Archive for August, 2009

Get Real (Time)

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Everyone’s talking about real-time bidding capabilities

I remember the day I realized that media exchanges like Right Media had technology that facilitated the selling of inventory on a per-impression basis, by allowing bids to be made on each and every opportunity. I was so excited by it that I immediately kicked the guaranteed world to the curb, and jumped head first into Right Media.

The concept was simple: The highest bidder won the impression. I was amazed that bids could be evaluated so quickly and a winner chosen in real time, and even more so that the value of the inventory could be decided in real time based on market demand. Once I learned this, I was unable to focus on anything else transpiring in the industry, especially guaranteed or reserved buying.

Now we’re heading into a new era. It is still real time, but now it is real-time bidding. Advertisers are rushing to get set up with their own real-time bidding capabilities and hook directly into Right Media’s supply pool. In fact, it is a topic of discussion in every client meeting I attend. Every moment matters and they want to optimize their bids—in real time.

Bidding through third-party integration
Third-party integration requires two key platform capabilities: auction broadcasting and real-time bidding systems. What’s needed is the capability on the supply side to externalize the auction (auction broadcasting), while partners on the demand side provide the real-time bidding systems that are able to respond to that broadcast in real time.

If all of this sounds awfully similar to what Right Media already does on behalf of our demand and supply customers on every ad request, you’re correct: We’ve been doing real-time bidding for years. We were the first to offer it, we became the largest provider, and we are still the largest supply pool of real-time, bidded, non-guaranteed inventory.

What’s so special about this?
Externally broadcasting supply opportunities allow demand aggregators (large publishers, networks, agencies, and tech providers) to use their own predictive engines to decide on a unique bid value per impression. Traditionally these bid values were static, set per line within Right Media, and Exchange members relied on Right Media’s predictive technology to bid on their behalf within pre-configured constraints.

Today, Right Media’s dynamic pricing evaluates impressions and bids differently for every impression, based on many parameters in our predictive algorithm. In the new era of real-time bidding, external third parties will be able to use and control their own prediction mechanisms outside of the Exchange, and to use their own ad selection logic and optimization.

Who needs real-time bidding?
Real-time bidding won’t be for everyone. For many of our customers who bring demand to the ecosystem, using Right Media’s predictive algorithms is the best path to take, as it’s in real time and is dynamic. You won’t need to make large capital expenditures to build out the capabilities needed to participate in real-time bidding. Also, you’ll be able to get very sophisticated with your Yield Manager set-up, including automating the adjustments of bids per line item by using Right Media’s APIs.

Stay tuned for more on this exciting new technology, and please share your thoughts on real-time bidding by posting comments on this blog. Is this good for the industry, or bad? What are your concerns as an advertiser, or as a publisher? Will it raise publisher CPMs and performance? Comment below…

— Pedro Ponce de Leon, Senior Manager, Professional Services

Posted in Right Media Exchange, Technology | No Comments »



A Cure for the Monday Blues

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Marketplace Select helps you avoid surprises with your ads

It’s Monday morning. You have your coffee, your bagel, and your morning meetings ready. Then, the call comes: “What the *#% is my finance ad doing on an adult site?” Well, your Monday and next-quarter budget are instantly undone.

This is exactly why people get nervous working with blind ad networks or exchanges. And it is exactly why brand advertisers can have a hard time making the transition into the nonguaranteed space. Never ones to shy away from a challenge, we decided to tackle this issue on our blog.

Know where your ads are
It’s clear that the way around this problem is transparency and control: transparency from sellers and controls that allow both buyers and sellers to help ensure proper delivery of ads. That’s why we created the Marketplace Select program at Right Media. We aim to create an open, transparent environment where even the most brand-concerned advertisers can have visibility into the content that they are purchasing through the Exchange.

Participation in the program is, of course, voluntary. So we decided to ask who would be willing to share a list of sites with approved partners for transparent media buys. The response has been overwhelming. Most networks and publishers on the Exchange not only don’t mind sharing a list, but care just as much about cleaning up inappropriate content and creating a trustworthy marketplace as buyers. That’s a good thing, because this goal takes cooperation from everyone.

Everyone benefits from a better marketplace, too. As one publisher said, “I can’t imagine anyone saying no. I’d think all Exchange participants would want brand campaigns with higher CPMs.”

Managing ad placement
Marketplace Select enables partners to share, manage, and approve site lists. We also recommend best practices for reducing content risk through, among other things, URL targeting and auditing.

Inappropriate content often shows up because networks have trouble controlling where their publishers place ad tags. To help alleviate this, we worked with Exchange members and derived a targeting solution for Marketplace Select that doesn’t depend on publisher classifications.

This system uses something called validated URL targeting, which lets the Right Media Exchange read the top level domain that an ad call comes from. That way you know exactly where the ads are running, regardless of publisher tag placement. This solution has become the preferred method by most Marketplace Select members and speaks to a growing commitment toward working together to keep the Exchange a viable and safer place to do business.

So, if you’re not part of the program, what are you waiting for? Contact your account manager to get involved. Your buyers will love you for it.

—Maggie Neuwald, Consulting Services
Sean Smith, Engagement Management

Posted in Ad Networks, Advertisers, Agencies, Publishers, Right Media Exchange | 1 Comment »



Is BT the Silver Bullet for Brand Advertisers?

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Brand campaigns seeking better performance look to behaviorial targeting

As brand dollars shift online and as brand campaigns shift more towards performance, we’re beginning to see a lot more interest in the performance benefits of behavioral targeting (BT).  BT takes information such as the pages users have visited or searches they’ve made, and enables you to serve ads that are more  relevant to a user’s interests.  The argument then becomes: if you can show relevant ads to interested users, the performance of your campaign should increase – hence the natural link between performance campaigns and BT.

I attended OMMA Behavioral late last week and had the pleasure of taking in several interesting presentations and speakers that focused on the growth of BT and its impact on publishers and advertisers.  The best of these was “How Are Brands Looking at Behavioral Targeting?”, presented by Doug Chavez, senior manager of digital marketing at Del Monte Foods.  He confirmed the above trend when this equation flashed across the screen: “Brand + DR [Direct Response] = BT Growth”. This is backed up by a June 2007 forecast by eMarketer, which projects behavioral targeting to more than double between now and 2011.

Brand advertising and BT can be a particularly strong match, because brands have a deep understanding of their consumers and how to engage them.  Brand advertisers and their agencies try to use a precise combination of demographic and psychographic information to target the appropriate audience.  BT lends to this extremely well. We’re starting to see more brand-relevant segments offered in the market – the Avid Golfer, the Family Chef, etc.

The one thing I took away from OMMA Behavioral and Doug’s talk in particular is that BT may not be a silver bullet but it does align very well with what brand advertisers seek.  Doug underscored the importance of BT providers being transparent with advertisers with respect to how their BT segments are created.  Brands are not looking for the “special sauce”, but more for the ingredients that are necessary to show the most relevant ad to the most interested user.

— Megan Bergtholdt, Consultant, Professional Services

Posted in Ad Networks, Advertisers, Agencies, Data Providers, Events | No Comments »