With European criminals viewing the automated channels as an easy opportunity to infect web users, it would appear that partnerships like this are no longer an add-on but absolutely essential. There has been a lot of industry talk in the past couple of months about the extent of the malware problem – but there has been little or no debate in the pages of the mainstream trade press. Perhaps the subject of malicious scripting is not as engaging as an Old Spice social media campaign. It should be given the size of the European display market. With the increasing move towards automation in the online ad market, I can see a lot of resource being invested in combating the threat posed by malware producers. Publishers will require this service more and more, as more European ad inventory is put through exchanges and supply side platforms. Details of the full release can be read below:

NEW YORK – July 27, 2010 – The Media Trust (www.themediatrust.com) today announced a partnership with AdMeld (www.admeld.com), the technology platform that helps premium publishers sell ad inventory smarter and safer. The integration puts The Media Trust’s powerful malware detection engine to work across billions of AdMeld-optimized impressions each month. The Media Trust uses proprietary technology to proactively identify malware threats and alert AdMeld to the source — before the tags can be launched and damage done.

“Over the past six months, malvertisers have grown increasingly sophisticated in their methods,” said Chris Olson, CEO, The Media Trust. “Instead of mounting network-specific attacks they have begun to target multiple demand sources simultaneously, employing the same tactics that agencies and demand side platforms use to achieve their own reach and targeting goals. This shift requires a fresh approach to the problem, and The Media Trust’s global infrastructure, combined with AdMeld’s broad view of demand-side flow and supply-side inventory provides a unique capability to combat this growing threat.”

“Today we’re announcing a new standard in malware protection for our customers and the industry as a whole,” said Michael Barrett, CEO, AdMeld. “With hundreds of publishers and demand sources transacting on our platform, maintaining a safe environment requires the technology to seek out a few, increasingly sophisticated needles in a large, ever-changing haystack. This is what The Media Trust does best, and we’re proud to partner with them on this.”

About The Media Trust Company

The Media Trust is the leading provider of online ad creative malware scanning, ad verification, and data transparency services worldwide. Media Trust’s proprietary content monitoring technology protects yield managers, publishers, ad networks, and exchanges from malicious or otherwise unwanted creative running through their platforms or on their web sites. Media Trust verifies targeting and creative execution for thousands of media buys daily across 45 countries. Media Trust maintains the largest global infrastructure for geographic and behaviorial targeting verification to ensure campaigns are running correctly, reducing discrepancies and make-goods and providing solutions to identify and correct campaign errors in the process. Media Trust automates the support of traditional and mobile Internet advertising creative including display, rich-media, video, text and search and is integrated with leading ad serving and OMS solutions. Media Trust clients include AdMob, Advertising.com, Comcast, Hearst Newspapers, PointRoll, Yahoo, YouTube and over 300 additional agencies, publishers, ad networks and exchanges.

About Admeld

AdMeld helps the world’s top publishers maximize ad revenues, and sell their inventory smarter, safer and more efficiently. The company’s dynamic yield optimization technology connects with hundreds of sources of demand such as ad networks, exchanges and DSPs, and provides tools and analytics for publishers to better understand and monetize their audiences. Current AdMeld customers include Answers.com, AccuWeather, Discovery Communications, FOX News, Hearst Television, IAC, New York Post and more than 260 others worldwide. The company is headquartered in New York City with offices in San Francisco and London. Visit www.admeld.com

I’m not suggesting that pubs should go down the ad network route. I think publishers exploring this option should buy one hundred per cent of display media through the automated channels (ad exchanges, SSPs, etc) forgoing the messy relationship building with pubs in their niche. How might a publisher buy this inventory and target ad using their proprietary data? They could use Invite or AppNexus. But they could build their own. Granted there would be some resource required in building out the technology and hiring people who have experience of buying inventory across exchanges. But the opportunity is there. Not everyone can do it of course – because all publishers have good data. I’d be looking at one of the niche publishers to take the plunge – particularly those in verticals that pay fat CPMs or can generate the most ad revenue. The FT would be the best candidate. It has ridiculously good data which it can use to augment its reach.

How might the FT look to put something like this together?

- Hire a bunch of developers to build out a proprietary DSP solution that will leverage data but prevent leakage
- Bring in some exchange-buying expertise to trade across the automated platforms
- Use a vendor like Netezza to help crunch the data
- Use a dynamic creative provider
- Hire some ad net sales staff to get you on those all important media plans

It sounds all too easy. And it is to begin with. There will be teething problems. Some campaigns won’t work – and some will. But the thing to remember here is that the ad net market is worth £250 million in the UK alone, and some pubs are missing out on taking a slice of it. What you also need to remember is that the European exchange ecosystem is slowly being knitted together. Invite can plug into many of the exchanges in Europe, and because of this you will see a lot more centralised media buying in digital. A lot of it will be done from London. Shouldn’t the FT be looking at this development as a big opportunity for revenue generation.

But what about sales cannibalisation? Audience-buying will affect my tier one inventory, and I won’t be able to demand my fat £70 CPMs from the market. Well, there’s something called sales conflict management. Seeing as the FT is running its own DSP it can instruct its sales staff to stay away from certain brands, agencies and advertisers.

Paidcontent reported yesterday that the FT was in the process of launching a niche site on the FT network, as it looks to increase ad revenue opportunities. Why limit yourself to a few hundred thousand in advertising when you could be accessing a market worth hundreds of millions Europe wide? The FT could own a chunk of the media buying market in finance if it wanted. But is owning and running a DSP a bridge too far for any publisher?

The top 20 most visited sites globally, May 2010. Data below includes monthly unique visits and site categories.

The graph below illustrates the growth in the German exchange marketplace over the past two. Note that all numbers listed are in millions of euros.

» Google Analytics rules the ecommerce market in the US with a 60% plus share. That’s a lot of data flowing into Google. It might be free to use. But I’m sure in the small print you’ll find that Google can use data “to improve the service”. Rubbish. Data is the life blood of targeting, and there is no doubt in my mind that this data is being used to power Google’s ad infrastructure. IBM’s recent purchase of Coremetrics is an interesting strategic move. Stéphane Hamel writes on his excellent blog that this deal is more about core business processes than media buying:

IBM isn’t about ad placement, marketing or rich media, IBM is about running core business processes. It’s about business analysis and business intelligence contributing to bottom line core business optimization. We are in a whole different ballgame.

I’m not so sure. Data is a fundamentahl part of the automatedi ad buy and analytics remains the principle source for publishers to garner insight on website visitors. With the Coremetrics acquisition, IBM will now be running analytics for some of the biggest ecommerce players in the market. It’s only a matter of time before IBM realises it could make a lot of money by offering clients a re-targeting service. If that happens, IBM will have to start buying media. Realising it has the data to deliver improved campaign results, IBM will inevitably stray into the DR market. It will then probably pick up a DSP for a hundred million dollars or so to make it easier to trade across multiple inventory sources. It is indeed a slippery slope. [PRNewswire]

Here’s the press release in full:

LOS ANGELES – May 25, 2010 – the Rubicon Project, the digital advertising technology company, has acquired SiteScout, the malware security technology provider, to build upon the technology that drives the brand protection and security layer of its REVV for publishers™ platform. The acquisition is part of the Rubicon Project’s commitment to engineering comprehensive technology that ensures premium Web publishers a safe, efficient and profitable platform through which they can transact with all demand channels for their audience and ad inventory.

Recent malware attacks on popular sites and apps have reduced site traffic by as much as ten percent in a single month, and with that, a parallel reduction in revenue. Across the industry, this represents a net monthly risk of nearly $600 MM, as publishers across the Internet, from Twitter to Facebook to the New York Times, are falling victim to a massive influx and growing complexity of threats related to malware or “malvertising.” Since most malware is distributed through advertisements and content served through legitimate websites, it falls on publishers to protect their brand, revenue, and customers (consumers and advertisers) from these malicious attacks. Publishers who are not proactively protecting their sites create the risk of customers becoming infected through an attack initiated on their site, spend a lot of time and money trying to chase down problems when they occur, and create a bad reputation.

There is currently almost nothing – technology or otherwise – within legacy ad server products that protects publishers, their visitors or their advertisers from malware attacks. As detailed in the Rubicon Project’s manifesto, “Principles of a REVVolution, or the ad server is dead,” the company is committed to offering publishers technology that counteracts these risks, delivering efficient and safe to all sources of demand, and providing protection to consumers. This commitment drove the company’s decision to acquire SiteScout.

“We began to look for the right security partner to help address this growing issue for publishers in 2009, evaluating several solutions in this space to complement our industry-leading brand protection technology,” said Craig Roah, COO and Founder of the Rubicon Project. “In side-by-side tests, in a live production environment with real ad tags on premium websites, SiteScout was hands-down the most effective technology. In addition, the technology is easily integrated with our platform, and the SiteScout team is a perfect fit with our strong company culture. This acquisition will enable us to protect premium publishers with the most effective and highly scalable technology solution to address the very real, very dangerous and fast-growing problem of malvertising.”

“The threats are transient, the bad guys are smart. Solving the problem of malvertising requires serious technology engineered by security experts that runs in the background to protect websites 24 hours per day, 7 days a week,” said Rob Lipschutz, CEO of SiteScout and who is now tasked with leading the Rubicon Project’s Brand Protection offering. “We are excited to integrate our team’s combined 40 years of security experience and SiteScout’s proprietary technology with the Rubicon Project and its digital advertising technology platform, REVV, to ensure publishers have a complete technology solution that enables them to keep digital media free for consumers.”

There are unique risks to publishers, advertisers and consumers from malvertising attacks:

· Publisher risks include: Revenue loss, customer loss, damage or loss of advertiser relationships, negative publicity, damage to brand, lower product sales
· Consumer risks include: Virus-infected computers, compromised privacy, decreased willingness to spend online, financial info theft, identity theft
· Advertiser risks include: Legitimate ads ‘hijacked’ for ill-intended purposes, loss of brand reputation, damage to the very consumers they’re trying to target

The new comprehensive malware protection powered by SiteScout security is available exclusively to REVV for publishers customers as an extension of the Rubicon Project ad technology platform; the SiteScout malware reporting and other product tools are slated to be available within the REVV platform in the third quarter of 2010.

Lipschutz will be tasked with leading the security and brand protection team to continue building technology innovations for the REVV platform. In addition, the Rubicon Project will open a Seattle office in the Pioneer Square district directly across from Qwest Field. The company will take advantage of the rich engineering talent in Seattle, with plans to hire in the areas of engineering, product and security.

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.

How does the Httpool offering benefit UK advertisers and agencies?

KA: Httpool provides UK advertises and clients a one point access to all of CEE markets. With offices in the majority of these markets we have direct access to local inventory, publishers and specifics that differentiates our offering from other sales houses in the UK. Direct relationships with local content providers in the CEE markets enables us to provide a streamlined process and a quality service to agencies so that they can execute efficient online campaigns in this region.

What markets does Httpool currently cover in Eastern Europe?

KA: Httpool has direct access to all CEE markets and offices, including Austria, Czech republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Bosnia. We are currently expanding to the rest of the region with plans to open offices in Poland, Hungry, Turkey and the Baltics within the next 3-6 months. Httpool also services Asia via their Honk Kong and Indian offices.

How evolved is the display market in Eastern Europe? Are exchanges and automated platforms gathering much traction there?

KA: The display market is quite evolved, and in some markets represents even more than search in terms of budgets. Advertisers use many advanced rich media formats combining it with more content integration. On the other hand exchange platforms are getting lots of traction. Httpool offers a self serving platform in many of our markets, which enables local publishers to get several high eCPM products with one single tag. Advertises on the other hand can manage their own campaigns. However, there is a huge opportunity for growth for these platforms because the average ad spend around 3-4% is still low, but knowledge still has to improve.

How influential are ad networks in the Eastern European display markets? Do ad nets play an important role in aggregating inventory for local and international agencies?

KA: The importance of ad networks varies across the different Central and Eastern European countries but mostly they play a critical role in the CEE display market. The main reason is that ad networks are able to provide advertisers with various solutions, helping them to achieve their campaign objectives and get better reach in a fairly disparate marketplace.

What’s your view on real-time bidding? Has Httpool any plans to use RTB to trade ad inventory?

KA: At the moment real time bidding in the region is not the best solution. It works best where supply and demand of inventory are in balance. In CEE there is excess of supply which pushes CPM prices down using RTB. This causes some limitation in growth of markets. At the moment we are not planning to use it across our platform. Automatisation of buying and selling inventory will definitely grow as the number of buyers increases, and expertise of marketer becomes more widespread.

What current trends are you seeing in the Eastern European display market?

KA: The main trends are reflected in focusing increasingly on targeting solutions such as contextual and predictive behavioural and larger ad formats on top premium properties.

A very quick breakdown of how it might work:

- Quantcast profiles the brand’s or the agency’s desired audience.
- Quantcast then searches for “lookalikes” – these “loookalike” segments are built using its own proprietary modelling technology and of course data from publisher partners. It then allows advertiser’s to target ads against the “lookalike” segments.

Do note that the UK is a different market from the US given the delicate privacy laws and the make-up of the market, and Qunatcast’s strategy here for Europe might differ entirely from the US. The exchange space does look forward to learning more about the possibilities of “lookalike” data.

Here is the press release in full on the expansion into the UK:

Quantcast announced today the appointment of Philip Macauley to UK Managing Director, where he will be responsible for leading the company’s operations and expansion into the UK market.

Mr Macauley joins Quantcast after ten years at Yahoo!, where he most recently held the post of Director of Business Development and Commercial Relations. He brings Quantcast and its clients his broad expertise in media planning, display advertising and go-to-market strategy within the digital domain. Mr Macauley joined Yahoo! as Head of Planning and Strategy for the UK and Pan-European market. In his tenure with the company, he has held various senior roles including driving media agency relationships as Agency Sales Director and leading the company’s publisher efforts as Head of Publisher Partnerships. Prior to Yahoo!, Mr Macauley was with WPP’s MindShare.

With this expansion, Quantcast brings to the European advertising and media marketplace a simplified and vastly improved way for advertisers to understand and reach their audiences online and for publishers to deliver real-time audiences that satisfy each advertiser’s unique audience requirements.

– Quantcast Measurement is the world’s favourite audience
measurement solution enabling publishers to better represent their
unique audiences and providing web site owners with accurate, directly
measured traffic, demographic, lifestyle, business and geographic
audience data. Best of all, Quantcast Measurement is completely free.

– Quantcast Audience gives advertisers the ability to
understand the distinctive characteristics of their best customers and
deploy these proprietary models to connect with millions, or tens of
millions, who look just like them across the web. Quantcast calls these
“lookalikes,” and by working with a wide range of leading publishers,
only Quantcast makes lookalikes truly portable, enabling advertisers to
take their audience model to any quality content and media partner of
their choice.

Quantcast’s services are used extensively by the advertising industry including most of the world’s major media agencies, hundreds of major marketers and millions of websites worldwide, including such leaders as MTV Networks, Bloomberg, The Economist, Reuters, IAC, BBC, Time Inc., NBC Universal, Discovery Communications, TypePad, WordPress, Dailymotion, Demand Media and LinkedIn.

“Since the launch of our global audience service in March, we’ve seen strong worldwide growth, particularly in Europe,” said Konrad Feldman, co-founder and CEO Quantcast. “Phil has exceptional knowledge of the UK marketplace, the needs of buyers and sellers, and a deep understanding of the emergence of real-time media solutions and the value these technologies deliver to publishers, marketers and consumers. We’re delighted to have him spearheading our UK expansion and excited for the opportunity it presents.”

About Quantcast

Quantcast measures and organizes the world’s audiences in real-time so advertisers can buy, sell and connect with the people who matter most to them. Ranked Fast Company’s # 3 Most Innovative Company on the Web for 2010, the company is used by the world’s leading media agencies, hundreds of major marketers and millions of global websites including thousands of the world’s best known destinations. Quantcast connects the planning, buying, and media fulfilment processes, delivering the marketplace’s most consistent and accountable audiences. Launched in 2006, Quantcast is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by Founders Fund, Polaris Venture Partners, Revolution Ventures and Cisco Systems. Come Get Quantified(TM) at http://www.quantcast.com.

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.

AdScale is a complete marketing solution for small and medium websites. For large websites with a higher traffic volume it offers an additional and risk-free source of revenue, which can be used parallel to ad networks and direct sales activities.

Agencies in Germany have been described as being very hands-on. Is the Adscale platform much more self-service – or does it have a service layer?

MP: We would say that agency campaigns are 50% self-booked, 50% serviced by AdScale, whereas in the direct advertiser business the majority of the campaigns are handled and booked by the clients themselves – at least 80%.

Is exchange trading getting much traction on the German display market? Do you think agencies are likely to use DSPs like Appnexus and InviteMedia for online display trading?

MP: We believe that last year roughly 5 percent of all display campaigns on the German market were traded via exchanges. The market share of ad exchange campaigns should increase up to at least 15 percent this year. The turnover of all display campaigns booked via online advertising marketplaces will triple in Germany in 2010 (from an approx. 5 percent market share up to 15 percent). Over the next three to four years, 50-60 percent of all standardised online bookings for display and performance campaigns will be processed via online advertising marketplaces and booking platforms. The rest will be sold conceptually and manually by marketers in certain environments.

Agencies are very likely to use DSP’s, but we believe that they will either build them themselves or buy one of the above-named players.

How do you see the exchange model progressing in Germany in 2010? Do you foresee the same trend towards audience-buying that’s happening in other markets?

MP: Definitely! 90 percent of all campaigns running on AdScale are not planned traditionally for editorial content. They are planned for NOT single sides but based on target groups running on aggregated traffic on multiple websites, thus running either in rotation of channel/network mode or fuelled with targeting technologies.

How is AdScale differentiating itself from the likes of Doubleclick Adx, RightMedia and other exchange and SSP (supply side platforms like Rubicon, Admeld and Improve Digital) platforms?

MP: The yield management of AdScale is today already comparable with that of the large US market players. It allows the publishers optimal inventory exploitation.

AdScale is the only marketplace in Germany that has managed to gain critical mass on the supply AND demand side. On the subject of reach/supply, we rank second behind Google content Network (comScore 01/10). In addition, AdScale differs in terms of the quality of the traffic: The booking of 75 percent of the top100 is transparent and not “blind”. In contrast, Google offers mainly long tail inventory for display, bookable only via Adsense currently. 30 of the top 30 German media agencies use AdScale for highly standardized, targeted channel/rotation campaign flights via a proprietary white label agency booking tool. 60 percent of all revenues are generated by agencies, 40 percent via performance-driven direct advertisers, thus displaying the independency and sustainability of the business model. All in all, AdScale serves between 800 and 1,200 campaigns a month, and is growing fast, 20 percent delivered by CPC, 80 percent delivered on a CPM basis. From the roughly 300 million AdImpressions a day we sell up to 50 percent, the rest goes back to the publisher as a backfill option.

Our platform is based on its own proprietary adserving-technology, complementary to all other adserving systems like Dart, Atlas etc. Positioned as an open and transparent marketplace, we believe that the supply and demand side should be able to use all state-of-the-art 3rd party applications for targeting, video adserving etc. in order to increase transaction volumes via the platform. We achieve this through a technical API, which allows both advertisers and publishers to connect their own systems in the most efficient way, e.g. data exports to proprietary billing and buying systems, planning system of media agencies, targeting systems etc.

In contrast to Yahoo’s Right Media and the Doubleclick Exchange, we prolong our platform business value chain by generating demand through AdScales own sales team, especially in the agency market, allowing us to charge on a commission basis, rather than on a license basis. We also extend our value chain by offering to manage and optimize the running campaigns, if required by the direct advertisers.

Are you seeing much brand budget running through the AdScale platform? Or are the campaigns mostly DR-focused?

MP: Both. On small standard IAB’s we mainly see performance driven campaigns, but especially the bigger formats (expandable, tandem, video interstitial….) are showing a strong development within the online advertising marketplace. Although the two formats Pop-Under and Video-Interstital were not launched by AdScale until the end of 2009, together they already made up around 16% of the turnover in January 2010.

Can you name any of the publishers currently trading on the exchange?

MP: All of them are transparent in the system at www.adscale.de.

Has AdScale experience a lot of growth since it was launched last year?

MP: AdScale recorded considerable eight-digit revenue in 2009. Thus, in 2009 we achieved the break-even point and are profitable one year after the start of the operative business. For 2010, we are anticipating a further increase in sales and expect to double the existing sales levels at least. For the German market in the coming year we expect to triple the market share of all booked online advertising campaigns via ad exchanges from five up to 15 percent. As the market leader, we will be able to benefit from this increase disproportionately.

Is AdScale offering inventory through real-time bidding? If not, are there plans to add RTB functionality to the platform in the coming months?

MP: Not yet, but we will add RTB in Q4 2010 at the latest even though we believe that this is a very hyped feature and suits mainly performance-driven direct advertisers. Secondly, RTB is not really a “big thing” in Germany yet.

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.

In France, Improve Digital gives publishers the ability to optimize revenues and eCPM’s from ad networks and exchanges – while protecting their premium business and ad quality policy. We have 2 billion monthly impressions in France and believe that this is a significant sign that publishers are opting for an agnostic publisher focussed yield optimiser, such as Improve Digital, instead of working directly with an exchange.

How evolved is the exchange eco-system in France?

MJ: There is more and more demand from publishers for our platform and this trend shows that publishers are ready to work with multiple partners in the form of ad networks. They see our technology as a way to prepare for the future, where publishers monetise their ad space both directly through various sales partners, such as ad networks and Demand Side Platforms.

Existing ad networks still have significant growth opportunity, mainly because of AOL’s decision to close the French office, but there are also new players entering the eco-system, particularly the DSPs. I estimate that the French market is perhaps 18 months behind the UK, but some media agencies are developing their own DSPs to buy automatically unsold impressions from publishers. In France Matiro, founded by two formers top managers of Havas Media (Yann Leroux and Erwan Lepage), are offering advertisers the opportunity to buy unsold impressions directly from their platform. A new question will arise: how will the ad networks evolve in to meet the challenges?

Are publishers now seeing the benefit of using platforms like Improve Digital?

MJ: From December 2009, we began trials with some key publishers like Le Monde, Allocine. Nouvel Observateur. At the moment in France, we work with more than 15 publishers that represent over 2 billion French impressions and we have never lost one customer. Actually we are connecting new French publishers every week. From a publisher’s perspective, the first advantage of our system is increased revenues and eCPMs. From an operational perspective we simplify working with multiple ad networks and reduce operational issues. On a strategic level, our product helps publishers gain control over revenues, ad quality and cannibalisation of premium sales.

What are the significant differences of the French display market compared to the likes of Germany and the UK?

MJ: I don’t know the other markets in-side-out, but from what I heard, the German market is very much dominated by sales houses. In France this is not so much the case and many publishers have their own sales teams. Just like in other markets, the standard IAB ad formats are becoming more of a commodity, with pricing models lowering and moving more towards performance based pricing. Standardization kills the prices, but not necessarily the margins. With our platform, the costs of trading ad space is significantly lower, realising higher margins and making the online media in general more competitive to television, radio and print.

On the other hand this is the exact reason why more and more big publishers develop special ad format or disposals, brand content areas, etc. “Opération Spéciales” or in English, “Special Products’ are the latest trend for the ad development strategy of publishers.

As a “first mover” in the French market, how would Improve Digital sell the benefits using its automated channel to monetise non-premium inventory to publishers?

MJ: When we entered the French market, ad network optimisation was a new phenomenon. Most publishers had never heard of. But if a technology is proven to work, the word spreads quickly and today we have 15 of the top 20 Comscore French publishers as clients. Using the platform is a way for publishers to prepare for the future, as I described before. Media agencies, advertisers will try to find some “Google Adwords” like business model for display. This new attitude is motivated by the “infinite inventory” that characterizes the display market at the moment. We started as a true ad network optimiser, but we are evolving towards a sell-side platform that enables publishers to optimise yield and revenues from all of their ad space, not just unsold.

Are you making any French inventory available through RTB? If not, when are you likely to allow real-time bidding on the platform?

MJ: If the publisher wants to connect to RTB, it’s a matter of opting in. Right now, we offer French inventory through RTB and have multiple global RTB partners live. Technically we are ready to connect French ad networks. As I mentioned previously, the exchange eco system is not as developed in France, and some French ad networks are technically not ready to buy through RTB.

Is the buy-side and sell-side ready for real-time bidding in France?

MJ: I hope that it will be the case with the arrival of new exchange trading specialists like Matiro and others players from the media agencies world. Improve Digital can be considered the first and the largest sell-side platform on the French market.

How do you see the display market changing over the coming months?


MJ: Like a lot of people in the French display market, I think that we are seeing the end of CPM as the key model on display. The IAB ad format will be bought on a performance based model. The fee business model will manage the premium offer. Publishers will have to find some technological solutions to adapt their performance offering for the demand side, advertisers and media agencies.

Will we see France following a similar path to the UK?

MJ: As a lot of international advertisers manage more and more of their marketing budget on a European level, I expect the whole European market to follow a similar path with most ad networks becoming DSPs and most publishers organising themselves through sell-side platforms.

Are we likely to see significant volumes through exchanges and SSPs over the coming months?
With our monthly 2 billion of French impressions, we are already seeing a significant volume, but this is just the beginning. First, because managing unsold impressions has become more and more complex on an operational level; and secondly because of the search to find new monetization opportunity. For this first year in France, Improve Digital has the objective to double every quarter the number of impressions it optimizes.