It’s probably the last thing you want to be seeing on your first week back: namely, another prediction list for 2012. But given that 99.5% of these lists have been overwhelmingly US-centric, it’s useful to have some European perspective. ExchangeWire will not be held to account for any of these predictions except if all of the following are realised through the course of 2012. Do include some of your own soothsaying in the comments area.
1. Publishers Banding Together To Pool Data & Inventory
Watch out for a sizeable announcement in the first half of the year from a group of large European publishers looking to build their own publisher exchange. This will be the first of many. I expect a similar initiative in Germany, as the powerful sales houses look to close ranks. It won’t be pan-Euro – but instead start out country specific. There have been numerous debates on ExchangeWire in 2011 as to why publishers should/shouldn’t do it. But ultimately it comes down to control. Control over inventory, data and pricing. Publishers are within their right to trade on their own terms. I think a centralised exchange would allow publishers to put in place the right resource to get the best price for their (data-enriched) impressions. Managing premium supply when the marketplace is saturated with brand unsafe inventory could turn out to be a stroke for struggling pubs. European publishers would be wise to steal a move on the market now and partner with a tech provider to build their own exchange. If you think I’ve lost it, how do you explain the MicroYahooAol “partnership”?
Season’s greetings, listeners. Today TraderTalk looks at the 2011 year in full – with some perspective on possible trends in 2012. This edition covers everything from the rise of the trading desk in Europe to ad tech’s growing obsession with acquiring/building the end-of-end stack. ExchangeWire Editor, Ciaran O’Kane, is ably assisted in the end-of-year review by the Guardian’s Tim Gentry, Martin Kelly, Managing Partner at Infectious Media, ValueClick’s Carl White and Eric Ward, Director, Digital Media at goetzpartners. So that you get all future episodes, you can subscribe to TraderTalk here.
Yet another video from the recent ATS London event. This time we have Jason Kelly, Chief Revenue Officer at Admeld, speaking to Anthony Rhind, co-CEO at Havas Digital about the evolving data-driven media buying landscape and the agency strategy. Rhind, one of the most respected and senior digital agency executives Europe, give his analysis on some of the big changes happening in the market and how it will affect the European agency.
Will Margiloff is CEO and Founder of IgnitionOne. Here he discusses the current fragmentation in the online advertising landscape, why consolidation is inevitable, and the how a “complete stack” approach will help marketers better manage media spend and drive performance across all digital marketing channels.
The fragmentation of online advertising is stifling innovation. This is a problem for everyone in the online advertising ecosystem.
Because we’re all feeding the industry increasingly indulgent treats (the infamous landscape slides say it all), marketers are navigating the technology landscape instead of focusing on strategic initiatives and leveraging data insights more effectively.
The result is an overly complex system that prevents marketers from realizing the full potential of digital advertising, and arguably prevents online advertising budgets from growing as quickly as our industry would like. It’s high time we tackled the issues impeding progress and tamed the ad tech beast.
Here are some of the highlights from the “Whither The Media Plan?” and Publisher panels from the recent ATS London. The first panel, ably moderated by Microsoft’s Zuzanna Gierlinska, focused around the media plan and whether or not it would still be around in 3-to-5 years given the rapid move towards automation. The panelists included Vivaki’s Marco Bertozzi, AOL’s Brandon Keenen, Martin Kelly, Infectious Media, MediaIQ’s Gurman Hundal and Nigel Gilbert. The discussion touched on wider trends in the marketplace such as the in-housing of the re-targeting function by agencies, the ad net’s potential demise and publisher concerns around CPM pricing.
The Publisher panel focused on sell-side issues and the opportunity for publishers in the emerging data-driven display space (note the mention of the Publisher Trading Desk and the pan-European publisher exchange here). This panel included: Tom Barnett, Director, Switch Concepts; Martin Van Der Meij, Yield Manager, De Telegraaf; Tim Gentry, Head of Optimisation & Effectiveness at Guardian Commercial; Jonathan Wolf, Chief Buying Officer, Criteo; and Nicholas Timms, Head Of Network Products, A&NY Media.
Audience information is gold, but only if it is used in the right way and many of the more traditional marketing solutions are sadly guilty of treating channels as standalone silos when a multi-channel approach to marketing is far more effective.
Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) make it possible for marketers to really coordinate messaging and reach target audiences with an unparalleled precision by leveraging universal parameters, increasing efficiency and controlling user over-exposure. Whatever a marketer is looking for, whether it is performance or brand awareness, DSPs make it possible to execute campaigns across multiple media channels which also include real time bidding (RTB), ad exchanges and premium publishers.
Cross channel targeting and reporting is key to unlock the potential of digital marketing but it is not the only one in our space. Systems such as the Turn platform enable display buyers to maximise efficiency and performance by putting a powerful media management platform at the centre of their digital efforts, giving users more control than they have ever had before. We all know how cumbersome and time consuming it is to book a campaign across different digital channels – this holds even truer in very fragmented markets such as Europe, where most budgets are still small in comparison to what we are seeing over in the US but the amount of work involved during the trading activity is the same if not greater.
AppNexus has announced the launch of its App Marketplace, as it looks to establish itself as the leading open platform for application distribution. The “App Marketplace” is now allowing ad tech companies to build applications and distribute through the AppNexus platform.
The first AppNexus Apps providers include behavioural and contextual data leaders such as Brilig, eXelate, Lotame, Proximic, uKnow and TARGUSinfo. They have also lined up Evidon and TRUSTe. BlueKai, Peer39, Crystal Semantics and CPX Interactive are expected to launch shortly and plans are in the works for apps from rich media vendors and other providers.
“AppNexus’ goal has always been to link together the complex map of companies in the ad technology industry and to help further online advertising innovation, and I’m thrilled we’re connecting the final piece of the puzzle”, said Mike Nolet, AppNexus CTO and co-founder. “AppNexus Apps is a huge step forward for the entire industry and we’re looking forward to playing an important role in helping to evolve this vibrant ecosystem.”
Yann Le Roux is the Co-Founder at Matiro. After his appearence at ATS Paris, Le Roux gives a high-level overview on the growth of the data-driven display marketplace in France.
How has the French data-driven display market evolved over the past 12 months?
A lot! Thanks to both the buzz and the actual results of ad trading display advertising has become a hot topic. Many e-commerce advertisers are now investing in display beyond re-targeting, based on the results they are seeing with solutions like ours. Likewise, attribution is progressing fast, and more and more advertisers and marketers are now able to fairly evaluate the ROI of display advertising. Most advertisers now understand that CPM pricing is a valid model for a direct response goal, when not so long ago only CPC and CPA were considered acceptable for direct response advertising.
The ad spend figure is in line with this renewed interest : the Display market has grown 15% in the first half of 2011, according to IREP (http://www.irep.asso.fr/actualites.php?id=115)
Nerissa MacDonald, Director of Trading, EMEA at MediaMind gives her overview on last week’s ATS Paris event.
Last week saw the inaugural launch of ATS Paris, a first of its kind for the French market. With an attendance of over 200 of France’s most influential and senior ad trading specialists the event certainly delivered what had been billed.
The atmosphere was charged from the moment I arrived with a mix of agencies, trading desks and several advertisers/publishers. We entered armed with our French translation devices and took up our seats in the decadent underground bunker room.
The opening address – delivered in French – by ExchangeWire Editor, Ciaran O’Kane, set the tone for what was to become a memorable and informative day.
Improve Digital released its new eco-system map for Europe. There is huge growth in the number of new companies on the map – compared to last year’s iteration. Let’s just say those boxes are getting very snug. Some of the big changes on last year include the growth of ad trading desks, ad traders, audience targeting networks and exchange infrastructure companies.
Comparing the new map to last year’s version shows a huge increase in the number of audience targeting networks (200% growth), trading desks (337% growth), and agency trading desks (166% growth) as the industry moves towards audience buying and automation. New players have entered the market, but much of this activity is also undertaken by ad networks moving or expanding their business remit.
There is doubtless going to be talk of a bubble in the space – and I will preface all this growth by saying that many of the European companies on the map are self-funded. The reason? We lack proper ad tech investment structures here (as I alluded to in a post last week) so we have to work quickly to what we call… PROFITABILITY. You can download the new Improve Digital eco-system here.
It’s probably the last thing you want to be seeing on your first week back: namely, another prediction list for 2012. But given that 99.5% of these lists have been overwhelmingly US-centric, it’s useful to have some European perspective. ExchangeWire will not be held to account for any of these predictions except if all of the following are realised through the course of 2012. Do include some of your own soothsaying in the comments area.
Season’s greetings, listeners. Today TraderTalk looks at the 2011 year in full – with some perspective on possible trends in 2012. This edition covers everything from the rise of the trading desk in Europe to ad tech’s growing obsession with acquiring/building the end-of-end stack. ExchangeWire Editor, Ciaran O’Kane, is ably assisted in the end-of-year review by the Guardian’s Tim Gentry, Martin Kelly, Managing Partner at Infectious Media, ValueClick’s Carl White and Eric Ward, Director, Digital Media at goetzpartners. So that you get all future episodes, 
Will Margiloff is CEO and Founder of 
Audience information is gold, but only if it is used in the right way and many of the more traditional marketing solutions are sadly guilty of treating channels as standalone silos when a multi-channel approach to marketing is far more effective.
Yann Le Roux is the Co-Founder at Matiro. After his appearence at ATS Paris, Le Roux gives a high-level overview on the growth of the data-driven display marketplace in France.
Nerissa MacDonald, Director of Trading, EMEA at MediaMind gives her overview on last week’s ATS Paris event. 
