Malvertising continues to plague the display market here in Europe, threatening publishers with severe losses in terms of ad revenue and resource required to unearth and remove unwanted scripts from ad servers. Increasingly criminals are seeing display advertising as an easy way to distribute malicious code and malvertising. The industry has been very active of late in combating and addressing the problem. The latest effort to protect publishers from this growing malvertisng threat comes from Admeld. Yesterday, it announced a global partnership with The Media Trust aimed at ensuring all ad impressions running through its platform are free from unwanted malware. The Media Trust’s proprietary malware detection technology will enable Admeld to detect tags for malicious code before they are launched via publishers’ sites. It is a necessary step given the growing sophistication of malvertisers in the display space. Instead of going after specific networks, criminals are now employing tactics similar to those used by DSPs and agencies for reach and better targeting across multiple inventory sources.
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.
I love the data Google Ad Planner released this week on the top 1000 sites globally. The most vistied site globally is still Facebook with over 540 million uniques users per month. Yahoo takes the second spot for most visits. Again there is a lot of international presence in the top 20 with Baidu being the highest ranked non-US site, attracting over 170 million uniques in May. TrialPay holds the number 1000 spot with 3.8 million uniques. The site list is a great planning resource – but it would be interesting to know which site is making the most money out out of its audience in relation to ad revenue. I’m sure there’s been a lot of phone smashing in the ad net and, dare I say it, DSP biz dev departments across the world since the list was published this week. Get dialling now.
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.
» Inmobi says it’s the world’s largest independent mobile ad network. It now serves 16.7 billion impression and reaches 179 million users in 108 countries. Inmobi is obviously up against some stiff competition – especially now that Google and Apple have decided to carve up the mobile ad space. In response Inmobi has launched a global $2 million dollar fund to attract developers onto its ad network platform. The fund basically subsidises Inmobi’s split in any ad revenue earned by the publisher. It will give developers participating in the Inmobi World Developer Fund a 100% cut – and that split will remain until the $2 million dollar fund is spent. Inmobi is looking to target perspective iPad, iPhone and Android developers with the new initiative. [InMobi]
Malvertising is, according to Rubicon execs, putting about $600 million dollars of publisher revenue at risk every month. I take it that cost must include brand damage, loss of revenue due to drop in traffic (malware has led to a 10% drop traffic on leading sites) and of course the actual cost of of getting rid of the nasty malvertising code. Looking to tackle the problem head-on, Rubicon announced yesterday it was acquiring SiteScout for an undisclosed sum. SiteScout is a Seattle-based security firm specializing in malware detection and prevention. Why is it a big deal? There has been a spate of malware attacks on leading web properties and apps, including Gawker and NYT, over the last couple of months, causing a signifcant drop in traffic and a subsequent loss in ad revenue. It’s becoming a significant issue for publishers who are struggling to deal with malicious code being served through ads on their sites. The acquisition allows Rubicon to build out a proprietery malware security offering through its Revv platform. I wonder what’s next on the shopping list? Maybe an ad verification company?
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.
Qunatcast announced yesterday that they are moving into the European. They have hired Philip MacCauley, the former Director of Business Development and Commercial Relations at Yahoo!, to head up the operation. The feeling here in the market is that Quantcast’s arrival is a positive move. There is still a lack of good data in the market for automated buys, and Quantcast’s European lookalike data should give agencies and advertisers better targeting capabilities. No offence to any of the blogs or trade sites reporting on this story, but Quantcast are not exclusively an analytics company. VCs did not hand over fifty-odd million dollars for an analytics solution for publishers. If you were to definition (and that is generally a dangerous game in this industry), I’d say Quantcast is more of a data and audience profiling platform. So how does Quantcast collect and segment data and what is “lookalike”?
Matthias Pantke is CEO of AdScale GmbH, Germany. Adscale is one of Germany’s leading ad exchanges, trading nearly 6 billion impressions per month. Pantke took this week to speak to ExchangeWire about the Adscale platform, the size of the German exchange market and when Adscale inventory would be made available to buy through RTB.
Can you give an overview of the AdScale platform offered on the German market?
MP: AdScale is Germany’s leading real-time marketplace for online advertisement. In this marketplace, advertisers and publishers buy and sell display ads, i.e. advertising space. It is possible to define ads and to plan target campaigns, simply and conveniently. As a marketplace for online advertising the pricing in our system is fair and transparent for both sides. For publishers this means that they can control their prices independently and effectively via AdScale. The price level can always be adjusted according to the efficiency of the advertising space. Therefore, the marketers have the full control over each campaign and what price it is running at. Thus, the average price level in our marketplace reflects the actual price level of the German online advertising market.
Michel Juvillier is CEO of Improve Digital, France. The platform is now the biggest supply side platform in the market: it works with 15 of the top 20 Comscore publishers; and is now optimizing two billion ad impressions per month.
Can you give an overview of the size of the French exchange marketplace? And the role Improve Digital plays in the market?
MJ: At this moment there is no ad exchange or demand platform in France with significant volumes. Some global players have not yet started in France or if they did, are at a beginning stage. There have been some announcements by the likes of the Doubleclick Adx and Weborama – which declared, during an IAB conference in January, its intention to become an ad exchange – but I have not seen any real traction in the market.
Malvertising continues to plague the display market here in Europe, threatening publishers with severe losses in terms of ad revenue and resource required to unearth and remove unwanted scripts from ad servers. Increasingly criminals are seeing display advertising as an easy way to distribute malicious code and malvertising. The industry has been very active of late in combating and addressing the problem. The latest effort to protect publishers from this growing malvertisng threat comes from Admeld. Yesterday, it announced a global partnership with The Media Trust aimed at ensuring all ad impressions running through its platform are free from unwanted malware. The Media Trust’s proprietary malware detection technology will enable Admeld to detect tags for malicious code before they are launched via publishers’ sites. It is a necessary step given the growing sophistication of malvertisers in the display space. Instead of going after specific networks, criminals are now employing tactics similar to those used by DSPs and agencies for reach and better targeting across multiple inventory sources. 
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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