With header bidding the norm at all top publishers, first-price auctions should be a matter of course, argues Kay Schneider (pictured below), general manager, SmartX Platform, smartclip, in this exclusive byline for ExchangeWire, and explains why a change from second-price auctions is needed, now! Game theory suggests that a buyer might allocate a higher max bid price to a purchase item if there is a chance to settle a transaction with a final price that is significantly lower than his bid. As [...]

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To represent and trade in publisher inventory successfully, SSPs have to be much more than a dumb pipe to the programmatic marketplace. Writing exclusively for ExchangeWire, Emma Newman explains why PubMatic embraces the term ‘SSP’ and how SSPs have had to evolve as programmatic develops. Programmatic has advanced rapidly in the last few years. The once active resistance to anything associated with programmatic advertising, especially among traditional media players, has now become a more constructive desire to understand it and to [...]

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Publishers in Asia-Pacific still are putting multiple codes from different SSPs, which drags down page loads and worsens ad latency. They need to move away from this and start embracing header bidding, urges Rammohan Sundaram, C1X’s Asia-Pacific Middle East Africa managing director and senior vice president. He notes that awareness of header bidding in the region remains nascent, but will continue to grow as it becomes the standard platform to connect with SSPs. In this Q&A with ExchangeWire, Sundaram also discusses [...]

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Much has been written and debated on the pages of the ad tech industry’s trade publications, websites, and blogs. There is no shortage of opinions, rationalisations, and debates for why things happen, with many points of view, forecasts, and predictions. We have seen many wins and many disappointments. But, writes Chris Karl (pictured below), CEO, VertaMedia, there is no denying that in the real world (the one that happens when you shut down your computer or turn off your phone) [...]

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If you work for an agency trading desk, programmatic buying unit, or client trading desk you are already doing it; if you work for an SSP, you will be responding to RFPs about it; if you are a publisher, you are asking what impact this is going to have on increasing yields and fill. So what is supply path optimisation (SPO) and why is this new acronym going to feature heavily on ad tech panels in the coming months? Writing [...]

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Amid the chaos and confusion surrounding the recent brand safety issues in programmatic advertising, another debate has been slowly building momentum among those on both the buy and sell sides of the industry: the first-price auction model, writes independent ad tech consultant, Paul Gubbins (pictured below). This debate is moving beyond the water cooler chat of yield analysts to the mainstream press for two main reasons. Firstly, recent high-profile catalysts, including the announcement from the Guardian that they are taking market-leading [...]

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There was a time, not too long ago, when venture capital flowed freely into the ad tech space and vendors didn’t have to work too hard to demonstrate a unique value proposition. At the time, investors looked at both the supply side and the demand side as almost interchangeable opportunities to find growth in ad tech; especially if the players involved could make a credible case that their technology had something to offer in the fast-growing mobile arena. In this [...]

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The DACH region, made up of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland tends to play by its own rules when it comes to programmatic. ExchangeWire speak exclusively with Frederike Voss (pictured below), CEO and co-founder, orbyd, about the challenges publishers face in the region; yet how, while progress is slow, publishers are fully embracing programmatic. ExchangeWire: What publisher trends stand out in the DACH region? Frederike Voss: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland are very specialised markets, perhaps too specialised for certain programmatic approaches that might be [...]

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Each market has a different approach to programmatic buying and selling and markets less often heard about, such as Italy and Spain, have very different methods from the UK or France when it comes to publisher monetisation. Marco Guglielmin (pictured below), chief revenue officer, Zodiak Advertising, explains the publisher trends he is seeing in Southern Europe, the rise of the publisher co-op and the growth of the multi-SSP approach. ExchangeWire: What growth journey have Zodiak been on since starting in Italy four [...]

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Yesterday (2, October 2016), Facebook, Criteo, and Rubicon Project posted their Q3 2016 financial results, for the year ended 30 September. Facebook and Criteo both saw strong results, the latter off the back of the acquisition of HookLogic and a move into predictive search.   Facebook posted total revenue of USD$7.01bn (£5.70bn) for the three months ended 30 September 2016. This represents year-on-year growth of 56%, as results for the same time last year stood at USD$4.50bn (£3.66bn). “We had another good [...]

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