There has been a big shift in the main European markets over 2010. DoubleClick Adx, AppNnexus, Rubicon and AdMeld have all made big inroads into Europe this year. Mid-sized and large European publishers are still deciding who to partner with – but nearly all have tested or are in the process of testing auction based SSPs. A good number of publishers started trading unsold inventory through the exchange eco-system in 2010.

Germany and France are quite similar in terms of understanding the opportunities of data-driven display. These markets are now attracting the big US and European ad tech vendors. Rubicon is already in Paris and Hamburg. Admeld has its Berlin office. And Improve Digital continues to increase its presence in both these markets. France and Germany are effectively following the same evolutionary path as the UK – and will catch up with the UK market in coming 12-24 months.

Mexad opened offices in 2010 in London, Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw and after starting early 2009 in Germany. We are now working on a pan-European basis, bringing our exchange experience to five different markets.

The groundwork is done – now it´s time to shape the eco-system here in Europe.

Momentum In The European Exchange Space… Are We Seeing Any?

Of course we are. But the biggest problem we face in this space is a talent shortage. We need to find the right people to build on this momentum. Unlike PPC in 2001, this is not a new market. Display has been around for a long time but this new technologies needs experienced people to get the best possible results out of it. No one is able to handle ad exchanges, SSPs or DSPs without an in-depth knowledge of ad serving and the display landscape in general. It is a problem, but the industry should soon have the right people on board. With any new technology there is always initially a lack of skilled people. It’s a problem, but we as an industry will address as this market grows.

The Big Differences In European Markets

There are a lot of differences in my view. Both the sell-side and the buy-side in each European market tends to be wildly different. Just ask any major media agency if their UK media planning unit is structured the same way as the French or German one. You will find that there are major differences. The same can be said for the data driven marketplace. Some markets are keen to use data-exchanges – others haven´t even heard of them. SSPs are very popular in the Netherlands (just ask Improve Digital and Admeld) but have failed to take off in the Nordics. Ad exchanges are getting more and more premium publishers in the UK as more impressions are put through these platforms, but only OpenX has any real valuable inventory in France. German publishers and their main industry bodies remain resistant to ad exchanges, which is resulting in mainly blind inventory in ad exchanges when it comes to German IPs. The differences could not be more obvious.

European Trends In 2010

I guess 2010 was the year of the data-driven-marketplace, particularly the advent of RTB. But it remains a challenge to make all the publishers and agencies understand what RTB really is, and how they can benefit from it.

Data driven display is still very niche when it comes to mainstream press coverage. You can count all articles about RTB in Germany in 2010 on one hand, in the UK the relevant articles on two hands and in France on two fingers. This obviously doesn’t include the fabulous ExchangeWire.com and the German-based digital industry website, Adzine.de.

DSP And Exchange Traction In European Markets

I am seeing great success for ad exchanges and SSPs in most European countries. Central Europe is moving fast. Southern Europe will adopt it in 1-2 years. The Nordics don´t really need it due to limited inventory. Eastern Europe is fast waking up to the opportunity of the data-driven display – and it seems as 2011 will be the year for Eastern Europe.

I don´t see a bright future for technology pure-play DSPs as they are focused on highly scalable regional markets similar to the US. They are facing problems in Europe because effective opitmisation in this market can’t be solved by technology alone. You will also require the skilled experience of local traffickers. But experienced traffickers aren´t yet available for DSPs in different European countries now or in the near future – as I explained above about the existing talent shortage. And if the DSPs don´t get regional experienced account managers and traffickers they will lose ground in Europe. The market will be left wide open for Google. Using Invite and its local knowledge, Google will not only be able to offer an automated buying solution but also provide a localised service.

I call it the “Right Media problem”. Right Media had great technology, and was the early mover in 2005 – but nearly failed in Europe because of a lack of pan-European technology and support staff.

US-based DSPs can operate in the UK due to the similar language for a while – but they will fail in all the other European countries if they don´t find a way to localise asap.

The Big Opportunity In 2011

The biggest opportunity is to grow the data driven marketplace, making display a bigger success than search.

The Big Developments In The Display Market This Year

Well, a lot of people are now talking about DSPs. In terms of what’s actually changed, from a European perspective, there have been exciting developments and new entrants in both sources of inventory and new data sources (which we’re integrated/integrating with). I do still think this market is very nascent and a lot of people are still confused about what is a DSP and what isn’t a DSP. In my mind there really aren’t that many true technology DSP based offerings. A lot of the ‘noise’ in the market is coming from service oriented solutions that white label technology or don’t have any technology at all. There’s still a long way to go but when I look at what some of our clients are doing, and what we’re developing, I’m really excited about the future.

Has There Been Enough Tech Innovation In The Space This Year?

As alluded to above, not enough. We see a lot of press releases and PR around various other offerings but honestly we haven’t seen any true technology development and advancement beyond what we’re currently providing clients. One of the great things about being part of Google is that we’ve cemented our position as being at the forefront of driving innovation in this space – there are literally no boundaries and our clients and future clients should be very excited.

The Growth Of The European DSP Market

It’s certainly been the year of talking about DSPs. A lot of Agencies still feel that they should use a DSP because they’ve read about it and people are talking about it but it takes time for true DSP-based strategies to develop and gain adoption. We spend a lot of time educating clients on the true value of owning the buying process and then help them execute against this goal. Unfortunately we still see a lot of ‘mis-selling’ where clients and prospects have invested significant time and resource in to solutions that aren’t up for the job. This can be frustrating as it leads to negativity around DSPs within the Agency and also means the client is less likely to allocate resource against a true DSP solution.

Addressing The Challenges Of Automated Ad Trading In 2010

Invite addresses some of the core challenges associated with buying intelligently and at scale online – notably transparency and control. It takes time but in most cases there’s that ‘lightbulb’ moment when the client sees the success of their first campaigns on our platform, when they begin to understand the value of having all of their data (1st party and 3rd party and performance data) in their own system and can in turn start to deliver consistently excellent results to the advertiser. There is no “black box” problem when working with us. The challenges associated with buying online will continue – hidden margins, misleading business models and a lack of control but we’re confident we will continue to offer a leading solution that addresses these issues and more. Another initiative we’ve taken now that we’re at Google is local staff given how important education, training and service is for clients entering this ecosystem. As such, we have and will continue to aggressively hire dedicated Invite professionals in Google offices across Europe.

Is 2011 The Break-Out Year For RTB In Europe?

I don’t think 2010 has been too bad! What we expect is that we’ll continue to see the growth of our client base (across Europe – we’re now live in France, Germany and Netherlands) and increased budgets from existing clients. In Europe new inventory sources, private ad slots and an increase in the number of 3rd party data providers will help drive this growth. When executed well RTB works brilliantly – all I’d say is that if you’ve tried it and it hasn’t worked so well in 2010 you’ve probably not used the right solution!

The Big Opportunities In 2011

As mentioned, continued education on the benefits of buying via RTB. As our platform develops we’ll offer clients further functionality around new channels of inventory and new targeting tools. We can’t say too much at this stage but some of the tools we’re developing will really move the market on to the next level. We’re also extremely bullish on new mediums being accessible through the same platform, which is already happening in a small way in the US, such as rich media / expandable’s, video, and mobile.

For years bullish vendors, up-beat analysts and even the odd journalist have been predicting the illusive ‘year of mobile’. A year when the mobile advertising industry finally lives up to all its hype and potential to become an essential element of any integrated digital marketing campaign. While this vision may still be a little way off, 2010 has certainly been an exciting year of development and one that has put mobile advertising firmly on the map and on the agendas of leading brands, publishers and agencies.

The mobile advertising industry’s growth in 2010 has been influenced by several key drivers; increasing Smartphone and tablet adoption; subsequent increases in mobile advertising inventory and also by the massive explosion in the apps market. There are literally hundreds of new apps every day, across multiple platforms with iOs and Android forging ahead along with the addition of new stores from RIM (Blackberry) and OVI. Spend on branded apps has also grown significantly for iPhone and Android devices.

2010 has seen winners and losers in the battle for our hearts and wallets when it comes to spending on mobile devices. It was certainly not a good year for Palm and its OS launch came and went with very little fuss. On the other end of the scale, RIM began to gain traction and its popularity now extends beyond its traditional, business user base, by appealing to a wider audience, in particular the all-important teenage market.

Whilst the second half of 2010 saw Android gain significant market share, the iOs remains the dominant mobile platform in terms of public perception. While other vendors may resent the level of attention steeped on Apple, the market has a lot to thank the iPhone for, having raised awareness of what was possible on mobile. There are now more than 50 million Smartphone users in Europe (source: ComScore) with 20% of handsets running on iOs.

Earlier in the year IDC reported that the worldwide Smartphone market had grown about 50% year on year during the second quarter of 2010 with the highest growth registered by Android partners. In terms of the phones themselves, it also found that Nokia was still the largest Smartphone supplier with a 38.1% market share, followed by Blackberry with 17.8% market share. Apple was in third position, with 13.3%. HTC next with 7.6% and Samsung had 4.8% share of the market.

The Windows 7 mobile story is interesting and will play out in 2011 when we are likely to see SDKs launching to support this attempt by Microsoft to claw its way back into the mobile market.

Market Consolidation

M&A activity in 2010 has confirmed the huge potential of mobile as a new way of reaching and engaging with consumers. Google’s acquisition of Admob and Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless were amongst the first to put a real value on mobile advertising companies and preceded a series of further smaller mergers and acquisitions such as Amobee and RingRingMedia, Velti and Mobclix and MCSattchi and Inside Mobile. We’ll undoubtedly see further consolidation in the market in 2011 as the mobile advertising industry continues to evolve.

Agencies

2010 has seen agencies and advertisers become increasingly savvy in demanding and driving better performance, transparency and reporting from mobile advertising. They now see the potential of mobile to deliver tangible results and we’ll see more and more test budgets develop into bigger budget campaigns which form part of a wider cross-channel campaigns.

The last two quarters have seen DSPs (Demand Side Platforms) become a key buzzword within mobile with the launch of several platforms such as those offered by GroupM and Adremixer. DSPs sit between the networks and the agencies and provide agencies with a greater level of transparency which enables them to see exactly what activity is delivering results across the networks they’re working with.

Technology

There have been a number of technology themes throughout the year that have grabbed headlines.

Perhaps the most talked about topic has been real-time geo-targeting. Demand from advertisers to target local audiences with locally relevant messages is increasing and some networks, including Adfonic, offer the possibility to target right down to local postal town level.

Of increasing importance is the ability to provide real-time reporting and analytics, giving advertisers and publishers access to the granular data they need to optimise campaigns as they happen in order to drive performance and earnings and see true return on investment.

In addition, conversion tracking for iOs and Android apps is now used by many advertisers giving them the ability to measure the number of app installs per campaign in real time and determine a Cost per Installation that enables optimisation at ad network level.

While banner advertising still remains the most popular form of mobile advertising, new larger screen Smartphone and tablet devices are driving demand for new formats. Mass market ad units have now extended to support the traditional IAB skyscraper, button, banner, MPU and leader board formats for iPad and tablet devices, while creatives designed for desktop and laptop devices are also being reused on mobile platforms.

All networks now fully support SDKs for the most popular mobile platforms and with development keeping pace with devices, we’ll soon see the roll out of new Windows 7 SDKs as adoption picks up.

Supply Side Players (SSPs) on mobile and online will shift towards Real Time Bidding (RTB) exchanges in 2011. RTB enables impressions to be purchased in real time using a bidding model that is based on predefined targeting criteria such as demographic or location; advertiser spend is subsequently more efficient as bids are placed based on the data available that matches their targeting criteria. The greater the availability of data, the better the opportunity to target, and advertisers pay a higher value for this information. RTB is more of an integration benefit for networks at this stage as the volume of data available still limited. We’ll start to see the impact of RTB for advertisers over the coming years as the availability of targeting data increases.

Challenges and Opportunities

Today mobile represents an estimated 1% of media budgets. But with forecasts suggesting that by 2013 more people will be accessing the web by mobile device than PC, there is clear potential for mobile budgets to grow and catch up with increasing mobile internet consumption. As critical mass kicks in, there are several challenges that need to be addressed in order for mobile to live up to its potential.

Perhaps the most significant challenge for the mobile advertising industry is the issue of transparency. Marketers need the same level of insight and availability of data throughout the campaign process that they are used to with online, in order to accurately measure ROI and customer value. Post-click tracking is crucial in closing the loop on campaigns and providing visibility to truly determine the success of a campaign. Advertisers and brands must be able to see what mobile activities lead customers to actually spend money, rather than driving acquisition only.

Furthermore, there needs to be a shift away from the current campaign buying model where advertisers buy access to mobile devices, platforms and mobile operators, to a means of buying audiences based on lifestyle and socio-demographic criteria, as well as their propensity to buy products and services. In the same way that traditional and digital media buys are based on gaining access to specific audience groups, mobile networks needs to provide advertisers with the ability to buy on these metrics.

It is important also to look at the unique opportunities that mobile presents to tap into incremental audiences. Consumers access the mobile web at different times and engage with mobile sites and apps in different ways than via traditional PC connections and advertisers need to remember this when planning their campaigns. Though real-time analysis of clicks within the Adfonic marketplace, we’ve gleaned some valuable insights into the contrasts between mobile user behavior patterns compared to activity on the traditional web.

When online traffic on laptops or PCs starts to dip from early evening, mobile traffic levels are building. Indeed, we’re seeing traffic levels build steadily throughout the evening before peaking around midnight. Early morning – again a quieter time for traditional online traffic – also sees mobile traffic levels spike as consumers access the mobile web via Smartphone devices on their way to work. These patterns offer a clear opportunity to advertisers to reach new audiences.

Our in-depth real-time reporting has also enabled us to dispel some of the myths surrounding Smartphone usage in the UK. Advertisers and brands should bear in mind when planning campaigns that contrary to what was previously thought, tablets and Smartphones are now UK wide devices, with consumers spread across all major urban conurbations, not just London.

2011 outlook

Mobile has certainly proved itself in 2010 as both increased spend and M&A activity demonstrate. Mobile is now a mass market opportunity with the volumes to drive full campaigns; developments throughout 2011 will see advertisers and agencies truly take advantage of the opportunity to buy and target specific mobile audiences. Test budgets will move into significant amounts of spend with full campaign briefs. Along with this, we’ll see mobile video campaigns begin to gain traction as networks develop inventory specifically for video.

The explosion of tablet devices will lead to a significant ramp-up of tablet inventory for mobile media buyers across iOs and Android platforms and content made specifically for tablet sites and apps will continue to gain popularity. Without a doubt, Smartphone and tablet shipments will surge in 2011 and the number of phones versus PCs and laptops will continue to rise.

So, has 2010 been the year that mobile lived up to its true potential? Not as such, but it is increasingly unlikely that the industry will be able to name a single year as the most important in its history. Instead, it is growing year on year and will to continue to be the fastest growing advertising medium in 2011. It is certainly maturing as an industry and once true transparency is achieved; once the ability to buy based on audience increases and once the unique opportunities to target and engage with consumers are tapped into, mobile will be able to prove once and for all that it delivers and will be an unstoppable force.

Closer to home we have seen a resurgent display market, a steep growth in video revenue, a focus on new revenue streams, a race to launch the killer app and finally the adoption of RTB finally gathering momentum.

So how has the sell side evolved in 2010?

Primarily for the majority of publishers our relationships with Network Optimisers such as Admeld has meant that we are able to keep abreast of new developments and share learnings on the way. They have been pivotal in driving the uptake of RTB and I think there must be some 20 mainstream publishers now running it.

Okay, the prices being delivered are still low but in the main they are on average +30-50% higher than a typical network price.

Publishers who have their own seat on an exchange are using it to drive firstly Non UK revenues and some UK inventory on second tier sites, allowing their premium sales teams to focus on selling the larger sites. The criteria for integration with either Right Media or Doubleclick has relaxed as the year has gone on so I expect to see a lot more publishers explore their own seat over the first half of 2011.

Both Vivaki and Access have been very vocal in the market, selling in the benefits of their trading desks and promising publishers incremental revenues from the direct response budgets that a lot of content publishers wouldn’t normally see. Of course there is nervousness on our part and the issue of trust with regards to data is still a big hurdle for us to overcome, but we also sense the inevitability of the market so accept that we need to start becoming experts in this space and quickly.

Has our strategy changed this year?

Future is a special-interest media group with niche verticals so our focus this year has been primarily on data. How best to understand it, how to collate it, what’s its value, who wants to buy it. It’s proven a lot harder than we initially thought to get data monetization up and running. Over the year we have met many companies both new and old and numerous bright people, all with exciting offerings, but everything still felt in its infancy and that any revenue gain would be negligible.

Understanding data will be key for publishers over the coming year, and a lot of people will realize that their data isn’t worth as much as they thought. We have already seen generic data in the market from numerous players, so publishers who have “in market” data from audiences who are willing to spend online will be in the strongest position.

Has technology helped us this year?

We have worked hard with Audience Science to better understand our audience segmentation and to shape better performing audiences to improve our offering to clients.

We begrudgingly acknowledge the way both agencies and networks are using our data on a regular basis and there is little we can do, so again we have focused on how we can work closer with agencies to foster more transparency. The adding of cookies to ad tags has become second nature for a lot of agencies and yet they still play innocent when approached. The pressure is becoming greater on agencies to deliver a cutting edge in efficiencies and with attribution analysis now going down some 14 levels, they have to be very clear on what sites on the media plan are adding value.

New applications such as Ghostery gives us improved visibility on cookie dropping but again a time consuming solution. The publisher community is hurriedly exploring technology to allow us to identify the parties involved but you also have to be very clear about the role your sites play in the value chain before you start blocking advertisers. We can’t forget that they aren’t our users, they just happen to be on our sites and they can easily be qualified elsewhere.

Publishers have adopted new technologies quicker this year to allow them to continue to serve the most efficient and highly optimized campaigns possible, be it behaviorally with Audience Science, contextually through Grapeshot or even just using Dart Adapt/Boomerang. The networks are keeping us on our toes and the improved offering from Facebook, which is likely to see £100m of display spend this year, means that targeting is more than ever in the mainstream.

Has the eco-system become too complex for publishers?

It’s a busy eco-system, but it’s not too complex. You just have to be out there talking to people, sourcing new companies, seeing the latest research and following the many industry blogs so you can make the best informed decision you can. The non digital people within our business aren’t interested in knowing all the nuances – they just want to know we are working with reputable companies, people we can trust and that the returns outweigh the investment in both time and money.

What does the future hold?

It’s an exciting time in this space but it’s also exciting in mobile and the app world and we along with many businesses need to prioritise our efforts. Be it mobile or new devices we have existing talent who can drive these projects forward, but in the exchange space we realize that we will need to bring in new skills to help us better monetise the opportunity correctly so again the question is does the end prize justify the investment? At Future we think it does and the appetite to become experts is very real indeed.

On another note, at the recent ExchangeWire ad trading summit I asked whether it was only a matter of time before agencies started forcing media owners to make all their premium inventory available through an exchange. The question was answered with a unanimous yes by the panel and with agencies looking to deliver efficiencies all the time I think some smaller publishers will start to come under such pressure. For some it’s not a bad move: if you have a large portfolio sell and some smaller sites that can be looked after on the exchange then why not try it, leaving your sales team to concentrate on the larger sites where the higher yielding creative revenues are being delivered.

You have total control on the floor price so if you don’t want the business, don’t take it. I know in the States some sites are already placing all their premium inventory on the exchanges and cutting out the need for external sales teams who end up taking 30% anyway.

So I look forward to 2011 and the continual learning curve we are all facing and the new opportunities that this will bring.

The market place has remained pretty static since the late nineties. The industry traded in the same way as every other media channel and it worked quite nicely. When ad exchange trading emerged and became a serious proposition it asked many questions of the roles of agencies, ad networks and brought to life the data practices that had become so prevalent in recent years. 2010 has been an amazing year. The companies and technology on the lips of the media industry now – Invite Media, Turn, BlueKai, DSPs – were not even on the radar here in Europe twelve months ago. It’s incredible how quickly our industry can adapt and I have enjoyed being in thick of it in 2010.

A year in developing an ad exchange proposition

One of the hardest parts of a role such as the development of a new way of trading is gaining trust and buy-in from agency teams. It is actually harder to get traction with a proprietary approach than introducing a third party – see how Group M has struggled with the purchase of 24/7. There has to be proof that something like Audience on Demand can work and beat the competition. Client teams are rightly very defensive of their clients.

In every group you also have of course different agencies with their own approaches and ethos to digital. My challenge with Audience on Demand was to create an offering that worked for each agency and one they felt they could make their own. You have to work with many different opinions but in the case of Vivaki we did that and through that due diligence has come a unified view on how Audience on Demand could look and one of the reasons we have made so much progress. It is great that we have Starcom Mediavest, Zenthoptimedia and Razorfish all involved through consensual means rather than command.

Unique in this arena is the level of attention that needs to be given to data ownership and making sure that we are not buying unsuitable inventory. It’s important that contracts reflect the new world we are living and trading in. Outside of that we need to manage some people’s concerns that ad trading will be the death of the buyer and lead to an automated buying environment. Those concerns are mainly unfounded. Of course as more media is traded in this way it will make agencies more efficient – but take a look at search where we still have teams of people bringing the strategies to life.

The challenges we face in an agency

In considering the challenges we face I have chosen to break up the ad exchange trading proposition into four core areas, people, technology, marketplace and data. Each area has had its own areas of positives and negatives.

People

The challenge with ad trading is that it sits in the display camp. But the execution needs to be with those who are more direct response or search focused – namely those people who enjoy numbers and optimisation. This is not a ‘display’ buy. At the end of the day someone needs to have the skills to make this work and finding those people will be the next battle ground in this market. I fear a repeat of the search market where we competed for talent to the extent that search planners were getting large pay rises after 6 months in the job. We need to avoid a repeat of that by spreading the skill set as much as we can rather than concentrate on a select group of people.

I think there will be a new breed of buyers in this space but they could work across different elements of the same principle – biddable media. Some agencies claim to be employing NASA trained graduates, who could unpick the meaning of life in an instant. I don’t believe this is not a viable strategy for all. Some middle ground is needed here. What skills will be required by agencies? There should be heavy data knowledge, and more analytical than perhaps in the past – but this new breed of buyer shouldn’t be a complete departure. After all, the ad networks have been doing this for years without recruiting from MIT.

Technology

That’s easy! Why do I say it’s easy, well because it is all the same. I can already hear the howls from the baying crowds of technology companies, but fundamentally it’s true. Let’s not hide behind technology. It’s hugely important and exceptionally scientific but unless you have the people to make it work, it’s effectively useless. We work with Invite in the main and they are the leading player in the space now with the backing of Google – and hopefully they will continue to drive innovation. That said we have not won a single piece of business on the back of our technology sell. It’s all about the people and strategy. The most important thing any agency can do is work on the overall integration of the data provided by these systems into the agency’s data warehousing infrastructure. That’s where the value is created not in the individual system itself – and that’s where NASA knowhow comes in!

Ciaran asked me about developments in this space. I think we have been seeing the morphing of companies with a technical core into DSP offerings. That for me is the biggest shift. Real-time-bidding capabilities have also driven this development. As we have seen from results, it really makes a difference to performance and the margins publishers are able to take.

As I mentioned earlier its fascinating watching all the new players come to market. Dataxu, Turn, Mediamath, Appnexus and many others all staking their claims in this space and that battle with continue unabated. On the back of that I hope we will see product improvements to benefit our clients, especially around video and mobile.

Marketplace

Is there inventory or not? There is a lot of exchange inventory that needs to be supplemented with more mainstream inventory, Yahoo already do this. Microsoft has just signed up with Appnexus and there is a ground swell of larger publishers that are starting to hear the whispers that they can make more revenue through exchanges than going to ad networks. Critical mass is key and it is coming fast.

If you were to ask me what has changed in this area I would say that publishers are now considering putting more inventory through exchanges and dipping their toe in the water. Many people talk about the threat to ad networks from agencies – in terms of replicating their model. I am more inclined to believe that publishers are less willing to forsake their remnant and unsold to ad networks, preferring to move inventory into open exchanges.

Scale to compete is another topic of intense debate. Anyone who has run an attribution model on one of their campaigns will see that a number of sites can feature heavily across a number of exposures on a campaign but the last click will often fall to a small list of companies that effectively buy up the web. These networks buy at huge scale and therefore often win the last click battle. That’s not strategy or skill – it is sheer bulk. But it works in our current basic last-click-wins approach to digital. It’s no surprise to find that the ad networks are the largest buyers off the exchanges!

Data

Come back to me next year. There’s been so much talk but little action over the past twelve months. The area of most interest is of course retargeted inventory – first party data rather than third. For the last few years agencies and advertisers have been giving it away to ad networks to make their own campaigns work better. Ad networks were thus able to create greater insights on competing brands. The battle is now on to retrieve that data usage from third parties and keep it between agency and client. One thing that is blatantly clear is the need for a huge shift in data contracts. Client contracts and media owner contracts are going to change as everyone wakes up to the reality of how data is being used.

As for third party data, we are not there yet in Europe. There is little to no decent data on the market. A couple of companies are starting to shape their offerings. Obviously there are those who will sell data but on the back of their media networks. I think we will see some developments in 2011 as US companies come to town but we have some way to go. The greatest challenge is managing the price and value. Up to this point data has been too expensive and has invariably underperformed – so we should see some big improvements next year.

European ad exchange trading

I think that the idea of a group offering across Europe is more than possible, but it remains very complex. I spend much of my time investigating the developments in European markets and trying to understand their individual nuances. Each country has different marketplaces – with some more ready than others. Germany is a particularly entrenched market with some very established publisher relationships and a low use of ad networks. There are big companies in the space such as Weborama, Adjug, Adscale all looking at establishing opportunities. The importance of working with local partners cannot be underestimated if you are to make a success in these different markets – a one-size-fits-all approach will not work.

Conclusions

It’s been a fascinating and exciting year. I have met with some extremely bright companies and people – and I believe that this ad exchange trading tide will change our business more than any other single development. As we move into 2011 – and we see the addition of video and mobile to the automated ad trading mix – the ad exchange space will become even more complete.

As I discussed it will ask questions of many company structures and approaches, people skills and data capabilities but that is the interesting area for me. It will make us all re-evaluate how we work and what our structures and people skill sets should be. I work with great teams in the VivaKi agencies and am fortunate to be able to push on an open door. This innovation requires some elements of trial and error, and we all need to learn together. I would also say we should encourage each other in this space. The more we work together, the better the traction from publishers and data companies, the more we will grow as an industry.

Much as I tried I just couldn’t get a decent answer in 140 characters. The short answer is “yes, but…” The interesting bits here are in the reasons behind ‘yes’ and the debate around the ‘but’. We see automated trading as a fantastic opportunity for everyone involved in connecting brands with relevant people in quality environments. On the planning or buy side the positive view is fairly obvious: media has always been about getting the right message in front of the right audience in the right place, at the right time, at the best possible price. Addressable advertising, automated trading, exchange trading, RTB and all the other names we can invent for it virtually guarantees this is possible – so long as media owners make the ‘right audience’ and most importantly the ‘right place’ available.

For us there are real benefits to making that happen. It means we can realise the true value of all the people that spend time with us, not just the core audiences that we’re so well known for. It should allow us to do that more efficiently, freeing up resource from commodity trading to spend more time on activities that add more value. Our early experience certainly bears this out with RTB supplying 18% of our revenues from just 7% of our impressions on our non-direct, non-UK inventory. So, why the widespread trepidation?

There is something fundamentally scary about transparent markets – especially those where there is a basic imbalance between supply and demand. Digital display advertising will never grow as quickly as the network itself. In H1 2010 the IAB UK has digital display spend up 6.4% whilst UKOM shows page impressions for the same period up 23%. Transparent markets are especially scary to an advertising community that has, on occasion, fallen back on the odd bit of smoke and mirrors and inappropriate metrics to try and protect premiums and prove effectiveness. But, for those that do deliver value, and can balance supply and demand, transparent markets can be a very good thing.

We spend a lot of time in this space discussing the importance of pricing floors, in terms of how and where they should be set. But it’s really important to step back and understand the things that can give pricing floors teeth:

- delivering and understanding your value
- owning and monetising your audience data
- creating a balance between supply & demand

Without these basics it’s hard to command meaningful prices, or turn away any bid, which renders all the best management of pricing floors irrelevant.

At the Guardian, we are investing heavily in all these areas. Our investments in our direct, traditional sell are the ones that give us the foundations to trade effectively in real time. In the short term this works by ensuring demand on the top tiers restricts supply in the lower levels which are currently traded in real time. This works – as we have premium sell through rates on our UK inventory which regularly exceed 80%.

In the long term detailed understanding of who spends time with us and the value they have when they are on our site will give us the tools to trade all of our commodity sell – but only as the market develops, and it makes sense for us to do so.

Our partnership with Maxifier helps us optimise both yield and advertising performance, calculating the best placement for every impression and the impact on every other campaign across our portfolio. We are starting to use it to optimise on engagement metrics too, with fantastic results. We’re seeing performance uplifts of 20-30% across the site on click, acquisition, and engagement metrics. It’s delivering performance, which ultimately drives our value in the market.

The other thing that drives our value is how well we understand and leverage our audience data. In this area it’s the big picture principles rather than the nuanced details of which provider is used and how that will make all the difference. It’s vitally important to know and understand what the data is and how it’s being produced and used. So sometimes the simplest data relationships drive most value – like the one we have with our sister company Trader Media which helps us combine powerful auto intent data with our upmarket audiences and premium context.

The area that I think we, and others, are playing catch up in is in governance and permissions that we place around the collection of data by our advertisers. The Wall Street Journal’s approach in this space is highly commendable. They place strict controls on what data can be collected, by whom, and how it can be used. WSJ enforces these controls, and we can expect to see these constraints on data usage written into publisher T&C’s very soon. Companies like Better Advertising, which provide the governance to encourage compliance and trust, will become more prevalent. One way to get a quick view of what’s happening is by installing its free Ghostery plug-in. Group M Marketplace is currently having a transparent conversation about data trading and that will also be a growing trend. It’s easy to get scared about pricing in new areas like this. But willingness to experiment and partner judiciously will help us all find the real value of our data.

Finally, we focus on developing expertise in understanding our inventory and pricing, and developing a multi-tiered, rules based, dynamic approach which we can quickly and easily migrate across all trading approaches – traditional or exchange. And we experiment. We test different floors, permissions and controls on the parts of inventory that we trade in the exchange. Now is a great time to play and gain knowledge before the stakes get too high!

Tim Gentry (@timmgentry) is Head of Optimisation & Effectiveness at Guardian Commercial

1) Google puts its weight behind display

Twelve months ago, the exchange landscape was dominated by Right Media. The early marketplace pioneer, Right Media was way ahead in the space in terms of liquidity and actually smart demand side functionality. When Google started to really crank through the gears, the speed with which they have surpassed Right Media to become the dominant global player is truly astounding. Tapping in to the vast publisher base of Adsense and DFP meant publisher relationships were never going to be a problem and their vast account management resource with demand side partners has effortlessly created a liquid market. It was all summed up to me last week when Google had taken over all the escalator panels at Oxford Circus to promote their display advertising product. Within the same timeframe Right Media have scaled back their European support on both the demand side and publisher recruitment, and at this point are still not operating a real time marketplace.

2) Creative optimisation was the success story

One of the most the most successful new type of company in 2010 was the CPC remarketer (Criteo et al). Built out in the main on RTB infrastructure with creative optimisation at it’s core, this is remarketing at it’s most granular with consumers being not just retargeted but shown the last product that they viewed. With attractive CPC pricing and very high conversion rates, search heavy sectors such as retail and travel have invested heavily. More interesting for me is that this is the first ‘new’ product to come from the RTB ecosystem with most other activity being straight ad network style buying and optimisation.

3) Demand Side Platforms (DSP’s) finally arrived

First the SSP’s arrived in a flurry of VC money in 2009 announcing themselves as the saviour of publishers. This year it was the turn of the DSP’s offering more of the same but for the demand side. The pioneer was Invite Media followed by Appnexus and now Media Math, Turn and Data Xu. With banks of expensive, shiny, data centres humming in the Netherlands all are now beginning to staff their European offerings.

4) The data market didn’t reach Europe but data networks did

There has been a lot of excitement about the arrival of the data market in Europe. In an audience driven world with plenty of impressions to buy it has seemed to be the missing part of the puzzle. We’ve been holding our breath for twelve months for the onslaught of new entrants but they haven’t come or at least not how we expected them too. Perhaps the uncertainty over European privacy laws or simply waiting for the demand side to develop audience-buying skills has held things back but whatever it is we’re still holding our breath. Instead, interestingly, many data companies such as Media 6 Degrees and Bizo have taken a different course, either setting themselves up as a network or selling exclusively through a network in order to gain some easy UK traction. It will be interesting to see how this develops in 2011.

5) The infrastructure for European RTB was completed

All of these are interesting things that happened in 2010 but by far the biggest macro story is that the infrastructure for the new display market in Europe is complete. RTB is going to change everything, make no mistake, but Europe is a collection of idiosyncratic markets. It will develop in it’s own way and not follow the US lead script.

Big Predictions For 2011!

No retrospective look at the year could be complete without a set of predictions for the coming year. I’ve tried to keep them focused on the European market and they are based purely on our observations from being out in the market talking to publishers, agencies and advertisers. They are obviously by no means exhaustive and are broad in their scope rather than focusing on individual companies.

1) We will start to see the potential of RTB as a game changer

RTB is so new that nobody has really known how to sell it’s benefits to advertisers – whose budget this ultimately all relies upon! In 2010, RTB has in reality facilitated little more than the cheap purchase of media and access to retargeting technology for most media buyers giving them the chance to operate like an ad network. This model is broken and in 2011 this will change.

To take full advantage of RTB a new approach is needed involving more complex advertiser integrations, dynamic creative and granular bid strategies. It will be interesting to see the type of companies that drive this development and these strategies. Having a contract with a DSP simply give you the ability to buy impressions via RTB; to drive real value to advertisers in new ways there needs to be another layer of technology built out on top of DSP infrastructure that is customised to an advertiser and their sector. This is where Infectious sits with a combination of technology, data and service skills, all of which are critical to take full advantage of RTB for advertisers.

I expect by the end of this year there will be many more practical RTB case studies and success stories in the industry as a whole, rather than the current raft of theory and white papers.

2) Ad networks will have to become more transparent

The ad network model is not out of date but their black box approach is. Ad networks are threatened by this space and they are going to have to justify why they should be on media plans rather than a trading specialist, holding group offering or otherwise. Black box data segments and unnamed premium publisher relationships are not going to cut it going forward and so those that do have something unique are going to have to open up their technology to scrutiny and their inventory to purchase via RTB. In this era of transparency, those that do have something unique will continue to grow, some more of those that don’t will be bought or shut their doors.

3) CPC Remarketers will start to feel the squeeze

This has been one of the big success stories of 2010 but it will be interesting to see how this space develops in 2011. The creative technology that is core for this activity is being unbundled by a number of companies meaning that the barriers to entry for this activity are going to fall. This will mean smart media buyers will be able to integrate this activity into the wider digital mix without having to use a specialist company. With obviously high click through rates, large spenders will also start to question the CPC pricing model as being the best way to operate preferring the transparency and volume maximisation of CPM pricing.

4) Publishers will realise it’s their data that’s valuable

Premium publishers are agonizing about RTB. Many who have been persuaded to put some of their inventory up for sale have been disappointed by low CPM’s and poor quality ads. The problem is that their inventory on it’s own isn’t worth very much and it only starts to become valuable when the buyer is given some information on the impression and the user by the publisher. At it’s most basic, RTB simply facilitates a huge amount of information to be passed to buyers on the ad call. It’s therefore surprising that most impressions come through with very few if any data points attached to them. In this situation an ad on a new car site, which should be very valuable, is as valueless as a social media impression. In 2011 premium publishers will take control of their data and start to monetise it properly helped by some new companies that focus on this.

5) Search agencies will get involved

Most search focused agencies see this as a definite area for growth but most have done little more than spend some budget with a CPC remarketer in 2010. This should change in 2011 driven by the increased focus from Google on pushing their display portfolio but also because many of the search bid management tools will be releasing DSP functionality. Efficient Frontier were first but expect Marin, Kenshoo etc to follow suit. Given the ease then of buying display for companies using these tools it will be a natural progression to move in to display. However it will be interesting to see if search competencies can be easily translated across to display as the similarity ends in the fact that it’s bought via a platform.

Personally I’m looking forward to this year, things are starting to get really interesting and we’re moving beyond the initial hype to something much more real.

Martin Kelly (@martinkelly1) is Managing Partner of Infectious Media Ltd (@infectiousmedia)

The noise was worse this year than last year. Too many acronyms: DSP, RTB, SSP. Too many new people hiring, selling, calling: Trading desks, data providers, video and mobile companies, new ad networks and ad servers.

That’s why 2010 was the year of the “market map”. You know, those slides with Advertisers on one side and Publishers on the other, and all those logos in bubbles in between.

I love those market maps as much as the next guy-who-wants-to-show-people-how-complicated-their-job-is. But every time one gets presented, the question is invariably, “How can all these companies exist? How can they survive?”

Actually, many will survive – they’re full of smart people with good ideas, and healthy competition brings out the best in business. But they won’t all stay in the bubbles they’re in now.

Rock The Boat (RTB)

It’s easy to look at 2010 as the year that real-time bidding (RTB) came to Europe. But beyond geeky excitement about the technology, let’s all admit that RTB is a symptom of the bigger trend, not the trend in itself. If 2009 was the year that the big agency groups talked the talk about forming trading desks and centralising their data and audience buying, then 2010 will be seen as the year that they walked the walk: budgets actually shifted, people were hired, and their commitment was clear.

As a result of the shift in audience buying strategy, the ease of use of DSPs like Invite and Appnexus, and the accessibility of aggregated supply by Google, AdMeld and others, buyers accelerated trading using RTB and exchanges. Eventually, buyers started speaking to publishers about forming “buy-side networks”, or “marketplaces”. And not just agencies – mustn’t forget Orange, an end advertiser. This agency focus forced all top publishers to begin to take a good, long look at their audience value, and the data that makes those audiences valuable in the first place.

Of course, agencies have been buying audience as long as they’ve been, well, agencies. Site-specific buying, network buying are all proxies for finding the best way of reaching the advertiser’s target audience. In 2010, however, technology made identifying and transacting on that audience far easier.

Watch for Search marketers and agencies to enter the display market. They have the performance and targeting experience, and access to some pretty big budgets. And now, with RTB, they get the transparency and targetability they need. For display agencies and networks – less so for those who have a strong search background – they’ll be competitive. For publishers, it’s another big reason to get connected via RTB.

In the end, RTB gets the attention, but it simply a stalking horse for the shift in demand to more transparent audience buying.

Technology Makes Things Easier – Finally

With increased transparency and smart use of data, markets are, finally, becoming more efficient. Past trends, like rich media, video, even ad serving have added sexy features and helped to build CPM and revenue for the whole value chain, but added to the complexity of executing online transactions. Even data management and targeting providers made inroads because of the value they offer, but were difficult and time consuming to integrate.

Efficiency is now the name of the game, and technology has made that possible. Programmatic buying and selling, via demand and supply platforms, is accelerating. New data management platforms will arise, meeting the challenge of current data providers whose technology now takes a platform approach.

Transparency, not cool but ultimately seldom-used features, will decide the success or failure of these platforms, since scalability will be limited by how well you can value your inventory or purchases.

Your New Media Buyer: TRON

AdMeld expects that programmatic buying – platform to platform, real-time – will increase at least 400% globally. (Take that with as much salt as you like, as we benefit the bigger that number is.) It sounds like a lot, but there are a number of factors at work here:

• Audience targeting and creative optimisation are continuing to improve. The results of these efforts are really encouraging to advertisers, who will shift more NON-DISPLAY budgets, such as Search and even TV, to display.
• Quality advertisers want their budgets spent on quality publishers, and fortunately, those publishers will get more comfortable with audience selling – which will increase the scale and quality of biddable inventory.
• RTB, which has up until now been solely the province of performance budgets, will begin to attract guaranteed buys and, thanks to transparency, branding campaigns. If you know you’re reaching the audience you want, you won’t limit the types of messaging that you reach them with. Especially as more than 75% of all users simply don’t click.

And Introducing…The DMP

There’s no bubble yet for “Data Management Platforms” on most market maps. But data management will get white hot as publishers begin to tap the value of their first-party data more strategically. As Jeff Crowe, GM of Norwest Venture Partners (full d.: an AdMeld investor) puts it, “Platforms which enable superior audience management and targeting through the sophisticated use of data will give strategic advantage to both advertisers and publishers alike.”

Data Moves Out of the Third World

While the attention in the media will be on Consumer Privacy – think Digital Economy Act or the Open Data Initiative – I think the real data revolution will be transparency between the parties in ad serving transactions. Right now, it’s like we’re doing business in a third-world country, with data, like bribes, being part of the transaction, but no one asks and no one tells. That actually has a chilling effect on transactions and real businesses have been built on some shaky ground.

But the IAB, AOP and the data providers themselves have made this a priority now. What data, who can use it, how you can gather it, how much it costs, and how long it can be stored will see some real progress in 2011. In the end, I’d bet nearly all the same players will still be working together, but with a lot more confidence and trust.

What’s User #27485937459 worth?

For publishers, audience selling is the big trend in 2011. Agencies have moved their budgets and split their site-specific, or strategic, buying and their audience buying. Now publishers have to be ready to offer the right products at the right prices to the audience buyers, or they will leave enormous amounts of money on the table. Those publishers who don’t have a paywall to lean on will have to get really good at audience selling in 2010.

Networks, Pick a Side

The concept of a “buy-side network”, like the Group M Marketplace, is worth watching this year, as the trend continues. “Sell-side networks” are how I’d describe the traditional ad network; companies that represent publisher inventory, blind or not, to agencies and advertisers. Now, with agencies openly forming their own networks, both publishers and traditional networks – and really everyone in the value chain – has to start thinking about what that will mean to their long-term offering. Some networks will become agencies, such as Yieldivision in the Netherlands. Some will essentially become publishers, like the big sales houses in Germany, to thrive.

Offline lives will drive more online ads

Many online ads are trying to ultimately drive offline behaviour: buying a car, choosing a toothpaste brand, going on a date. This year, as the big offline data companies get better at connecting their offline segments to user cookies, more of the population’s offline data will come back online to drive more advertising. Like RTB, this movement isn’t because the data providers want it, or because the publishers want it, or even because the users want it (though they do like their relevant advertising). This is because advertisers want to reach their audience more effectively and efficiently, with less waste and better ROI. And when they can reach them, bigger budgets will follow.

Convergence Will Still Be a Headache

Traditional publishers have the best content. But they are the worst at making that content available for mobile devices, for example. Why? Few resources and still-weak demand. Video is relatively easy for digital arms of TV companies, and eCPMs remain high, but those publishers have found it difficult to scale well to grab more share of budget. And the big magazine and news publishers haven’t figured out the video side yet either – do we make the content? If so, how do we do it consistently and with the same quality we bring to the rest of our business? And then, how do we scale it, both supply and demand?

I’m not sure if this year is the year that video truly breaks through. But many publishers are working on it, and the demand side is going to figure out how to get better results, and publishers will get better at mobile, better at video, better at more devices. Slowly but surely.

In the End, Premium Publishers Will Stay Premium

Brands matter. Brands like the MailOnline, Telegraph, FHM, MacUser, Autotrader and Gramophone inhabit space in peoples’ minds, inspire emotions and are trusted by their users. And because of that, performance is enhanced for many campaigns by running on premium brands. As long as they learn to value each impression correctly for their buyers, publishers can turn RTB and data and the other trends to their advantage and become sellers of Premium Audience, not just Premium Content.

While the noise will continue, here’s my hope that the new market, with its greater transparency, access to data, efficiency and bigger budgets, brings you better performance in 2011.

Tom Jenen (@tomjenen) is Commercial Director, EMEA at AdMeld (@admeld)

Despite the liquidity and progress being made in this space (even NMA had an RTB session so it must be mainstream), not a lot is really changing.

The biggest disruption is arguably coming from the trading desks and the trading specialists. This is the part of the buy-side that is really beginning to go head-to-head with the ad nets (excluding the likes of Criteo for now).

Sadly though, the methods being implemented by the above are exactly what the ad nets have been doing for years. Little change is actually happening. Yes, inventory is being traded differently – and yes data trading is becoming a lot more transparent. But the end game is exactly the same – cookie, cookie, cookie. And it’s bullshit.

Should this matter? Maybe. Maybe not. The agency groups will not be concerned. They are knocking ad nets out of the park (or at least off the plan). Are the ad nets concerned? Some probably are. But more than likely, no. A lot of these so called Trading Desks (TDs) are simply managing campaigns like ad nets used to 3 / 4 years ago. Campaign management methods of optimisation are not changing which begs the question: what’s the point of this shift in power?

It is a real race to the bottom – the bottom of the funnel that is. Everyone is trying to win that last cookie, both ad nets and TDs (and every intermediary in between).

Well, if you are racing to the bottom of the funnel there is only going to be one real winner there and that’s Google. I mean have you ever seen an attribution modelling report?

Advertisers are getting savvier because of the increased transparency, which is a good thing. However, how impressed will they be when they start to understand that all RTB is delivering at the moment is the ability to drop a cookie quicker and cheaper?

I use the term spray and pray because those working in this space will know what that means. Impression blasting, cheaply, is more cost effective (when there is a PI window) than being clever with audience segmentation and genuine smart tactics. Everyone knows the different tactics employed on retargeting and non-retargeting. At the moment retargeting is the de facto campaign strategy – maximise that and then get scale from the rest. But is this not a huge waste of the potential of RTB? It’s quite depressing if this is all RTB has to offer.

To shift away from this carpet bombing of impressions, we need to move away from the way we measure and look beyond basic metrics. It requires work from all of us to achieve this and without it display is dead in the water.

I don’t know all the answers. But we need ways to measure the impression differently. On a line item, your in-market BlueKai segment is likely to be less cost effective than your RON buys. Is this because it genuinely does not add value or is it because the tactics employed on a RON buy reduces the potential value it can deliver? I am growing tired and frustrated that all this innovation and technology is arguably not adding any real genuine value.

Spray and pray is still the name of the game. But this is not advertising. We need to change it. And change it fast.

This post was written in a recent conversation with a senior holding agency executive.

What is a supply side platform? Is it radically different from a publisher yield optimiser?

JN: A true SSP is a technology platform with the single mission: enabling online publishers to manage their inventory and maximise revenue from digital media. As such it offers an efficient, automated and secure way to tap into the different sources of advertising income that are available and provides insight into the various revenue streams and audience.

Publishers today need more than just an ad network AND yield optimisation solution. Improve Digital believes the current yield optimisers will evolve into true SSPs. The market continues to change rapidly, with media buying following suit. The opportunities like RTB and audience buying that have emerged as a result require publishers to have a significantly advanced application to manage their revenue and protect their brand. Improve Digital is now able able to provide this with the launch its new platform last month. Yield optimisers today are focused on optimising remnant inventory but the SSP of the future will cover all forms of inventory instead of just one, and contain additional features such as:

- Revenue optimisation – ad revenue optimisation on ad networks, exchanges, (non-guaranteed) direct CPC/CPM campaigns, audience targeting campaigns, guaranteed campaigns
- Insight – actionable insight in yield analytics and audience data
- Audience extension – possibilities for audience extension and retargeting
- Data – integration with multiple third party data providers and the publishers own data
- DSP’s – enable easy integration with DSP’s
- Brand protection – protection against malware detection and poor quality ads
- RTB – provide a controlled real time bidding environment

How supply-side platforms help publishers understand the value of their data?

JN: Publishers must be able to gain insight from their data if it is to be of value, and this currently focuses around transparency – what data is being passed to whom. For example, the data firewall in Improve Digital’s platform enables pixels to be identified and tracks the source allowing a publisher to see who is passing on data without permission. It will also automatically alert a publisher when demand partners go beyond normal targeting. Knowing that will allow publishers to gain back control over who is allowed to pass data and against which price. The market will in the end define the value of data of each publisher.

Should SSPs help a publisher broker data?

JN: Brokering data is a specialist task, so most publishers won’t have the resource and technology to efficiently undertake it. SSP’s enable publishers to efficiently broker the value of their data with the publisher maintaining complete control.

Should SSPs help a publisher to augment its reach? Let them become the media buyer to get access to more buying budget.

JN: This technique is already widely-used today when our current publishers use our platform to buy relevant media space/ audience when they need it. It enables publishers with a strong audience in a specific area to increase their revenue.

How can it help publishers obtain better pricing – in a real-time bidding environment? Could a SSP have dynamic and machine learning to adjust to price variations?

JN: Having a dynamic and machine learning platform to adjust to price variations is a pre-requisite of being a SSP. Improve Digital has seen significant eCPM improvements for publishers that are participating in RTB campaigns. However, a competitive bidding environment is essential to ensure a consistent and continuous revenue growth. The right user is extremely valuable to an advertiser, who is willing to pay a high price to reach them. And this means that we do not allow any real-time bids to win an auction unless the bid is high enough. In addition, Improve Digital enables the publisher to set a minimum price that must be achieved.

As well as raising the CPM on ad impressions, Improve Digital believes that RTB will increase the efficiency of digital advertising, and therefore its potential of reaching a large audience. This will further strengthen online advertising’s competitive advantage, thereby encouraging advertisers to move budget currently spent on other media onto the digital channels.

RTB is still in its early stages and careful consideration of RTB partners and use of the technology is key. There is more on this topic in our RTB white paper.

Improve Digital is playing a key role in continually innovating and developing new opportunities in the online advertising world. Premium publishers from all over the world use its real time and predictive optimisation technology to increase revenues from ad networks, exchanges and CPM/CPC campaigns, balanced with their direct sales strategies. Improve Digital clients benefit from local presence, local market knowledge, and best-of-breed service. Improve Digital represents the PubMatic technology exclusively in Europe adding additional technologies, services and expertise.