Archive for the ‘Ad Exchange News’ Category

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Twitter Ad Platform Coming Soon; Mediaweek: Agency DSPs And Publishers Bang Heads; The EIR Life

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

TwitterTwitter Ad Platform Lurks

All Things D’s Peter Kafka has unearthed what Twitter’s new ad platform will look like – it will look like Google’s according to Kafka’s sources. In addition to using 140 character or less ads, Kafka writes, “Twitter will work with ad agencies and buyers to seed the program, but plans on moving to a self-serve model like Google’s, down the road.” Read more.
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Agency DSPs And Publishers

Mediaweek’s Mike Shields covers last week’s Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Annual Leadership Meeting and says that “DSPs, such as VivaKi (Publicis) and Cadreon (IPG), were a hot topic” as publishers such as the one represented by Brian Quinn (vp/gm, ad sales for the Wall Street Journal Digital Network) are more interested in receiving phone calls then agency trading desk ad calls. Read more.

MyYearbook Displays Revenue

MyYearbook is making $20 million in revenue annually and continuing to grow according to Mashable’s Adam Ostrow, who covers yet another company that is making its revenues public. Ostrow writes, “Most of that comes from virtual currency within games that the company has built, with titles like Blind Date, Owned and Quiz.” Read more.

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New Publisher Model? Meredith Adding Agency Services; Microsoft And ComScore Partner; How Much Is Data Worth?

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

MeredithPublisher As Agency

The Wall Street Journal’s Emily Steel covers publishing company, Meredith, and its recent transformation as, in part, a marketing agency. According to Steele, recent acquisitions by the venerable publishing company in the digital agency space has attracted business from Kraft Foods, Chrysler and Wells Fargo to name a few. And, Meredith isn’t done acquiring yet. Read more about publisher as agency.

IAB Meeting Redux

Mediaweek’s Mike Shield’s provides an overview of the recent IAB Annual Meeting. Technology appears to be a threat when, in fact, it should be their friend as increasing transparency will bring efficiency. On the other hand, introducing scarcity by selling direct makes sense, too. It’s part of the equation and shouldn’t be seen as a defensive measure against tech. Publishers need to understand technology, networks and exchanges and its benefits rather than run and hide from it. Read Shields’ summary.

Aggregate Knowledge Approved For Credit

In a release, Silicon Valley bank, Bridge Bank, announced that “it has provided term financing and a working capital line of credit to Aggregate Knowledge to support the company’s continued growth.” Aggregate Knowledge said the funds will be used to “expand its Discovery Platform and deliver more value to its clients with new and exciting audience management and dynamic creative capabilities.” Often the purpose of a credit facility is to provide an infusion of cash while precluding the need to give away equity in the company as a venture capital deal will. Read more.

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Q1 Looking Good For Yahoo!; Oh The Irony – Xerox Says Google And Yahoo! Copied; Lookery Resurrected, Offering Audience Networks For Pubs

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Yahoo Q1 2010Yahoo! On Q1 2010

Barron’s Eric Savitz provides a bulleted list from the remarks made by Hilary Schneider, EVP of Yahoo! North America, at the Goldman Sachs Technology Conference in San Francisco. According to Savitz, Schneider said that the “rebound in brand advertising the company saw in the fourth quarter has continued into the first quarter” and, curiously, “dollars shifting from offline to online ads are targeting women, not men.” Read more.

Lookery Resurrected: Audience Networks For Pubs

Calling it “Lookery Prequel, Inc.,” Scott Rafer has rolled away the stones of the Lookery sepulchre to introduce a new company from the dust of the former Lookery. Rafer writes on the Lookery blog, “If you are a publisher network, category-leading publisher, brand, or agency, we’ll run through walls to help you become an self-reliant Audience Network.” Is this another step toward the SSP (supply-side platform)? It’s certainly a part of it. Read more.

Location-Based Services Added To Legislative Initiative

On The Hill’s “Hillicon Valley” blog, journalist Tony Romm says that privacy legislation will now include location-based services. What’s more, a hearing appears imminent as Rep. Bobby Rush, who is working along side Rep. Rich Boucher, said, “It is my intent that our next hearing on privacy will be a legislative hearing, where we will discuss the ‘devil in the details’ by commenting on a discussion draft of a comprehensive privacy bill.” Read the article.

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Dapper Panel Brings Together Display Advertising Players In NYC, Yields Smackdown

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Dapper EventIn a breezy panel discussion that captured the continuing momentum in the digital media optimization space, Dapper hosted, “Fixing Advertising: The New Data-Driven Display Ecosystem” in New York City on Wednesday night.

(West coast, fear not. Dapper marketer Paul Knegten notes that the company will be bringing together a similar panel in San Francisco next month.)

In addition to moderator Sara Holoubek from SEMPO, panelists included marketer Emily Scott of Kayak;  Vikram Somaya, Director of Client Services at BlueKai; Jon Aizen, COO at Dapper; Brian O’Kelley, CEO at AppNexus; and Joe Zawadzki, CEO of MediaMath.  As it turned out, Zawadzki was not to be denied in this panel containing two of the DSP (demand-side platform) heavyweights.

Responding to a question from AppNexus’ inquisitive CEO O’Kelley, Zawadzki ended up challenging the industry to improve upon the MediaMath DSP formula when he started to explain the differentiating factors among today’s many online display advertising solutions such as ad networks and demand-side platforms:

“I’m going to take the job function of a marketer… all the way to what the CMO hears about… launch a program, compare it to any other form of display, and I’m not going to be too over the top here, but we will beat it, we will beat the alternatives on the plan. And that’s an open challenge actually, I’ll go all the way.”

Sara Holoubek, sensing gasoline had been spilled, threw the match: “Who wants to see a DSP smackdown?” BlueKai’s Somaya piled on and offered free data for the smackdown.  The crowd roared its approval.

Zawadzki, feeling it, added, “Same creative, same offer, go for it, look at it at the end of the four weeks.”

You think I’m making this up? Dapper promises to have the complete audio of the event available shortly on its blog here.

Nothing like good, old-fashioned competition.

By John Ebbert

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Yahoo! Currently Running RTB Pilot On Right Media, Clarifies What The Publisher Needs To Know About RTB

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Yahoo! on RTBYahoo! says that in AdExchanger.com’s news round-up earlier today, there was a clear misinterpretation of the comment by Yahoo! VP Ramsey McGrory at yesterday’s IAB meeting regarding concerns publishers should have about RTB.

McGrory tells AdExchanger.com that his point “was that the lost bid data that comes when an auction is broadcast to bidders and a bidder doesn’t respond or responds and loses is very valuable data that a seller should fully consider before allowing bidders to have. If a bidder gets all the pings of the unsold for a publisher, over time they can calculate the sell through of a publisher and use that aggregate knowledge against the publisher in negotiations. The counter argument is that it helps the bidders bid more effectively if they know how often they’ll see a user (call it a scarcity factor). Generally, we believe the publishers that are working with third parties providing RTB should be aware of what is happening with lost bid data and then decide whether they want to support. RTB has to protect the primary interest of the publisher. The marketplace without fruits and vegetables is just an empty parking lot.”

AdExchanger.com’s (a.k.a. My) assertion that Yahoo! may have a reason to criticize the benefits of RTB for failing to have an RTB solution was further rebutted by McGrory who said Yahoo! has been piloting RTB (via Right Media) for the last several months with more details to come.

By John Ebbert

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IAB Meeting Notes; RTB Cookie Matching Revealed; Google Under EU Microscope; Millennial Media Buys Analytics Firm

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

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IAB Annual Leadership ManagementIAB ALM Notes: Data Access Through RTB

In the final panel discussion of the three-day, Interactive Advertising Bureau Annual Leadership Summit, Yahoo!’s Ramsey McGrory identified what he said was one of the key challenges currently emerging around data ownership: the advent of real-time bidding (RTB). McGrory suggested that any participating buyer can either bid or “watch” in a real-time bidding auction of a single impression, for example, and can potentially get access to valuable publisher data and all of its attributes. He questioned whether that’s fair to publishers. UPDATED: Yahoo! says I got it wrong. See Yahoo! clarification here. It should be noted that Yahoo! currently does not have an RTB solution. Google does and Microsoft’s appears to be on the way.

IAB ALM Notes: Tolman Geffs Presentation

Jordan, Edmiston’s Tolman Geffs arguably offered the most compelling presentation (best takeaway, too) of the IAB Summit. The prez included an ecosystem map of the world with which AdExchanger.com’s audience is already familiar -but was likely an eyeopener for some in attendance. Download it here (PDF).

IAB ALM Notes: Exchanges & Networks Rules of the Road

The IAB rules committee associated with ad exchanges and networks delivered for comment “Networks & Exchanges Quality Assurance Guidelines.” Read the release. Among the guidelines is the move towards transparency as the guidelines look to improved brand safety. The release notes ask that networks and exchanges “allow for transparency of inventory sources, publisher relationships, content levels and ad placement details.” The full 39-page guideline doc is available for download and includes a nice glossary on the space. Get it (PDF).

IAB ALM Notes: Adify’s Russ Fradin Says Its All Networks Or Not

Russ Fradin, CEO of Adify, told attendees that it’s time to choose. Either go with networks and understand the cost implications (lower CPMs, reduced or non-existent sales staff). Or, take all the pixeling opportunities off of your site and never contract with networks, and sell direct with a sales team.

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Reply.com Launches $60 Million IPO Effort; NY Times' Zimbalist On Bringing Brands Online; YouTube Testing HTML 5

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Reply.comReply.com Going IPO

Lead gen marketplace, Reply.com, announced that it will go public as it has filed its registration statement. Complete release on the Reply.com blog. This announcement comes on the heals of a recent IPO by lead gen company, Quin Street, and just a day before industry event, LeadsCon begins. Read about it on the Reply.com blog. TechCrunch looks at the S-1 registration statement and notes the 75% growth in revenues in 2009 for Reply.com.

The WRP (That’s “Werp”)

In Ad Age, a new acronym is born as The New York Times’ Michael Zimbalist coins the term “WRP” – pronounced “Werp” (you’re excused.) – as he proposes how to improve online audience measurement in a way that will cause brand marketers to open their brand budget wallets online and sync with their existing comfort level with offline and GRPs. Read more.

TargetSpot Eyeing, Trying Mobile

Online audio ad network, TargetSpot, announced a deal with Slacker, “a pure-play Internet radio service,.. to monetize the 50 percent of its listeners that tune-in via applications on iPhone, Android and BlackBerrys.” Read more from Mediaweek.

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Google Announces DoubleClick For Publishers As Yield Optimization War Continues To Heat Up

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

DoubleClick For PublishersAiming to solve the needs of the supply-side, and cutting the existing yield optimizers out of the game, Google says that it has “re-written DFP” (Susan Wojcicki’s words at this week’s IAB event) and believes it is offering more reasons than ever to park large publisher inventory with… warning acronym change… was: DART For Publishers… now: DoubleClick For Publishers. The complete Google view is available here on the Google blog in a post authored by Neal Mohan, VP of Product Management.

Mohan says that improved reporting and an upgraded user interface headline the new features as well as “a new public API” which will allow publishers to customize their DFP experience.

It will be interesting to hear publisher feedback on the API feature in the weeks to come – do they take advantage of it? Is there an advantage? There’s a tiny bit more info on the API on the new Doubleclick For Publishers API blog here. This post is penned by Alex Vogenthaler, DFP Product Manager, who concludes his short summary with, “We are looking forward to working with you and seeing what you build!” Well, I am, too. What are publishers going to build with this? Sure, it will undoubtedly help a few large publishers plug-in to their own custom reporting interfaces, but it would seem most DFP publishers will just traffic their direct sold campaigns, layer in ad networks and then, perhaps, intersperse with various floors going into the Doubleclick Ad Exchange – and, BOOM, their done.

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Mobclix Ad Exchange Doubling Monthly; Rubicon Project Begins Product Search; More RTB From DataXu's Baker; Dixon On The Attribution Challenge

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

MobclixMobclix Clicking

Mobile ad exchange, Mobclix, is doubling in size monthly according to a Portfolio.com piece with co-founder Krishna Subramanian (AdExchanger.com Q&A). From the interview, Mobclix “is on a $25 million to $30 million run rate and serving some 3.5 billion ad impressions per month, mostly to the iPhone and iPod Touch.” Mobilize now!

Rubicon Project On Ad Serving, Hires Allen & Co.

Rubicon Project announced at last Friday’s Paid Content conference that the “ad server [is] dead” and it’s on the hunt for finding a new solution on behalf of publishers.   The company also said in a release that it has hired investment firm Allen & Co. to “work with the company, among other matters, to explore options for ongoing business growth initiatives including additional strategic acquisitions, platform expansion and continued international growth.” Read more.

RTB Evangelism

“Reverend” and CEO Mike Baker (AdExchanger.com Q&A) of DataXu preaches the real-time bidding (RTB) gospel on ClickZ. In a concise post, Baker dissects the data-business into first-party and third-party groups, offers a checklist on how to value data, and then shows how real-time bidding unlocks efficiency and ROI from the data hurricane. Read more.

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Google Names Display Chief; ValueClick Talks Earnings And Ad Networks; Addressable Media Showing Results

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

GoogleNew Google Display Chief

In an article, Ad Age’s Michael Learmonth introduces the new head of display at Google, Barry Salzman, who makes a return engagement of sorts after working at DoubleClick until 2002. According to Learmonth, Salzman will be “head of media and platforms for the Americas, a new position charged with overseeing all non-search advertising for Google’s content network and its video-sharing site YouTube, as well as its display-ad platforms DoubleClick Ad Serving and DoubleClick Ad Exchange.” Read more.

Brands Coming Online!

Brands are on their way… to social media! According to an article in MediaNewsDaily, Kellogg’s COO John Bryant said the company is “moving aggressively into social media [and] tripling spending over the past three years and experiencing ‘great returns on this investment.’” Look on the bright side, display lovers. A brand is moving online AND there’s addressable display in social. Read more.

ValueClick Reports Q4; Comments On Ad Networks

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Turn Says AdECN Real-Time Bidding Works; YuMe Gets $25 Million; Rubicon Project Exec Shifts; Media Contacts Selects Adify

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

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Turn Climbs Aboard AdECN

It’s ALIVE! AdECN is evidently humming with the RTB-infused Federated system as the Turn blog sheds light on the remarkably stealthy proceedings at Microsoft. (It’s hard for big Microsoft to be stealthy, right?) According to Turn Senior Director of Engineering and blogger, Emile Litvak, “The AdECN dev team has delivered exactly what they promised, and the RTB implementation is working flawlessly and has great features. Kudos to the development team at AdECN.” Read more about the results here.

YuMe Gets $25 Million

Video ad network YuMe announced that it has pocketed $25 million in – by my calculations – Series D venture financing in a round led by Menlo Ventures and joined by a host of other previous VC funders including ccel Partners, Khosla Ventures, BV Capital and DAG Ventures. According to Crunchbase, this brings the total to $46 million in capital raises. Also, ClickZ’s Zach Rodgers gets the company to cough up the following: “Revenue in 2009 was approximately six times higher than the previous year, and YuMe trafficked campaigns from 110 advertisers represented by 80 ad agencies. The average insertion order was worth around $60,000.” Read more from Brad Stone of The New York Times’ Bits blog.

Media Contacts Selects Adify

In a release, Adify announced that it has been selected by Havas’ media agency, Media Contacts, as “a preferred advertising network.” Ed Montes, Managing Director at Havas Digital, adds in the release the importance of the transparency offered by the Adify ad network. Read it.

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Epperson And Team Announce Simpli.fi; The Geo Stack; Ad Networks Keep Growing

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

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Simpl.fiEpperson Simpli.fi’s

Former Havas Digital CEO Don Epperson has unveiled his latest creation, Simpli.fi, in a Joe Mandese article and Q&A on MediaPost. The new company that he’s starting with former Collective Media execs Frost Prioleau and Paul Harrison “is a search-focused DSP or demand-side platform. It allows advertisers the opportunity to extend their current keyword campaigns into the display market.” Read the overview piece. Then, read the Q&A.

The Geo Stack

On Monday, AdExchanger.com pointed to an article on the advertising stack. Today, we point to the “geo stack” and an article on Chris Dixon’s blog. Dixon identifies the stack as beginning with latitude/longitude location detection and then connecting these to places humans will understand. After that the geo-stack looks at where the user is. Read more.

Trust As Disruptive Tech

On Ad Age, chief brand strategist at CloudLinux, Judy Shapiro, writes about what she thinks is the next big disruptive technology – trust. Shapiro identifies DoubleVerify as a winning company and says, “Companies like DoubleVerify have created a new level of verifiable trust in how companies authenticate online ad activity.” Read more.

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Adap.tv Announces Video Ad Exchange Clients; Right Media Exchange Outlines The Future; Lead Gen Celebrates: Quinstreet IPO Hits

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

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Adap.tvAdap.tv Gets Video Ad Exchange Clients

Ad Age’s Michael Learmonth covers the news that Adap.tv has signed Gannett, Omnicom and Publicis among others to its ad exchange. Trying to temper concerns about lower CPMs, Adap.tv’s CEO Amir Ashkenazi says that in comparison to display exchanges, his company’s exchange gives “publishers more control over what campaigns they accept and which they don’t, even allowing publishers to manually approve each bid, if they chose.” Read more.

Right Media Speaks

The Right Media blog came to life last Friday as the first post of 2010 gave Yahoo! Right Media Exchange members a taste of things to come. Among the tastings, looks like either Right Media will buy a brand safety metrics company or they’ll build their own brand safety tools as they promise new tools are ahead in this area. Also, the Right Media Exchange is getting more exchange-y with more publisher transparency, “We’ve also significantly increased the percentage of transparent exchange-wide validated URLs (VURLs).” There’s more in a post written by Brooke Wyard & Megan Pagliuca.

Signs Of VC Hope

Harvard University’s annual Venture Capital & Private Equity Conference showed “signs of hope” according to the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Dispatch blog. Among the signs, one venture capitalist told attendees, “At this point I think most people are trying not to lose money and lose their job.” Oh happy day! Read more about “capital efficiency.”

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Google Search Retargeting Through AdSense; Display Ad Drumbeat Quickens With Data; BlueKai's Pulse Looks At Travel Intenders

Monday, February 15th, 2010

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Search RetargetingGoogle Search Retargeting

From his Bronte Media blog, Niki Scevak unearths Google search retargeting efforts as Google’s Inside AdSense blog quietly announced last week that a “few hours” of search queries will be used to help target AdSense display ads: “The technical way that we’re doing this is by associating the relevant query words in the referral URL with the existing advertising cookie on the user’s browser. After a short period of time (a few hours) the query words are no longer used for the purposes of matching ads.”  Read the AdSense blog. And, read Scevak’s take.

The Display Ad Drumbeat

AdWeek’s Brian Morrrisey pens “Beefing Up Banner Ads” as the display advertising drumbeat grows louder. Quoting ThinkEquity’s Bill Morrison, the benefits of the effective use of ad data is clear: “It’s going to facilitate a lot of brand dollars coming online because they’ll be able to buy audience — and right now it’s really hard for them to do it at scale outside of a few portals.” Read about it.

Lobbying Works

In Mediaweek, Mike Shields takes a look at self-regulation efforts as the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) gets kudos from the industry including Tanya Tan at ValueClick who says, “There would have been a bill already if people hadn’t acted.” Read it.

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eXelate Releases Index Report On Intenders; UK Adopts IAB VAST Standards; Pass The Patent Portfolio

Friday, February 12th, 2010

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eXelateeXelate Releases Intender Report

Data exchange, eXelate, released the “eXelate indeX, a research report based on audience interest and purchase intent trends observed by its data lab.” Among the findings, Apple’s iPad announcement ignited purchase intent for portable computing products – Google’s Nexus One phone showed no effect on intent. Read the release. And, download the report.

UK IPO Blow

The Wall Street Journal’s Hester Plumridge (great name!) reports that the UK IPO market took it on the chin yesterday as Travelport cancelled its $1.78 billion initial public offering. The company, which specializes in transaction processing for the travel industry, blamed “market instability, investors also seem to have been spooked by its high leverage and poor earnings visibility.” Read the release. And, read the WSJ’s take.

Microsoft Marketing Move

Is Microsoft feeling the need to position itself better or more appropriately in the marketplace? Ad Age covers the appointment of a chief creative officer, Gayle Troberman, at Microsoft – a position which Ad Age’s Abbey Klaassen terms “a relatively rare one among client-marketers” and adds that Troberman was “general manager of Microsoft’s advertising and customer engagement, leading global advertising” -and a whole lot more. Read about it.

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Omnicom Reports Earnings, Affirms Acquisition Mode; Google Thinking About Super-Ultra-Fast Broadband; FetchBack Gets Sears

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

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Omnicom GroupOmnicom Reports; Acquisitions Imminent?

Agency holding company, Omnicom Group, reported Q4 earnings yesterday. Profit fell, but hey, there’s profit ($229.6 million worth). Organic revenue fell – but not as much as analysts expected. Read more from AdWeek. Also, it looks like Omnicom is on the verge of making digital acquisitions (digital agencies? digital tech? both?) as CEO John Wren said, “We plan to expand our portfolio of specialized digital properties and we should be making some targeted acquisitions and funding a few start ups as we get into the beginning of the year.” See the Seeking Alpha transcript.

More Google Telecom Aspirations

Google has $25 billion in cash right now according to The Wall Street Journal Market Beat blog’s Matt Phillips. Are they thinking of buying ad technology companies? Likely. But, they’re also thinking about ultra-super-fast broadband as the WSJ reports that the company will test such services in a few, select smaller towns and cities to show the super-fast benefits and possibly consider another entry (e.g. Nexus One phone is another) into the telecom space. Here’s the WSJ overview. And, read Phillips’ commentary. Last but not least – The Google Blog chimes in.

The NY Times Reports Digital Strength

The New York Times reported Q4 2009 earnings and digital advertising which showed year-over-year strength in digital but, oh man, look at the numbers for print: “The News Media Group’s print advertising revenues decreased 20% in the quarter, while online advertising revenues rose 4% mainly due to growth in display advertising.” Bring the pay wall, quick! But “big ads” apparently helped the digital cause – from the call: “We saw gains in the News Media Groups display advertising during the quarter from new large format display ad units.” Later in the call, The Times’ Martin Nisenholtz elaborated on digital growth due to About.com and both CPC advertising and direct-sold display: “The categories that have been strong include CPG, consumer packaged goods, travel, education and financial services.” Full transcript from Seeking Alpha here.

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X+1 Reports Strong Revenue Growth In 2009; ComScore Says Yahoo! Still In Display Lead; Havas Shrinks In 2009, But Digital Grows

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

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X+1 Revenues GrowDSP Revenues Power Higher

It’s happened again! Another private ad tech company is reporting its financial progress – this time it’s demand-side platform [x+1]. The company said in a release, “Fourth quarter revenue increased 62 percent over the same period in 2008, while revenue for the year was up 63 percent over 2008.” Healthy percentages, once again, for an ad tech company given the economy. Read more.

Kantar Retail Consolidates Insights

WPP Group has squished together 4 of its in-house, retail research and insights companies to create Kantar Retail. The combined entity will include 400 employees in 15 “global countries” with the hope of becoming “the pre-eminent provider of transformational insights, strategic consulting and capabilities-building for the global retail marketplace.” At least they set the bar low. Read more.

White Lies Growing Like Weeds

Rob Leathern of CPM Advisors provides examples of how little white lies can propagate in this age of connectedness via the Internet and technology. He identifies three main reasons “white lies” get out of control – the first being “Close cooperation among quasi-competitors….Companies don’t want to damage existing or potential partnerships with their coopetitors (!) by calling them on their lies publicly (though they sometimes may do so privately).” Read the analysis.

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Google's Scott Spencer On DoubleClick Ad Exchange Auction And Data Management

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Spencer On DoubleClick Ad ExchangeAfter today’s announcement on the Google Blog by Neil Mohan regarding Publisher revenues through Google advertising products (also covered here by AdExchanger.com), AdExchanger.com asked Group Product Manager, Scott Spencer on DoubleClick Ad Exchange specifics.

AdExchanger.com: How does the second-price auction work in DoubleClick Ad Exchange and why is this good for publishers?

SS: AdX is a second price auction with minimum CPMs set by the publisher. This is the most price efficient auction model, resulting in the most stable, long-term equilibrium price. This is valuable for publishers because it incentivizes buyers to bid the most that they’re willing to pay for a given piece of inventory and it minimizes the need to “game” the system.

How does DoubleClick Ad Exchange help publishers manage their data such as the data created in an auction?

The Ad Exchange allows publishers to manage and use data in multiple ways. They can offer their inventory with different controls over what data is used when their inventory is purchased. Additionally, they can use their data to buy inventory on the exchange and re-sell it to their own advertisers.

By John Ebbert

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Google Disses The Yield Optimizers; Liquidity Will Be A Key Differentiator

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Optimizing The DissThis morning, Google released information on how publishers maximize revenues using the DoubleClick Ad Exchange as well as other Google products. The post by Neal Mohan, VP of Product Management, on the Google blog includes a one sheeter. View the post here. And, download the one-sheeter here.

There’s not much that’s new here except for an explanation on dynamic allocation. Interesting that the one-sheeter sticks it in the eye of “traditional ‘yield management.’” They put ‘yield management’ in quotes.

Google is clearly positioning DART For Publishers (DFP) as the yield optimization solution of the future as its “dynamic allocation” allows publishers to set minimum floors with exchange buyers when managing between direct sold inventory, ad networks or buyer relationships managed through DFP. So, if you’re a publisher, you get to test the market for your impression, compare it with your other relationships and then sell wherever you want.

In the near term, the one, big, differentiating component of the DFP solution versus other yield optimizers will ultimately be the anticipated liquidity of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange which should tell a story around higher CPMs.

A way around this for yield optimizers could be a new level of data management that offers more insights and moves way beyond just workflow savings. This would appeal to publishers as it could drive larger, more profitable strategic initiatives. Long tail publishers won’t care (they just want high CPMs) but the big guys could – and should. Yield optimizers could do more with managing scarcity, or spot versus futures, too.

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Analysts Thinking $10 Billion In Display Revs For Google; Mobclix Enabling Geo And Brands; VAST Gets Traction With Brightcove, EyeWonder; Google Toe In DOOH

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

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Google and DisplayGoogle Display Starting To Pump

In a BusinessWeek article by Douglas Macmillan, Doug Anmuth of Barclay’s Capital tells BW, “Display ads are likely to contribute a little more than $1 billion, or about 4% of Google’s (GOOG) total sales this year—an increase of as much 40% over last year.” Blimey! Now analysts are starting to wonder when Google will hit $10 Billion in display. Read about the numbers.

Mobclix Enabling Geo And Brands

With Apple mandating that iPhone app developers remove the ability to use the phone’s location-based services, Mobclix is now offering another way in. By using Nielsen PRIZM and ConneXions on the Mobclix ad exchange, marketers can now target audience right to the zip code level and sync with their online (PC browser-based) audience targeting according to the company. Read the release. In that Nielsen PRIZM helps brand marketers target offline, too, (see discussion on Datalogix deal with Nielsen in November), the case for enabling digital buying for brand marketers accustomed to traditional channels could be made, too (iPhone).

iPhone LBS Edict Not So Bad

Greg Yardley suggests on his blog that all the hub-bub around Apple shutting down the use of the iPhone’s location-based services is much-ado about nothing as he writes, “No user should be asked to share their location without any visible benefit to them in the app – it wastes the user’s time and it gets the tinfoil hat crowd wondering what exactly sharing that location was for.” Read about the tinfoil and more here.

Brightcove, EyeWonder Jump In-Stream

Eyewonder announced that it has partnered with Brightcove to provide in-stream advertising solutions. What does this mean? Specifically, EyeWonder said in a release, “By incorporating the IAB VAST-compliant, open-source UIF into the Brightcove platform, organizations will be able to serve any EyeWonder in-stream video ads, including fully interactive linear and non-linear formats.” More standardization, improved scale for in-stream video ads is the goal here. Read the release (PDF).

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