The key findings for this quarter are listed below. If you want to know how the indices works, have a quick browse through Adsafe’s ratings guide.

- Highest Risk Inventory is served via Ad Exchanges. 16.9% of inventory served by Ad Exchanges was High Risk for advertising (with an AdSafe Rating below 250), 6.3% of inventory served via Ad Networks was High Risk and 3.8% directly via Publishers was High Risk.

- Inventory transparency is the lowest on Ad Exchanges. Ad Exchanges served 64.4% IAB Category I inventory (with full transparency regarding referring URL), Ad Networks served 82.6% and Publishers directly served 97.4%.

- Publishers follow geo-targeting requirements more than any other buying channel. 1.9% of Publisher inventory fell outside of geo-targeting requirements while 3.9% of Ad Exchange inventory and 4.3% of Ad Network inventory fell outside of geo- targeting requirements.

» IASH, the UK’s rating agency for ad network inventory, is currently testing a number of ad verification vendors. Eight vendors have submitted applications to be tested. Each supplier is being invited to undergo testing that will be independently verified by ABCe. The results will be released later in the year. IASH will then recommend accredited vendors to its members. Given the number of ad verification offerings on the market, it might be good to get some direction from an industry body. My only problem with this is that it might handicap new innovators in the space in terms of cost and resource. I’d be curious how much vendors will have to pay to get tested and how resource-heavy is the application process? Getting ad net inventory IASH approved requires a fair chunk of money and the process is far from seamless. My other gripe about all this is that if these vendors are able to do real-time ad verification why would they need to be audited by IASH? I am assuming here that IASH will continue to test these offerings on an ongoing basis. It is positive step for the industry in the short term, but ad nets and the industry should be testing all vendors with or without the IASH seal of approval.

Unfortunatley there continues to be a real dearth of European-focused events covering the area of automated ad trading and media optimisation. With the intention of fostering informed debate on the evolution of the display market and indeed online advertising as a whole, ExchangeWire is today announcing details of the Ad Trading Summit 2010. It will be the first dedicated European event of its kind, and will look to attract decision makers form agencies, advertisers, ad traders, ad nets, ad exchanges, ad-tech vendors and publishers across Europe. The best minds in the industry will be brought together to discuss and debate the changing face of the European display advertising market, the increasing influence of automated trading platforms and the explosion of the data economy.

Confirmed speakers for the day include: Mike Nolet, AppNexus CTO and Cofounder; Curt Hecht, President, VivaKi Nerve Centre; Martin Kelly, Cofounder and Managing Partner, Infectious Media; and Konrad Feldman, Co-founder and CEO, Quantcast. Additional details on the speaker line-up and agenda will be announced in the coming weeks. ExchangeWire will also bring you the thoughts and opinions of the event’s speakers in the run up to the actual event on September 23. Tickets are now on sale – but please note that the numbers are limited. Further event information can be found on the Ad Trading Summit 2010 site.

Knowing where campaigns are being run is potentially big business. With ad verification tools, agencies and advertisers can see where ad networks are displaying their ads. IASH verification can no longer cut it for some media buyers – although there are rumours that the ad net auditing body is currently looking at real-time solutions. Regular inventory audits are well and good but too often rogue networks – and “good” ones, too – tend to stray. Ads appearing below-the-fold and on suspect sites happens more frequently than you think. And this is not idle speculation. It would seem to be an all too common practice to run brand advertising alongside inappropriate content.

Advertisers are losing money through wastage – and quality content sites are losing out on potential advertising budget. In this type of economy, it’s completely unacceptable. This tech will doubtless lead to misbehaving ad network being kicked off media plans across Europe. But we’re not there yet. Ad verification still can’t ensure brand safety in real-time. Sure, they can provide an audit after the campaign is finished, but can’t verify in real-time. Not my words, but the feedback from those using the different ad verification flavours currently available on the market. Of course there is a lot of investment in this area and working technology should arrive very soon.

As our industry adopts RTB as its preferred buying methodology, ad verification will be an essential piece in the growth of the display ad market. Brands want their message put in front of the right audience – but they are obsesses about brand safety. And rightly so. Expect to see more money pour into this area in the coming months.

» In case you missed it, there was an excellent presentation from JEGI Capital at Internet Week in New York earlier this month. Entitled, “Are Publishers ****ed?”, the presentation provided analysis on the evolving sell-side space. Focusing on the rise of the data economy, it gives a synopsis of the intermederies now working in the data space. It also outlines some of things publisers should be doing to not only leverage their data to return better results for clients but also develop sustainable revenue streams around data. Folowing on from that, all publishers should have a read of Tom Chavez’s piece on Adexchanger this morning on the subject of data monetisation. It must be stressed that the US is still well ahead in innovation, and that the data market here in Europe is still relatively immature. But with Adjug rumoured to be launching a data exchange, and the likes of Bluekai and Quantcast becoming more active in the European market, publishers here ought to be looking at implementing strategies on how best to monetise their data. What vendor should I work with? How do I manage it? Who should I trade with? How do I price data? How do I make it portable? All these questions should be top of the list of concenrs with publisher execs at the minute. [JEGI Capital]

» There’s some interesting numbers in Adsafe’s industry report for the first quarter of 2010. The most striking is the percentage of campaigns running through automated platforms:

The composition of the buying channels utilized by AdSafe clients varied across the course of Q1 2010, with Ad-Exchanges / Real-Time Bidding Platforms / Demand Side Platforms serving the majority of traffic at 47% of inventory. Ad-Networks served 34% of traffic and Direct Sales served 19% of traffic. This percentage of traffic served by Ad-Exchanges / Real-Time Bidding Platforms / Demand Side Platforms increased significantly from Q4 2009’s share of traffic, suggesting that premium brand advertisers are beginning to shift a larger percentage of media dollars to these channels.

These numbers relate to the US market – and are based on Adsafe clients only. It does suggest a significant change in buying habits for display. Why is this significant for Europe? We tend to be about 6-12 months behind the US in ad-tech development. And you are already seeing significant volumes flowing through exchanges in Europe. According to Adscale CEO, Mathias Pantke, the automated market is expected to rise from 40 million euro to well over 120 million by the end of 2010.

Late last year I did a piece for ExchangeWire about some of the exciting changes happening in display advertising. Given the number of blog posts and op-ed pieces that have since been published on the subject, I am sure everyone is now tired of hearing the “exciting times ahead” mantra. Let’s take a reality check and see what’s actually happening NOW in the space:

- DSPs have penetrated our borders from the US and beyond
- Spend is slowly being moved onto these platforms
- UK publishers are slowly making this inventory available in one way or another onto these platforms (SSPs, exchanges, etc)
- Agencies, advertisers are buying 3rd party (albeit in small amounts) and integrating into these platforms
- Even the NMA has covered DSPs!

So everything is good. The buzz and excitement around this ‘major shift’ is finally being realised and the ad world is changing because of exchanges, right? Well not quite.

We still have major hurdles to overcome and need to appreciate the fact that it’s not all about the exchanges. In my opinion, the UK market will find it easier to relate to the points I am going to make because we tend to be a more cynical and sceptical bunch!

Although it is all well and good being able to value impression and bid in real-time based on their predicted value, it still appears to be quite a siloed practice. Attribution and ad verification need to be considered in real-time if we are to really provide value and make the most of RTB.

Attribution:

- Display by no means acts in isolation. In the UK market, many marketers are still sceptical about the value of view based conversions (and regarding the practices of some ad nets, with good reason).
- For me, there is a huge opportunity for advertisers to be bidding in real-time on the weighted attribution models being built around their display marketing. How valuable would it be to be able to pull in your Tagman attribution data and bid for display inventory based on the value it REALLY drives to a client’s business and not the value according to an independent buying platform?

Ad Verification:

- As mentioned above, view based conversions are subject to a lot of scepticism in the UK. Ad verification tools, like Adxpose, are really useful in determining what value impression based conversions really have. Were they in view? Were they interacted with? What is the engagement rate like?
- To be able to bid in real time, having this data available at the time of bidding ensures that biddable inventory that really has value according to a client (besides just a low view based CPA).

What the above hopefully illustrates is that it’s not enough to be able to bid on low quality publishers in real-time and drive low view based CPAs. Where is the value in that? Would an ad network, partnering some ‘top 100 comscore sites’, be a more suitable buy? Yes, the CPA would be higher (mainly view based) but if the publishers are of a higher quality, is it worth paying a higher CPA?

Exchanges are just one piece of the jigsaw. RTB is exciting. What we need now though is to move it on to the next stage. It needs to become more integrated into the wider marketing mix where advertisers can really appreciate the value of what we are trying to achieve within this space.

* Note – I reference view based conversions a lot in this piece. Whilst I appreciate some advertisers have small view based windows, there is no denying that view based conversions play a huge part in display ad effectiveness.

» Alenty has inked a deal with Unanimis this week to provide the UK ad network with its ad visibility and analytics platform. The deal, a first for the UK market, will allow Unanimis publishers to introduce a cost per exposure (let’s call it CPEX for argument’s sake) pricing model – made posssible by Alenty’s ability to measure time spent viewing specific ad units. Alenty has already partnered with Canal Plus in France, helping the leading publisher to introduce pricing based on a users’ exposure to an ad spot. Canal Plus has said that they have doubled revenue since implementing Alenty’s ad visibility and analytics tools, and moving to a CPEX model. Unanimis is presently testing the technology with a number of publishers, and a full roll-out expected in the summer. [IAB]

Can you provide an overview of the Alenty platform, and the key aspects of your offering, such as the ad verification and optimisation functionality?

LN: Alenty has developed a whole toolbox that brings Ajax to web analytics. The main application is advertising visibility measurement (how long is a banner visible on the screen while someone is watching the screen). Other applications are real site-centric page duration, subcontent readership (when several articles are displayed in the same page), form optimization (field-by-field drop out and filling duration).

Can you run through how a typical customer would use the Alenty platform?

LN: For advertising measurement, our script is simply parametered in our clients’ adservers. It is completely automatic, which means that all the information is retrieved automatically from the ad server. The clients get online access to the measurement data, can download very detailed excel reports and can even get recommendations from our consultants.

What are the benefits for advertisers and agencies?

LN: Advertisers at last get relevant metrics for their branding purposes. If you talk about click to a CPG customer who mostly buys TV ads, you won’t speak his language. If you tell him how many contacts have actually seen the ad, how often, and how long, then he can link this information to his global marketing strategy.

Agencies use our data for more operational purposes. They can negotiate with publishers, and choose the most efficient sites based on measurement data. They can also increase revenue simply by reselling our data to advertisers.

Do you think brand safety is the reason why some big European brands are not committing more marketing budget to display advertising?

LN: Even more important than brand safety is communication. I think this is a crucial hindrance to enabling the web to develop as a branding media. As I said above, you must speak the marketers’ language. And they don’t understand how clicks can influence off-line purchases attitudes. But they do understand that advertising exposure influences recall and purchases.

How does your platform help publishers?

LN: Some publishers have ad-spaces that are better for branding than direct performance. For instance, media websites benefit from long page durations, and an efficient page layout that does not hide the ad. So ads are very visible on these ad-spaces. But generally: the more interesting the content, the lower the click-rate. Visitors are simply not ready to leave interesting content. So publishers need to sell by CPM, and prove that the ad-space is better than other ad slots. Our technology can help publishers achieve that.

Can you give an example of how a publisher client, using the Alenty platform, increased its CPM by selling guaranteed visibility?

LN: Canal Plus changed its business model for online advertising about twelve ago. Instead of selling impressions, they started to sell exposure duration (GEP, Garantie d’Exposition Publicitaire in French). The advertiser decides if he wants to buy 10 seconds, 20 seconds or 30 seconds per impression. And 30 seconds is 3 times more expensive than 10 seconds. CanalPlus claims that their revenues have doubled. Our offering helped Canal+ measure ad visibility on their ad inventory.

Can Alenty’s platform help publishers to lift CPM rates?

LN: Another easy way to lift CPMs is simply to use our results as commercial arguments. When we audit a website, we make sure that we measure a representative set of ads. This way, the visibility results that we provide are very robust arguments for the publishers’ sales team. Then they can create a premium pack with the best ad-spaces, or improve the visibility of the bad ones…

Do you work with ad networks and ad exchanges too?

LN: Ad exchange platforms are developing first on direct performance optimization. Branding optimization will come next.

Ad networks need to prove the visibility of their ad-space, more than anybody else. In a CPM model, either the advertiser checks where the ads are placed by visiting the website, or use a third-party like Alenty to measure what was bought.

How would Alenty differentiate itself from other ad visibility products on the European market?

LN: Our system is more technology agnostic. It works with all adservers, for all websites, without any change on their side.

Do you think that ad visibility will become a major consideration for both European publishers and advertisers in 2010? Will we see widespread adoption of ad visibility technology?

LN: Ad visibility is a major consideration in 2010. Habits change slowly, but when both ad buyers and ad sellers push in the same direction, the whole market can evolve quickly.

How many markets is Alenty operating in at the present time? Are there plans to move into other markets this year?

LN: We currently have operations in France, Germany and soon UK. We also measure international campaigns that run all over the world.

Are there major differences in the display markets of different European countries?

LN: I think that the markets have the same “bad habits” and the same problems to solve.

What kind of developments are you seeing in the French display market? Has there been a move towards audience-buying? Are exchange and automated trading platforms gaining traction in the market?

LN: Trading platforms don’t have any real traction in the French market at the moment. But it is a very very hot topic, and you’d expect to see some serious development in that area over the coming twelve months!