Earlier this week, we announced that Right Media will discontinue supporting the Direct Media Exchange (DMX) – our self-serve platform for small publishers looking to monetize their sites. The DMX site will serve ads through January 31st and DMX participants can access their reports through March 1st.
This was a strategic business decision and it was made after careful consideration of our business model. We believe that the future of the Right Media Exchange lies in the premium marketplace and we have spent the second of half of 2009 paving the way for what we anticipate will be a very exciting 2010.
We welcome the opportunity to share how we can help our clients and potential partners leverage the Exchange to enhance their businesses. I encourage existing Right Media clients to reach out to their account manager or directly to me so that we can craft a specific strategy for your business. If you are not currently a client, we would like to explore how we may work together in the future. Potential partners may contact Steven Woolway at stevenw@yahoo-inc.com.
We’re looking forward to sharing our success with you in the coming months.
Stephanie Dorman
Senior Director, Client Services and Operations skane@yahoo-inc.com
We have always been, and continue to be, an entrepreneurial group here at Right Media: We continually challenge the norm. We push each other to iterate and innovate– if not through code then through creative solutions. We challenge, learn, and evolve with our top customers. In fact, we challenge each other so much I urge people to yell, “challenge” in internal meetings if they don’t agree with something being said- it could be on a position during a heated discussion, could be on a market theory, could be on product prioritization… heck, it could be on what we decide to order for lunch!
In 2005, Right Media established ourselves as the first ad exchange when there was so much friction in the market that it seemed like anyone with an ad server could call themselves an ad network. Today, we are the largest exchange with tremendous scale. More than 120,000 active global buyers and sellers and roughly 9 billion transactions pass through the Right Media Exchange every day. It was always our goal to take the installed base of buyers, sellers, and overall marketplace liquidity and continue our maturation towards a more premium and differentiated offering.
Today, online advertising is again at a critical point in its evolution. Consumers are spending more and more of their time online and we as an industry have not effectively shown large marketers why the dollars should shift as well. Now, that’s changing: The advertising community wants an upscale, high-quality marketplace where audiences can be bought at scale, and in real-time. Yahoo! and Right Media have been at the forefront of this shift and we will continue to leverage the Exchange to capitalize on this trend.
That’s why I’m excited to announce that Right Media has refined its strategy to become a premium exchange focused on being transparent, differentiated and interoperable. Our premium supply and demand ad platform will support an ecosystem of leading and differentiated digital advertising companies, including differentiated ad networks, leading advertisers, global ad agencies, premium publishers, data providers, and technology innovators in our non-guaranteed marketplace.
We also will have demand-side platform (DSP) capabilities, which is a marketer-focused buying solution that transparently manages media spend across multiple supply marketplaces. Our premium ad exchange will enable clients to leverage value-added data across the supply and demand of the Exchange and offer integration (interoperability) with other exchanges.
To read more about this topic, Advertising Age posted a story today about our new strategy. I hope that you will keep reading our blog for more updates about the Exchange. And please feel free to tell us what you think by leaving a comment. As you now know, I love a good “Challenge!”
Everyone knows how powerful online data can be – but not everyone agrees on exactly how to use it. That was the focus of a panel I moderated as part of the Right Media Forum last week.
The panel, “The Power of Online Data, Today and Tomorrow,” looked at the use of data in today’s online advertising industry and helped attendees identify data-driven opportunities, and applications that may exist in their current strategies.
Panelists included:
Mike Benedek, Vice President of Business Development, AlmondNet
Alan Edgett, Senior Director of Interactive Media, Experian
Mark Mannino, Vice President, Supply & Data, MediaMath
Steve Sutton, Chief Operating Officer, Ziff Davis Media
Mark Zagorski, Chief Revenue Officer, eXelate
This great mix of execs joined in an engaging discussion about major challenges for the industry, ownership of data, government regulation and the role of the Exchange.
Taxonomy was discussed at length on the panel, as concerns about differences in the classification of data came to the forefront. Panelists debated: Should the industry have a universal taxonomy as a way to help standardize data across the board? One panelist said that his sales people can’t keep up with the algorithms doing the classifications and, therefore, are not in sync with the different data segmentation occurring in the industry. Another panelist felt that taxonomy creation should not be the role of an exchange, comparing it to a government that is so involved in the mechanics of the economy that it erodes open nature of the market.
The need for flexibility was another central theme in the discussion. Panelists felt that any standardization or taxonomy would need to be flexible. Advertisers who focus on performance need to be flexible with the audience segments they target. Demand aggregators, networks, and publishers need to be flexible with the various data providers they choose to partner with. Panelist agreed that there is no “one size fits all” data strategy and businesses will need to tolerate constant experimentation and its potential financial impact.
When government regulation was raised, panelists said they supported the efforts of the Network Advertising Initiative and felt confident that decision makers were being educated and moving in the right direction.
Naturally, everyone in the room was curious about future enhancements to the Right Media Exchange. I know our clients would like our platform to better enable segment exposure and provide more robust reporting and control. As I said during the discussion, we hear your needs and we are working on them! I look forward to seeing you at our next event.
Staying Open While Closing the Door on Harmful Content And Behavior
The following is an excerpt from an AdExchanger.com article by Bennie Smith, Yahoo! VP Exchange Operations/Platform Policy.
Online advertising in the age of media fragmentation does not have to be like a box of chocolates. Both advertisers and publishers should know exactly what they are going to get with every ad impression.
Ad exchanges have played a crucial role in making this possible – by running transparent, fair, and open platforms that have enabled targeted and efficient media buying in the highly-fragmented and ever-expanding media universe. However, the benefits of seamless transactions in an open ecosystem can quickly be eroded (along with your brand equity), if appropriate controls are not put into place.
Threats to the online advertising ecosystem include harmful ad and Web site content, spyware, traffic quality and the emerging and rapidly evolving threat of malvertising (the delivery of malicious code or software via Internet advertisements). These threats have the potential to cause significant harm to all the primary stakeholders in the online advertising ecosystem. Advertisers face the risk of brand erosion and publishers can face user attrition, loss of revenue and public relations risks. Ultimately, consumers are exposed to harmful content and privacy and security risks.
In light of these risks, Right Media remains committed to helping its customers do business in an open ecosystem with greater transparency and control. These issues are not unique to us, but impact the Internet as a whole. In fact, recent malvertising incidents at New York Times and Gawker.com were direct buys and have illustrated the need for every stakeholder in the online advertising value chain to work equally hard and collaborate with each other to address these growing threats.
Our continued investment in protective measures and the implementation of innovative mechanisms are helping Right Media protect participants in the exchange ecosystem from potential harm. For example; in response to new malvertising threats that were observed this year, we made some enhancements to our Creative Tester tool that help us detect and ban creatives that load non-standard file types that can install malicious code by exploiting security vulnerabilities in standard applications that open such file formats; contain an automatic page redirect that is non user-initiated and also identify ads that triggers click streams or click activity without any user interaction. In addition, we continue to educate our customer base about Right Media Exchange tools and policies and how customers can work to prevent the introduction of harmful content, viruses and other malicious code into our ecosystem. By implementing their own controls and being more diligent about whom they do business with, we can work together to preserve our vibrant and secure marketplace.
An SMX East panel yields research and strategy for combining search with display
For the online community, today marked another step forward in understanding how to service multiple products for advertisers. At the Search Marketing Expo East conference, our own Megan Pagliuca, Director of Professional Services, participated in a panel discussion with the clever name “Search Meet Display; Display Meet Search.” Also on the panel were executives from iProspect, ComScore and Didit. To quote “Law and Order,” here are their stories…
We first heard from ComScore and iProspect, who had very exhaustive research proving that when search and display are incorporated into a single media buy, the overall results are much better. Comscore contends that in the search + display synergy, 1 + 1 = 2.5, whereas iProspect asserts that it’s actually 1 + 1 = 3.
And it’s not just based on performance improvements (increased CTR and conversions), but also specific, very interesting, data points:
Display ads drive search: Consumers are still leery of clicking on display ads; however, they will search for a brand name using their favorite search engine (which should be Yahoo!’s, naturally) after viewing a search ad.
Display ads also drive the halo effect with search: Consumers will sometimes search for competitor keywords after viewing a display ad.
Offline sales are impacted by the synergy: Search lifts offline sales and display lifts offline sales, but search + display lifts offline sales more than the two do individually.
Yahoo! has experienced the same results from our own research, and we applaud the detailed research that these two companies undertook.
Next up, Kevin Lee from Didit dove into some sophisticated best practices around search retargeting, which is another excellent starter strategy for marketers looking to blend a search and display budget.
Then Megan finished up the round of presentations, and focused on the “how” of search + display. Given that it’s a complex capability to develop end to end, Yahoo! has two main flavors: We’ll manage it for you, or we’ll enable you to build the capabilities in house with specific tools and practices. Megan started with a quick review on how the consumer consideration cycle works, and pointed out that display and search need to work together to seamlessly guide the consumer down the funnel to the point of sale. She then moved into the two ways that Yahoo! delivers a great search and display product.
The first way we do this is by enabling our network partners to buy Yahoo! display inventory and Yahoo! search keywords, and ensuring that users who search on certain keywords are retargeted with relevant display ads. The second way we do this is by providing a technology platform and services team (Right Media, and Professional Services, respectively) that can work to enable an agency or marketer’s business to buy display and search from multiple sources. In this way, we manage the product or enable eligible businesses to develop the capability on their own. Or both.
This is something that we’re really proud of at Yahoo! Fact is, we should all be making the size of the digital market bigger, so listen up marketers and agencies: Here’s another way to bring your digital spend online!
Video: Yahoo!’s Bill Wise on working with ad networks
Bill Wise, Yahoo! VP of platforms, spoke this week in an OMMA Global panel at Advertising Week about the relationship between ad networks, advertisers and publishers. Bill made the point in the panel that many publishers simply don’t know how to work with ad networks properly, or know which ad networks are best for them. Bill explains that point—and talks about Yahoo!’s new swagger—in this video.
Right Media and Yahoo! are on the scene at Advertising Week in New York’s Times Square right now. To follow events as they happen, check out: Yahoo! AdBuzz on Twitter.
Naturally, Right Media and Yahoo! will be there to offer news, insight and context.
First, look for some big news from Elisa Steele, Yahoo’s EVP and chief marketing officer. In her keynote address at IAB MIXX (Tuesday, September 22 at 9:45 a.m.) Elisa will discuss what’s new at Yahoo! (and there’s lots of it) and where the company—and where digital media in general—is headed.
Next, look for Bill Wise—he’s Yahoo!’s head of display platforms and Right Media’s VP and general manager of Global Exchange—who will be on a panel with the catchy title, “Sleeping with the Frenemy: Ad Nets vs. Web and Mobile Publishing.” During the panel, which happens down the street from MIXX at OMMA Global the same day at 11:45 a.m. (you might have to run if you can’t hitch a ride), Bill and his fellow panelists will provide valuable insights on how ad networks can and must work for small and medium-sized publishers.
And, of course, there will be tons of parties, galas, awards ceremonies and other assorted brouhaha all week. Can’t make it? Follow the action here and on Yahoo! Ad Buzz via Twitter.
The following is an excerpt of an AdExchanger.com article by Frank Weishaupt, Yahoo! VP of North American Marketplaces. For the full article, click here.
One reason I love this business is that it’s always evolving. Change is essential to success in online advertising…especially when it comes to ad exchanges.
As the needs of ad networks, publishers, agencies and advertisers continue to change, exchanges have had to stay ahead of every impression and develop marketing solutions that can help these players improve and differentiate their businesses.
We know these players are already doing part of the work on their own—gathering the data and insights necessary to manage yield and return on ad spend. But it’s not enough. Exchanges provide a larger marketplace that’s needed to efficiently leverage that data and quickly turn it into revenue. There is no better place to do that than in an open exchange ecosystem. Here’s why:
- An open exchange helps participants in the digital advertising ecosystem conduct business with each other in a seamless fashion.
- An open exchange delivers marketers the greatest number of options in how they define and reach their relevant audiences.
- An open exchange helps solve supply fragmentation by offering a complete, multi-level solution for servicing marketers’ needs. A closed network cannot accomplish this… .
…Marketers take note: We get it. Budgets are precious and the market is increasingly fragmented. We know you work with multiple exchanges and we look forward to working with them and integrating with them for our partners. Hopefully, they will follow our lead and embrace openness because the industry will be best served by transparency and liquidity.
—Frank Weishaupt, Yahoo! VP of North American Marketplaces
We love to meet our clients, hear first-hand what’s on their minds and offer solutions to your business needs. That’s why we host a breakfast series for our clients called “Eggs & Exchanges” where we highlight strategies for helping them to increase revenue on the Right Media Exchange.
The next breakfast series will be held in New York City on September 16 and in Los Angeles on September 24. We’re particularly excited about the program:
Session 1: “Servicing Brand Advertisers: A Yield Opportunity” As offline advertising dollars shift online and brand campaigns move to performance, networks and publishers are presented with several opportunities to increase yield. This session looks at how ad operations teams can increase yield by having tools in place to drive better performance results than their network competitors and by providing site transparency to alleviate brand advertiser concerns.
Session 2: “Improving Quality: How to Create Revenue with the Least Risk.” Proper creative management affects all Exchange members. In this session, we will look at the process from the perspective of buyers, sellers and networks as well as share troubleshooting techniques and escalation procedures.
If you’re already a client, we hope to see you at Eggs & Exchanges. If you’re not currently working with Right Media and would like to learn more about us, drop an email to rightmediaevents@yahoo-inc.com and we’ll get back to you.
–Liza Cichowski, Brand Experience Manager, Right Media Exchange
The health and safety of an exchange depend upon its participants
Online security is a problem as old as the internet itself. Despite the ongoing efforts of the computer software and security industries to combat threats such as viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other malicious code, we and other online businesses, find ourselves in an arms race with the perpetrators, who continue to launch attacks with increasing sophistication. Unfortunately, advertisers, agencies, networks, publishers and consumers are becoming more vulnerable to these insidious new threats, which threaten not just the online advertising industry, but the Internet economy as a whole.
What can you do? As frictionless trading between ad networks becomes more and more important, advertisers are looking for innovative ways to maximize their return on investment and publishers are looking to limit the amount of unsold inventory. Liquidity in the marketplace should not come at the expense of quality, and we are committed to balancing the revenue or performance goals of our customers while at the same time helping them to drive a positive user experience. This means that all stakeholders must be even more diligent about whom they do business with and use reputation as one of the determining attributes, instead of relying solely on revenue. If we sacrifice quality, there is a much higher risk of driving away brand advertisers who are turning to performance advertising as a more targeted, measurable and cost-effective marketing strategy.
Since the Right Media Exchange is an open technology platform that our customers—advertisers, agencies, networks and publishers—use to do business more directly and with greater visibility and control, we are not involved in ad creation or in the purchase or sale of online media. That’s why the overall health and safety of our marketplace depends on the efforts of all platform participants.
The Right Media approach Our approach to combating threats to the Exchange includes trying to proactively implement industry-leading safeguards that protect our customers, their constituents and, ultimately, their end-users.
For example, all creatives or ad tags that run through the Exchange are tested by our Creative Tester technology (part of Media Guard) in an effort to detect and ban creatives exhibiting malicious behavior such as viruses and program installs, or that display attributes we consider to be high risk. Creative Tester subjects every creative or ad tag trafficked into the Exchange to a series of tests which simulate an impression, load the creative and record the technical attributes detected during the creative load. When Creative Tester detects certain types of malicious behavior, it automatically deactivates the creative and notifies the Exchange member who trafficked the creative or ad tag.
The Exchange also uses an automated detection program called SCOUR that checks Exchange traffic regularly, searching for patterns exhibited by desktop software and flagging sections that exhibit what, in our opinion, may be malicious traffic patterns. If we detect that some or all impressions from a particular section of a site on the Exchange have been initiated by applications that are prohibited by our policies, they are automatically deactivated (thereby making them ineligible to receive further ads via the Exchange and to generate any revenue for the publisher).
Keeping up the fight Our continued investment in protective measures and the implementation of mechanisms like the ones highlighted above are helping Right Media protect all participants in the Exchange ecosystem from potential harm. However, attackers continuously find new, sophisticated ways to circumvent safeguards and malicious software applications continue to evolve in their behavior and delivery methods. We’re always working to understand these new threats so we can develop tools that can weed them out as quickly as possible.
Although the task at hand is challenging, we believe that by partnering with Exchange participants who are equally committed to eliminating these threats at their source, we can make meaningful progress. Right Media welcomes all thoughts and suggestions on this important issue because we believe that if we work together, we can maintain our leading position as the largest, healthiest and most successful online Ad Exchange on the market.
—Nilesh Zacharias, Director, Policy and Operations
We have always been, and continue to be, an entrepreneurial group here at Right Media: We continually challenge the norm. We push each other to iterate and innovate– if not through code then through creative solutions. We challenge, learn, and evolve with our top customers. In fact, we challenge each other so much I urge people to yell, “challenge” in internal meetings if they don’t agree with something being said- it could be on a position during a heated discussion, could be on a market theory, could be on product prioritization… heck, it could be on what we decide to order for lunch!