Brian O’Kelley wrote an interesting piece for Clickz this week on why ad nets are an essential part of the online ad eco-system. He argues that ad networks are entitled to earn good margin on ROI delivered to agencies and advertisers, highlighting proprietary technology, performance delivery and quality service as grounds for excelling ad nets to charge top dollar. He’s right, you know. But the comments below O’Kelly’s article indicate some of the concerns among agencies and advertisers – with regard to ad network inventory and pricing transparency. All is not well in ad land – and tensions are beginning to appear in the traditional buying chain.
Google’s partnership with Omnicom to build out the agency’s trading desk with the view of putting hundreds of millions of display dollars through automated channels (Google’s mostly) could well be a transformational moment for the display market. I could be accused of a certain degree of hyperbole here, but you have to look at the size of this deal and take note of the other significant relationships Google has already established with the biggest media buying agencies. It is slowly bringing the dsplay market under its control. You also need to recognise the significance of how details of the story were released: instead of giving the “scoop” to a trade press journo, it was given to Emily Steel at the WSJ. Google is serious about display, and bringing order to a ridiculously chaotic and opaque market. And it wants Wall Street to know this. Google maybe chasing profit, but in doing so it is pushing innovation in this space. This might be unpalatable for some in our industry who fear change, and would rather keep this innovation at bay. But change is upon us and we, as an industry, must act now.
I find it laughable when people in the online ad industry baulk at publishers becoming media buyers. There is a general consensus that media buyers have a specific role in the marketplace and that publishers should just stick to selling inventory. Well that might have been the case a couple of years ago, but things have changed in a big way. Over the past twenty-four months we have not only seen publishers build out their own ad networks (The Daily Mail being the best example) but also augment their reach in weak inventory areas in order to increase ad revenue (note the buying relationship between De Telegraaf and Admeld in the Dutch market). I think it’s now time that we see more innovation in media buying from publishers. Some European publishers are sitting on a treasure trove of user data. What if some – particularly those in lucrative vertical markets – looked at leveraging their proprietary data for ad targeting purposes. Not across their own inventory but across media available in their vertical. That would be a powerful commercial proposition for agencies and advertisers. But there are only a handful of publishers that could possibly do this.
The IAB Europe numbers are out for the big display markets in Europe. German display advertising is closing in on one billion euro – and remains the number one in Europe. ExchangeWire had a conversation with Mathias Pantke, Adscale CEO, some weeks ago about growth in the automated German market. He predicted that nearly 15% of all dipslay campaign will go through automated platforms in 2010 – with that percentage likely to rise to 60% over the next four years. It suggests that almost 149 million euro will be passing through platforms, like Adscale, Adx, and Admeld, by year end. Some might scoff at these figures, pointing out they’re a little too frothy. But given that ad nets don’t dominate in the German market the way they do in the UK, it is possible that trading platforms like Adscale will see significant growth in the coming 12-24 months.
If there was a honeymoon period for the Google acquisition of Invite, it is well and truly over – a mere two weeks in total. In a post yesterday, on his ReactionWheel blog, Jerry Neumann, discussed some of the industry’s concerns around the deal. He begins his post by informing us that Google wants to own the display market. That’s a given. Google’s a public company with ambitious growth targets. It has unbelievable resource, which no company in this space comes even close to. Display is a mess, and Google sees opportunity in chaos.
Google’s acquisition of Invite Media last week has signalled its intent to dominate the display space. It’s building out an awesome automated infrastructure – but at what cost? Being a media seller and buyer en masse has inherent conflicts of interest. How do you know a player in that situation will not “game” the system, Afterall, margin needs to be made on both sides. I’m not saying that Google would get involved in this practice. But there is concern now emanating from agencies and publishers alike. I think personally the agencies could be in real trouble. They already outsource their ad serving function to either Microsoft or Google – and now the latter owns a DSP. What if Google allows buyers to use search data to power automated buys? Agencies can kiss their proprietary data strategy goodbye. Nobody can win against the house.
ContextWeb has just launched an interesting new feature for publishers on its site. The new service, entitled Pubvantage, allows publishers to learn about and connect to ad networks in the US market. Publishers have the opportunity to anonymously rate ad nets on two key criteria: a) the quality of ads served by networks; and b) how quickly they pay their bills. It’s quite useful for any European publishers looking to work with an aggregator, given that most of these players listed on ContextWeb’s Pubvantage site also have a presence in the European market. This will no doubt become an excellent resource on ad nets – and the commentary on their performance will become compelling reading for publishers. Everybody loves a bit of public sneering (well, I do). I do think that ad nets should be allowed to respond to any criticisms about their service – in order to show publishers they’re actively addressing any ongoing problems. I would love to see one of these review sites popping up in Europe. Word of mouth seems to be the only to get ad nets to change any wrong doings in this market. And of course it does help that IASH carries a big stick over here. {Pubvantage]
Germany’s leading ad exchange, Adscale, announced today that it has raised new funding from French investment firm, TIME Equity Partners. The deal is said to be in excess of five million euro, and will give TIME Investor a minor stakehold in Adscale. The German ad trading platform has been growing rapidly since its launch in 2007, and now serves over six billion ad impressions per month. The exchange is also used by over thirty media buying agencies in the German market. The investment is significant for Europe’s biggest display market, as automated ad trading is set to increase signifcantly there in the next tweleve months. With display advertising moving away from manual media I/O buying, Adscale is well placed to benefit. It is thought the the new investment will be used to build out new platform features and expand into other European markets.
Kwame Acheampong is Managing Director and Partner at Httpool. Httpool is an ad network that specialises in the Central and Eastern European markets, offering buying opportunities in these markets to UK agencies and advertisers. Acheampong took time to speak to ExchangeWire this week about the Httpool offering, the display market in the CEE region and the growth of automated trading.
Can you give you an overview of the Httpool proposition?
KA: Httpool is an online advertising provider focusing on emerging markets, especially the Central and Eastern European region. We provide clients with localisation services together with all segments of online advertising in the region – including premium inventory network, performance network, contextual and behavioural network, and search engine marketing. Httpool has 10 years of experience and expertise across the region serving major agencies, global and local clients with digital strategies and planning.
Martin Kelly is Managing Partner at Infectious Media, an exchange-trading specialist based in London. Martin took time this week to speak to ExchangeWire about the company’s rebrand, the evolution of the UK exchange space and the continued growth of the data market.
You’ve recently went through a rebranding and a repositioning of the Infectious offering. Can you explain the Infectious Media proposition in more detail?
MK: Yes, it’s simple, we make display advertising work for our clients. Clearly there’s a lot more to our business in terms of how we do that but that is our proposition and how we sell our services. We operate exclusively in the ad exchange space and offer these services to both advertisers direct and to agencies. We’ve purpose built both a team and trading platform, Impression Desk, to service this opportunity in the UK and Europe.
Brian O’Kelley wrote an interesting piece for Clickz this week on why ad nets are an essential part of the online ad eco-system. He argues that ad networks are entitled to earn good margin on ROI delivered to agencies and advertisers, highlighting proprietary technology, performance delivery and quality service as grounds for excelling ad nets to charge top dollar. He’s right, you know. But the comments below O’Kelly’s article indicate some of the concerns among agencies and advertisers – with regard to ad network inventory and pricing transparency. All is not well in ad land – and tensions are beginning to appear in the traditional buying chain.
Google’s partnership with Omnicom to build out the agency’s trading desk with the view of putting hundreds of millions of display dollars through automated channels (Google’s mostly) could well be a transformational moment for the display market. I could be accused of a certain degree of hyperbole here, but you have to look at the size of this deal and take note of the other significant relationships Google has already established with the biggest media buying agencies. It is slowly bringing the dsplay market under its control. You also need to recognise the significance of how 
I find it laughable when people in the online ad industry baulk at publishers becoming media buyers. There is a general consensus that media buyers have a specific role in the marketplace and that publishers should just stick to selling inventory. Well that might have been the case a couple of years ago, but things have changed in a big way. Over the past twenty-four months we have not only seen publishers build out their own ad networks (The Daily Mail being the best example) but also augment their reach in weak inventory areas in order to increase ad revenue (note the buying relationship between De Telegraaf and Admeld in the Dutch market). I think it’s now time that we see more innovation in media buying from publishers. Some European publishers are sitting on a treasure trove of user data. What if some – particularly those in lucrative vertical markets – looked at leveraging their proprietary data for ad targeting purposes. Not across their own inventory but across media available in their vertical. That would be a powerful commercial proposition for agencies and advertisers. But there are only a handful of publishers that could possibly do this. 
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Kwame Acheampong is Managing Director and Partner at 
Martin Kelly is Managing Partner at 
