EMEA > Ad Server

We hosted our third Ad Trader Conference in Berlin two weeks ago. It was an interesting day, and offered up some fascinating debate and talking points. Looking in you would think nothing has changed since the first Ad Trader Conference, but a cursory look under the bonnet reveals that all is not what the sales houses are saying publicly – with significant volumes currently being traded programmatically.

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TraderTalk TV is coming to Paris on March 06. TarderTalk TV provides the visual overview of the granular aspects of data-driven advertising – effectively, how all this technology, data and trading actually works (you can view all episodes here).

We will be inviting some of the leading figures in the French market along to provide insight into innovation as well as smart execution around technology and data.

The series will be profiling the best and brightest from across the buy and sell side to scribble on our now “world-famous” whiteboard. Details to follow on when these episodes will be posted.

Ad Trader Conference is back on April 18. This year we will bringing the most senior ad execs in Germany to Berlin. Now in its third year, Ad Trader Conference is the most influential event for the German data-driven advertising market. This year the theme will focus on programmatic reserved/ guaranteed – and programmatic buying strategies for German brands.

The German market is not following trends in other European markets, and instead is looking at a different approach to programmatic ad trading. We have already seen in the partnership between agencies and big German Sales Houses, particularly around the 4q initiative.

The Sales Houses are not taking to impression-level buying – but are looking at programmatic guaranteed/premium as the preferred automated option. Whether that is executed through the various methodologies recently discussed in the recent ExchangeWire series on the subject will no doubt be discussed in detail at the Ad Trader Conference on April 18.

Ad Trader Conference will again provide the forum for debate for the smartest and most influential people in the market. Early bird tickets are now available on the Ad Trader conference site. Details on format and speakers for Ad Trader Conference 2013 will follow in the coming weeks.

Over the course of the last three years ExchangeWire has witnessed real time bidding emerge from a technological unknown to an established method of media buying. We are now at a point where, although automated-led buying still has room for much more growth, the marketplace has started to mature.

We are not seeing the launch of a new start-up every day, attempting to solve an unnecessary problem within the ecosystem. We have seen publishers, ‘premium’ and otherwise, begin to invest, not only to understand the future dynamics of software-led buying, but also to try to gain competitive advantage. Some of the largest publishers globally have done this: Microsoft being one of the most prominent examples, selling real-time based homepage ad slots through its AppNexus-powered exchanges.

We have seen advertisers move large proportions of their non-guaranteed display buying directly into the exchange environment via their agency trading desks/preferred trading partners as well as indirectly, via the wider pool of now RTB-enabled ad networks. Some big advertisers have begun to explore in-housing some of this work, and now employ people responsible for putting together and coordinating various technology stacks.

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Stuart Colman is Managing Director, EMEA at Maxifier.

I am a big believer in trying to be the best I can be. I work hard, push myself, try new things and deliver something that is as good as I can make it – “better to try and fail than to never try at all”, and all that…

Whilst this is fine personally, professionally I work in an area of the digital industry (ad tech), where we seem to accept average as OK and are unwilling to challenge those who push average onto the market.

“Look at what we’ve achieved in the last three years though,” I hear you all cry. “How can you say we live in a world of average?”

I agree that if you compare the UK digital marketplace today to that of 2008 then, yes, we have invented lots of new technologies, found new things to buy and sell and given ourselves a huge pat on the back when we’ve invented yet another acronym for the latest ecosystem slide. However, at the core of what we do as an industry, have things really improved in the last three or four years?

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The end of the year is a time for refection and projection, on what we’ve achieved and for what we expect. Adam Jablonski, CEO of the Polish ad server Epom, breaks down the current state of mobile advertising in Eastern Europe and what we can expect from the region in 2013.

Stay Alive and Advertise

Despite the widely spoken-of impending Apocalypse on December 21, 2012, we can’t help but look towards 2013 with a renewed willingness to get to work and great expectations for the future of advertising.

The ad industry, which has undergone numerous significant changes lately, will certainly continue evolving next year; and mobile advertising is surely to face many more substantial developments in comparison with other sectors of the market.

Forward Into Mobile

It has become obvious that the future of advertising lies in mobile, and the growth of the mobile ad sector in 2012 proves this fact to the fullest. In fact, the US market spend this year, according to Epom Data Center research, has grown to almost double what it was 2011. As for 2013, the increase of mobile ads’ portability and, thus popularity, is only going to rise, especially due to the constant introduction of new tablet models.

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AudienceScience announced last week that it is closing its ad network business – as it looks to focus on becoming the SaaS solution of choice for large, brand-focused advertisers.

This is a pretty significant move by AudienceScience, given that it could mean that one particular global advertiser, who has an already extensive relationship with AudienceScience, is going all in with them for global digital buying. For AudienceScience to develop a unified proposition of this kind, it would suggest that the strategy is being driven by the needs of existing large, global clients.

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Venture Capitalists and “tech” trade press types have been salivating over the potential of the Russian internet market for some time now with an avalanche of posts offering some unique perspective. Given the hot air that perpetually emanates from both parties, you’d be forgiven for disbelieving the hyperbole. However, the numbers and demographics definitely do support the premise that Russia will come to dominate the European internet market.

So how will this big growth affect the data-driven ad market in Russia, and who will be the key players? Before we look at the principal players in the real-time advertising space, let’s run through the numbers for those uninitiated with the great Russian internet bear.

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