At an OMMA debate late last year in New York, Ramsey McGrory, VP of Yahoo! U.S. Partnerships, was asked about the continuing influence of the ad exchange. McGrory provided the attendees with the obligatory marketing plug about RightMedia, and their plans to attract more premium inventory on to their platform.

More interestingly was his take on how third party data and audience information would be used to improve media buying on the ad exchanges.

Since then two companies have become key players in the data exchange area – BlueKai and Exelate.

Launched in September 2008, BlueKai is an intent-focused data exchange with access to over 100 million unique buyers, focusing primarily on consumer intent in the retail, auto and travel sectors.

The Exelate Exchange also provides a technology platform for the trading of anonymous user data in a number of key verticals.

With more media buying occurring on the exchanges, could media buyers use this data to help clients achieve better results from their campaigns?

It’s obvious that direct response campaigns could benefit most from behavioral-targeting data, procured from Bluekai and Exelate.

Suppose you are running CPA campaign on behalf of a leading UK travel company through the ad exchanges. They are looking to run a campaign for an Italian city break holiday offer. You could buy data for 500,000 people who are looking for a holiday in Italy.

These exchanges are based on bid prices, so you will competing be against other interested parties for the data. You may pay 1p for each unique cookie, or in the case of case of 500,000 holiday-makers looking for a week away in Italy, £5000.

Now this data can be used to make a more informed media buying across the ad exchanges: it can essentially target users with a call-to-action ad at the right time.

A user targeted by the advertiser is reading a review about Bari on the Guardian website, the exchange registers the page as being in the “Italian vacation” list, and the user is cookied. If the user visits a page on the ad exchange and reads content on Italian holidays or weekend trips, they will be served with ads from the advertiser about its Italian weekend breaks.

Some argue that we need better analytics to target users with the right advertising on the exchanges. The industry still has some way to go, but progress on targeting is being assisted by the quality of user information available on the data exchanges.

BlueKai, Exelate and others offer user data that enhances media buying on the ad exchanges. It’s how that information is used by the advertiser, marketer and agencies that will determine how successful their DR campaigns are.