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.
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.
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?
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.
The numbers are always a problem with these state of the industry reports – always too focused on the US market. But the Rubicon Report is still a good read if only to get the company’s perspective of the market. Aside from the headline 25% rise in CPMs of the Rubicon 20 Index, the report tackles two big areas of contention in the industry, namely the rise of RTB and the growing dominance of Google in display.
» There was an excellent article yesterday on Imedia about the necessity of the DSP within the current exchange eco-system. Written by Eric Prichard, advertising technology advisor at Microsoft, it explores the pivotal role DSPs will play in buying inventory in real-time for agencies and advertisers. The blog post also covers some high level subjects including the idea of low density bids and asymmetric bidding in second place auction and how this might result in low CPM prices paid for impressions. To counter this, Prichard believes that dynamic floors will be introduced on RTB inventory whereby platforms will price ad impressions accordingly based on historical trends (how much much buyers paid for inventory in past auctions?) and past performance. It would seem likely that if publishers are to open up inventory through RTB they are going to have to work closer with the SSPs and Google. Publishers will probably not have the resource or the financial muscle to build out their own platforms. Great piece for the more progressive thinkers among you. [Imedia]
Rubicon announced this week the launch of Revv For Demand, allowing demand side networks access to automated and audience buys. This will also enable demand side traders to buy inventory in real-time. These type of buys will be strictly controlled on the platform. Rubicon believe the new release will address some of the problems currently that exist in real-time bidding, including channel conflict, data leakage, transparency and ad quality. With the three SSPs all offering RTB functionality, will premium pubs here now look to use these platforms for RTB?
Rubicon announced today that it will begin to support RTB on its platform. This move was always coming despite its protestations against real-time bidding several months ago. The new feature is giving RTB access to a number of demand partners, including Invite Media, Infectious Media, ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Ad Exchange, MediaMath and Triggit. Rubicon is also launching Permission Control 2.0, which aims to give publishers more granular control over pricing, transparency, yield management and sales channel monitoring when trading through RTB. There are now five automated platforms offering RTB access to ad traders in Europe, namely DoubleClick Exchange, Admeld, Improve Digital, OpenX (Orange Ad Market) and now Rubicon. The most notable aspect of this announcement is the amount of quality inventory that this opens upto European traders. Liquidity was always going to be an issue but given the size of the inventory available globally on the Rubicon platform and the number of DSPs who will have access massive price fluctuations should kept in check.
Is RTB good for the publisher? Can it really result in better returns for the publisher? Will the technology leave publishers open to “cherry picking” DSPs and ad networks, who are only interested in buying slivers of juicy inventory? These are questions which continue to cause heated debate among Europe’s top publishers. Given all this apprehension, it is interesting to see a majority of UK publishers saying that RTB could help increase the price paid for non-premium inventory.
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.
Germany’s leading ad exchange, 
Malvertising is, according to 
Matthias Pantke is CEO of AdScale GmbH, Germany. 
Michel Juvillier is CEO of 
The numbers are always a problem with these state of the industry reports – always too focused on the US market. But the Rubicon Report is still a good read if only to get the company’s perspective of the market. Aside from the headline 25% rise in CPMs of the Rubicon 20 Index, the report tackles two big areas of contention in the industry, namely the rise of RTB and the growing dominance of Google in display.
» There was an excellent article yesterday on Imedia about the necessity of the DSP within the current exchange eco-system. Written by Eric Prichard, advertising technology advisor at Microsoft, it explores the pivotal role DSPs will play in buying inventory in real-time for agencies and advertisers. The blog post also covers some high level subjects including the idea of low density bids and asymmetric bidding in second place auction and how this might result in low CPM prices paid for impressions. To counter this, Prichard believes that dynamic floors will be introduced on RTB inventory whereby platforms will price ad impressions accordingly based on historical trends (how much much buyers paid for inventory in past auctions?) and past performance. It would seem likely that if publishers are to open up inventory through RTB they are going to have to work closer with the SSPs and Google. Publishers will probably not have the resource or the financial muscle to build out their own platforms. Great piece for the more progressive thinkers among you. [
Is RTB good for the publisher? Can it really result in better returns for the publisher? Will the technology leave publishers open to “cherry picking” DSPs and ad networks, who are only interested in buying slivers of juicy inventory? These are questions which continue to cause heated debate among Europe’s top publishers. Given all this apprehension, it is interesting to see a majority of UK publishers saying that RTB could help increase the price paid for non-premium inventory.
