it’s only a short leap to advanced
segmentation, attribution, and bid optimization in an RTB setting. Our years of experience in the search space
have given us the foundation we need to deliver the unique capabilities demanded by display advertisers for
audience verification.
By John Ebbert
June 30, 2010 – 12:00 pm
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DoubleVerify CEO Netzer On New Fraud Detection Group
July 22, 2010 – 8:00 am
DoubleVerify CEO Oren Netzer discussed his company's new
research group called the "Advertising Fraud Detection Lab [which]
will investigate advertising fraud in real-time and raise awareness
of deceptive scams taking place every day across thousands of
publishers." Read the release.
AdExchanger.com: How big a problem is impression fraud today?
Impression fraud is a huge issue in online advertising and it happens across thousands of sites a day. There are
currently 4 million sites in the U.S. carrying ads on a daily basis and studies show that on average, 31 percent of
all online impressions are non-compliant. A significant cause of this waste is due to common fraudulent activities
and we have noticed quite a large amount of questionable activity on some sites already. There are potentially
hundreds of ways in which a site can engage in advertising fraud. For example, publishers can stack 10 ads on top
of each other, where the user only sees the topmost ad but all 10 advertisers pay for an impression. There are
numerous other ways to do this as well (Professor Ben Edelman publishes other types of advertising fraud on his
blog at http://www.benedelman.org.
Unfortunately, there is no one way of indentifying advertising fraud and that's what makes it complicated. Our
researchers look into suspicious activity, analyze it and then come up with a "signature" to identify different types of
fraud so they can be tracked. This is very similar to how viruses are found. We then push out signatures to our
crawling infrastructure that crawls millions of sites daily to look for fraud, which allows us to identify many other
sites that engage in non-compliant practices using the same techniques. Every one of these fraud types that are
found are usually in low numbers, but combining them can result in some big numbers. We don't know what they
are yet, but we suspect that there are hundreds of different types of fraud that are pervasive across a significant
portion of the long tail Internet. Our goal with the Advertising Fraud Detection Lab is to bring light to the dark
corners of online advertising so the entire industry can move forward and away from practices that hurt advertisers
and the industry at large.
Is DoubleVerify getting into the impression fraud and click fraud business similar to Click Forensics,
Anchor Intelligence and others?
Companies like Click Forensics and others focus more on the validity of the user that is viewing or clicking the ad
and their technology is based more on mining data about the user than verifying ads or detecting the types of fraud
we're looking for. We are addressing the problem of fraudulent sites and looking for patterns of fraudulent activities
in the html source of the page as well as looking for adware/malware activity from browser toolbars and other
downloadble applications.
This is based on our Virtual Visitor technology that crawls millions of sites a day, renders all the third party code on
the page and scans to look for signatures across huge volumes of pages. If anyone is delivering an ad inside an
invisible ad space, our crawling technology would recognize that and flag the site as fraudulent.
DoubleVerify will continue to be a leading media verification provider and we will constantly iterate on our
technology to cover new forms of non-compliance. The research done by the Advertising Fraud Detection Lab will
influence our product offerings in the future, but our core values and mission will stay the same.
How will your fraud research directly impact DoubleVerify's client campaigns? For example, will it report
out to a client that a publisher on their campaign is using "Stacked Ads" ("publisher stacks ads on top of
each other to give the appearance of multiple ads served on a page, even if only one ad is visible")?
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Whenever our researchers find a new type of fraud we will incorporate the ability to identify a web page that uses
this type of fraud in our crawling technology. Since we crawl millions of sites a day, this will scale it across the
Internet and we are likely to identify all the sites and pages employing this type of fraud within a few days. When
our crawlers find a site with this type of fraud, they will flag that site as fraudulent in our site database. Then
depending on what type of service our clients are using - if they are using our blocking product (BrandShield), we
will block the ad from being delivered to the fraudulent site. If they are using our reporting product (BrandAssure),
we will report on the fraudulent site.
What's the revenue model for the research arm?
Currently there is no change in revenue structure as the research arm itself is not a revenue generator. The results
of the research will be incorporated into our product suite to improve what we can offer our clients. This is another
pioneering effort and unique advantage that only DoubleVerify can offer to its customers.
By John Ebbert
July 22, 2010 – 8:00 am
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Venture Capital And Banking
Battery Ventures’ Patel Sees More Skepticism Regarding
Ad Technology Investment Than Years Past
May 12, 2010 – 9:47 am
Satya Patel is a Partner at Battery Ventures, a venture capital and
private equity investment firm.
AdExchanger.com: Battery Ventures has been around since the
'80s as a venture and private equity firm. Looking at a high
level, can you take us through some of the strategy pivots the
firm has made in regards to digital media and why?
SP: While Battery has a long history in digital media, online
advertising specifically has become more of a focus in the past
several years. Coming to Battery three years ago, after many years
at both DoubleClick and Google, it was clear to me that the display
advertising market was going to go through a significant period of
incredible innovation. Battery shared that view and has always
focused its online advertising investments in companies that we
believe have differentiated technology, network effects or switching
costs and incredible teams. We've avoided investing in many parts
of the online advertising ecosystem that we believe will be
commoditized over time or difficult to scale and differentiate in the
long term.
As an investor in BlueKai, Lotame, FreeWheel, TrialPay and
many more - the company appears to be committed to digital
media. Can you discuss some of the bullet points you are using
when evaluating a company for investment? And, where does
the analysis start?
The answer probably isn't that surprising but it basically comes down to three major items. First and foremost is the
team, their character and their understanding of the market. We don't believe that you can be successful in this
market without understanding both the media and technology sides of the business so we looks for teams who
have skills in both areas. Second is the product and whether it can have long-term differentiation. How easy would
it be replicate or switch out? Last is the business model. How does it scale, what kind of margin profile does it have
and how much change in behavior does it require in the market. We are pretty agnostic about stage and
geography.
Looking at the human side of investing, when you meet an entrepreneur/CEO regarding possible
investment, what characteristics are you looking for in her or him?
We want to back entrepreneurs that we hope to have a relationship with for many decades, not just for the current
company. While we consider many things, there are four primary characteristics that stand out as being particularly
important to us: integrity, passion, flexibility and expertise. I think those are all pretty self-explanatory.
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What's your view on private digital media companies going public versus being acquired these days? Will
the IPO market ever revive? Which way is "the exit" and when?
The exit path for the vast majority of digital media/online advertising companies will be M&A. I think that is true for
two reasons. First, there are just so many companies who view digital advertising as critical to their businesses.
There are the usual suspects like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, but the agency holding companies, traditional
media companies and technology vendors like Cisco, Akamai and Adobe are all interested parties in this market.
Second, with very few exceptions, it's difficult to build a digital advertising business that has the scale, revenue
visibility and consistent growth needed to be a successful public company. The IPO market will come back but I'm
less certain that it will provide many great exits for digital advertising companies.
What are you seeing in the ad tech space today? Any sweet spots intrigue you, in particular? Is it too
frothy?
Honestly, I'm seeing a lot of the same thing again and again in the ad tech market. It seems like we're largely past
the period of innovation and going into the period of consolidation. I'm still excited about the prospects for data and
the separation of data from media. That world is only getting more complex and companies that help automate it
and simplify it are going to create a lot of value. Unlike some other Internet markets, I actually don't think that ad
tech is particularly frothy right now. I would say that there is a higher degree of skepticism than 2-3 years ago.
How about a Google view or two or three... As an ex-Googler on the AdSense and DART teams among
others, what's your view on Google's DoubleClick Ad Exchange? Will it dominate the exchange space?
Etc.
Ah, I was waiting for the Google question. I think Google has an incredible position in the market and that it wants
to dominate all parts of it. It will aggregate media and enable media buying via AdEx. It will build and optimize
creative based on the team and tech they acquired with Teracent. It will eventually make more and more data,
including search data and first party publisher data, available for use in AdEx. And it will provide the intelligence to
tie all of those together to deliver the best display advertising performance. Google doesn't care which piece of the
market captures the most value because they will play in all parts.
What do you like about being a VC? What don't you like?
Absolutely the thing I love most about being a VC is working with so many different, fantastic teams of people. I'm
consistently blown away by entrepreneurs and their vision and passion and feel lucky to work with so many great
ones. It's also fun being an industry "outsider" because I get to talk to everyone and look at the industry from many
different perspectives to try to figure out where it is going and who is going to win. The main thing I don't like is not
being able to get my hands dirty. I'm a product guy by background and no matter how involved or helpful you are
as a board member, you're still many steps removed from building product and bringing it to market. For me, there
are few experiences more satisfying.
What's your view on demand-side platforms? The new ad network?
I don't know that I have a particularly unique view on DSPs. Yes, basically I think that they are the new ad network
or, in many ways, the new agency. Much like the ad networks had to evolve their businesses to add more value
than simply aggregating inventory, I think that the successful DSPs will quickly do more than just enable RTB.
DSPs will need to combine their exchange buying capabilities with optimization know-how that leverages various
types of data (ideally with proprietary access to that data) and dynamic creative. I actually expect to see some
vertical specialization particularly for high value verticals like online retail, travel and financial services. Even then,
I'm not sure that we are going to see value creation in the DSP market like what we saw at the end of the ad
network era (Tacoda, Blue Lithium, etc.).
You're on several company boards as well as a board observer. What makes a good board?
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A good board is responsible for representing the interests of all shareholders. To that end, a good board pressure
tests the assumptions of management based on a true understanding of the market and business. It also
understands that it is not building the business so a good board ultimately trusts management to make the right
decisions. A good board also "adds value" in ways that are asked for by the management team, whether that be in
hiring, sales, business development or financing. Lastly, a good board is one that enjoys working together but also
enjoys healthy debate. I don't think that you can ever stop getting better as a board member.
The agency model is morphing these days. If you were running a media agency, what would you do to stay
ahead of the digital media opportunity?
I'm glad I'm not in their shoes! Arguably, agencies have two real assets, people and data. To me, the latter is the
key for any agency that wants to have success in digital media. Agencies should build their proprietary data
assets, leverage third party data and develop analytic and optimization platforms that give them a unique
perspective on media buying, targeting and creative. Agencies need to become technology companies to succeed
in the digital world. I'm not sure their DNA will allow them to do that successfully but that hopefully means good
things for entrepreneurs who are building those capabilities in service of agencies.
Follow Satya Patel (@satyap) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
May 12, 2010 – 9:47 am
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Betaworks Swimming In Real-Time Streams Says Founder
And COO Weissman
July 6, 2010 – 12:37 pm
Andrew Weissman is founder and COO at Betaworks, which invests in and
operates Internet and digital media companies.
AdExchanger.com: There's been a lot of good buzz about Betaworks
recently. Why do you think that's the case?
AW: Luck? Right time at the right place? Our companies speak for themselves;
to the extent there is attention on betaworks I think it's because the companies in
our network are doing interesting things. Maybe it's also because we do things a
little differently and people are intrigued - we not only invest but we also build
and acquire businesses.
What is Betaworks investment philosophy? Is there a Betaworks-type
company?
There is a big gap between and idea and how that idea gets effectuated in the
form of a real product. So, we like to play with applications, we believe "betas
work" so we want to see a prototype of a product before we consider investing.
Aside from that, if its real time and/or social, we are interested.
You wrote in an April post on your personal blog about the impact of the open Web on traditional content
models: "Innovation didn't die - instead it flourished into new, related and unrelated, spaces." What are the
new spaces being created today?
Real time streams of information and applications (things like Twitter, or gdgt, DailyBooth, Kickstarter, Tumblr).
Do you buy into the idea that advertising will - to some degree - become like the financial markets? Does
content become like the financial markets?
Advertising and content are becoming more and more fragmented. I'm not sure it becomes more like the financial
markets, but clearly a different way to deliver advertising into content online is needed.
Looking forward, what's your view on M&A momentum in the digital media technology space?
More momentum in 2011 and 2012 because the pace of innovation is increasing steadily.
Do you think opportunities in the mobile advertising space are finally hitting their stride? Or, when does
mobile "hit"?
What's new is that there is no longer any separate thing called "mobile" - just as there is no old media or new
media - it's all Internet media now. Devices are now powerful enough that delivery can go anywhere.
If you're an entrepreneur, what are your suggestions on the best way to pitch an investment firm such as
Betaworks?
Show us a prototype!
Follow Andrew Weissman (@aweissman), Betaworks (@betaworks) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on
Twitter.
July 6, 2010 – 12:37 pm
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233
Gil Beyda of Genacast On Invite Media Success, Stepping
Up Investment In Start-ups This Year
June 16, 2010 – 8:19 am
Gil Beyda leads early-stage investment group Genacast Ventures,
a part of Comcast Interactive Capital. Genacast Ventures invested
in demand-side platform Invite Media prior to being acquired by
Google as announced earlier this month.
Beyda spoke to AdExchanger.com about the deal as well as
momentum in the space.
AdExchanger.com: Were you surprised that Invite Media sold
so quickly? -and to Google?
GB: I wasn't surprised that others saw and appreciated the value
that the Invite Media team was creating. I was, however, surprised
that it happened so quickly. We invested in Invite Media in May of
2008 and from the beginning we were not building to exit. We saw
a market opportunity and set our sights on building a solution to fill
that need. The rest, we figured, would take care of itself.
We are happy it was Google. We have a lot of respect for what
they have built and felt it was a good home for the technology, a good fit for the team and a good cultural fit. The
response from employees, partners and customers has been very positive.
How did your investment help lead to Google's acquisition of Invite Media?
Remember, when Invite started nearly all traffic was going through a single ad exchange. Also, few agencies knew
how to maximize the opportunity presented by exchanges. We believed from the beginning these would change
but needed time. Invite Media was a very capital efficient business. That efficiency enabled us to continue to build
product and wait for the market to develop.
Where does this rank in terms of Genacast investments to-date?
Invite Media was a great investment for Genacast for many reasons. Of course, it was a success financially. Invite
Media was our first investment back in 2008 and now our first exit. But even more so, it helps to validate our model
of entrepreneurs funding entrepreneurs.
Hopefully we were able to contribute to their success in more meaningful ways than just cash. Finally, it was very
rewarding working with Nat, Zach and the rest of the Invite Media team. Their passion was infectious.
But we're not done yet. We are very excited with our other portfolio companies (Demdex, DoubleVerify and
Packlate) and expect great things from them as well. Also, we're looking to step-up the pace and invest in 4-5 new
start-ups this year.
Looking back at Genacast's investment in Invite Media, anything you'd do differently?
While at times it was a nail-bitter, I wouldn't change a thing. It was a wild and exciting ride. Being new to the
venture business my first investment was a learning experience but I couldn't have done it without the support and
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mentoring of Chris Fralic of First Round Capital and David Horowitz of Comcast Interactive Capital. I am very
grateful for their guidance.
Do you think there is still interest in demand-side platforms and/or ad networks by potential acquirers?
The industry that Invite Media helped pioneer is still young and there is still a lot of innovation and potential to be
realized. Also, there are a lot of smart entrepreneurs out there building very valuable companies. I expect we'll see
more activity in the space.
By John Ebbert
June 16, 2010 – 8:19 am
235
GCA Savvian’s Kawaja On Google’s Acquisition Of Invite
Media And Demand-Side Platform M&A
June 7, 2010 – 8:05 am
Terence Kawaja is Managing Director of GCA Savvian, an
investment bank, which "acted as exclusive financial advisor to
Invite Media, Inc. and assisted in the negotiations" between Google
and Invite Media. Google acquired Invite Media last week.
AdExchanger.com: Why do you think Google bought Invite
Media?
TK: I will let Google answer that but Invite had many excellent
qualities from a world-class team (yes despite the fact they are
recently out of college), a very user-friendly and leading technology
and a great set of growing agency relationships.
Some commentators have suggested that the Invite Media
deal may set a cap on the value of a demand-side platform
(DSP), not dissimilar to what happened with Teracent in the
creative optimization space. Do you agree?
I have heard the Teracent hypothesis but think that this situation is
different in several respects. Firstly, the valuation of Invite (which
has been understated in the press) worked since they had attained
a strong market position very efficiently – they raised less than $5
million in capital. Second, the DSP process is probably more
complicated and is less easily replicated. Third, several successful
DSPs have created sticky agency relationships that go beyond the
algorithm that contribute to longer-term value.
Can you disclose the actual sale price for Invite?
No.
Please discuss how DSPs in the space today are differentiating from what some claim can be built quickly
and easily?
As you know, not all DSPs are the same. Some focus on workflow and UI, some are building next generation
algorithms, others are really infrastructure plays and other still are doing everything from the media buying to the
data optimization using predictive analytics. So really, the only thing they have in common is that they are all using
data to optimize the buying of exchange-traded media. Several ad networks have built this same capability – now
we will see if they want to shift their business model to a percentage fee-based approach.
How long did it take for this deal to come together? Is there an average time – what are the factors?
Invite Media was approached in the past but talks did not conclude. Meanwhile the business was growing at mid
double-digit monthly rates and there was no need to do anything. They were then approached by several parties
this year and were able to conclude terms with Google. We made zero outbound calls. The deal took several
months in order to do all the diligence and documentation – and Google is very thorough. Deal timing depends on
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the situation. Besides the sale of Invite Media, we closed another deal last week that went from term sheet to
close in under a month.
You have been predicting a consolidation wave. Is that just wishful thinking or do you really think we will
see more activity?
Given the current state of fragmentation coupled with the accelerated dynamics of the sector, I do see more M&A
activity. With fragmentation comes opportunity and I think several players will take advantage of that and pursue
inorganic growth options. If we are at an inflection point (and it feels like we are), the upside for buy vs. build is
compelling. To be clear, if you think of consolidation as fewer players, that can come about two ways: (i) M&A and
(ii) failure. With over $2.5 billion of VC capital raised in the display sector, failure is an option.
What do you think about the market for DSP M&A?
Like most markets, the key thing to examine is the balance of supply and demand. On the supply, there are new
companies announcing DSP-like capabilities every week but there are only a handful of them which have
meaningful traction with advertisers and agencies. On the demand, there are many companies from at least six
different potential buyer groups with potential interest: (i) Agency, (ii) Media/Marketing, (iii) Network, (iv) Data and
Measurement, (v) Software and (vi) Ad Network. I have spoken with 44 companies (that I could count) that have
expressed a genuine interest in the category. Clearly not all will step up. One has to factor in many different
considerations such as strategic objectives, ability to pay, etc. to figure out what the opportunity looks like and the
right match-ups. It’s like game theory.
Assuming you’ve mapped this out, can you share your views?
I have mapped out various scenarios and have a running template I use to help me think about the landscape –
like those WWII movies with the miniature battlefield models. That we keep for our clients.
Who do you think is next to get acquired?
(smile) That will certainly be a key discussion topic at our Digital Media Summit we are hosting tomorrow which
includes most of the CEOs in the sector.
Kawaja also shared an update to a slide from his May IAB presentation:
Follow Terence Kawaja (@tkawaja) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 7, 2010 – 8:05 am
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Fast Pay Partners Looking To Shorten Receivables Cycles
Says Partners Simon And Yee
June 7, 2010 – 12:05 am
Jed Simon is Founder & Partner and Patrick Yee is Partner of Fast
Pay Partners.
AdExchanger.com: Please share background on yourselves.
And, where did the idea come from for Fast Pay Partners?
Jed: The idea for Fast Pay Partners was based on seeing the need
firsthand.
Patrick: Before Fast Pay, I co-founded of Shopflick, a venturecapital backed video-ecommerce marketplace which was sold to
Sugar Publishing in 2009. Prior to Shopflick, I co-founded Rocket
XL, a full service interactive marketing agency, so the frustrations
of financing growth in the digital marketplace is one I know well.
However, my career began with stints at Wasserstein Perella & Co.
(now Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein) and Soros Fund
Management, so thinking outside the box to deal with those
challenges also comes naturally to me.
Jed: My trajectory was similar. Like Patrick, I started out in the
traditional finance world, as an investment banker at Morgan
Stanley & Co. I then spent 10 years at DreamWorks SKG, most
recently VP International Marketing and Distribution for DreamWorks Pictures, based in London (and oversaw for
new media, finance, and marketing for DreamWorks Records in Los Angeles prior to that). Post DreamWorks I
started an international content licensing and distribution business, which had exposure into the performance
marketing space, and its inherent the float/finance challenges were requisite apparent.
What problem is Fast Pay Partners solving?
Jed: There are numerous pain points throughout the online advertising ecosystem we hope to address. Payment
terms from advertisers have become extended from net 30 to net 90, and even net 120 for many premium
networks. Payables departments at ad networks and agencies are being inundated with calls and emails from
publishers seeking payment – we’re here to help solve that problem. Also a signed insertion order representing a
6-month premium campaign is an asset in itself – we can monetize it and provide the liquidity to the site owner
faster (rather than progress billing or waiting for full delivery of campaign)
Patrick: There are also sites and performance marketers who have great margins and can meaningful scale their
business exponentially if they had the ability to shorten their receivables cycle and reinvest media dollars – we’re
looking to become their growth partners. Also with the growth of ad exchanges and DSPs, we will begin to offer
clearinghouse services and payment expediting so the advertisers and pubs can focus on what they do best rather
than get weighed down by these processes.
Would you equate your services to "factoring" where you provide funds in return for accounts
receivables? Is there any difference?
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Jed: This is a bit different from factoring in the sense that “factors” traditionally buy receivables outright at a steep
discount – taking on collection responsibilities and risk of non-payment. We align more closely with ‘asset based
lending’ – or providing liquidity solutions for assets (in this case, receivables). Also, Patrick and I both come from
the digital media world and understand the uniqueness of these businesses– traditional lenders don’t understand
this market and would never deliver the kinds of products we do.
Who are your clients today? What's your target market in the advertising world? It would appear social
gaming is one focus given a recent article.
Jed: We have a very broad mandate to work with all kinds of businesses, including: content publishers, ad
networks (display, video, mobile), exchanges, DSPs, agencies, social apps, marketers, and affiliates. Social
gaming has been interesting for us as it’s really a DR business -- these apps are heavily advertised on Facebook
to drive users, which in turn drive sales. However there’s a tremendous pain point in advertising right now – terms
are extended, publishers want to keep upgrading the quality and depth of their content, and that’s a problem we’re
going to address right away.
Can you provide a use case of how a typical transaction might work for a client?
Patrick: The process is fast and we are working hard to make it even easier, though ultimately it depends on the
client and the type of facility they are trying to raise. First we qualify an applicant via a simple application. After a
brief diligence on the client and reviewing their specific needs, we execute a formal agreement, verify the payables
being advanced and fund the client. In the vast majority of cases, the entire process, from application to client
receiving the funds, is completed within a week. Based upon the clients business, we can extend immediate credit
from tens of thousands to several million dollars.
What do you expect the long term benefits will be for participating companies?
Jed: In high growth industries, such as these, access to capital is paramount to growth. For any growing business
equity is far and away the most expensive form of capital. By monetizing a businesses existing assets (advertiser
receivables) and delay a follow-on equity round for 6 months, a year, or even indefinitely, the monetary benefits
(not to mention retention of control) are irrefutable. In terms of other financing alternatives: bank loans require a
cumbersome application process and are very difficult to get. Financing by credit cards is expensive, has low
caps, and carries personal recourse. Receivables are a terrific underutilized asset which we hope to unlock.
What fees are involved for the client? Is there a maximum amount that Fast Pay Partners can handle? Any
minimum?
Patrick: There are no fees to apply for the service. Once a client is approved and begins using Fast Pay there is a
nominal setup fee deducted from the first advance and we charge nominal discounts against the face value of
each invoice based upon a variety of variables (the client, the advertiser, the average payment terms, etc.). We
analyze a company’s receivables during the application process, and they need to be generating a minimum of
$10,000 a month to qualify. In terms of maximums, no, there is no maximum loan.
Please identify who or what institution backs your fund. How do you insure that clients who use your
service will be paid?
Jed: We are backed a combination of hedge fund and private equity capital (all locally based in Los Angeles). In
terms of risk to our clients however, remember, we’re paying our clients are paid upfront and we carry the float
while waiting for the advertisers to pay. We’re the ones bearing the risk here.
A year from now, what milestones would you like to have seen Fast Pay Partners accomplish?
Patrick: We’d like to continue to grow our business and expand our B-to-B network relationships and product
offerings while maintaining our core values of transparency trust.
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Jed: I’d like for Fast Pay Partners to become the gold-standard in the industry in terms of recognition, client
service, trust and integrity. Our challenge is properly delivering the message to the community, as our product
without question delivers value.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
June 7, 2010 – 12:05 am
240
The Jordan, Edmiston Group's Tolman Geffs Discusses
Industry M&A Trends, Sale Of Investopedia To ValueClick
By Forbes
August 10, 2010 – 1:40 pm
Recently, ValueClick bought financial information site,
Investopedia, from Forbes for $42 million in cash. Read the
release.
The Jordan, Edmiston Group’s (JEGI) Co-President Tolman Geffs,
which helped facilitate Forbes' sale of Investopedia to ValueClick,
discussed the trandsacation as well as overall mergers and
acquisitions trends in the media space.
AdExchanger.com: Can you discuss a little bit about the value
a company such as JEGI provides in a transaction like this?
TG: JEGI adds value in several ways to the sale of a company like
Investopedia:
First, we bring a wide view of the market, and it is important to think
through all the different buckets of potential buyers that could find a
company interesting. In the case of Investopedia, there were a
number of "obvious" buyers in financial media, groups like
TheStreet.com or Time Inc., and we certainly spoke with those.
But, we were also interested in exploring the fit with buyers that
are strong in performance-based advertising, a group that Forbes
was less familiar with. And, as so often happens, the buyer, as
well as the runner-up bidder, was from that new bucket of
performance-oriented media groups. ValueClick is very strong in
performance advertising and also brings deep traffic acquisition expertise to build on Investopedia's SEO strength.
Second, JEGI makes the market by building buyer interest, shaping their view of valuation and driving competition
to get their best price and terms on the table. Then we pay a lot of attention to the details of negotiating and
structuring the deal with the preferred bidder. I am pleased to note that we had multiple bidders for Investopedia
and fully satisfied our client's expectations.
Finally, we do a lot of work to prepare the company for sale and then drive a disciplined process with a tight
timetable. This minimizes the period of market exposure and maximizes confidence to closing, avoiding the trap of
a deal process that drags on. Forbes announced its plan to sell Investopedia on June 11 and the deal closed less
than 60 days later, a very quick and efficient process that gave welcome certainty to Forbes and to the
Investopedia team.
AdExchanger.com: Why do you think Investopedia is a good fit for ValueClick?
ValueClick is a terrific new owner for Investopedia. ValueClick has been building its stable of owned media
properties to complement its enormous intermediary businesses like Commission Junction and ad networks.
Investopedia offers high margins and strong growth in an attractive category. Investopedia attracts large
audiences through direct traffic and natural search – most of its terms rank in the top three results on Google – and
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ValueClick will add to that traffic base with its expertise in traffic acquisition from other channels like SEM, affiliate
and social media. Investopedia's revenue is primarily performance-driven advertising for financial services
marketers, and ValueClick will be able to expand Investopedia sales through its larger sales force. Lastly, and
very importantly, the Investopedia management team felt very comfortable with ValueClick CEO Jim Zarley and his
team. So, a strong fit on several dimensions.
What's the M&A space like today as it relates to digital marketing and its offshoots? What do you predict
over the next 6-12 months as it relates to M&A?
The digital M&A market is definitely heating up; a recent update can be found at www.jegi.com (look under
Resources on the home page). A few trends jump out. First is the continuing wave of display ad targeting and
buying, bringing search-like efficiency to brand and performance display advertising. Quite a few major technology
and data companies are maneuvering for their role in this value chain and will be making ad buy-side acquisitions.
Second, growing traffic organically in online media is harder than ever, placing a premium on acquisitions of
businesses with strong audience loyalty and efficient traffic acquisition. Third, on the sell-side, publishers have a
long way to go in managing and monetizing the value of the data they originate, and we expect a number of
acquisitions of groups that assist publishers in capturing more value from their data.
You've identified in the past that there are many companies "slicing" up the marketing dollar. Do you see
more companies coming? Is that a bad thing?
We are indeed seeing a period of remarkable innovation in online ad targeting and delivery, a sort of "Cambrian
explosion" when a zillion new life forms evolved. This is very healthy, as these new species compete to offer
better performance with lower friction. However, in the aggregate, the proliferation creates friction and eats into
the margins of publishers and agencies in a non-sustainable way. Natural selection will do its job, and we expect
to see a great deal of consolidation, as larger creatures evolve that combine the best functions of several of the
smaller entrants. Continuing the Darwinian metaphor, if you don’t have a plan to get to scale, odds are good you
will be someone else's lunch.
Do you have any macro concerns for digital marketing/advertising, such as regulation or a weak
economy?
There is an old Wall Street saying that "markets climb a wall of worry." We always ought to be concerned about
disruptions like regulation or a sluggish economy, as consumers remain reluctant to spend. However, high
consumer savings rates, while a dampener on near-term growth, are a welcome correction to a generation of
profligate borrowing and purchasing. In the macro view, the pace of innovation in technology remains strong, and
that should fuel productivity growth for many years to come. And, we are seeing some positive micro signs as well
– for example, one JEGI client is highly integrated with the marketing data of major offline merchants and direct
marketers and is seeing good retailer confidence heading into the critical fall buying season.
By John Ebbert
August 10, 2010 – 1:40 pm
242
Investment Banker Terence Kawaja Starts LUMA Partners
August 25, 2010 – 12:07 am
Terence Kawaja recently announced that he will be leaving
investment banking firm GCA Savvian to start his own firm, LUMA
Partners.
Kawaja discussed the new firm and his strategy with
AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: You have suggested investment banking
needs disruption? Why?
TK: Fundamentally, I think some aspects of the banking model are
broken. Most bankers effectively act like real estate agents – they
sign up a client and then take them out to market. In other words,
they obtain inventory and then try to sell it. That model works fine
for mature companies or divestitures but not so well for emerging
technology businesses. Think about it – if you have a great
company in a growing sector with a bright future, why would you
proactively sell? There is absolute adverse selection at play here: the weaker companies are SOLD and the better
companies are BOUGHT. The “banker” that calls up the potential strategic acquirer is hardly unbiased – they're
selling inventory.
LUMA Partners acts as a “strategic advisor” representing companies that are BOUGHT. We spend a tremendous
amount of time with the large strategic buyers – with both development executives as well as business and product
leaders – to understand their strategic goals. We use our deep knowledge of the business models, markets,
companies and executives in the space to help inform and identify the best possible acquisition candidates that
can deliver the capability necessary to fulfill those strategic goals. We do this on an objective basis and then try to
make the deal happen once the target is identified. Ultimately we represent and get paid by the company being
bought but we start with an objective value add to the strategic. It’s a real win-win approach.
We also represent companies who have a great business but get inbound strategic interest – which can be very
distracting and time consuming for growth companies. We help guide the discussions and manage the inbound
interest. Invite Media was a classic example of this type of assignment. Many times, these discussions do not
result in a deal - “no” is a very powerful word.
Finally, we represent strategic companies who are looking for deep industry expertise to determine the right
strategy, capability and companies to pursue. Emerging digital technologies represents both a significant
challenge and opportunity to large media and technology companies. There’s 100 cents of downside in any digital
deal so getting it right is paramount. We can help since we have both deep knowledge and a broad perspective.
What will be your investment bank's "philosophy," if you will?
LUMA Partners is all about adding value by thinking like a principal. We believe in being transparent and honest
(regardless of how good/bad that is for the recipient) as the client is best served from this approach. Also, we
believe in having fun.
You're entering the entrepreneurial world with LUMA Partners after years of watching entrepreneurs. What
key experiences will you bring forward into your practice?
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I have spent the last 21 years of my professional career working for other people. I left a great job at Citi running
their global media business because I didn’t like the institutionalization and bureaucracy. In fact, I have always
been an entrepreneur – I started a paper route at 9 years old and have had several “businesses” through high
school and college. I spent a year as the CFO of a client company and took them public - so I have some start-up
operating experience as well. You could say entrepreneurism is in my blood. I’ve also learned a lot from clients
over the years and will apply those learnings to LUMA Partners. LUMA is brand new but I am loving it already from the mundane aspects of starting a company to deal success as an independent company.
Speaking of deals, when will you be available to "do" deals? Any guess as to when we'll see the first one?
The deal “doing” is already underway and I am working on several interesting situations. As for timing on the first
one, that is coming very soon. Stay tuned…….
Is this a self-funded company? Will you hire employees?
There is absolutely no validity to the rumors that Digital Sky Technologies is investing in LUMA Partners at a billion
dollar valuation - none whatsoever. Seriously, yes, it is a self-funded company. I have already hired employees,
have office space and am looking for more smart people who want to make a difference, take on significant
responsibility and have fun. It is called LUMA Partners and I anticipate scaling with additional partners over time.
You’ve mentioned “having fun” several times and have a reputation as a comedian. Do you see any
conflict between your light-hearted demeanor and the serious business of deal advisory?
Ha – I only get that question from non-clients. As they can attest, I take my job very seriously but also believe in
some fun. It is just my personality and I have always done business this way. I’ve told jokes in boardrooms from
Aol to AT&T to Comcast and those deals turned out fine. At the end of the day, it is a differentiator. Besides, who
couldn’t use a little industry self deprecation? It’s all in good fun. The videos are hopefully a demonstration of
creative writing, some digital video technology savvy and social media marketing skills – again more differentiation
from the typical banker.
3-5 years out - where would you like LUMA Partners positioned?
I have given a lot of thought to what kind of business I’d like to build. It is multi-faceted and will be revealed in
time. In the interim, we would like to be considered a premium strategic advisor of choice to leading companies in
media and technology.
Was your departure from GCA Savvian amicable?
It was. GCA Savvian is an excellent firm and I have great respect for the people there, many of which are friends.
We have a cooperative arrangement and I look forward to exploring ways to work together in the future.
Your May IAB presentation on the ad landscape has proven to be quite popular – over 25,000 views to date
on slideshare. Do you have any upcoming presentations?
Yes, I am speaking at Rethink Media, IAB MIXX, OMMA Global and Ad Revenue. I will be discussing how the
landscape might change prospectively. And yes, there’s a video……
By John Ebbert
August 25, 2010 – 12:07 am
244
Petsky Prunier’s Chadda On FetchBack Sale To GSI
Commerce
June 9, 2010 – 8:24 am
Sanjay Chadda is Partner & Managing Director at Petsky Prunier,
which advised FetchBack on its sale to GSI Commerce Inc. Read
the release.
AdExchanger.com: Some think that Fetchback sold before the
market collapsed for their services due to factors such as
Google opening up self-serve retargeting. How do you
respond?
SC: Fetchback was approached by numerous parties late last year and early this year. The Company had no
intention of selling but after turning down several offers and certain parties became more aggressive the board
decided to hire us to run a limited process. Without going into specifics, the Company was exceeding its monthly
budgets. Fetchback was very comfortable to stay a standalone entity but ultimately found a partner that could only
accelerate its growth. This deal was not about the broader market or factors within it. This is a combination that
ultimately was about winning and taking share.
Is the market for companies offering retargeting services drying up?
Given Fetchback's rapid growth as well as others we don't see the market drying up. Ultimately retargeting is a
very effective way to enhance display advertising and its ROI and will help it gain share from other online
channels. Display is a big opportunity and tools that enhance it will only gain further prominence in the market.
If not, who or what types of companies are potential bidders here?
There are several categories of potential bidders. Ecommerce service and tech providers, online analytics
companies, seo / sem businesses, large ad networks, agencies and traditional marketing services companies that
are building a suite of online tools.
In general, how do you think retargeters can differentiate?
Key differentiators amongst this group are reach, analytics and media buying / optimization capabilities.
On a related topic, do you have an opinion on demand-side platforms and ad networks? Do you expect
M&A here?
There will be consolidation in both. DSPs will continue to be attractive to a number of different categories many of
which I listed above. In general, ad networks will have fewer liquidity options. The ones that are differentiated by
size or by the brand clients they serve will have more options and many appealing ones compared to the
undifferentiated me-to players. Smaller networks will likely merge due to increased competition and the need to
gain scale. In general there has to be a movement to higher end branded offers and a cleansing of low value
negative continuity offers in the market.
Are there too many companies competing for the marketing dollar? What's your view on consolidation in
the advertising technology sector?
245
In any fragmented market there will be too many players chasing not enough dollars. This is a big and growing
market thus all of the investment in it. There are a number of segments that are ripe for consolidation. This is
because there are either too many players or larger strategics have needs to fill. Further there are also companies
that raised money years ago and their investors likely need liquidity. I would include online analytics, ad networks
(traditional and video), seo / sem, optimization, attribution amongst others at the top of the list.
By John Ebbert
June 9, 2010 – 8:24 am
246
WebMynd Creating New Revenue Stream For Publishers
With Search App
Email This Post
July 6, 2010 – 12:07 am
Amir Nathoo is CEO of WebMynd, an advertising technology
company.
AdExchanger.com: Where did the idea come for WebMynd?
My co-founder, James, and I were intrigued by the power that
browser apps on Firefox provided, and wanted to see how we
could use them to make navigation simpler. We built several little
apps and users loved our integration with the right-hand side of the
Google results page. So we kept adding more content and
personalization features there to make it more useful than just ads,
and ended up with WebMynd. IE, Chrome and Safari all started
supporting these kind of browser apps so we realized we were onto
something.
WebMynd lets people personalize their Google search using
browser apps. You can take over the right hand side of the results
page and see a view of the web filtered by the publishers that you
love.
What problem is WebMynd solving?
The web is getting larger, spam is a growing problem, and the most
valuable information is often behind logins or firewalls.
This means the ability to filter the web with sources that you trust is becoming more valuable. But people are
accustomed to going to Google and don't want to have to change to another search engine. Our browser apps let
users opt-in to see results from the sources they trust the most right on the Google page. This can include
personal results that Google doesn't show them like searches across their private LinkedIn and Facebook
networks.
Please provide a use case which shows how your product works and where the revenue is generated?
Check out myspace.com/webmynd. Install the app for Firefox from there and do a search on Google. MySpace
users install it so they can keep track of their friends, stars and favorite bands when they search. We also show
sponsored links provided by Yahoo in our search sidebar. We earn revenue when users click and share it with
publishers whose content appears.
At some point, could Google legally stop you from using keyword data input into its search engine which,
in turn, triggers your ads?
No. WebMynd apps use the standard interfaces provided by Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple and Google themselves in
their browsers. Users have to explicitly opt-in for these applications to work, by installing them. And they're
distributed by Google in their Chrome applications gallery.
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How are ads populated in the results provided by WebMynd? Do you use third-party feeds or manage
relationships from advertising clients?
We currently use a third-party ad feed which provides a large breadth and depth of high-quality ads. In the future
we will also offer publisher partners space in our search sidebar that they can sell as their own.
How does your custom product work for publishers? Is there a rev share?
The custom product for publishers showcases their content by default in our search sidebar, though the user can
still personalize it with other content as well. We share the search ad revenue with the publisher. Any publisher can
have this: we can generate a custom app for you in minutes.
If you were a publisher, other than use WebMynd, what strategies would you be putting into place to make
sure you're thriving tomorrow?
Find ways to engage your audience directly in content creation and the discussion around it, for example, using
Twitter and Facebook. Established publishers have a big advantage there since brand recognition should make it
easier for them to acquire friends and followers.
Stop showing bad display ads that earn pennies. Only show ads when you have data suggesting the ad is relevant
and the user is receptive.
Any plans for offering search retargeting data so that marketers can buy, for example, display media
through exchanges and target users who've input specific keyword phrases?
We don't do this today, but we will in the future, with users' consent.
What's the status of your funding plans? Can you share who your investors are? How many employees
do you have today?
We are a small, capital-efficient team and have incubated our technology with angel funding from some fantastic
investors including: Y Combinator, The Accelerator Group, Paul Graham, John Taysom and Jim Spanfeller. We
are raising our Series A now.
A year from now, what milestones would you like to have seen WebMynd accomplish?
We will announce a new product in September that will make it easier for any publisher to quickly get started
getting their cut of search. You'll have to wait until then for more.
Follow WebMynd (@webmynd) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
July 6, 2010 – 12:07 am
248
Publisher Yield Management Tools
AdMeld CEO Barrett On New Funds And Next Steps
August 2, 2010 – 12:07 am
AdMeld announced in a release that it has raised $15 million in an
investment round "led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). Time Warner
Investments and the company’s existing backers, Spark Capital and
Foundry Group." Read the release.
AdMeld CEO Michael Barrett discussed the capital raise and insights on the industry.
When you went out seeking a third round of funding, what were you thinking in terms of new investors,
generally speaking?
This all came together very quickly over the past few months. Before we had even considered taking on new
money, we were fortunate to build strong relationships with the teams at Norwest and Time Warner Investments.
Jeff Crowe at Norwest, who’s now joined our board, is extremely knowledgeable about the DSP/SSP/Exchange
space, and Time Warner brings a great premium publisher perspective to the table. The more we learned about
the value these teams could bring to AdMeld, it became a natural next step to start talking about how we could
work together.
How is the funding climate for ad tech this year compared to the climate for your infusion last year?
Though my sense is that VCs are generally more cautious today than they were in even 2006/2007, over the past
year the ecosystem in which AdMeld operates has become very hot. In addition, the company itself has grown
dramatically over the past 12 months, which pushed a lot of risk out of the equation, so this time the interest was
very pitched and high.
What do you specifically plan to do with this new capital raise?
This raise is about accelerating our development cycles so we can bring our products to premium publishers more
quickly. Our roadmap is filled with some very exciting offerings that we’d like to get to market as efficiently as
possible. It’s also going to help us as we continue to expand internationally.
Has real-time bidding been a game changer for AdMeld?
RTB has been highly beneficial for our publishers—it’s connected them with millions of dollars in budgets they
probably wouldn’t have had access to otherwise, and given them a much higher level of transparency and control
over every transaction. As a result, it’s had a big impact on AdMeld’s operations, development focus, and sales
outreach strategy. Today RTB makes up around 20% of our overall impression volume, and for some of our
publishers it represents 60% of the revenue we generate for them. We’ve seen what it can do, and with each bid
we’re learning more about what it means for the future. RTB is something every premium publisher should have in
their mix.
What questions are publishers asking you today that they weren't asking you last year?
249
As agency trading desks have grown in importance and visibility, we’ve been getting a lot more questions from
publishers about the role these entities should play in their strategies for sales, coverage, pricing, etc. We don’t
see this changing anytime soon. Other than that, I’d say questions about data and data protection is on the tip of
everyone’s tongue.
By John Ebbert
August 2, 2010 – 12:07 am
250
Krux Digital Ready To Establish New Rules For Data Usage
Says Founder Chavez
August 16, 2010 – 12:05 am
Tom Chavez is Founder of Krux Digital.
AdExchanger.com: How is this platform addressing data
leakage (see Chavez recent opinion piece) unlike other
publisher-side platforms?
TC: We believe that publishers need to solve the data protection
problem before they plunge into data management and
monetization. Obviously data leakage and data collection have
been getting a lot of press lately. Regardless of what unfolds in the
press, Congress or the FTC, all the publishers we're talking to
already have a clear interest in demonstrating responsible
stewardship of consumer data. The first part of our platform, Data
Sentry, detects who's grabbing data on a publisher's site – what we
refer to as a 'collector,' who's ushering in those collectors – we call
those guys 'ushers,' how much data collection is occurring, across
which sections, audiences, and channels, with the ability to drill into
individual pixels, individual collectors, individual ushers. Because of
the variety of browser and HTML standards out there, identifying
how collectors and ushers chain themselves together and reliably
measuring data leakage at scale turns out to be really hard.
Beyond the privacy issue, which is a biggie, it's clear that
publishers who leak data are leaking money. So Data Sentry offers
a KPI on the revenue exposure from unauthorized data collection.
By measuring the opportunity cost from data leakage in this way,
our Data Sentry adopters can start to recapture lost revenue one
nickel at a time.
Finally, there's latency. As all those rogue pixels accumulate on a publisher's site, it takes longer and longer for
their pages to load. That's a bad thing for the user in any context, but now that Google and Bing are moving to
factor page load times into their rankings, it also degrades the publisher's traffic from search referrals. So
publishers have a basic operational need to clean up their pages and manage down the overpixelation that's going
on. Data Sentry helps them do that by measuring the latency impact from individual pixels, ushers, and collectors.
How will the demand-side benefit from and interact with the Krux Digital platform?
There will be mostly winners, and perhaps a few naysayers. Demand-side players are frustrated right now because
they're showing up with fancy RTB interfaces, but there's no real-time handshake back from the supply side. To
energize their campaigns, they need real-time, intelligent access and supply liquidity, which is exactly what we're
enabling for publishers. They need access to data that is actionable, market-ready, and responsibly collected. Dirty
data is our industry's blood diamonds, and nobody wants to be in the business of trading it. The naysayers could
be the demand-side networks who have built zero COGS businesses premised on skimming publisher's audience
data and reselling it to others or arbitraging it against cheap media. I think they'll be in the minority – in fact most of
the demand-side players I've been talking to are eager to establish new rules of the road for data usage, and we're
committed to helping both supply and demand sides design and implement those protocols.
251
Gotta ask: "Krux Digital" - what's the reason for the name?
That's an easy one. In the earlier idea stages, as my cofounder, Vivek Vaidya, and I sat around the kitchen table
framing the business, we kept finding ourselves saying, “Data is the crux of the matter." The choice of 'Krux'
quickly became obvious. Moreover, I'm a sucker for four-letter company names, and we like the way the 'K' and the
'X' hang together in our logo.
What is the pricing model for the platform? Can you discuss a use case on how the platform works?
We have a simple, metered pricing model that scales with the number of services adopted by the publisher and the
volume of data flowing through our platform, which corresponds pretty naturally to the publisher's size and scope.
More data, more usage means that the publisher pays more.
Publishers prefer free services, free technology – who doesn't? But free technology over the last several years has
come at pretty heavy cost for the publisher, specifically the erosion of their data and media assets and their
disintermediation from advertisers. In some sense we're betting that publishers are ready to turn the tide and start
investing in infrastructure again. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
What do you see as points of differentiation with other publisher side platforms?
There are at least three key differences between our platform and everything else we see out there right now. First,
we're just data. To date publisher-side platforms have handled ads, not data. They focus on delivering, forecasting,
trafficking, optimizing, planning, verifying, or analyzing ads. We think that as media is increasingly decoupled from
data and as the overall digital media market hurtles towards real-time, there's a pressing need for publisher
technology that brings exclusive, aggressive focus to data. I've spent the better part of the last decade in ad-centric
publisher infrastructure, and it's clear to me that the challenges of capturing, stewarding, managing, moving,
optimizing, tracking, and settling the exchange of data in a responsible, scalable manner require new systems,
new algorithms, new thinking. It's big and hairy, and it's going to keep us busy for a long time.
Second, we're infrastructure, not an intermediary. In the data sphere, while there are certain players addressing
different aspects, they typically center on exchange, network, or broker models. We're maniacally committed to
offering a neutral platform, to never taking a principal position on media or data, and to not making any end runs on
our publishers with their own advertisers.
Third, our platform is powered by the algorithmic intelligence we think scalable data management really requires.
This isn't just about matching cookies and delivering packets. It's an exercise, ultimately, in real-time pricing,
classification and segmentation, market design, and market clearing. We like our prospects when it comes to these
sorts of challenges -- for better or worse, my co-Founder, Vivek Vaidya, our team, and I really enjoy chasing them
and wrestling them to the ground.
What about funding for the company? Anything you can reveal? How many employees today?
We have a small team right now of eight, moving quickly to nine, and I hope not to exceed 12 for the first many
months. Howard Charney, a serial entrepreneur, Cisco SVP, and long-term mentor of mine, and Mike Galgon, the
Founder of aQuantive and a brilliant internet strategist, led our Series A and have joined our Board. While we're
grateful for the venture interest we're receiving, right now we have all the funding we need to prove our model, ship
products, and delight our early customers. Having run this drill before, I feel I understand the absolute importance
of not over-capitalizing a company. We're going to maintain our discipline in this and all ways during the months
ahead.
What's the roll-out schedule? Is it widely available today?
Data Sentry is in market and available today. We'll be announcing plans for the rollout of our additional data
management services in the September/October timeframe.
252
How is the platform uniquely addressing concerns around consumer privacy while still managing and
monetizing publisher datasets?
We're committed to helping publishers with management and then monetization, in that order, and that's the thrust
of the follow-on announcements we'll be making later this year. But again, our view is that website operators need
to attack the data protection issue first. It's the right thing for their business, consumers, regulators, legislators –
everyone.
Data protection, in my view, lies at the intersection of the two Venn bubbles of consumer privacy and publisher
monetization. You can't monetize an asset over which you don't assert full ownership and control and that's being
pilfered one speckle at a time. So, in addition to just wanting to do the right thing in terms of consumer privacy,
publishers have a natural business incentive to protect their data.
I just don't believe that the FTC or Congress seek to suppress free enterprise or to annihilate media businesses
that have been premised for hundreds of years building and engaging with audiences. Internet media makes
consumer data a much more charged issue, largely because technology enables too many hangers-on to know
arguably too much about me while trying to use that information to get a slice of the action. But it'd be a mistake to
throw out the baby with the bath water. If you have a website and you see someone harvesting data from your
audience activities, you're aware of it and even getting compensated for it, and the data itself is managed
responsibly and collected in a way that's clearly communicated to consumers – well, that's free enterprise.
Ultimately, once we figure out supporting market mechanisms for it, the consumer should start to get compensated
for their data as well.
Follow AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
August 16, 2010 – 12:05 am
253
Metamarkets CEO Soloff Announces $2.5 Million Funding
From IA Ventures And Allen & Company Execs Among
Others
June 1, 2010 – 1:29 am
David Soloff, CEO of Metamarkets, shares details of his company's
first round of financing as well as positioning for the company as it
prepares for its next steps.
AdExchanger.com: Can you share a bit of background on
you? And, where did the genesis of the idea come from for
Metamarkets?
DS: My cofounder Mike Driscoll and I have a diverse background. I
come from the world of quantitative finance, by way of digital media
and analytics. Mike comes from genomics and bioinformatics, by
way of massive scale data analytics on behalf of media, banking and telecom. Given the market opportunity we're
addressing, our skills and experiences complement each other really well.
The idea for Metamarkets came from two principal places: my time working in the financial markets where the
amazing information flow and diverse data sets and products available to the actors in those markets create
liquidity, efficiency and velocity for all principals. And from my time at Rapt where I learned how little data and
information is available to the supply-side principal actors in the media markets, despite the best attempts of the
optimizers to deliver value to publishers. The situation for the supply side has only deteriorated since 2008 when
Microsoft bought Rapt.
What problem is Metamarkets solving?
Metamarkets delivers price discovery to large scale global media companies who are overwhelmed by the velocity,
granularity and quantity of media transaction data. This data is primary economic signal, the publishers generate it
and own it, but they don't have (nor should they diverge from their critical path to develop) the expertise or tools to
capture and make sense of this data. The emergence over the past 18-24 months of an "open source big data
stack" built off tools such as HIVE, ZeroMQ, R, and Amazon's EC2 platform means that a global media company
can now elect to subscribe to data aggregation and analytics as a cost-effective, value-enhancing service. The
global media company can execute on its core competency, we can provision the massive scale data capture and
real-time analytics on their event streams. The model seems to be working well.
You've been out raising money. As an entrepreneur, what type of investor works best for you?
We do better with smart investors. We were looking for investors who would deliver value far in excess of the
capital they'd contribute. We're building a complicated product, one not easily summed up in a Hollywood-style
tagline. I can't really find a way to use 'virality' when talking about my business, despite trying on a few occasions.
Our analytics look awesome on an iPad and iPhone -- but that doesn't mean we are building a consumer product
or service. I hesitate to call this an enterprise business -- let's just say it's enterprise scale in terms of data
processed and computing cycles consumed. By the end of our fundraising process last month, it was pretty clear
within about 10 seconds or a call or meeting who got it and who didn't. We need investors who are not scared off
by complicated technologies and large datasets. I don't apologize for the business we're building, not to anyone -it's critical for an entrepreneur to persevere and find the right partners.
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How much capital did you end up raising and with whom? What do you plan to do with the funds?
We raised $2.5 million from a wonderful group of value-add institutional and strategic investors. Our lead investor
is Roger Ehrenberg, who made the investment through his big data fund, IA Ventures. Other institutional investors
include Village Ventures who have deep expertise in financial technologies, True Ventures, Founder Collective and
Maples / Floodgate. On the strategic side, we're very fortunate to have the support of Stan Shuman and Gillian
Munson of the investment bank Allen & Co.; Aol Ventures; Jim Pallotta of the hedge fund Raptor; Dennis Crowley
of FourSquare; Josh Stylman and Peter Hershberg; Sean Park and Uday Goyal, European investors who have
tremendous financial technology chops and have backed some of the most innovative data businesses out there.
Is Metamarkets in-market today? Anything you can share regarding roll-out plans?
We're in a closed alpha with four partners through the end of 3Q10. We have folks lined up for a beta starting
toward the end of the year. We've been really pleasantly surprised with the traction we've gotten. It's going to be a
busy few months for us.
Follow MetaMarkets (@metamx) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger)
June 1, 2010 – 1:29 am
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CEO Goel Discusses PubMatic Sell-Side Platform And
Momentum
July 20, 2010 – 3:34 am
Publisher yield management company PubMatic announced
yesterday that it has seen significant growth in the past year. In a
press release, the company said, "PubMatic also announced that
sales revenue is up over 700% in the last year. At the same time,
its reach has grown from 150 million unique users per month
globally to over 360 million." Read it.
PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel discussed the company's momentum as well as strategy surrounding its sell-side
platform for publishers.
AdExchanger.com: Of the inventory managed by PubMatic, how much is guaranteed and how much is
non-guaranteed inventory? How will you penetrate guaranteed?
RG: Let me start with guaranteed/direct sold inventory. We actually don’t manage our publisher’s guaranteed
inventory per se, instead we provide publishers with the audience data they need in order to sell audience-based
inventory directly - and we give publishers the means to manage it themselves.
Advertisers are asking to buy audience-based advertising directly from the publishers themselves, but most
publishers don’t have the ability to meet that demand. Using audience data from multiple data providers that are
partnered with PubMatic, the publisher can package their audience and sell it directly to agencies and advertisers.
It’s not unlike how the ad nets and DSPs are working with similar data providers, on the flip side, to get access to
publisher audiences and sell those audiences indirectly to advertisers.
By doing this, PubMatic is helping publishers on two major fronts:
1. Reintroducing scarcity back into the online advertising marketplace with audience-based direct sales –
even through standardized ad units.
2. We’re helping to bring more brand dollars online because brand advertisers want both audience targeting
AND the guaranteed safe placement that only direct sales can provide. Through PubMatic’s platform,
publishers can now provide that to brand advertisers.
Non-guaranteed advertising is obviously a major part of the publisher’s monetization strategy and we’re seeing
huge growth in demand for audience targeted advertising from our DSP and ad network partners, which of course,
translates into much bigger payouts for the publishers. This is true for RTB and non-RTB based buys.
With our Sell Side Platform, we’re creating the bridge that helps publishers better manage and monetize both
indirectly and directly sold inventory, while continuing to provide the greatest level of brand control available.
We’re empowering publishers on many more fronts today than we did four years ago.
Outside of the U.S., where are you seeing the greatest traction for your sell-side platform?
UK, France, Germany, Netherlands... they are all quickly growing markets. We have built a dominant position in
Western Europe based on our approach of a global platform with multi-currency support and local, in-country
service.
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Assuming your view that RTB is good for the publisher, why provide access to "auction[s] of real-time
bidding and non-real-time bidding"? Why not make it all RTB auctions?
We could easily give the publishers access to only real-time bidders and set a floor price if that is what they want.
But it doesn’t make sense to do that – while RTB is growing quickly, it’s less than 5% of the market today.
This is where PubMatic is fundamentally and technologically different from its competitors; our machine-learning
based algorithms predict pricing from non-RTB buyers as well, so, in fact, there are far more “bidders” in our
auction environment than in our competitors’. And just because a buyer is bidding in real-time doesn’t mean that
they are always willing to pay more than non-RTB buyers. There are a lot of audience-based buys not happening
in real-time. Those bidders should be allowed to participate in the auction as well.
More bidders -> Higher bids -> Greater Publisher Ad Revenue.
RTB requires advanced technology and a significant investment in infrastructure, which all adds up to higher costs
for buyers to support RTB. So even though PubMatic is all for having as many real-time bidders as possible, the
ecosystem is still years away from having 300 plus buyers that participate in real-time bidding.
By John Ebbert
July 20, 2010 – 3:34 am
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Rubicon Project Buys SiteScout; COO Roah Discusses
Acquisition
May 25, 2010 – 7:23 am
Publisher yield optimizer, Rubicon Project, announced that it has
acquired SiteScout, a company whose technology looks to "prevent
malicious ads and other dangerous Web content from reaching
customers." Read more.
Craig Roah, COO and Founder of The Rubicon Project, talked
about the acquisition and how it will be integrated into the
company.
AdExchanger.com: Why buy SiteScout in particular?
CR: As we detailed in our manifesto, Principles of a REVVolution,
or the ad server is dead, we are committed to offering publishers technology that counteracts the problems created
by legacy ad serving technology. We count malware in the group because there is almost nothing in legacy ad
serving systems that protects publishers, their advertisers or consumers from malware. In addition, we committed
to providing publishers safe, efficient and profitable access to all sources of demand – and technology that protects
them from malvertising exploits is a key piece of this platform.
The industry is seeing a massive influx and growing complexity of threats related to malware and compromised
Web content. We began to look for the right security partner to help address this growing issue in 2009, evaluating
several solutions in this space to complement and strengthen our industry-leading Brand Protection technology
platform. In side-by-side tests, in a live production environment with real ad tags on premium websites, SiteScout
was hands-down the most effective technology. Their ability to find and prevent malware far exceeded all the other
providers. SiteScout is a true Internet security company. This acquisition will enable us to offer premium
publishers the most effective technology platform to address the very real, very dangerous and fast-growing
problem of malvertising.
Does SiteScout address malvertising OR malware?
Malicious advertising, or “malvertising,” also referred to commonly as “malware,” is a form of unwanted or
malicious software that is distributed through advertising tags served through an unsuspecting publisher’s website,
either by embedding bad code into legitimate ads, or by placing fake ads that mimic those of legitimate advertisers,
or through social media technologies on a site, like comments, forums and other forms of user generated content,
which allow users to create content that is now being used to carry out a wide range of malicious attacks.
SiteScout’s platform serves advertisers and publishers at scale on a 24/7 basis by identifying dangerous new Webborne threats, including those delivered via ad networks, user-contributed content, and other emerging vectors.
To the Rubicon Project publisher, when will they start to see the benefits of SiteScout and how will it
appear in their reporting?
The new comprehensive malware protection powered by SiteScout security is available exclusively to REVV for
publishers customers as an extension of the Rubicon Project ad technology platform; the SiteScout malware
reporting and other product tools are slated to be available within the REVV platform in the third quarter of 2010.
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Any plans to provide reporting to ad networks who buy from Rubicon Project?
We currently offer reporting to our ad network partners – it’s included in REVV for demand, a technology platform
that enables demand partners who participate in the REVV Marketplace to execute entirely automated inventory
and audience buys while gaining actionable insight into publishers transparency rules and ad quality restrictions.
One of the key technology features of the platform includes proprietary creative harvesting and ad quality
prevention technologies – allowing ad networks to gain complete insight into any problems that an ad creative or
campaign might encounter, then see the specific ad, where it ran and why it’s in violation in a single report. With
the report, the ad network is enabled to resolve issues directly within the REVV interface.
How many people will join Rubicon Project form SiteScout? Will they operate separately or be integrated
into the team?
Four members of the SiteScout team will be joining the Rubicon Project family. They will be fully integrated into the
company and work out of the Rubicon Project’s newly announced Seattle office.
By John Ebbert
May 25, 2010 – 7:23 am
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Yieldex Seeing Traction In Premium Yield Optimization
Says CEO Shields
July 26, 2010 – 7:50 am
Tom Shields is CEO of publisher yield optimization company,
Yieldex.
AdExchanger.com: What have been some big surprises to you
regarding the industry as a whole in the past 12 months? And for Yieldex in particular?
TS: The biggest surprise to me is twofold: 1) that so many DSPs
sprang to prominence and got the attention that they did, followed
by 2) the gnashing of teeth when Invite Media sold to Google for
what people thought was too little money. For years now, there
have been so many networks and so many means of reaching remnant inventory – while inventory that generates
real revenue for publishers and more value for marketers has been ignored. As the emergence of a yield
management function at major publishers begins to take hold, then we’ll see meaningful value being added to our
ecosystem.
For Yieldex in particular, I would say that I’m surprised at how many ad operations leaders have taken on the
additional responsibility of looking at premium yield in addition to their day jobs. Our business has grown well
despite the lack of a yield management function at most publishers.
What are you seeing in regards to traction for Yieldex products and services? Who's using Yieldex?
Just in the past few months, we’ve been crossing the chasm from a few early adopters to the majority of premium
publishers seeing the need for premium yield optimization. Major publishers are calling us and asking us for help
to provide solutions to their newly created Yield Management team. These are top-tier web properties like:
FoxNews, Orbitz, Cars.com, Martha Stewart, a top health site, a top retailer, a top premium network – real traction
and it’s growing. We are coming off a record quarter, and we’re increasing staff across the board by 30% over the
next few months, hiring in sales, pre-sales, marketing, services, support, and development.
And, how important is service to your products? Can you see offering services similar to an Operative or
Theorem someday?
We are the experts in premium yield management, and we provide advisory services as well as a service bureau.
That said, it is a small part of our business - we provide solutions that enable publishers to own this critical part of
their business themselves. There will always be a need for service providers in our space, as long as there are
new technologies like ours to introduce.
Overall, is the publisher community understanding the challenge ahead? Are they receptive to
understanding and then executing on actionable insights that technology can provide?
Publishers are increasingly building executive-level yield management functions to address these challenges, and
leverage these new technology-driven insights across their organizations. Publishers that aren't will be left
behind. We are planning a Yield Summit on September 29 that will help to educate the market on what the leaders
are doing to increase the yield of their premium inventory.
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When will Yieldex offer an SSP or does it already?
Has the term SSP even been defined yet? Seems like most companies claiming that moniker want you to change
your ad server – and for what? Yieldex builds on many different ad servers to help them all become more of a
complete supply side platform.
When will it make sense to allow the publisher to start buying if ever? Does this fit into Yieldex strategy bringing the buy-side to the sell-side?
Publishers are already buying, whether through audience extension on networks, or through semi-opaque deals
with other sites. Yieldex provides key analytics to help publishers understand what to buy and when to buy
inventory to fill orders.
Today, we know it as guaranteed inventory. But down the road, how do you see the idea of a futures
market in display evolving?
We believe strongly that there will be a futures market, but a pre-requisite to that market is accurate and reliable
inventory and pricing data. We are working to provide the foundation for that marketplace.
How close are you to profitability? Will you need to seek new funding to achieve the next stage for
Yieldex?
We are well funded and generating significant revenue, and we do not expect to require new funding unless we
embark on a major new initiative.
What should advertisers understand about the sell-side that they aren't getting today? Do you see an
opportunity coming for the buy and sell sides to work better together?
Advertisers should understand that context is still important, even when buying audience. Buy and sell sides can
work together more effectively when inventory and pricing data is more transparent to both. We’ll be hearing
much, much more about transparency in our ecosystem in the coming months, and the more we all embrace it, the
better off we’ll all be in the long run.
Are you seeing publishers adopting more audience-based targeting in addition to context-based
targeting?
Yes, as advertisers request more audience-based targeting, many publishers are building this capability. Strong
yield management solutions are even more critical to manage this step-change in complexity. Yieldex technology
is making audience targeting manageable by providing straightforward and transparent views into audience
inventory, overlaps, and pricing. Many of our customers are demonstrating the synergy and promise of audience
targeting combined with yield management.
Follow Tom Shields (@tshields), Yieldex (@yieldex) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger.com) on Twitter.
July 26, 2010 – 7:50 am
For more,
visit AdExchanger.com.
Thank you for reading.
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