EMEA > Spain

It’s the biggest data-driven advertising event in Europe. It’s the event that even has its own acronym. ATS London is now in its third year, and the line-up of speakers and content is the best yet. Often copied – A LOT! – but never equalled, ATS London brings together the best in the global online ad industry to discuss the latest trends and developments in the space. And this year is no exception.

It is clear that our industry is moving beyond the mess of the LumaScape to a platform-centric world, and this certainly is one of the key areas being explored by ATS London this year. The full-day programme will be organised into three core themes: brand, application and big data. All of these are effectively shaping the data-driven ad space, and speakers and participants on the day will explore these issues in more depth.

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Weborama announced yesterday that it was acquiring Datvantage, a data management solution, for an undisclosed figure. The acquisition might well signal the start of a wider consolidation in the European ad tech space. Here Weborama CEO, Alain Levy, and Datvantage’s Co-Founder, Arnaud Caplier, discuss the deal and how it will augment the current pan-Euro data solution offered by Weborama.

For those not accustomed with Datvantage, please explain what the value proposition; what category do they operate in (exchange, DMP, etc)?

Arnaud: Datvantage is a data exchange: it aggregates audience segments from publishers and offers them to audience buyers (advertisers, agencies and networks) to help them target and optimise their campaigns. The Datvantage platform offers DMP capabilities which enable all stakeholders (publishers, agencies and advertisers) to understand and manage monetisation and usage of their data assets.

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Well we finally passed the date of the ICO amnesty. And no arrests so far. In fact the new “implied consent” interpretation makes the cookie apocalypse soothsayers look a little foolish. The UK looks good for now – but the greater European market cannot be ignored by any company based here. The recent decision for instance by Dutch legislators suggests things are going to get very hairy in the European digital advertising space.

The Dutch Are Going Hardcore On The Explicit Opt-In

We can thank the ICO for taking the sensible decision of implementing implied consent but spare a thought for our Dutch friends. ExchangeWire attended a recent IAB event in the Netherlands on automated ad trading, and spoke to some senior industry leaders about the implications of hard opt-in for all cookies set on websites in the Netherlands. Again the government there has given the industry an amnesty – this time until the end of 2012 – to get its act together. The new law sees no distinction between first and third party cookies. This means that even websites using Google analytics will need permission from users to set the cookie. It means re-targeting is completely out of question – as is the use of social tools. And you can forget about third party ad serving. It would seem contextual advertising is back. Let’s target like it’s 1999. Wooooh.

Am I Breaking The Law If I Serve A Cookie To A Dutch User From A Site Outside The Netherlands?

The first question most people asked in private conversations around the fringes of the IAB event was whether sites outside the Netherlands that drop cookies on users with Dutch IPs are exempt from the law. The answer is: Yes. As long as your content isn’t in Dutch you can drop as many first and third party cookies as you want – just as long as you comply to the laws of the country you are based in. This is a potential disaster for the Dutch digital media industry: it has effectively put in place a huge commercial disadvantage on the companies based there. There is already speculation over whether or not some of the native and international ad tech vendors will keep their data centres there given that the new Dutch law would cover their activity across Europe.

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Improve Digital released its updated eco-system map last week, and it is messy. Very messy. More new categories, and even more companies. You need to ask yourself if the display market (4.5 billion euro at the last count) in Europe is big enough to support all these companies. In an interesting caveat at last week’s Automated Ad Summit (encroaching on trademark there, perhaps) in Amsterdam, AppNexus CTO, Mike Nolet, presented his own version of the eco-system – the Nolet-scape if you will.

Many of the categories on the Nolet “no nonesense” map were replaced with just two: namely, tech enablers and buyers/sellers. He pointed out to the audience that Google was slowly assembling the complete stack, and that many feature companies would get crushed by this formidable end-to-end stack. In fairness to Nolet he did intimate that AppNexus was taking a similar approach albeit with a more open strategy.

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Shane Shevlin is Director of Business Development EMEA at IPONWEB. Here Shevlin discusses the IPONWEB solution in Europe, how the company works with ad tech vendors, and the critical role its technology plays in the real-time advertising eco-system.

For those unaware of the IPONWEB solution in Europe, can you give an overview of your current offering?

IPONWEB is essentially the tech provider behind many of the leading Ad tech platforms in the RTB space. We build and operate customised media trading systems that enable our clients to take advantage of RTB, Audience & Programmatic buying on both the buy-side and the sell-side of the equation, all of which can operate across display, mobile and video channels.

Our solutions leverage u-Platform™, our rapid development ecosystem that packages up the very complex component technologies required to operate in this space – Ad-serving at scale, real-time decisioning, machine learning, big data management, processing and analytics, all void of business logic. We then tailor the solution to specifically solve the business challenges that drive our clients to innovate and deliver the best results for their customers. So on top of this core u-Platform™ base, we then custom develop the algorithms & ad decisioning logic, together with any other unique feature-set requirements. We do this for each and every client.

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Infectious Media released its RTB Insight Report for the Winter period 2011/12 (December, January and February), providing an overview on buying and pricing trends across the European exchange eco-system. The report’s findings are put together using aggregated and anonymised campaign data from its proprietary technology, Impression Desk. The findings, whilst specific to Infectious Media, represent work carried out for clients spanning all industry sectors with differing objectives, budgets and target audiences, which may be indicative of industry wide trends.

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Erich Wasserman is Co-Founder & GM EMEA at MediaMath. Here he discusses the MediaMath proposition in Europe, the new “Open” solution, the “private marketplace” and the Rest Of the World expansion plans.

For those unaware of MediaMath – and I’m sure there are very few – can you give an overview of the MediaMath offering in Europe?

Our focus is firmly on technology adoption. When we expanded to Europe from the US we found that the European market had been serviced primarily by poorly designed, and therefore confusing software, supported by teams whose experience was limited.

We have strived to change that: MediaMath’s TerminalOne DSP is built and optimised for buyers and their needs; our team consists of company founders who built the first agency trading desks and incubated the DSP market. MediaMath takes this market very seriously. Our approach has led to a great deal of technology adoption here and in Europe, particularly in France and Holland, and increasingly in the major markets such as Germany.

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This is the first post in our new column Euro Round-up. Please forward all Euro market stories and press releases to press@exchangewire.com.

Glow Machine Now Available In The AppNexus App Marketplace, Adding Facebook Ad Buying In The Ad Stack

If you were to believe the hype machine, Facebook is set to take over the ad world. Glow Digital Media, a European based ad tech vendor, is clearly responding to the market with its new Glow Machine® app for the AppNexus marketplace, announced this week. Glow Machine® integrates Facebook media buys into the AppNexus Console user interface. The new app gives advertisers the ability to access and control FB campaigns alongside display inventory. The goal is to make Facebook Ads more effective through advanced campaign management, automation and optimisation for AppNexus Console users. The app allows existing AppNexus users to buy across the Facebook channel. BannerConnect also launched its first app on the AppNexus marketplace, as the a la carte ad stack grows. The BannerConect app was built for Dutch-based Mark and Mini, who maintain 5 million Dutch online user profiles. It enables buyers in the AppNexus eco-system to enhance their campaigns with this data.

The DoubleClick Ad Exchange Delivers Revenue Uplift to EMEA Publishers

Google’s Ad Exchange, DoubleClick, released a whitepaper this week analysing their positive impact on publisher revenue in Europe. According to their internal report, 88% of display advertisers are planning to buy in real-time going forward. However, content remains critical and 74% of real-time bidding buyers will pay a premium for quality environments. In the survey, buyers also revealed that programmatic channels would see the biggest increase in investment over the next year.

For inventory that would have gone unsold, according to their study, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange demonstrated significant success in monetising unsold inventory. For inventory for which there was no other demand, it delivered a fill rate of greater than 90%.

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