CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – With Facebook’s initial public offering last week, the social networking giant can look ahead to a potentially huge new source of revenue from “social advertising,” according to new research by MIT Sloan School of Management Associate Professor of Marketing Catherine Tucker. Tucker says that Facebook itself is only beginning to recognize the “untapped potential” of this kind of advertising fueled by its own technology.

Tucker’s research counters the prevailing view of recent years that social network websites are unfruitful venues for paid advertising. Instead, she finds that social advertising has been under-valued and underrated as a revenue stream and as an effective way to deliver messages, though only if those messages are delivered the right way.

“Facebook has only recently figured out what is unique about all the data they collect,” says Tucker. “Facebook knows who peoples’ friends are, which can be hugely valuable to marketers. Feeding that social network into the Facebook algorithm creates huge and under-exploited profit potential.”

In social advertising, marketers use online social relationships to target and improve their ads. For her new research paper, Tucker examined data from an experiment in which a nonprofit charity used both traditional and social advertising on Facebook. Tucker found that the social ads, which were targeted to friends of `fans’ of the nonprofit on Facebook, attracted far more clicks than those that were not. “When you target ads based on who is friends with whom, you can double the number of click,” she says. “This is because advertisers can uncover consumers who could also get excited about their product.”

“Social advertising is not necessarily replacing display advertising,” adds Tucker. “Rather, it is a different and more effective form of targeted advertising that still remains unrefined, even on Facebook.” So far, Facebook’s algorithm appears to treat all Facebook friends equally, Tucker explains. “But among your friends, certain people have more influence; they are the `gatekeepers’ whom you tend to follow more closely. When Facebook refines its algorithm to incorporate such gatekeepers as part of social advertising, we will see ever greater improvements in advertising response.”

But Facebook must be careful about how it uses such powerful information, Tucker cautions. “There is a level of intrusiveness that no advertiser should cross. Advertisers must avoid being overt in their attempts to exploit social networks in their advertising. If Facebook too explicitly takes advantage of your friend, it could cross that line.” For example, in her study she finds that an ad that states explicitly, “Be like your friend” deters users, who could resent that Facebook or any other company is openly commercializing friendship. But if the consumer is simply informed that “Susan likes this,” it is not seen as a personal intrusion. “Speculatively, the results suggest that intrusive or highly personal advertising is more acceptable if done algorithmically by a faceless entity such as a computer than when it is the result of evident human agency,” Tucker writes.

These are the kinds of issues with which Facebook itself is grappling as it gets more deeply into social advertising. “Facebook is not giving much guidance to advertisers about how to use this new technology, partly because it is so new. But the results of my research suggest that social networks will be able to exploit their unique data on who is friends with whom to enlarge their share of advertising dollars.”

A week ago I attended an event in New York City at which Comscore unveiled its new Validated GRP(TM) tool that rates the effectiveness of digital ads. Validated GRP takes the rating standards advertisers apply to TV advertising (Gross Rating Points) and establishes a similar metric that will apply to digital advertising. For advertisers, this is a metric to judge online campaign effectiveness–to make an apples to apples comparison between the effectiveness of TV and the effectiveness of online display and video ads.

In the development of its Validated GRP tool, Comscore conducted a  major study on the quality of campaign delivery  that allowed it to investigate discrepancies between expectations and reality when it comes to ad delivery. The full study, the results of which will be released in March, included twelve major brands with household names like Ford, Sprint, Kimberly Clark, and Kellogg’s.

To conduct the study, Comscore used the AdXPose technology it acquired earlier last year. The AdXPose team tipped us off in advance because we were already partnered with them. We got a sneak preview of the study’s highlights, which we are now free to share here.

In December 2011, Comscore measured 2,975 placements on 380,898 site domains — totaling over 1.7 million impressions, all delivered in iframes.

The conclusion? Something we, as an ad server and a advertising technology partner for publishers, have already observed: many ads are served, but not seen. That’s because web pages are no longer mostly short pages with static user experiences; they’re long pages with dynamic usage. Many use the increasingly popular “infinite scroll”. By the time an ad at the top of the page is served, the reader may have already scrolled by. Yet many ads further down may be very visible to the user. In Comscore’s own words:

“It’s not just an ‘above the fold versus below the fold’ issue. Sometimes people scroll down quickly to get to the content they want, and miss home page ads. In those cases, the action might be below the fold. Compelling ads can work in both places – but only if they’re visible.” Comscore found that 24% of ads above the fold were not visible.

While this is not great news for the advertisers who paid for those campaigns, It is great to see Comscore measure this for advertisers. And it’s why we developed the InView slider formats. Web pages, like the Huffington Post and Daily Mail are getting longer. And they are increasingly optimized for tablets where users are quick to scroll and therefore quick to skip past the top of the page to get to the content they want to read.

Comscore’s findings become very important, especially as online advertising moves from simple banner display ads to on-page video. And I believe it will move to great video ads for cars, cosmetics and movies etc right on the page. Right now, we’re selling the InView Slider ad unit with great confidence that it works for advertisers wherever you place it. It only appears if the reader is going to see it. The InView slider gives publishers a way to boost revenue, and gives advertisers a great way to guarantee to catch scrolling readers.

We’re also launching an in page video ad that will appear when the viewer is guaranteed to see it.

The InView slider has been quickly adopted by publishers since the summer because all the revenue for the publisher is additional and yet there’s no additional work involved.

We look forward to Comscore publicly presenting the full results of its study in March, and of course we are proud to be their partner in making advertising on the web as good as the best advertising on national TV.

About ZEDO

ZEDO, Inc. is a digital ad solutions company that offers products and services for a publisher’s premium, self service, and remnant inventory. Products include ad network optimization, innovative rich media formats for publishers’ direct sales teams, full featured ad serving, behavioral targeting data built into the ad server, an exchange-like platform for publishers to sell behavioral and DMA targeted inventory at high CPMs (see: www.zedoadnetwork.com), a self service platform to allow advertisers to buy directly from a publisher, outsourced ad ops and more. These products are integrated into one technology platform for publishers to choose from, or use seamlessly together. ZEDO has been in the internet advertising industry for over 10 years, and is the most successful independent ad server in the US. The company provides innovative solutions that boost revenues for Internet publishers. ZEDO is headquartered in San Francisco and has four development centers in Russia and India.

Reach out to ZEDO at http://www.zedo.com, or follow the company on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/ZEDOadsolutions) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/zedoinc).

Emeryville, CA – Tribal Fusion, the global online advertising provider owned by Exponential, is the world’s second largest source of display advertising, according to comScore’s December 2011 rankings of the leading global display networks. The measurement service reported that Tribal Fusion’s premium publisher network reached more than 490 million unique users globally, behind only Google (1.2 billion) and just head of AOL Advertising (477 million), which includes its Advertising.com ad network subsidiary.

Tribal Fusion says the new ranking reflects its growing global presence and increased demand from brand advertisers for campaigns that take advantage of its rich-media capabilities to offer more engaging creative executions at scale

“Brand advertisers across the globe are increasingly looking for new ways to leverage digital media to connect with their prospective customers and are looking for the same kind of high-impact and emotionally engaging creative messaging that they get from traditional TV advertising,” says Dilip DaSilva, founder and CEO of Tribal Fusion and parent company Exponential.

“Online advertising has primarily been focused on bottom-of-the-funnel acquisition and conversion of customers. But as brands are realizing that their potential customers are spending an increasing amount of time on digital media relative to traditional channels such as television, they are looking for opportunities to drive brand awareness and perception via digital media.

“Our premium publisher network is an essential part of our Advertising Intelligence Platform, and is critical for driving audience insight and large-scale reach that helps brand advertisers learn about and reach their prospective customers. And beyond just reaching their prospective customers, our tight integration with our publishing partners, allows brands to connect at scale with prospective customers using high-impact, engaging messaging,” adds Mr. DaSilva.

Founded in 2001, Tribal Fusion has expanded across the globe and now operates offices in 37 locations worldwide including the United States, Canada,  Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

“Digital media can be accessed by visitors in any country, as a result most premium publishers attract a global audience,” concludes Mr. DaSilva. “Through our ability to monetize publisher inventory in so many countries, we have now become the partner of choice for premium publishers in every country.”

Tribal Fusion (www.tribalfusion.com) is a global online advertising provider that drives sales for the world’s top brands by helping them learn about, reach and engage their online audiences more effectively.

We combine our premium publisher network, advanced online ad technology and integrated audience data on a single platform to deliver audience insights, targeting and creative solutions that transform the way brands connect with their prospective customers.

Tribal Fusion reaches almost 500 million monthly unique users, was founded in 2001 and is part of the Exponential Group of online businesses – a technology-enabled media services company headquartered in Emeryville, California with operations in 37 locations worldwide.

NEW YORK – The year ended with an extremely strong Q4 for online advertising as U.S. paid search spending grew 22% year-over-year resulting in the best quarter to date. Retailers drove much of this spending, as holiday shopping initiatives pushed their search budgets up 26% year-over-year. Mobile search advertising among retailers was up a huge 269% YoY and accounted for 14% of total retail search budgets – peaking at 24% on Black Friday.

These figures are released quarterly by IgnitionOne, a leading digital marketing firm, managing more than $1 billion in online advertising.

Key findings in the report:

•    Mobile search is growing at an enormous rate – YoY mobile search ad impressions are up 317% and spend is up 269%. Among retailers, mobile search ad spend accounted for 14.2% of total paid search budgets, compared to 5.2% last year. This spiked on Black Friday with 24% of retail search ad spend going towards mobile queries.

•    Search advertising has its best quarter ever – It was a strong holiday season for search with advertising spend up 22% YoY in Q4. Search advertising spend among retailers was up even higher at 26% YoY. There were also large YoY increases in impressions (42%), clicks (42%) and transactions (67%).

•    Search costs (CPCs) declining – In total, Q4 CPCs are down -8.6% YoY and -2.3% compared to last quarter. This trend benefits both marketers and Google as clicks cost less while monetizing at the same rate and expanding impression base and higher clickthrough rates point to revenue growth for Google. The trend is driven by Google, as Yahoo!/Bing saw a YoY 6.4% increase in CPCs.

•    Google retains market share lead – In mid-Q4, Yahoo!/Bing held only a 16.6% share of the search market, but as expected, given its retail consumer focus, it rebounded with a stronger holiday shopping season.  However, by the end of Q4, search market share remained largely unchanged from the previous quarter, with Google commanding 81.8% compared to Yahoo!/Bing at 18.2%.

•    Europe search advertising also on the rise – Q4 shows gains for European search advertising as spend increased 14%, clicks increased 22% and Clickthrough Rate (CTR) increased 19%.

•    Google continues to grow in display – Spending on display was up 9.3% and impressions were up 31.5%. The growth for Q4 came from Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which saw a 105.5% increase in spend.

“Adoption of smart phones and tablets is exploding and mobile search is becoming a major part of the shopping experience for many consumers,” said Roger Barnette, President of IgnitionOne. “Advertisers are responding to this trend, which is clearly shown in the enormous growth of mobile search advertising spending.”

This report is the latest in a series of reports from IgnitionOne reviewing trends across the online advertising landscape. Previous quarterly reports can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/ignitiononeresearch

About IgnitionOne
IgnitionOne is the world’s first closed loop Digital Marketing Suite, offering multiple solutions to improve online performance within a single interface. Solutions include ad management and optimization (search, display and Facebook), cross-channel attribution and website optimization. The company was formed in 2011 by combining online ad management platform, SearchIgnite, with audience profiling and on-site optimization from Netmining.

Ignition One currently powers more than $20 billion in revenue each year for some of the world’s leading online marketers, including General Motors, Chico’s, Ann Taylor, Fiat and advertising agencies such as MRM Worldwide, CyberAgent and more.

For more information, please visit http://www.ignitionone.com or follow the company on Twitter @ignitionone.

With Shopper Access, brands can connect both display and video ad campaigns with actual offline sales to understand campaign effectiveness and optimize it to increase their return on investment. This depth of data also allows brands to activate marketing campaigns using purchaser-based definitions such as light or heavy shoppers of specific products and categories, shoppers of competitive brands, “switchers” and other shopping-based behaviors.

For example, a diaper brand can use Specific Media’s Shopper Access to reach moms with an ad for baby wipes to drive cross-category and line-extension purchases. Specific Media is in discussions to apply the shopper-based solution to a number of brands from the largest CPG companies.

Nielsen Catalina Solutions, a joint venture between Nielsen and Catalina Marketing, accesses 60 million households from a subset of Catalina’s shopper data warehouse. Shopper Access provides insights into how advertising influences consumer purchase behavior. The data is anonymous and aggregated using a secure third-party agent, and does not contain personally identifiable information (PII) to protect the privacy of individuals. The shopper data is matched with Specific Media’s online audience and further modeled based on proprietary Nielsen Catalina Solutions’ shopper profiles.

“Nielsen Catalina Solutions is pleased to work with Specific Media on Shopper Access,” said Mike Nazzaro, CEO of Nielsen Catalina Solutions. “Specific Media has unmatched scale in display and video, a long history of pioneering precision marketing using behavioral triggers and a solid track record of data governance and integrity. They’ve also made significant investments in growing their CPG category and have emerged as a strong leader in this space.”

“The breadth and depth of the Nielsen Catalina Solutions data and analytics are unparalleled in the industry,” said Vic Catalfamo, vice president and head of Global Consumer Goods Category, Specific Media. “Our multi-year alliance with Nielsen Catalina Solutions will now allow our large base of CPG brand customers to reach shoppers whenever they are online, with display and video campaigns that are truly scalable across the Internet.”

About Specific Media

Specific Media is a digital media company driving viewership for content owners, engagement for brands and relevance for consumers. With capabilities spanning original programming, cross-channel distribution and addressable advertising, the company connects audiences, content and brands, adding meaning to each touch-point. As people discover new ways to consume content, Specific Media creates impactful media experiences no matter where they are.
www.specificmedia.com

NEW YORK – appssavvy (www.appssavvy.com), an activity advertising technology company, and its platform adtivity™ by appssavvy, since launching in September has been embraced by more than 125 publishers and advertisers. To further adtivity by appssavvy’s growth and strong results delivered by the platform, including an engagement rate of 4-to-8 times industry average across unlocked and newly created, center-of-the-experience, activity-based display ads, the company today announced the completion of its Series 1-A $7.1 million venture capital round.

“Activity-based advertising we believe will be the emerging digital advertising category that paid search and behavioral targeting were a few years ago, and which video is today. Today’s Series 1-A venture capital round is further evidence of the activity advertising opportunity for both publishers and advertisers,” said Chris Cunningham, co-founder and CEO of appssavvy. “Following the lead of the social space, especially social games, web publishers have identified the need to make their properties a more active, rather than passive, experience. This will create new activity ad inventory and opportunities for our vision and the adtivity by appssavvy platform, but more importantly better display advertising that reaches people when they’re most engaged and as part of what they’re doing.”

appssavvy had previously raised $3.1 million from True Ventures, The New York Times Company and individual investors, including Scott Kurnit, founder of About.com and currently founder and CEO of AdKeeper, and Howard Lindzon, co-founder and CEO of StockTwits, among others. Today’s completed Series A-1 round of $7.1 million includes current investors and new investor, AOL Ventures, and brings the total raised by appssavvy, to date, to $10.2 million.

“Behavior on the Internet has changed where people are much more activity-focused. We feel there is a tremendous opportunity for advertising to adjust to this shift, focusing on reaching consumers as they engage in sites versus the current focus on where people are,” said Tony Conrad, founding member and venture partner at True Ventures. “Since its inception four years ago, appssavvy identified people’s activities online as a tremendous opportunity to not only change advertising, but change it for the better, and for all those involved, including publishers, brand advertisers and, most importantly, consumers.”

adtivity by appssavvy, prior to launch, was under development for more than a year and built on appssavvy’s vision that the future of advertising is focused on what people are doing, not where they’re doing it. In just a few months, more than 70 publishers and developers have partnered with appssavvy and integrated the adtivity platform and adtivity Mobile SDK into activities representing millions of daily opportunities for advertisers.

Unlike existing technologies that deliver ads based on a page loading, the adtivity API is attached to the event of performing an activity, including updating statuses, collecting, sending and earning virtual goods, polls and contests, and completing a level, visiting a friend or sending a message within a game, and “Like”ing something to name a few.

“The adtivity platform is enhancing our ability to monetize our games in the context of our players experiences,” said Dan Hart, chief revenue officer of Arkadium, a premier developer, publisher and distributor of casual, social, and mobile games. “We have found that activity-based advertising delivers a strong additional revenue stream and enhances our profitability.”

Since launching adtivity by appssavvy, every partner has expanded their integrations and usage of the platform to include new, additional activities, thus increasing the inventory creating the largest activity network available to brands. More than 50 brand advertisers, including American Express, Chase, Coca-Cola, Electronic Arts, HP, Sony and State Farm, to name a few, have implemented activity advertising campaigns.

appssavvy will put today’s Series 1-A round to work by continuing to enhance the adtivity platform, build partnerships and relationships with publishers and advertisers, and expand internationally. For more information about adtivity by appssavvy, visit: www.appssavvy.com.

About appssavvy
appssavvy (www.appssavvy.com) is an activity advertising technology company. Through its adtivity™ platform, appssavvy enables leading web, social and mobile publishers to unlock and create new, display advertising opportunities reaching people as they perform activities. adtivity by appssavvy offers scalable, center-of-the-experience, display ads, thus creating the most effective way to deliver and receive advertising. For more information, visit www.appssavvy.com.

The market for so-called ‘real time bidding’ is estimated to represent up to six billion dollars in the US this year alone, and this figure is expected to quadruple by 2015. According to market researcher IDC, this new trend will potentially exhibit the same growth observed in online European display advertising.

Real time bidding has transformed the previous industry standard media buying process; purchasing is performed automatically, based on an exact budget and upon the advertiser’s target audience.

Without having contact with the media where the ads are bought, media agencies and advertisers are now able to conduct their insertions via the online display platform Adform, whereby everything happens in real time as on a stock market, ensuring that prices and objectives are 100% up-to-date. As a result, advertisers’ ROI may be significantly increased, as transparency is greater with targeted purchases and the price per viewing often decreases. Adform’s method also offers time-saving benefits, as it eliminates the need to have a media contact or to negotiate price, and it can be applied to all campaigns regardless of size or economic status.

“We have an extremely strong established position in Scandinavia and, with our take on real time bidding, we have our sights firmly set on the rest of the European market,” says Martin Stockfleth Larsen, marketing director of Adform.

“Our competitors typically offer a platform that only handles media purchases,” explains Jesper Urban, Adform’s product director. “We have a unique platform that supports the entire process of online display advertising from media planning and buying to optimization and reporting. We will do our utmost to save our clients both time and money,” he promises.

Adform offers real time bidding ad purchase through three of the market’s major players, Microsoft Advertising Exchange, DoubleClick Ad Exchange and Appnexus. The ability to utilize Microsoft’s ad exchange is particularly interesting, as Adform is the first player in the Nordic countries to collaborate with the company.

About Adform
Adform close the loop by integrating media planning, buying, optimization, and reporting for all online display advertising in one place, thus saving an enormous amount of time, money and resources.

Adform’s unique platform incorporates display ad serving, rich media, video, mobile, dynamic ads, personalised targeting, and real-time bidding through integrations with major inventory players, making display advertising simple, relevant and rewarding for media agencies and online advertisers. Adform was established in Denmark in 2002 and now has offices in 10 countries including Nordics, Eastern Europe, UK, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Visit http://www.adform.com or http://www.twitter.com/adforminsider for more information.

London, UK – Improve Digital (www.improvedigital.com), the European Sell Side Platform (SSP), launches an updated version of 2010’s successful ‘market map’ as a visual illustration of the complex European online display advertising eco-system.

The map was released today at ExchangeWire’s Ad Trading Summit in Paris http://www.exchangewire.com/atsparis and is available to download for free from: http://www.improvedigital.com/knowledge

Comparing the new map to last year’s version shows a huge increase in the number of audience targeting networks (200% growth), trading desks (337% growth), and agency trading desks (166% growth) as the industry moves towards audience buying and automation. New players have entered the market, but much of this activity is also undertaken by ad networks expanding their business remit.

As the buy-side rapidly adopts buying and bidding technologies, European premium publishers are also embracing new strategies. They are keen to benefit from Real Time Bidding (RTB) as long as they have full control of how their advertising inventory is being traded and to whom. On a more strategic level they are building and managing their own private ad exchanges, powered by SSP technologies.

“We launched the initial market map to guide our customers through the maze of the rapidly changing online display advertising system,” explains Joëlle Frijters, CEO of Improve Digital. “This year it also acts as a useful industry gauge, for example showing that audience buying is now a reality. But these shifts are not just connected to RTB, they are about creating huge efficiencies through automation, thereby making digital media more attractive overall for advertisers.”

To prepare this edition of the European online display advertising industry as it currently stands, Improve Digital followed the same strategy as for 2010, gathering information from its offices and various partners in the UK and Europe.

About Improve Digital
Improve Digital is the European Sell Side Platform. Founded in Amsterdam, the company provides advertising technology to large publishers that want to build their own Private Ad Exchange and / or Private Ad Market. The company’s mission is to automate the selling of digital media and maximise revenues for publishers through unlocking the value of their content and audiences. Headquartered in Amsterdam, where it was founded in 2008, Improve Digital has sales offices in London, Madrid, Munich and Paris.

Along with traditional banner display ads and in-text options, InTopic Media also offers MicroBanners, a unique form of in-text advertising that turns text into advertiser logos. MicroBanner ads grab web visitors’ attention and direct them to specific products or information via pop-up notification, which allows advertisers to target key demographics at higher conversion rates than traditional in-text ads using underlined words only.

“MicroBanners give us an edge over the competition,” Bakker said. “Our data shows that MicroBanner ads generate significantly higher click-through rates than traditional banners while expanding brand recognition at no additional cost to advertisers. InTopic’s redesign allows our clients to take full advantage of our innovative technology at some of the highest payouts in the industry. We are offering even higher than usual revenue share for a limited time to celebrate our relaunch and reward our loyal base. We are excited about expanding our footprint in online advertising in the coming years and we anticipate a huge response to our new platform and services.”

InTopic Media, LLC, based in Atlanta, GA, offers a number of in-text and traditional online advertising solutions. For more information, visit www.intopicmedia.com or contact Jake Bakker directly at (678) 486-1916 or jbakker@intopicmedia.com.

NEW YORK – Online targeting platform leader [x+1], www.xplusone.com, announced the availability of Media-Aware Home Pages, a new solution that connects display media experiences with personalized website messaging by going beyond clicks to leverage user interactions across the entire Internet. The launch follows a three-month joint development beta period with a consumer subscription services client.

Media-Aware Home Pages know what online media consumers have been exposed to even if they didn’t click on a display ad. It then uses this information to empower marketers to provide more relevant and consistent website messages to improve campaign engagement and performance. With a focus on quality at scale, Media-Aware Home Pages don’t retarget publisher audiences.

“This solution distinguishes [x+1] from ad technology providers who require clicks in order to capture and leverage customer experience data,” said Toby Korner, Vice President of Client Solutions for [x+1]. “With click-through rates (CTR) for online ads averaging only about 0.2% to 0.3%, this process is very limited in reach. Media-Aware Home Pages open up vast new opportunities for marketers to tailor messages to audiences they couldn’t before, going beyond the click to deliver greater content and message relevance and results.”

Media-Aware Home Pages work with [x+1]’s Media+1 and Site+1 products, and are fully integrated with Origin, [x+1]’s Digital Marketing Hub. Benefits include:

- The integration of display ads with website content personalization for a consistent consumer experience
- Better-performing websites
- More insight and understanding of online behavior

For example, a man visits a sports-themed website and is exposed to a company’s ad. Later, if he searches for the company or its product, or visits the company’s site, the Media-Aware Home Page creates a consistent site experience specifically geared to him and his interest in sports – even though he never clicked on an ad.

“The more personalized someone’s online experience and interaction with a brand, the more likely they’ll be to take a desired action – a registration, a purchase,” said Korner.

Using a tracking pixel, Media-Aware Home Pages record who was served which ad and where. When a user later visits a company’s activated Media-Aware Home Page, either through search or typing in a URL, [x+1]’s patented Predictive Optimization Engine (POE) leverages sophisticated mathematical models to determine the optimal messaging for the webpage based on the user’s previous site and ad exposure.

The process happens automatically and in milliseconds, eliminating any manual creation of landing pages by the marketer.

About [x+1]

For more information on [x+1] and digital marketing integration, visit www.xplusone.com; follow on twitter @xplusone.

LOS ANGELES – Online publishing is thriving according to global research by Econsultancy and the Rubicon Project published today, with 73% of publishers saying online display advertising revenue has gone up in last year. Nearly half of publishers (44%) now sell their online display advertising via real-time bidding (RTB), which itself is delivering twenty percent more revenue to publishers. The research also found that two thirds (66%) of publishers sell inventory through online advertising networks.

the Rubicon Project, the US-based advertising technology company, commissioned Econsultancy to survey more than 1,000 internet advertising professionals, including nearly 500 online publishers, sales houses and rep firms, in August and September 2011. The survey follows the publication of a companion report which delivered analysis of similar questions to advertisers and agencies.

Increasing Revenue for Publishers

- The vast majority of publishers surveyed say that their rate card prices have either gone up since last year (40%) or stayed the same (46%). Only 14% of respondents say pricing has decreased. Direct-sold premium inventory accounts for 55% of sales volume, delivering 67% of revenue for publishers (this number is somewhat lower in the US, where 50% of inventory is sold by direct sales team and accounts for 62% of revenue).
- Publishers in the United States are more likely than their European counterparts to say that rate card prices have gone up in the last year (46% of US respondents compared to 36% in Europe).

A similar survey in 2009 found that only 53% of publishers had enjoyed increased display advertising revenues over the previous year. The research shows that supply-side platforms are playing a prominent role in the online advertising ecosystem where real-time bidding is becoming increasingly prevalent. Publishers cite the main benefits of working with supply-side platforms as the ability to open up inventory to RTB (58%), incremental revenue (54%) and extraction of greater value from inventory (48%).

Impact of RTB; growth of Private Marketplaces

- On average, real-time bidding has given publishers 20% uplift on their remnant display ad revenue.
- One in 10 publishers say they have established a private marketplace, and further 35% say they are planning to.
- More than three quarters (78%) of publishers with private exchanges say that this has resulted in demonstrable revenue and a positive lift on yield.

“The truth is in the data, and this report shows that RTB represents a watershed moment for publishers around the globe. RTB is having a positive impact on publishers’ cross-channel monetization strategy, and aligns squarely with the value advertisers are gaining,” said Kara Weber, SVP of Marketing at the Rubicon Project. “We predict that 2012 will mark the confluence of two key trends: a massive influx of new dollars coming online, accompanied and powered by RTB and the broader burst of innovation around the automation of digital ad buying and selling. And most importantly, publishers who leverage a single platform to control access to their inventory, and monetize that asset across all buying channels, can ensure that every impression is sold for the highest possible price.”

The Role of Online Advertising Networks

Econsultancy also surveyed online advertising networks around the world and discovered that 37% of online advertising networks are using RTB for both buying and selling inventory. Around a third (31%) are using RTB just for buying, while 7% are using real-time bidding just for selling. 60% of the ad networks surveyed revealed they buy inventory from other ad networks and 60% buy from online advertising exchanges.

For publishers working with ad networks:

- Three-quarters (74%) of US publishers sell through ad networks, compared to 61% in Europe.
A third (33%) of publishers say they work with more ad networks than a year ago, but 28% work with fewer ad networks.
- On average, globally, 42% of display inventory goes to ad networks, increasing to 51% for the US but decreasing to 34% for Europe.
- On average, globally, 35% of display advertising revenue comes from ad networks (42% in North America and 27% in Europe), up from 33% in 2009.
- One third of pubs do not work with advertising nets and the challenges faced when working with them have increased. One third of all publishers consider channel conflict and data leakage as problems.

Linus Gregoriadis, Econsultancy’s Research Director, added, “This research shows a positive commercial environment for publishers globally, with rate card prices holding steady or increasing for the vast majority of responding companies. Real-time bidding is creating opportunities for publishers who are having to adapt quickly to a fast-changing environment. Ad networks and exchanges continue to play an important role, while supply-side platforms are becoming increasingly influential in the marketplace.”

“The research also looks at how publishers are reacting to data privacy legislation, with half of respondents saying they are worried about changes relating to the use of cookies. Worryingly, a significant proportion of publishers (21%) have a poor understanding of data privacy law and its implications.”

This is Econsultancy’s second Online Publishers Survey Report, produced in association with the Rubicon Project. The study, supported by the IAB UK, IAB France, IAB Europe and AOP, follows a similar piece of research carried out in 2009 and is based on a survey of over 1,000 online advertising professionals carried out in August and September 2011. This report is specifically focused on results from almost 500 publishers around the world. A copy of the full report is available for download from here.

About the Rubicon Project

the Rubicon Project launched in 2007 with a mission to automate buying and selling across the $65 billion global online advertising industry. Powered by data-driven algorithms and pricing intelligence data, REVV, the company’s yield optimization platform, has optimized nearly two trillion ad transactions for more than 450 of the largest properties on the Internet. REVV helps premium Web publishers like Time Inc., News International and CareerBuilder make more money by optimizing their ad space, eliminating unnecessary ad operations costs and protecting their brands. The platform powers the REVV Marketplace, the world’s largest premium display advertising marketplace. More than 650 ad networks, exchanges and DSPs access premium inventory and audiences through the REVV Marketplace and its unparalleled reach of more than 575 million unique users. Headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Seattle, London, Paris, Hamburg and Sydney, the company is backed by $60 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures Asia, Comcast Ventures and News Corporation.

About Econsultancy

Econsultancy is a digital publishing and training group used by more than 200,000 Internet professionals every month. Econsultancy has offices in New York and London, and hosts more than 100 events every year in the US and UK. Many of the world’s most famous brands use Econsultancy to educate and train their staff.

New York – PubMatic (www.PubMatic.com),  a media technology company that provides a holistic inventory, data and advertising revenue optimization platform for digital publishers, today released a study conducted with research firm IDC showing that Real-Time Bidding (RTB) will amount to $6.47 billion in ad spend by 2015 in the U. S. and major markets in Western Europe. The IDC findings, led by Karsten Weide, Program Vice President, Digital Media and Entertainment, have been published in PubMatic’s Ad Revenue Report, which published in conjunction with the Ad Revenue 4 conference taking place today in New York City.

PubMatic’s Ad Revenue Report is available here: www.pubmatic.com/adrevenuereport

The IDC research analyzes the state of RTB across the United States and in Western European nations France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The report estimates the current and past spending on RTB-based display ad sales and forecasts yearly growth until 2015. Highlights from the research include:

·      RTB-Based Spending: By 2015, RTB-based spending will stand for 27% in the United States (up from 10% in 2011), 25% in the UK (up from 6%), 21% in France (upfrom 4%) and 20% in Germany (up from 4%). Total spending on RTB in the US will reach $5.1 billion; $680 MM for the UK; $219 MM for France; and $495 MM forGermany.
·      Expected Growth: Display advertising sales based on RTB will experience strong growth until 2015 in the US (71% from 2010-2015), the UK (114%), France (103%) and Germany (99%).
·      Direct vs. Indirect Sales Related to RTB: By 2015, the majority of indirect ad revenue volume will be traded using RTB in the US and the most developed European markets. By 2015, RTB-based direct sales will contribute to 15% of total RTB sales in the US, 7% in the UK, 14% in Germany, and 13% in France.

“Real-Time Bidding is rapidly penetrating the display ad market, with spending nearly doubling in 2011. Furthermore, we expect it to double again in 2012. The value it brings to both publishers and marketers is undeniable,” said Karsten Weide, Program Vice President, Digital Media and Entertainment, IDC.

“Spending on RTB will grow not just for indirectly sold inventory – premium inventory will also be sold via RTB on a much greater scale in the near future,” said Rajeev Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of PubMatic. “The benefits of automation are clear for all parties in the display ecosystem.”

Catalysts for RTB
RTB has been growing due to its promise of improving return on investment for publishers, agencies and advertisers. Through RTB, publishers stand to improve yield, automate sales processes, and reduce costs. Agencies and advertisers benefit because RTB trading improves campaign efficiency and return on ad spend.

The Future: Automating Direct Sales
The mounting pressure to improve profitability will compel more and more publishers to transition into RTB-based trading of directly sold inventory. As advertisers become more comfortable with the process for indirect ad sales, they will demand more ways of incorporating it with ad buys, which will include media bought directly from publishers.

Methodology
Information for the Ad Revenue Report was gathered by IDC through multiple sources including in depth interviews with senior online advertising industry executives in the US, UK, France and Germany as well as IDC’s own proprietary research. IDC uses a predictive model to forecast RTB data.

The full IDC report is available here: www.pubmatic.com/idc

About PubMatic
PubMatic’s (http://www.PubMatic.com) ad management and monetization technology combines an impression-level ad auction, the most comprehensive brand protection tools, and enterprise ad operations support to give the Web’s top publishers the most control over their revenue and brand. Some of the world’s most respected online publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, TV Guide, and the majority of the comScore Top 10.

PubMatic is privately held, backed by funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures, and has seven offices around the world in the US, Europe, and Asia.

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, and dunnhumbyUSA, a global leader in building brand value for consumer goods and retail companies, released results of multiple studies measuring the offline sales impact of online display advertising for consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertisers. Retail sales were measured by analytically linking the permission-based comScore panel of one million U.S. Internet users to their anonymous loyalty card in-store purchase data provided by dunnhumbyUSA; no identifiable personal data was disclosed. By comparing the in-store brand buying of households exposed to online advertising with that of households not exposed, it was possible to determine the impact of online advertising campaigns. The results of the studies indicate that exposure to online display ads can lead to improved in-store sales for CPG brands.

“Effective advertising has always been about increasing awareness, favorability and purchase intent in order to increase in-store conversion,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “After several years of conducting advertising effectiveness research for CPG brands, we are learning how digital campaigns can lift sales in retail stores. It’s now clear that online ad campaigns should be an integral part of any CPG marketer’s integrated communications strategy.”

“The comScore dunnhumbyUSA research highlights the potential impact of an integrated, customer-driven approach across channels,” added Matthew Keylock, Senior Vice President, New Business Development & Partnerships at dunnhumbyUSA. “With these results we are one step closer to a more comprehensive understanding of what motivates shoppers to buy and how online advertising can play a significant role along the path to purchase.”

CPG Campaigns Show Median Offline Sales Lift of 21 Percent

An analysis of multiple CPG online ad campaigns that involved comparing the offline buying of households exposed to advertising with the buying behavior of households who were not exposed revealed a median in-store sales lift of 21 percent among the exposed households, with five out of every six campaigns generating a positive sales lift. Approximately 70 percent of campaigns generated a double-digit sales lift, and more than 40 percent generated lifts of at least 30 percent.

Ads Anonymously Targeted to In-Store Brand Buyers Drive Incremental Conversion

comScore also analyzed the offline sales results of a limited set of ad effectiveness campaigns that leveraged a new advertising product called Microsoft CPG Online Effect. This solution uses sophisticated predictive targeting algorithms powered by anonymous in-store buying data from dunnhumbyUSA coupled with online browsing data from comScore. These targeting algorithms are deployed by Microsoft Corp. across its network of sites.

The results showed an in-store sales lift of 42 percent, double the lift from campaigns that were not targeted using this approach. These results demonstrate how targeting algorithms can help improve efficiency and effectiveness in display ad delivery, providing more relevant ads to consumers, improved ROI for advertisers and higher CPMs for publishers. Dr Pepper Snapple Group is one of more than 20 CPG advertisers that have used this purchase-based targeting solution.

*Non-purchased based targeting includes, but is not limited to, the following types of media-placement strategies: contextual, audience, run of site/run of network, etc.

Mr. Fulgoni added: “Based on these results, the power of purchase-based ad targeting is clear. By delivering a relevant and persuasive message to the appropriate consumer segment, brand buying at retail stores can be increased substantially. It’s clear that the level of accuracy in reaching a brand’s consumer target that is possible with the Internet can drive ROI several times higher than what can be obtained using traditional media channels.”

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

About dunnhumbyUSA
dunnhumby is the global leader in personalizing customers’ experience of retailers and brands. Analyzing data from over 350 million people in 25 countries, we help companies put customers at the center of every decision. We use our insight to improve customers’ experience of stores and communications to earn their lifetime loyalty. Our work with some of the world’s biggest retailers and brands has demonstrated that those companies that deliver value to customers through personalization become and stay their customers’ first choice. This strategic approach to putting the customer first in business improves our clients’ like-for-like sales and profit margins – or, put simply, their brand value. dunnhumbyUSA is a joint venture of The Kroger Company and London-based dunnhumby. Employing more than 1,500 people in 30 offices in Europe, Asia and the Americas, dunnhumby serves a prestigious list of companies including The Kroger Co., Tesco, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kimberly-Clark, Macy’s, Panera Bread Company, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble. For more information, visit www.dunnhumby.com.

NEW YORK – Internet ad revenues rose 23.2 percent — to a record $14.9 billion — in the first half of 2011, according to figures released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC US). The rate of growth more than doubled year-over-year, as last year’s first-half ad revenues of $12.1 billion had represented an 11.3 percent increase over 2009.

Internet ad revenues for the second quarter alone also reached new heights, increasing 24.1 percent to $7.7 billion. That performance compares to last year’s same-period revenues of $6.2 billion, up 13.9 percent from 2009.

Display-related advertising — which includes banner ads, rich media, digital video and sponsorships — totaled more than $5.5 billion in the first six months of 2011. Display increased 27.1 percent over the same period in 2010, substantially exceeding the previous year’s growth rate of 16 percent. Digital video once again commanded double-digit growth — up 42.1 percent over a year ago, and moved close to the $1 billion mark with $891 million in half year 2011 revenue.

Display accounted for 37 percent of all interactive spend in the first half of 2011, with search remaining the leading online category at 49 percent of the total — nearly $7.3 billion. Search and Display each grew about 27 percent year-over-year, with Search more than doubling its previous year’s growth rate of 11.6 percent.

In other online ad formats, dollars spent on lead generation increased 25.4 percent over the same period in 2010, but classified ad dollars were down 2 percent and email spend decreased 34.2 percent.

IAB and PwC US looked at revenue models supporting online ads. Ads using performance-based models increased faster than ads using impression-based models, rising to $9.6 billion. Impression-based ad spend did grow by 10.8 percent, though that pricing model accounted for only 31 percent of total ads, down from 35 percent year-over-year.

“The remarkably resilient performance of interactive advertising so far in 2011 demonstrates that more marketers are placing big bets on digital to tell their brand stories,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. “This welcome news, in light of the weakness in a large part of the rest of the U.S. economy, confirms that the innovations happening in interactive marketing deliver great value to the industry and to the consumer.”

“Strong online advertising growth has continued into the first half of 2011,” said David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. “Fueling this growth is the ability of advertisers to correlate performance and results with the dollars they are investing.”

“These figures build upon the positive news we saw in the 2010 year-end revenue report,” said Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Industry Services, IAB. “It’s a clear signal that all of us in the interactive advertising industry are delivering meaningful results to marketers — and that they are confident in investing in interactive.”

Annual Figures

The following chart highlights half-year Internet ad revenue since the IAB began measurements in 1996; dollar figures are rounded.

Ad Category Breakouts (in millions)

Revenue Pricing Models (in millions)

The IAB sponsors the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, which is conducted independently by the Internet Media Group of PwC US. The results are considered the most accurate measurement of interactive advertising revenues because the data is compiled directly from information supplied by companies selling advertising on the Internet. The survey includes data concerning online advertising revenues from Web sites, commercial online services, free e-mail providers, and all other companies selling online advertising.

The full report is issued twice yearly for full and half-year data, and top-line quarterly estimates are issued for the first and third quarters. PwC does not audit the information and provides no opinion or other form of assurance with respect to the information. Past reports are available at www.iab.net/AdRevenueReport.

About the IAB

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About the PwC Network

PwC firms provide industry-focused assurance, tax and advisory services to enhance value for their clients. More than 161,000 people in 154 countries in firms across the PwC network share their thinking, experience and solutions to develop fresh perspectives and practical advice. See www.pwc.com for more information.

AUSTIN, Texas – Adometry™, Inc., the leader in cross channel attribution, verification and optimization solutions for online advertisers, today announced the release of new campaign optimization features of the Adometry Ad Analytics SaaS Solution Suite. The optimization capabilities are the first to help online marketers improve advertising campaign performance by identifying how specific interactions between display and search channels impact conversions. In addition, the new features dynamically recommend ways advertisers and agencies can adjust campaign investments across channels in order to maximize future budget allocation and improve Return-On-Ad-Spend (ROAS) by 20-50 percent.

Unlike current optimization methods, which rely on manual methods to derive insights from attribution reports, the Adometry solution automates the advertising campaign analysis and optimization process for thousands of different attribution and campaign variables. This ensures marketers are leveraging the most accurate optimization recommendations to drive higher overall conversions and boost campaign performance.

Additional details on the new campaign optimization features from Adometry include:

- Automated Cross Channel Optimization and Media Mix Allocation – Leverages Adometry’s unique fractional attribution methodology to dynamically recommend specific campaign adjustments, including identifying the ideal mix of search and display advertising investments that will maximize overall conversions. These recommendations provide for significant and measurable improvement in overall campaign effectiveness and ROAS.
- Campaign-Oriented Customization – Allows agencies and advertisers to customize optimization recommendations based on specific advertising campaign goals, such as increasing brand awareness, improving reach, and driving conversions. In addition, it utilizes campaign constraints to ensure that resulting optimization recommendations are actionable. The interface provides advertisers with built-in campaign goal criteria and allows them to design their own.
- Actionable UI Dashboard – Provides graphical representations and views of campaign performance that make it easier for advertisers to review data and recommendations in order to take action on future campaign investments.

“Today’s manual approach to campaign optimization does not provide advertisers with the accurate intelligence they need to understand how campaigns are performing or where they can be improved,” said Paul Pellman, CEO of Adometry. “Our new optimization capabilities allow advertisers to automate the entire process so they make the right decisions on future ad investments and improve results.”

To learn more about the Adometry actionable campaign optimization features, visit Adometry’s Ad Analytics SaaS Solution Suite. For more information on Adometry, visit www.adometry.com or follow us on Twitter: @Adometry.

About Adometry

Adometry, Inc. provides scoring, auditing, verification, and attribution metrics to optimize results for online advertisers, agencies, publishers, and ad networks. Tracking billions of impressions in real-time, reporting on where they appeared, for how long, and to what effect; the Adometry mission is to bring greater levels of transparency and accountability to the online advertising industry. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Adometry is privately held and backed by Sierra Ventures, Austin Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Stanford University. For more information visit www.adometry.com.

Emeryville, CA – Tribal Fusion, the global online display advertising provider, and BlueKai, the world’s only complete platform for data management, analysis and acquisition, have struck a new deal to more deeply integrate BlueKai Exchange data for audience insights and online media buying through Tribal Fusion.

The agreement enables display campaigns planned and bought through Tribal Fusion to be tailored based on users’ purchase intentions ‘in real time, all the time’ and enable additional scale when targeting campaigns at users with specific purchase intent behavior, as well as improved campaign optimization and faster set-up times.

It will also help Tribal Fusion provide richer audience insights reports for its advertiser and agency clients to detail the precise purchase behavior of converting customers and enable even more effective media planning and buying.

The deal builds on the two companies’ existing relationship in which Tribal Fusion is a BlueKai Premier Partner and adds a new layer of integrated data to Tribal Fusion’s already extensive user data and profiling platform, E9.

“BlueKai’s purchase intent data, in particular, is complementary to our own interest-based data, increasing the efficiency of our audience insights and look-alike models,” says Doug Conely, Senior Director of Data and Targeting at Tribal Fusion. “We’re also excited about the opportunity to extend our dynamic ad capabilities using auto model and travel destination purchase intent data.”

“We recognized the potential of third-party audience data several years ago and were an early partner of BlueKai,” says Dilip Da Silva, CEO of Tribal Fusion. “We’ve built our technology to work hand in hand with theirs and our teams have worked closely together over time to understand the pockets of opportunity and scale our businesses. This integration is the next step.”

“We are excited to see partners like Tribal Fusion embrace the BlueKai Exchange as one of their integrated third-party data sources,” says Jon Ingalls, Chief Marketing Officer at BlueKai.  “The partnership is a testament to Tribal Fusion’s ongoing commitment to delivering data-centric targeting strategies and meaningful audience analytics to their clients.”

Tribal Fusion (www.tribalfusion.com) is a digital marketing solutions company that drives superior results at all levels of the purchase funnel. Our company is built around dedicated vertical teams that leverage their industry-specific knowledge of “what works” to create fully customized advertising solutions to help companies capitalize on opportunities at every level of the consumer decision process. From custom “brand channels” to increase awareness to vertical-specific targeting tools to drive immediate purchase, Tribal Fusion offers smarter solutions that drive greater results.

Tribal Fusion is a part of the Exponential Group of online businesses – a technology-enabled media services company that delivers innovative products and services to meet the demands of today’s digital advertisers and publishers. Through a variety of offerings that includes Tribal Fusion, the Exponential™ group of businesses enables online advertisers to reach their target audiences from around the globe to across town. Headquartered in Emeryville, CA, Tribal Fusion operates offices across the US, India, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

BlueKai (www.bluekai.com) provides leading solutions for comprehensive data management, acquisition and analytics to maximize performance from all audience data. The BlueKai Platform™ is a complete technology solution for managing private data assets and analyzing campaign performance to maximize return on marketing dollars. The BlueKai Exchange™ is the world’s largest marketplace for anonymous 3rd party audience data, with exclusive access to BlueKai Intent™ and branded data in reaching more than 200M unique users across the entire marketing funnel. As an industry leader in consumer transparency and control, BlueKai has created book-end solutions including a registry for consumers to see what marketers know about them, edit their online preferences and gain rewards through charitable donations. The privately-held company is based in Cupertino, Calif. and is a recipient of the 2011 OnMedia B2B Company of the Year Award.

Otilia Otlacan: First of all, congratulations for a very successful series C! Can you share with us what will be your main focus area for the coming quarters?
Dave Gwozdz: Thanks, we’re really pleased with the series C and what it will do for the company.  Our main focus is for Mojiva Inc. to continue being the premiere mobile display advertising technology company operating the most premium ad network in the industry and the ad serving platform which powers the mobile advertising of some of the largest publishers. So, first and foremost, we want to provide the best service to our clients and publishers and continue developing our platforms based on their needs, whether it’s executing large rich media campaigns or utilizing the unique targeting methods on mobile devices.

Otilia Otlacan: Industry experts keep talking of a resurgence of display advertising. How does mobile advertising fall into this trend?
Dave Gwozdz: With all of the advanced rich media available to create impressive and functional ad units and the technology that marketers now have to measure their ad spend, it makes sense to make it a large part of the media mix. Combine that with the personal nature of the mobile device, and that equated to an undeniably attractive outlet for marketers to lean on.

Otilia Otlacan: Mojiva Inc. has a very impressive client roster. In your experience, what hurdles are most challenging to overcome when convincing an advertiser to shift budgets from traditional display advertising to mobile?
Dave Gwozdz: Most marketers understand that most or all of their actions should be considered through the prism of ROI. This industry is still in its early stages, so one of the major hurdles is justifying their ad spend, going from an online ad market that is extremely measurable (relatively speaking, although there has been much debate about impressions and such), to a mobile ad market that does not have a truly standardized way of understanding how effective campaigns are. But, we as an industry are slowly moving toward that; as a premiere member of the Mobile Marketing Association, Mojiva Inc. is a company that is dedicated to standardizing the measurement methods in mobile, helping advertisers understand their mobile efforts through better analytics and helping publishers/app developers more effectively monetize their mobile content.

Otilia Otlacan: Mobile ad serving has been a darling of the tech geeks for quite some time, with many companies developing mobile-oriented ad servers, or adding a mobile component to traditional ones. How does Mojiva Inc.’s mobile ad serving solution position itself on the market?
Dave Gwozdz: It’s a fact that basic ad serving is not too difficult and there are many companies that offer the ability to serve an ad. However, it’s the much more complex functionalities that our Mocean Mobile platform incorporates that really allows a publisher to not just serve ads, but take control of their entire mobile content landscape and organize it as a business. The problem with retrofitting any online solution for mobile is that there will be issues with implementation. We see some of the advertising conglomerate players offering a mobile component to their ad server, but, on the ground, we’ve heard the complaints from publishers about how they don’t feel as if they have all the tools at their disposal. Because we built Mocean Mobile from the ground up for mobile devices (smartphones, tablets and netbooks), we have provided the necessary tools that our clients expect, from supporting the latest in rich media creative to campaign reporting and forecasting. And, because our staff works so closely with our partners, that high-touch relationship allows them to provide input into future developments of the platform. That’s flexibility you can’t find with other offerings.

Otilia Otlacan: Last but not least, do you think that mobile display advertising can finally be regarded as mainstream, and not the ever-awkward channel that nobody dares to throw very large budgets at?
Dave Gwozdz: Considering that more than 230 million Americans used a mobile device in June 2011 (according to comScore) and a day doesn’t go by without the introduction of a newer, better, less expensive and more functional smartphone or tablet, we may be there already. Heck, Amazon alone has been forecast to sell three to five million tablets just in Q4 2011!  Clearly the install base for the mobile industry has certainly gone mainstream. This is just massive. Why? Because these devices are now a critical, can’t-be-without appendage of our everyday lives, and that true on a global basis. No big brands will miss this anymore, its just to big.  As the technology begins to further streamline the process (i.e. HTML5 development, etc.), we will see more and more marketers understanding how effective and ROI-friendly mobile actually is. It’s unstoppable!

About Dave Gwozdz – Chief Executive Officer, Mojiva
Dave Gwozdz has spent much of his career in the emerging media space and since 2008, has been leading the team at Mojiva Inc to develop some of the most cutting-edge mobile advertising solutions in the industry.

Earlier in his career, Gwozdz served as a member of the founding team of DoubleClick, the internet advertising company acquired by Google for $3 billion in March2008. Throughout his time as VP of Sales, he was tasked with developing and implementing their media sales product and sales strategies. In 1995, Dave also founded one of the first online ad networks, Hot Link Media.

Dave previously held various management positions at McGraw-Hill, Ziff Davis and CMP.

Dave regularly shares his experiences in new media at various events and conferences, some of which include: ad:tech, MMA Global’s CEO Summit, Intel Elements and AlwaysOn.

About Mojiva Inc
Mojiva Inc. is the parent company of the mobile ad network, Mojiva, and the mobile ad serving platform, Mocean Mobile. Mojiva Inc. has a total of $35 million venture funding from Shamrock Capital Advisors, Pelion Venture Partners and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments. Founded in May 2008 and based in New York City, Mojiva Inc. is lead by a team of advertising and media veterans from Google, DoubleClick, Yahoo, and AdMob, with more than 100 years of collective experience in mobile marketing and technology.

MCLEAN, Va. & SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), the premier digital media company, today announced they will expand their local advertising partnership to all 19 broadcasting division markets by February 2012. The partnership brings together Gannett’s powerful local media organization brands, sales solutions, and digital platforms with Yahoo!’s market leading reach and display advertising leadership.

“We’re focused on delivering strong results for our customers through unique marketing ideas and solutions,” said Dave Lougee, president of Gannett Broadcasting. “Gannett’s local advertising partnership with Yahoo! provides dynamic targeting based on geography, demographics, behaviors and interests, which enhances our ability to drive those results. Based on the success we have had to date in nine of our markets, we are expanding the Gannett Broadcasting and Yahoo! partnership to all 19 of our markets by early next year.”

Gannett’s broadcast media properties deliver a suite of multimedia solutions for customers through their trusted brands and deep understanding of the local markets they serve.

In addition to nine of Gannett’s Broadcasting Division markets, all 81 of Gannett’s local publishing organizations offer Yahoo! advertising as part of their integrated marketing services. Gannett’s local media organizations typically reach 80% or more of the total digital audience in each of the markets that offer the Yahoo! advertising partnership.

Yahoo! offers all the elements needed for great advertising today: the science to understand and target an audience, the art to create lasting engagement with consumers through context, and the scale to reach the right person in the right setting in meaningful numbers.

“Yahoo! is committed to making sure local businesses reach high-quality target audiences,” said Lem Lloyd, Yahoo!’s vice president of North America channel sales. “By expanding our relationship with Gannett, we’re reinforcing our commitment to extend Yahoo!’s local offering, providing advertisers access to the technology and scale they need to effectively reach these audiences.”

About Gannett

Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) is an international media and marketing solutions company that informs and engages more than 100 million people every month through its powerful network of broadcast, digital, mobile, and publishing properties. Our portfolio of trusted brands offers marketers unmatched local-to-national reach and customizable, innovative marketing solutions across any platform. Gannett is committed to connecting people – and the companies who want to reach them – with their interests and communities. For more information, visit www.gannett.com.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) is the premier digital media company, creating deeply personal digital experiences that keep more than half a billion people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe. And Yahoo!’s unique combination of Science + Art + Scale connects advertisers to the consumers who build their businesses. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.com) or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com). Yahoo! is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc.

NEW YORK – Inc. magazine has ranked Spongecell, the interactive display advertising company that is leading the creative resurgence of online display, at 76th on its annual ranking of the nation’s 500 fastest-growing private companies in recognition of Spongecell’s three-year sales growth of 3,064 percent. In addition to being No. 76 on its overall list, Spongecell also ranked No. 9 within the Advertising and Marketing industry and No. 7 within the state of New York.

The list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy—America’s independent entrepreneurs. Companies such as Microsoft, Zappos, Intuit, Jamba Juice, Zipcar, Clif Bar, Vizio, Oracle, and many others achieved gained early exposure as members of the Inc. 500.

Spongecell, a New York based company that transforms standard banner ads into dynamic flash ads with rich media-like functionality has grown from pre-revenue in 2007 to $3.8 million in sales in 2010. Last year the company ran over 1,000 campaigns, up from 10 in ‘08. In that same time span, the company staff has grown from 5 to 40 located throughout the United States and Europe. The company recently completed a new round of financing led by Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman, and Jim Pallotta, Chairman and Managing Director of Raptor Group.

“Spongecell’s growth has been extraordinary, especially in a struggling economy,” says Founding CEO Ben Kartzman. “But staying at the forefront of API-enabled technology that is pushing the boundaries of the next generation of display advertising has been a major factor. We are pleased that our extraordinary sales growth has been recognized by Inc.  It’s a great honor, and we remain committed to delivering the best possible technology and products to our clients and partners.”

The 2011 Inc. 500, featured in the September issue of Inc. is a group of companies that are smaller but much faster-growing than last year’s crop. Aggregate revenue is $10.5 billion, with a median three-year growth of 1,275 percent. The companies on this year’s list employ more than 46,000 people and generated over 35,000 jobs in the past three years. Complete results of the Inc. 500, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found on Inc.com/500.

Here is a link to this release:
http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/news.html?d=230705

Spongecell (https://Spongecell.com/) is leading the creative resurgence of online display advertising by combining speed, innovation and advanced engineering to transform standard banner ads into rich-media-like interactive ads that can run in any ad placement on the web.  The company works with creative and media agencies to serve thousands of engaging campaigns across billions of impressions for global brand advertisers every year. Spongecell is an independent company founded in 2006 with headquarters in New York and offices throughout the United States and Europe.

“Collective is uniquely poised to meet the needs of advertisers seeking to strengthen brand awareness and affinity among key audiences,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO, Collective. “We’re delighted to welcome great talent and foster opportunities for advertisers to get to know Collective first hand.”

The Advertiser Solutions Group will support clients in their efforts to boost brand awareness and affinity among key audiences. Major focus will be on a client education initiative and collaboration with Collective’s US field team to engage today’s biggest marketers. The new unit will be overseen by Jed Savage, who was appointed Executive Vice President, Media Sales and Strategy in May.

“Molly and Phil are industry veterans who have built their careers working directly with clients to solve complex marketing challenges,” said Savage. “They are a great addition to the Collective team.”

The addition of the Advertiser Solutions Group comes in the wake of Collective’s acquisition of dynamic creative optimization specialist, Tumri, which further strengthens the company’s ability to manage the entire ad delivery process. Combined with audience targeting and analytics products, Collective has created an unrivalled offering in the marketplace and the industry’s most comprehensive suite of brand advertising solutions.

Molly Ford, Senior Vice President, Advertising Solutions

Molly is a pioneer of new media with more than 25 years of marketing and sales experience. She was one of the original search engine executives and has held senior management positions at Business Week, U.S. News and World Report, Infoseek, and AOL. During her post at AOL, Molly facilitated its turnaround during the height of the busy signal problem. Most recently, she served as the SVP of Corporate Sales and Marketing for Time Inc., where she worked collaboratively with the magazine and digital divisions of Time Warner, as well as serving on Time Warner’s advertising council.

Phil Frank, Vice President Advertising Solutions.

Phil brings more than 20 years of experience working in blue chip marketing, sales and advertising and has managed sales organizations and sold digital advertising for AOL, Time Warner, BabyCenter and the Hispanic media company Batanga. He has spent time on the agency side, serving as Media Director at both Ogilvy and Ammirati & Puris and has also worked in the creative environment as the General Manager/New York at Pereira & O’Dell.

Collective has also elevated the role of former SVP, Audience Insights Justin Evans, to SVP Emerging Media. Justin will shepherd the launch of new business lines for Collective, including social and mobile. Justin joined Collective in June 2010, managing the company’s data and research teams. Justin leads Collective’s self-regulatory efforts and is on the Board of Advisors for Tynt, a leader in online interest graph data.

About Collective

Collective helps brand advertisers connect and engage with target audiences across display, video and social media. Collective’s industry expertise provides a strategic advantage to its clients by leveraging proprietary audience modeling, insights and ad effectiveness metrics. Our flagship products, Collective Display and Collective Video®, are powered by AMP®, our market-proven data and media management platform. Collective is headquartered in New York with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and India. Collective’s investors include Accel Partners®, Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital. For more information, please visit www.collective.com.

Otilia Otlacan: First of all, congratulations for Pictela’s pushdown ad becoming one of IAB’s rising star formats earlier this year. Could you walk us through the specifics of this ad format and tell us why would advertisers and publishers adopt it?

Greg Rogers: Thank you. The IAB Pushdown is a 970×90 ad unit positioned at the top of the page.  When a consumer rolls over it, the creative expands. The ad is made up of various applications, many of which offer social media sharing capabilities. Publishers and advertisers may appreciate this ad unit because it’s less intrusive than standard rich media, allows the same brand building capabilities as the IAB Portrait with the various applications, and places great brand content next to great publisher content.

Otilia Otlacan: We witness a phenomenon of display advertising getting hot and trendy again. Do you think it’s the resurgence of display advertising driving the creation of new ad formats, or the other way around?

Greg Rogers: I do think the creation of new ad formats is helping to cause a resurgence in display advertising. New formats like the 300×1050 IAB Portrait, which is a larger canvas for advertisers (along with the other IAB Rising Stars), is setting the stage for a revitalization of display.  The innovation in formats, unit functionality and the impact on the consumer experience, is changing online advertising.

Otilia Otlacan: I understand that one of IAB’s main criteria is evaluating new ad formats was branding power, namely how much brand creativity is supported by the ad format. How about direct response and the new display advertising, is it utopic to think they may go hand in hand?

Greg Rogers: Online has long been seen as the answer to direct response for advertising, but this has been somewhat limiting to the growth of digital advertising. Online advertising needs to be seen as a medium for storytelling and brand building as well.  It’s not utopic to believe they may go hand in hand because it is very possible to keep brand integrity – even build a brand – and drive a response. For example, AOL’s research with IPG Media Labs proves the IAB Portrait ad can impact the entire purchase funnel by attracting attention 35% faster than competing units, resulting in 7x more interaction than standard banner ads, and a 263% increase in purchase intent.

Otilia Otlacan: For the techies among our readers, can you tell us how do complex ads like the Pictela pushdown unit work with traditional ad servers? Are there any challenges in implementing these ads on the publisher side?

Greg Rogers: Pictela ads have to be served through our platform because of the large amounts of brand content and assets flowing through them.  We can easily implement 3rd party impression and click trackers to integrate with client reporting systems as needed.

Otilia Otlacan: Pictela is young, clearly innovative, and has AOL’s backup. What are your plans for the future, anything exciting on the horizon that you can share with us?

Greg Rogers: Right now we support 10 standard applications (video gallery, photo gallery, product showcase, etc) within our ad units that serve and display rich branded content to the consumer.  We are constantly thinking about and planning for the next 10 applications specific to vertical industries – encouraging additional brand dollars to flow online.

About Greg Rogers, Co-founder and CEO Pictela
Greg drives strategy for Pictela (www.pictela.com). His goal is to revolutionize display advertising for brand marketers by delivering high-definition brand content across the web.
Previously, Greg was Vice President, Sales Strategy for TACODA, a behavioral targeting online ad network acquired by AOL in 2007. His inspiration for start-ups came from working with Professor Clay Christensen on theories of disruptive technologies following Greg’s undergraduate years at Harvard.

NEW YORK – Epic Marketplace (www.epicmarketplace.com), one of the world’s leading integrated multichannel digital marketing solutions providers leveraging the social media, mobile, display, and video channels, announced the completion of its migration to a comprehensive new cross-channel ad serving Platform. The new Platform provides for a seamless integration between all of Epic Marketplace’s distribution channels, and the ability to acquire inventory on either a real-time bidding (RTB) or direct basis, all with a universal frequency cap. An enhanced attribution analytics engine is a key component of the new Platform.

The new Platform represents a substantial transformation of the Epic Marketplace ad serving paradigm. Among the changes, the company has decommissioned its segment verification program, which was a component of its legacy ad server. The new Platform was architected and built with an enhanced suite of consumer privacy protections, positioning the company to further enhance its world-class status as a leader in digital marketing consumer protection best practices.

The new Epic Marketplace Platform is driven by a proprietary Optimization Engine (OE) that is built around advanced polynomial statistical analysis. The OE, as the “brain” of the new platform, is data-type agnostic and analyzes data input on a non-PII basis from multiple sources – e.g., social media data, cookie data, mobile data – and then renders targeting solutions applicable across all of Epic’s distribution channels. Among the critical targeting solution sets are strong core competencies in audience aggregation, keyword bidding and contextual analytics, the latter via a real time semantic contextual engine.

“This new Platform is a culmination of a vision we set forth several years ago,” said Don Mathis, President and CEO of Epic Marketplace. “With its launch, we are fully positioned for the next five years of growth in our sector – which will be all about the integrated campaign and the opportunity to provide our clients with cross-channel digital marketing solutions, not just a stand-alone display media buy or a social fan campaign, for example. With the new Platform, we can help clients achieve their marketing objectives across the critical digital traffic channels and throughout the marketing funnel.”

Epic Marketplace has strongly leveraged its deep partnership with LucidMedia in the development of certain components of the new Platform’s infrastructure. In particular, the new Platform utilizes key components of LucidMedia’s comprehensive demand-side, real-time bidding (RTB) management platform and its patented semantic contextual targeting engine as integral pieces of the infrastructure of the new Platform.

Through the new Platform, Epic Marketplace is confident that it will provide even greater value for its clients. The company’s enhanced capabilities will allow it to scale campaigns with a universal frequency cap and in a fully integrated approach across social, mobile, display and video, across its own network of premium inventory, and across major exchanges and supply-side platforms such as AdMeld, PubMatic and Rubicon.

“We’re very pleased that after such a long process, this important work for Epic Marketplace has been completed so effectively – and on-time,” said Mathis. “Our new Platform solidifies our market leadership position and allows us to leverage data and enhanced statistical targeting across all critical digital marketing channels. Moreover, the new Platform has been built with an enhanced suite of consumer privacy protections, further ensuring our compliance leadership position as well.”

For more information on Epic Marketplace, please log onto http://www.epicmarketplace.com.

About Epic Marketplace:

Epic Marketplace (www.epicmarketplace.com) is the leading integrated multichannel digital marketing solutions provider leveraging social media, mobile, display, and video. Through Epic Marketplace, the top brands and agencies can engage, persuade, influence and communicate with their best consumers and prospects helping to grow and enhance their brand while boosting sales and creating sustainable relationships.

About LucidMedia

LucidMedia (www.lucidmedia.com) is the most comprehensive and transparent digital advertising management platform for targeting and optimizing display campaigns. The LucidMedia demand-side platform (DSP) with ClickSense® page-level contextual analysis and intelligent real-time bidding (RTB) is available as both self-service and managed service to interactive agencies and brand advertisers. LucidMedia’s platform employs an easy-to-use interface to deliver proprietary optimization, consolidated buying across the Internet’s largest repositories, unique insight into real-time inventory availability, preemptive brand safety, universal frequency capping, and reach into 95% of the online population. Founded in 1999, LucidMedia processes more than one billion impressions daily for hundreds of major brand advertisers.

Otilia Otlacan: Your company, Buysight (www.buysight.com), has recently announced the launch of an ad platform that can bring display ads closer to the paid search model of effectiveness. Why do you think there was a need to push display ads in that direction, what was the main driver?

Jeff Weitzman: Display has failed to meet the needs of a very large segment of online advertisers, specifically transaction-driven advertisers that traditionally use direct-response marketing methods. Most of them use paid search extensively, but display has not been able to deliver the return on investment they need. Even recent advancements in “audience” targeting have not met their goals. Audience buys work well when you’re trying to create awareness of your brand within a target group. If you are measuring success by incremental sales driven, however, you need to be even more specific in your advertising. Search has been successful because it receives a clear intent signal from the consumer and delivers a real-time ad in response to that intent. That’s what we’re doing with display ads: intent and response. In our case, the intent signals need to be collected and interpreted. It’s harder to do that paid search, but the opportunity is huge.

Otilia Otlacan: There’s talk of a resurgence of display ads for quite some time, yet no breakthru ad products have surfaced out of it (save for a few new ad formats). How would a RTB intention-based ad product fall into the new landscape of display ads?

Jeff Weitzman: Display ad revenues are growing, but not as fast as they should be. I think as an industry we’ve focused on how online display can be more like TV. People see the dollars going into television and they want to tap into that revenue stream. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, but they are very different media, and it’s not clear those dollars will shift easily. We’re taking a somewhat different approach. We’re trying to expand the pool of advertisers using online display, and make it possible for them to spend far more money online than they are at present. They spend on paid search, but the inventory for the keyword pool they need is ultimately limited. If we can proactively reach and out find the right users for them as opposed to waiting for them to search, these advertisers will spend a lot more money.

Otilia Otlacan: Branding vs direct response: in the light of the recent Forbes and Coremetrics survery, would you say that branding is slowly becoming obsolete?

Jeff Weitzman: I think you’re referring to the study that showed marketers are focused on customer retention and acquisition. (“Bringing 20/20 Foresight to Marketing”) Keep in mind that that survey was conducted among companies who are heavy spenders on Internet advertising, and the industries they covered are heavy direct-response marketers. So perhaps the Forbes survey isn’t the right one to look at with regard to brand advertising. I don’t think branding is becoming obsolete at all. That said, branding and direct response are two very different approaches to marketing and accomplish different things. Generally speaking, branding is focused on generating awareness and consideration of the brand in the consumer’s mind—so-called “top of funnel” goals. While direct response can generate those responses as well, DR campaigns generally focus on conversion to sale and tend toward highly measurable media. The Forbes study showed the heavy online marketers see customer acquisition and retention as a top priority, nd the stats show they are heavy buyers of search marketing. We know we can meet those marketer’s need for retention and acquisition in the display space using our Buyer Targeting.

Otilia Otlacan: New advertising models and new targeting solutions usually come with their own set of metrics, or with a re-interpretation of traditional ones. What metrics should media buyers look for in a real-time user-intent targeting campaign?

Jeff Weitzman: In this case I think our clients’ existing metrics are going to be the most relevant. They need to drive transactions and they know how much they are willing to spend to see a given return in orders and revenue. So our clients usually look at return on ad spend, or cost of marketing. The biggest challenge in our space is attribution. Most are still using a “last click” attribution model, meaning their are giving credit for the entire sale to the last touchpoint they had with the customer before a purchase. This model has obvious flaws; common sense tells us that a consumer may be influenced by repeated touchpoints with the advertiser and ultimately decides to purchase based on their total experience with the advertiser. Display ads may cause a consumer to make a decision to purchase, but they may choose to run a search or click on an email they are reminded about that had an offer in it. We’re starting to see more attention being paid to attribution. From our perspective, we need to optimize to the client’s metrics, not convince them to use different metrics.

Otilia Otlacan: Buysight’s Buyer Targeting platform has just been launched: could you share some of the early feedback you have received and plans for the near future?

Jeff Weitzman: The response from our “early adopters” has been very positive. They’ve seen a significant bump in customer traffic, all of which is from new customers that have not been to their site recently, and that seeing is converting to sale at a significantly higher rate than their store average. Those incremental sales are very valuable to them, and they now have the potential to turn them into long-term loyal customers. We still have a lot of upside in the platform as we refine our targeting algorithms, and as the number of merchants participating grows.

About Jeff Weitzman, CMO Buysight
Jeff Weitzman is a veteran of over twenty years in online advertising, marketing, and publishing. Before joining Buysight he was Chief Marketing Officer of Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization and the leading online and educational resource for parents and teachers involved in their children’s media and technology lives. For over six years in executive roles at Coupons.com, including President & COO, he helped lead the company through rapid growth to its industry-leading position.
Prior to Coupons he led Client Services at Yahoo! and was SVP of Operations at Seth Godin’s Yoyodyne, Inc. He helped pioneer business-to-business internet communities as Chief Operating Officer of Counsel Connect in the early 90’s. Weitzman was an attorney at Shearman & Sterling and graduated from Cardozo School of Law and Dartmouth College.

With an average of 170 million monthly connected users worldwide1 making calls domestically and internationally and approximately 30 million concurrent users at peak times2, Skype’s reach and engaged user base make it an attractive platform for brands to market their products. Popular with both business users and consumers alike, Skype offers rich communications ranging from free Skype-to-Skype audio and video calling, to Group Video Calling and making low cost calls to landlines and mobiles all over the world.

Dentsu and Skype will offer advertisers an opportunity to be part of the Skype experience through ‘Skype Home’ which provides a large masthead space for advertisers to display rich and interactive ads. Skype users are shown to spend more time on Skype Home – an average of 2 hours3, as compared to other non-Skype platforms, providing advertisers an excellent opportunity for targeted, dynamic advertising.

The display advertisement will be designed to deliver the advertiser’s message directly to Skype users, featuring the following:

1) A large-sized advertisement, larger than a typical banner ad, appears on the Home tab as default when Skype for Windows starts. With one click on the ad, it expands to twice its original size. It will go back to the original size by clicking CLOSE.

2) Interested users will see richer, interactive content in the extended ad after clicking on the original. In addition, the ad can be linked to the advertiser’s official website just like other web banners to offer users more details.

3) The number of advertisers will be limited to one per day to avoid the ad from being lost in competitors’ ads.

4) Users who wish to hide the ad can do so by simply clicking on “Hide Ad.” The ad can also be displayed back again.

1 For the three months ended 30 June 2011
2 As of March 2011
3 Source : Nielsen NetView Japan May 2011, time spent per person per month

This is a first step in providing a Skype solution for advertisers in Japan, and Dentsu and Skype will continue to explore various advertisement options to better enable enterprises to market their brands.

*For advertising campaigns that are not multi-national or multi-regional in nature.

About Dentsu Inc.
Founded in 1901, Dentsu Inc. has held the position of the world’s largest single-brand agency for almost 40 years. Through its unique “Integrated Communication Design” approach, Dentsu offers multinational clients the most comprehensive range of advertising and marketing services in the industry. While continuing to pursue innovation in the digital arena, Dentsu is active in the production and marketing of sports, movies, anime, and other entertainment content on a global scale. The Dentsu Group has more than 6,000 clients and close to 20,000 employees worldwide.

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, announced the launch of the comScore Smart Lift Attribution Model™, a breakthrough methodology that brings the science of attribution to brand measurement. This advancement in attribution modeling, based on validated and time-test marketing mix modeling techniques, accurately allocates display ad campaign performance by publisher or publisher type, demographic groups, interest segments, audience segments from third-party data providers, advertising creative, creative placements and client-defined segments. The model is currently being applied to comScore AdEffx Brand Survey Lift™ studies in the United States.

Unlike the more commonly used ‘last exposure’ approach, which attributes all of the branding effect to the publisher or creative associated with a survey research respondent’s last exposure to the ad prior to taking the survey, the comScore model accounts for all of a respondent’s exposures to ads across all publishers, including those that occur prior to and following the survey experience. This approach means that lift results reflect the composite effects of the entire campaign rather than a survey-only view. Being able to capture this complete view of ad exposures allows for proper attribution by publisher and advertising creative as well as accurate, holistic campaign measurement.

“comScore is excited to introduce our Smart Lift Attribution Model, a breakthrough method for evaluating the branding impact of online display ad campaigns,” said Dr. Magid Abraham, comScore President & CEO. “A few years ago, when our industry grappled with the issue of last-click attribution, comScore pioneered research that demonstrated the view-through impact of display advertising even without a click and helped change the way we think about which ads get credit for driving sales. More recently, the challenge has been determining which ads within a particular display campaign deserve credit for driving the greatest branding impact. Based on years of R&D, comScore has once again pioneered a solution that delivers this insight, based on the total lift generated by every impression delivered in the campaign, putting an end – once and for all – to arbitrary and erroneous methods of attribution that have plagued this field. Through the use of this proprietary model, advertisers and media planners will be equipped with the intelligence needed to optimize campaigns according to placement, data provider and creative, and media sellers are assured of getting a fair and proper credit for all the impressions they deliver, regardless of where and when the branding survey research occurs.”

How comScore’s Smart Lift Attribution Model Works

The Smart Lift Attribution Model works by relating the probability of achieving a particular performance criterion – for example, ad awareness, brand preference or likelihood to purchase – as a function of advertising exposures delivered by each variable, such as by publisher or creative. It controls for the effects of key respondent attributes, such as age, gender, income, usage pattern and consumer segment, to ensure such variables do not bias the results. comScore is uniquely able to assess the composite impact of all exposures to advertising because it incorporates survey results, the census measurement of all ad impressions and data from the comScore panel to provide representative demographics of the campaign viewers rather than just the survey takers. Ultimately this model provides a more realistic and complete view of the branding effect of digital campaigns, offering a much-needed solution for the digital advertising industry seeking granular, actionable insight into the individual effects of specific publishers and advertising creative.

Industry Leaders Support New Attribution Model

“The correct attribution of the effects of online advertising has been a passion of mine since I launched the first attribution models at the Atlas Institute five years ago. The current standard of associating conversions to the last ad clicked or viewed creates a myopic view of campaigns because consumers are exposed to a variety of ads, across channels and over extended periods of time. Conversion attribution models that go beyond the last ad have advanced over the years, but they largely focus on direct response metrics such as sales, leads, and registrations. comScore’s Smart Lift Attribution is the first to bring the science of attribution to brand measurement. This is a major step forward for the industry.”

- Young Bean Song, Principal and Founder of AnalyticsDNA

“comScore’s Smart Lift Attribution Model might just be the major game changer the industry has needed in the war against the ‘last click’ mindset. When a company as trusted as comScore enters a measurement conversation, people listen. This new tool will provide marketers with a level of transparency into their campaigns that most haven’t been able to reach until now.”

- Josh Dreller, VP, Media Technology & Analytics, Fuor Digital

“While this may not spell the end of ‘last-click’ attribution, it will certainly give brand-focused marketers a robust alternative to accurately assess and properly attribute the success of their digital campaigns. This is a much-needed measurement system and an exciting innovation for the digital marketing industry.”

- Joe Plummer, Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Columbia University

For more information, please visit the comScore Voices blog: www.comscore.com/SMART.

You can also request additional information by visiting the following link:    http://www2.comscore.com/Contact_Smart.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

NEW YORK – Collective, a full service provider of media and technology solutions for display and video advertising, announced that it has acquired Tumri, the leading provider of dynamic creative optimization and personalization solutions for advertisers and agencies. The deal closed for an undisclosed amount.

Just months after the acquisition of video ad platform and services company Oggifinogi, the transaction further empowers Collective’s end-to-end audience buying solutions for brand advertisers by enabling the delivery of massively customized creative content at scale.

“A lot of companies can deliver impressions. At Collective, we help brand advertisers turn that impression into an expression,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO, Collective. “Tumri gives us the capability to target the right audience with the right messaging and ad format, dynamically based on data intelligence.”

Apprendi maintains that most optimization to date has focused on the ‘who’, which represents the data piece, and the ‘where’ –the ad environment– while not enough emphasis has been placed on optimization of the creative, the ‘what’. Further, the delivery of creative content leads to interaction rates that are over ten times the interaction rates of the campaign control group.

The acquisition strengthens Collective’s ability to manage the entire ad delivery process, enhancing audience buying, optimization and overall ad efficacy while adding much greater cost efficiencies for advertisers.

“DCO has been largely relegated to the direct and ecommerce channels, but its application can have spectacular results for brand advertisers as well. The combination of Tumri and Oggifinogi provides a rich, video-enabled canvas through which brands can connect with consumers across the entire spectrum of online display advertising,” Apprendi added.

Tumri powers dynamic marketing campaigns for many of the world’s most prominent brands including Nike, HP and Travelocity among others, who leverage the platform to cross-sell and up-sell a catalog of products and services based on a user’s actual site browse or action, driving maximum relevancy and ROI.

“Collective’s evolution as a business has brought incredible market opportunities across the entire display ecosystem,” said Hari Menon, CEO, Tumri. “Combining Collective’s AMP audience buying platform with intelligent ad versioning has created a powerful tool for advertisers, allowing them to engage with consumers with exact using the right creative.” Luma Partners advised Tumri on the transaction.

Continued Platform Development

Tumri’s deep engineering expertise in data-driven marketing platforms, ad serving optimization and analytics will be applied to Collective’s own AMP® Data and Media Management Platform technology roadmap. The combined engineering operation will greatly enhance and accelerate AMP product development, enabling Collective to release new features and functionality to both buy-side and sell-side customers using AMP.

About Collective

Collective helps brand advertisers connect and engage with target audiences across display, video and social media. Collective’s industry expertise provides a strategic advantage to its clients by leveraging proprietary audience modeling, insights and ad effectiveness metrics. Our flagship products, Collective Display and Collective Video®, are powered by AMP®, our market-proven data and media management platform. Collective is headquartered in New York with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London. Collective’s investors include Accel Partners®, Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital. For more information, please visit www.collective.com.

About Tumri

Tumri is the leading provider of dynamic creative optimization and personalization solutions for advertisers and agencies. The Tumri Ensemble platform combines next-generation ad-serving with dynamic creative production to enable real-time 1:1 personalized marketing at scale. With Tumri, marketers can effectively cross-sell and up-sell a catalog of products or services to their consumers based on a user’s actual site browse or action, driving maximum relevancy and ROI. Marketers also benefit from a powerful auto-optimization engine and dynamic creative reports that allows for a more accurate and timely view of campaign metrics. Tumri powers dynamic marketing campaigns for many of the world’s most prominent brands including Nike, HP and Travelocity among others. To date, Tumri has executed more campaigns, served more impressions and created more distinct dynamic creative experiences than anyone in the space.

CANNES, France – AOL, Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and the IPG Media Lab announced, at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the results of a new study on the effectiveness and earned attention of IAB Portrait ad units versus traditional display advertising. The initial results support the hypothesis that the newly approved IAB Portrait represents an evolution of digital branding in terms of engagement, attention, emotional connection and influence. The six week long study focused on how display advertising impacts consumers in a digital world that is inundated with marketing messages. The new approach to display advertising, represented in the IAB Portrait ad unit, delivered an entirely new stage of impact at every level of the purchase funnel vs. standard ad units.

“While our internal data proved what we knew to be true, that a larger more interactive, integrated, and visually beautiful ad would be more engaging for consumers, this research data is off the charts,” said Jeff Levick, President, AOL Advertising. “These results prove that the ad unit is probably the most effective brand ad units on the Web. All measures of interactivity, visual attention, emotive response and overall ad effective metrics increased when consumers viewed the IAB Portrait, creating an emotional connection between brands and their consumers.”

The AOL/IPG study used groundbreaking analytical tools including eye-tracking to measure the visual interaction with the advertising, facial expression analysis to record micro-expressions as a determinate of engagement, and bio-metric bracelets to collect data on skin temperature and conductance, measuring the levels of user excitement when presented with creative messaging. The first of its kind to combine facial coding, bio-metric feedback, then use eye tracking to sync that data with the exact point on a screen where the eye was fixated, the study then validated these new forms of engagement tracking with traditional engagement metrics from a live media campaign and a Brand Survey through Dynamic Logic. The study focused on the display advertising effectiveness and brand messaging of three IPG clients from very different industries: Dodge, Verizon, and Zappos.

“Everyday users are exposed to exponentially more marketing messages than were our parents. The question is how to stand out and create an engaging, interactive brand experience that cuts through the noise and connects with consumers,” said Brian Monahan, EVP, Managing Partner, IPG Media Lab. “This is the most rigorous analysis per pixel ever brought to bear on an online ad. The research shows that current metrics don’t capture the effectiveness of new formats like IAB Portrait. New industry standards are necessary to better measure branding campaign success.”

Findings

The findings show IAB Portrait strongly outperforms other options in the marketplace (300×250 & 300×600) in both Quantitative and Qualitative metrics. It also shows that these new metrics (eye tracking & bio-metrics) will inform the creation of better user experiences, better creative, and much higher rates of connection and purchase intent with the audience.

As expected, compared to a standard 300×250 unit, IAB Portrait is far superior. The ad unit attracts attention 2x faster and viewers looked at it 4x more often and 4x longer.

However, size is far from the whole story. When a 300×600 unit was also included in the testing, the Portrait ad still far exceeded performance:

- Portrait units attract attention 35 percent faster than competing units, 81 percent more attention, and 95 percent more time in length of fixation
- Live media metrics showed interaction rates rose between 4.5x – 7x
- Influence rose dramatically:
- Users that indicated they would recommend the brand or product to Friends/Family rose 46 percent
- Users that indicated they would visit the Brand site/Facebook Fan page increased 49 percent
- Purchase intent rose 263 percent
- Facial recognition analysis shows Portrait lowers negative emotions by almost 40 percent , with less frustration, and fewer frowns
- Proper Context drives fixation – relevant content drove users to view Portrait unit 35 percent faster and 30 percent longer

In addition, the findings also showed that part of the success of the IAB Portrait unit is simply its ability to cut through “banner blindness” – where users simply don’t see the ads on the page. The eye tracking portion of the study showed this rather explicitly – where eye fixation on IAB Portrait ads rivaled the content itself.

Clients

Clients involved with the study were pleased with the outcome and are excited to be partnering on moving the industry ahead.

“At Chrysler Group we consistently look at how we can engage our consumers in a unique and interesting manner which can be a challenge in the digital space where the customer is flooded with information,” said Susan Thomson, Head of Media, Chrysler Group LLC. “The information gathered from the AOL/IPG study enables our media team to better understand how we can interact with our consumers in ways that captures their attention quickly and provides them with the key information they want on our products.”

“We were impressed with how insightful the results of the AOL/IPG study were and while we have always known that not all ads are created equal, this study arms us with the information we need to create more effective branding ads in the future,” explains Michelle Thomas, Senior Brand Marketing Manager, Zappos.com. “This particular ad unit allows us to tell a story as well as create an opportunity for customers to engage with our brand the way that they want to engage {video, social, product information}. Even better, we are gaining consumer insights into what messages are resonating so that our messaging remains viable versus extinct.”

Of course creative plays a major role in the ultimate success of the ad unit, and the flexibility of the unit enables clients to achieve multiples goals.

“In the digital age, it’s no longer just about the ‘big idea,’ but rather how you can create more meaningful and immersive brand experiences with customers that drive actual business results,” said Alejandro Mendoza, associate creative director at SapientNitro. “It’s exciting to have more compelling ways to tell brand stories online, and with the multi-faceted IAB Portrait ad unit we have not only a larger canvas to draw attention to unique product attributes and brand messages, but also a way to do so in a more dynamic and engaging context to drive stronger brand connections.” Mendoza was one of the creatives that worked on the IAB Portrait ad unit for Dodge for this research study.

“IAB Portrait provides a superior canvas to capture attention and elicit brand building interaction than standard units,” said Tim McAtee, Research Director, IPG Media Lab. “However, it is up to the advertiser to build an execution that gets the most from the real estate.”

For the full results visit http://advertising.aol.com/research/research-reports/iab-portrait-ads.

About the IPG Media Lab

At the center of Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands network, the IPG Media Lab helps clients and agencies put innovation into action. By creating opportunities for marketers to identify, formulate and test new approaches, the Lab mitigates risk through a process outside the normal campaign methodology. Employing creative thinking and a suite of proprietary research tools to understand how emerging media impacts purchase decisions, the Lab provides hands-on guidance, digital media insight and measurable results to clients. Our product framework is built around three fundamental pillars: Diagnosing Opportunity, Prioritization and Deployment. www.ipglab.com

About AOL

AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) is a premier global media company with a suite of brands and products serving consumers, advertisers and publishers worldwide. The AOL Huffington Post Media Group is a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information comprised of a wide range of destination websites, including AOL.com, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Moviefone, Engadget, Patch, AOL Music, StyleList and MapQuest. The AOL Advertising.com Group includes Advertising.com, ADTECH, Pictela, Video, inclusive of AOL Video, goviral and 5min Media, Content Solutions and Sponsored Listings and serves a combined content and advertising market at scale through video, brand advertising, content and ad serving. AOL is focused on engaging consumers and providing online advertising services and solutions on both AOL Huffington Post Media Group destination websites and third party websites, in addition to serving consumer platforms including AOL Mail, AIM, about.me, and mobile experiences. AOL also operates one of the largest Internet subscription access services in the United States, which serves as another distribution channel for its consumer offerings.

Display advertising is back! That’s according to figures just released by IAB Europe that show a revival in digital Display in 2010. With an average growth rate of 21.3%, Display overtook Search advertising as the fastest growing online ad format in Europe. Search, which has been the catalyst of online advertising growth in recent years, increased 15.1% in the same period across the 25 markets measured. Video, mobile and social media all contributed to the powerful performance of Display.

IAB Europe’s annual AdEx survey is the definitive guide to the state of the European advertising market. Released at IAB Europe’s Interact Congress in Barcelona, it shows the online advertising market accelerating at a growth rate of 15.3% in 2010 – outperforming the overall European advertising market which grew 5.0% in the same period. Total online adspend was €17.7bn in 2010, compared to €15.3bn in 2009. Market growth ranged from 37% in Russia and 24% in the Czech Republic, to 14% in Denmark and 7% in France.

Compiled by IHS Screen Digest, the research covers the entire European region, from the mature markets of Western and Northern Europe to the emerging markets in Eastern and Southern Europe for the calendar year 2010. New to the report is the Czech Republic.

The markets with the highest online adspend in the report are UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy and Spain (in that order). Together they account for almost three quarters (74%) of the total online advertising market. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) markets now represent almost a tenth (9.8%) of the total.

Display’s Brand Boost

Display* advertising enjoyed growth rates of 20% or more in many markets – both emerging and mature – during 2010.  Above average growth rates were experienced in Ireland (31%), Spain (30%) and Russia (27%).

The continued growth of online TV inventory, and long-form video consumption, pushed up spend while simultaneously maintaining high CPM (cost per thousand). Online video adspend has doubled in most markets. In Spain online video grew 125% to a value of €13m; growth in the UK was 90%, to a market value of €63m.

Super Search

Paid search continued to grow double-digit at an average of 15.1%. It remains the biggest category in online advertising, with 45% of total advertising spend compared with 33% for Display and 22% for Classifieds and Directories. Whilst some of the more established markets experienced smaller increases (UK +8% like-for-like, France +10%) many saw explosive growth (Hungary +44%, Poland +31%).

Mobile Advertising Gets Carried Away

Mobile search and mobile display are included in the AdEx survey for the first time this year. Although mobile adspend figures are available for only 12 of the 25 markets, they confirm that the long-awaited take-off of mobile advertising has been realised thanks to the advent of the smartphone/3G/apps ecosystem. In those markets, mobile adspend already accounts for 2% to 3% of total online adspend.

The Big Picture

With €17.7bn of adspend last year, online now accounts for 18% of the entire European advertising market. It is now beyond 20% in some markets (UK 29%, Denmark 28%) whilst it’s only 5% in Greece and 4% in Romania. European market value is smaller than the US which also experienced a 15% growth rate last year and is now worth $26bn/€19.6bn.

According to Vincent Létang, Senior Analyst at IHS Screen Digest says “Back in 2009, video was the only growth engine in an otherwise flat Display market. In 2010 by contrast, three pillars – mobile, video and social – attracted new advertising investment. On top of fast-growing new formats, let’s not forget that traditional PC-based, banner-style formats have retained their appeal thanks to innovations in design and targeting and a rise in mainstream brands using Display for branding campaigns.”

Alain Heureux, President and CEO of IAB Europe, concludes “The IAB network has worked tirelessly to showcase how effective online Display advertising can be at supporting brand advertising campaigns. I am delighted to see that message has been getting through and the innovative ways brands are incorporating online in their advertising campaigns.  At IAB Europe’s Interact Congress this week we’ll be recognising the best of online advertising creative at with the MIXX Awards. We will also be celebrating with the winners of the Research Awards – without this valuable insight, we would not be able to prove the contribution online makes to advertising campaigns.”

Note:

*Display includes PC-based and mobile banners, rich media and video formats

The data has been compiled by IAB Europe based on information provided by the national IAB offices around Europe. It is then processed and analyzed by IHS Screen Digest. The report includes market size and value information for the full membership of the IAB Europe in 2010 including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Romania, Russia, Spain, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The data represents the calendar year 2010 January-December. This is the fifth edition of AdEx which began in the calendar year 2006

About IAB Europe

IAB Europe is a federation of national Interactive Advertising Bureaux (IAB) across Europe. Its mission is to promote the growth of the interactive advertising markets on behalf of its clients and national members. Supported by every major media group, advertisers, agency, portal, technology and service provider, its voice represents the interest of more than 5000 company members. IAB Europe coordinates activities across the region including public affairs, benchmarking, research, setting standards and best practices. The member countries are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the UK. Our corporate members include Adconion, Adobe, ADTECH, Alcatel-Lucent, Aol, AudienceScience, BBC, CNN, comScore Europe, CPX Interactive, Criteo, e-Bay, Ernst & Young, Expedia Inc, Fox Interactive Media, Gemius, Goldbach Media Group, Google, GroupM, Hi-media, InSites Consulting, Koan, Microsoft Europe, Millward Brown, MTV, Netlog, News Corporation, nugg.ad, Nielsen Online, Orange Advertising Network, Prisa, Publicitas Europe, Sanoma Digital, Selligent, Specific Media, The Walt Disney Company, Tradedoubler, Truvo, United Internet Media, ValueClick, White&Case, Yahoo! and zanox.

About IHS Screen Digest

IHS Screen Digest is the pre-eminent firm of industry analysts covering global media markets. Headquartered in London, with offices in the US and Australia, we employ a team of 50 specialist analysts covering film, television, broadband media, mobile media, cinema, home entertainment, gaming and advertising. Our online services and reports provide the information and analysis that hundreds of media companies worldwide base their decisions on. Screen Digest was acquired by iSuppli Corporation in November 2010 and the combined entity was acquired immediately after by IHS. Screen Digest and iSuppli will together be the base around which IHS builds out its coverage of the TMT sector. To find out more, contact Screen Digest sales@screendigest.com Tel: +44 (0) 20 7424 2820. www.screendigest.com

Explanatory note on IAB Europe/IHS Screen Digest AdEx figures

Each national IAB in Europe runs its own annual online advertising spending study and the IAB Europe AdEx figures are based on these results. As the methodology of the studies varies country by country, IAB Europe and IHS Screen Digest have defined methodology rules to represent the figures in such a way as to make them realistically comparable. This involves:

·         Readjusting local figures to allow for harmonised representation. Readjustment rates are supplied by groups of local market experts
·         Estimating/harmonising adspend data for certain formats or segments in certain countries where local IAB studies do not include data or the definition or scope of a format is substantially different from IAB Europe standardised segments
·         Where local data is collected in a currency other than euros, the average exchange rate in 2010 has been used to convert this to euros. To provide data for prior year growth rates, the prior year figures have also been re-calculated using the 2010 exchange rate in order to give transparency over the growth rate
·         AdEx focuses on four normalised segments: ‘Display’ (including mobile Display, rich media and video), ‘classifieds and directories’, ‘paid search’ and ‘other’ (including email but excluding email marketing).
·         Figures quoted are gross figures (i.e. net invoiced value of the media, plus agency commission if any).

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Buysight, a leader in customer acquisition and retargeting performance advertising, announced new platform features that begin to create a marketplace for intent-based advertising where advertisers can bid on real-time, in-market shopping behaviors the way they bid on keywords in paid search. The new features include a completely revamped campaign analysis portal and category-level cost-per-click pricing, along with new product feed options and page tagging partnerships that greatly simplify campaign set up for new advertisers.

The new features come as Buysight continues to expand its Real-Time Shopper Marketplace™, where retailers and other advertisers can target advertising based on the real-time purchase intent of over 100 million shoppers. Building on successful retargeting programs, the Marketplace allows Buysight advertisers to use its proprietary Buyer Targeting system to reach new customers, bringing real scale without sacrificing the search-like performance of retargeting campaigns. Results from early adopters in the Marketplace show display ads with Buyer Targeting produced a 500-800% lift in click-through rates (CTRs).

The Marketplace delivers advertisers incremental customers and sales on a pay-for-performance basis. The new features announced today give advertisers insight into and control over their return on ad spend and campaign volume. “With this combination of performance and control, Buysight has created a platform that gives direct response advertisers a real alternative to paid search using the unmatched inventory volume available with display,” said Shaukat Shamim, CEO and Founder of Buysight. “Buysight’s mission is to make it as easy and efficient for our clients to boost sales and profit through display ads as it is through paid search, and today we’re a big step closer to that reality.”

About Buysight, Inc.: Buysight drives incremental sales for advertisers through performance-based campaigns using real-time user-intent targeting. Using its Buyer Intent Map and Buyer Targeting technologies, Buysight’s acquisition, remarketing, and branding programs connect consumers to companies that best meet their needs with instantly personalized, relevant offers for products they intend to buy.

Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, Buysight was founded in 2008 by pioneers in display and search advertising. For more information, please visit www.buysight.com.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Channel Intelligence (CI) announced that it has acquired ClickEquations, a leading-edge paid search platform currently serving large advertisers and search agencies. CI enthusiastically welcomes all current ClickEquations clients.

The acquisition enables CI to deliver differentiated paid search marketing services along with its existing CI Product Search services. The CI Product Search service delivers rich product feeds that achieve greater relevancy and higher visibility of product images in search results on Google and other search engines. The marriage of ClickEquations’ keyword-based capabilities and CI’s product-centric features produces a unique and highly effective paid search advertising platform.

“Our vision is to provide clients with the complete spectrum of online marketing services, and paid search is clearly a very important addition to our product line and capabilities. The advanced paid search platform technology and talented people of ClickEquations help CI accelerate this strategy,” said Channel Intelligence CEO Rob Wight. “The powerful and unique technology in ClickEquations is a perfect extension to the CI Boost services suite. Today’s advertisers expect Paid Search, Product Search, Display Advertising, Shopping Engines and Marketplaces to be intelligently coordinated, and CI is in the rare position to deliver this kind of advanced platform. We are confident the acceleration of this strategy will allow us to provide our clients with even higher returns and better overall results from their entire online marketing budget.”

The acquisition has been completed as of 6/13/2011. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About Channel Intelligence (CI)

Relied on by leading companies such as Best Buy, Target, Neiman Marcus, HP, Philips and Kimberly-Clark, CI is the marketing technology company that helps marketers, advertisers and agencies outperform online by leveraging CI Boost services to drive billions of sales annually. Founded in 1999, CI offers the most complete suite of performance-based e-commerce services in the industry. The CI Boost suite includes: Product Search, Display Advertising, Shopping Engines, Marketplaces, Where-to-Buy and Webstore. With offices in Orlando, Fla., Scottsdale, Ariz., Portland, Ore., London and Shanghai, the company drives $2B annually in referred sales online in computing, home improvement, appliances, consumer electronics, toys and a variety of other consumer packaged goods. CI is a partner company of ICG (Nasdaq: ICGE) and Aweida Capital Management. Learn more at www.channelintelligence.com.

About ClickEquations

ClickEquations offers the first intelligent pay-per-click software platform for large advertisers and agencies. It provides complete management, bidding, and reporting plus intelligent extras that save time and improve performance. Learn more at http://www.clickequations.com

NEW YORK – Kontera, the leading provider of context-driven advertising solutions, announced that it has partnered with AppNexus, the real-time ad platform used by global ad networks, demand-side platforms (DSPs), and other leading online advertising companies, in order to advance quality, reach and efficiency for marquee brand advertisers. This relationship was unveiled at the “IAB Innovation Days – The Future of Display” conference.

Kontera provides unique solutions that span In-Text and premier display placement, and use deep semantic context, predicted consumer intent, and publisher’s editorial and relevant social content within display ads. Kontera’s Synapse engine performs real-time editorial analysis, is used exclusively by more than 15,000 publishers, reaches more than 170 Million unique users, and delivers five times the brand lift of traditional display (comScore, July 2010).

“Large marquee brands count on Kontera for superior editorial placement to reach the right user in the right context,” said Brian O’Kelley, CEO of AppNexus. “We are delighted to be working with their team to bring their power, sophistication, and unique display offerings to the broader ecosystem.”

Led by the pioneers of the Web’s original ad exchanges at Yahoo!’s Right Media and Google’s DoubleClick, AppNexus offers a comprehensive suite of core infrastructure and ad technology capabilities including data management, optimization, APIs, financial clearing and support for directly negotiated media campaigns.

“AppNexus is widely used by the industry’s leading providers because it has great pathways into the display ecosystems, superior scalability, and best-in-class functionality,” said Yoav Shaham, CEO of Kontera. “We are excited to team with them to add their real-time bidding and campaign management capabilities to our display solutions for marquee brands and publishers.”

About Kontera

Kontera’s real-time Synapse Platform uses sophisticated semantic and web trend analysis to predict intent and to instantly react to user’s interests with relevant information and Ads. With Kontera advertisers gain greater targeting precision across the entire web, users find information that is relevant to their interests, and publishers increase interaction with their content. Kontera’s delivery platforms and solutions encompass the PC web, Mobile devices, and major social platforms. Kontera delivers its context and interest capabilities to the market through multiple partners. It is the exclusive in-content analysis and engagement platform for more than 15,000 web publishers. Kontera’s real-time Synapse platform is also being used within major display advertising platforms. The company works with top brand advertisers such as Toyota, Microsoft, AT&T, Samsung and L’Oreal to identify context and interest, and to provide unique brand experiences to more than 170 million users each month.

Kontera is backed by Sequoia Capital, Carmel Ventures, and Tanaya Capital. To learn more about Kontera, Kontera’s Social Boost, Related Content solutions, Mobile Advertising, Semantic Advertising or Contextual Advertising visit: www.kontera.com follow: facebook.com/Kontera, twitter.com/kontera.

About AppNexus

AppNexus is the real-time ad platform used by global ad networks, demand-side platforms (DSPs), ad exchanges, and other leading online advertising companies. Led by the pioneers of the Web’s original ad exchanges at Yahoo!’s Right Media and Google’s DoubleClick, AppNexus offers a comprehensive suite of core infrastructure and ad technology capabilities that empowers sophisticated companies to build, manage and optimize their entire display advertising businesses and provides single-point integration to the largest buyers and sellers of online advertising, including major aggregators and exchanges.

Based in New York City, AppNexus is backed by an outstanding group of investors; including Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, First Round Capital, Venrock, Kodiak Venture Partners, Ron Conway, Khosla Ventures, and Microsoft. For more information, visit www.appnexus.com.

NEW YORK  – Online advertising saw strong spend growth in the second quarter, according to a report released by IgnitionOne, a leading provider of performance marketing technology and services, managing more than $1 billion in online advertising for some of the world’s largest brands and their agencies, including Chico’s, Ann Taylor, La Quinta and more.

The second quarter saw year-over-year spend growth increases across all three major online media channels (Paid Search, Display and Facebook), despite continuing uncertainties from the economy and higher gasoline prices. US paid search spend grew a steady 12% year-over-year and Facebook advertising was particularly strong, up 22% on a same-client-basis and up 280% across all advertisers. However, paid search declined in June, painting an uncertain picture for the third quarter.

Key findings in the report:

Paid search advertising sees steady growth YOY, but dips in June US paid search spend grew a steady 12% year-over-year in Q2, and was flat compared with Q1 growth. The quarter began strong, but dipped in June to nearly flat growth on a YOY basis.

Google commands majority of market share in search, display
Google was again the standout performer showing gains in YOY search spend and significant market share traction for its AdEx display platform. Google grew to 81% share of all US search advertising spend and 51% share of US RTB display spend in Q2.

Facebook sees dramatic growth from new advertisers
Facebook advertising spend is up 22% YOY on a same-client-basis. However, Facebook has experienced high rates of growth from new marketer adoption in the past year, contributing a 280% increase in advertising spend across all clients. Spending patterns within an advertiser’s campaign lifecycle show marked growth declines after the first few months, suggesting advertisers are still in a “test and learn” phase with the new and immature ad platform.

“Overall it was a very good quarter for online advertising, but it wasn’t a slam dunk,” said Roger Barnette, President of IgnitionOne. “The paid search spending slowdown in June did not have a significant impact on the quarter overall, although it could be an indicator of future months’ performance, and we’re cautiously optimistic heading into Q3.”

IgnitionOne’s complete Q2 report can be downloaded here.

This report is the latest in a series of reports from IgnitionOne reviewing trends across the online advertising landscape. Previous quarterly reports can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/ignitiononeresearch.

NEW YORK – Undertone, which delivers quality display, high impact and video solutions for online advertisers, today announced the addition of PageSkin™ to its high impact product suite. Built on technology developed by Undertone, PageSkin surrounds web content, turning page borders into a large canvas for advertising creative. Undertone is the first company to enable brands to run high impact advertising skins across guaranteed brand-safe sites from a single IO.

PageSkin is being offered as part of a package that also includes prominent ad units displayed on the same page as the skin creative. This integrated package enables brand advertisers to fully own the consumer experience on a particular webpage.

The technology underpinning PageSkin is a turnkey solution for both advertisers and publishers. PageSkin automatically scales advertising creative, ensuring campaigns are displayed effectively across multiple site formats and different screen resolutions. PageSkin advertisers can also leverage the full range of targeting capabilities available through Undertone Ad Server™ (UAS).

“Undertone is committed to innovating beyond traditional banner ads with high impact solutions,” said Eric Franchi, Co-Founder, Undertone. “With PageSkin, our objective is to ensure brands can ‘Be Seen and Be Heard’ online. Not only does PageSkin provide incredible brand awareness for advertisers but it also helps drive incremental revenue for online publishers.”

Publishers benefit from PageSkin by having the ability to monetize more of their online properties and deliver enhanced advertising solutions to major brand advertisers.

“Undertone is continuing to innovate with the launch of PageSkin. The new ad format is a no-brainer for publishers who are looking to attract big brand advertisers and maximize the revenue they generate from their online properties,” said Suzette Cabildo, National Director, Digital Ad Sales & Ad Operations, Arthur Frommer’s BudgetTravel.com. “The combination of PageSkin with display ads allows brands a new, more powerful way to really engage customers online.”

PageSkin is the latest innovation in Undertone’s high impact product suite. In September 2010, Undertone introduced PageGrabber™, an interactive ad unit that takes over a webpage, using it in real time as the backdrop for advertising creative, and providing advertisers with a unique and compelling way to engage consumers at scale. Since launch, PageGrabber has delivered interaction rates up to 88 percent higher than industry standards (based on campaign performance benchmarks from DoubleClick).

About Undertone

Undertone delivers quality display, high impact and video experiences for advertisers, publishers and the global audiences they serve. Undertone’s Digital Advertising Suite™ is a single solution to manage multi-format, digital ad campaigns across the best sites on the web. The product portfolio is architected as a unified platform that supports targeting, optimization and reporting across display and in-stream video. Armed with the insights to turn data into better decisions, Undertone helps marketers around the world create value from their online investments. For more information, go to www.undertone.com.

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released results of a U.S. study on mobile advertising, which found that the number of advertisers using mobile display ad campaigns has more than doubled in the past two years, with mobile content and publishing accounting for half of all products advertised on mobile devices. These findings and others have been presented in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and Where, Inc. via a live, complimentary webinar The State of the U.S. Mobile Advertising Industry and What Lies Ahead on June 8.

“Although mobile advertising is still in its relative infancy, it is quickly gaining importance as new advertisers come into the fold,” said Hans Fredericks, comScore vice president. “The acceleration of mobile media consumption, driven by adoption of smartphones, 3G/4G networks and unlimited data plans, provides a ripe environment for advertisers looking to reach consumers through a variety of platforms including mobile browsers, apps and SMS. As consumer usage and technology continue to advance, look for advertising to play an increasingly important role in the development of the mobile ecosystem.”

Mobile Content and Publishing Accounts for Half of All Mobile Display Ads

In April 2011, 689 advertisers* used mobile display advertising campaigns to reach consumers, up 128 percent from two years prior, demonstrating the growing use of the mobile channel for advertisers. An analysis of advertised categories revealed that mobile content and publishing accounted for 50 percent of mobile ads, while 26 percent of display advertisements were for consumer discretionary goods. Information technology accounted for 7 percent, while financial services accounted for 6 percent of mobile display ads.

Percent of Advertised Categories via Mobile Display Advertising* 3 Month Avg. Ending Mar. 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore Ad Metrix Mobile
	% of Advertised Categories
Mobile Content and Publishing	50%
Consumer Discretionary	26%
Information Technology	7%
Financials	6%
Telecommunication Services	5%
Consumer Staples	3%
Industrials	2%
Other	1%

*From comScore Ad Metrix Mobile, based on mobile display advertising across more than 600 of the top websites and sub-sites on the mobile Internet

Smartphones Critical to Mobile Advertising Opportunity

Mobile media usage and mobile ad exposure show strong differences between smartphone users and feature phone users. More than 80 percent of smartphone users accessed their mobile browser (82.3 percent) or applications (85.0 percent) during March, while just 19.1 percent of feature phone users utilized their mobile browser and 15.9 percent accessed apps. Smartphone users were also far more likely to see web or in app ads (27.5 percent vs. 5.0 percent) due to their heavier usage of mobile browsers and applications and were also more likely to respond to SMS ads (7.7 percent vs. 3.5 percent).

With 31 percent of mobile users now owning a smartphone device, up from just 20 percent a year ago, the opportunity to reach consumers through the mobile channel continues to improve.

Smartphone and Feature Phone Service Penetration 3 Month Avg. Ending Mar. 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	% of Mobile Phone Users
	Feature Phone	Smartphone
Used Browser	19.1%	82.3%
Used App**	15.9%	85.0%
Saw Ad on Web/In App	5.0%	27.5%
Responded to SMS ad	3.5%	7.7%

**Except native games

Please join us on Wednesday, June 8 from 2-3 PM EDT (11 AM-12 PM PDT) for a complimentary webinar entitled, The State of the U.S. Mobile Advertising Industry and What Lies Ahead. Hans Fredericks, comScore VP of Marketing Solutions, Michael Becker, MMA Managing Director for North America, and Scott Hendrickson, VP of Advertising Sales for Where, Inc., will present the latest insights on the current mobile advertising environment and the future of this burgeoning medium. For more information and to register, please visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/679213504

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/20/number-of-us-mobile-display-advertisers-more-than-doubles-in-past-two-years/feed/ 1 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/14/interview-spongecell-ceo-ben-kartzman-on-display-advertising-trends/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/14/interview-spongecell-ceo-ben-kartzman-on-display-advertising-trends/#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:00:25 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14811 Spongecell, the interactive display advertising company that is leading the creative resurgence of online display, has completed a new round of financing led by Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman, and Jim Pallotta, Chairman and Managing Director of Raptor Group.
Following these recent news, we have interviewed Spongecell CEO Ben Kartzman, who gave us some useful insights into display advertising and its current trends.

Otilia Otlacan: We keep hearing of a resurgence of online display ads – if anything, it is one of the hot topics these days in the world of online advertising. In your opinion, what went wrong with display ads in the first place?
Ben Kartzman: It’s not that anything went wrong with Display Ads, it was just a little slow to catch up with technology.  Screen resolutions are much higher now and yet display ads stayed pretty much the same size for a long time.   For too many years the industry dumbed down the display space by introducing expandables that interrupted users and running heavy DR ads that let you “punch the monkey.”  Another issue is the way we have been valuing display ads.  For brand advertisers, as an example, it’s not about the “click” anymore and hasn’t been for some time now. it’s about brands and brands care about metrics that are meaningful to them–in fact, eMarketer just released a study last week that said consumers who viewed a display advertisement were 24% more likely to recommend a product–that’s the type of measurement that a brand cares about, not a click.

OO: Can you give our readers some background as to what has triggered the revival trend?
BK: New technologies, better infrastructure, APIs.  Just smarter utilization of the medium.

OO: How does Spongecell address the current challenges in display advertising?
BK: Spongecell places a lot of focus on speed.  More and more we are finding clients who need to get campaigns live in a matter of hours and days…  We also put a lot of time and energy into engineering the right solutions for brands. Why have a consumer looking to find the nearest store, click out to another map and have to enter more information? That’s not what they want to do.  If the banner ad attracts them enough to draw their interest in, then let’s let them complete the entire action right in there – self contained within the unit.  It’s a combination of a host of little things like that which make perfect sense to us as consumers.

OO: Rich media creatives running on standard ad placements – could you share with us some details as to how this technology works and what it entails for publishers with display ads inventory?
BK: Since Spongecell units don’t expand they’re considered to be very publisher friendly.  As such our polite ads can run in any inventory – exchange, network, premium, etc.

OO: Do new models in display advertising push for new ad metrics? What metrics do you consider to be relevant for display campaigns nowadays?
BK: The metrics must match the objective, but ultimately it’s engagement metrics.  Time spent viewing the ad.  If there is a video, how many times was it viewed?  That is data that brands can really extrapolate from.

OO: Can you share with us some of Spongecell’s plans for the future?
BK: More engaging media across different platforms is certainly something we are planning.  Short term it’s more about further refining our platform and continuing to evolve and push the limits of display.

About Ben Kartzman, CEO Spongecell
Ben Kartzman is the CEO and co-founder of Spongecell, a New York based advertising technology company that transforms standard banner ads into dynamic flash ads with rich-media-like functionality.  Mr. Kartzman is responsible for managing the growth of the business and overseeing its sales and marketing efforts. Previously, he has lead teams and managed software products at Accenture, Morgan Stanley, Intel and several venture-backed Internet start-ups.  Mr. Kartzman graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University with a double major in Information & Decision Systems and Human-Computer Interaction.  He has been tapped to speak to audiences all over the U.S., Europe and China on the do’s and don’ts in online advertising.

About Spongecell
Spongecell (https://Spongecell.com/) is leading the creative resurgence of online display advertising by combining speed, innovation and advanced engineering to transform standard banner ads into rich-media-like interactive ads that can run in any ad placement on the web.  The company works with creative and media agencies to serve thousands of engaging campaigns across billions of impressions for global brand advertisers every year. Spongecell is an independent company founded in 2006 with headquarters in New York and offices throughout the United States and Europe.

Below are two examples of display ads using the Spongecell technology. Click any of them to access the full Spongecell gallery.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/14/interview-spongecell-ceo-ben-kartzman-on-display-advertising-trends/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/10/dynamic-logic-introduces-adradar/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/10/dynamic-logic-introduces-adradar/#comments Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:00:48 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14799 New Technology Links Digital Ad Exposure to the Industry’s Largest Panels; Allows for More Flexible Sampling Options and Enhanced Measurement of Campaign Impact

NEW YORK – Millward Brown’s Dynamic Logic, the world leader in digital insights, announced the launch of AdRadar™, a new technology linking digital ad exposure to the industry’s largest panels. AdRadar allows real-time identification of panelist exposure to digital assets, which can include display ads, online videos, Web sites and online CRM initiatives, and the ability to understand how digital marketing activities impact brand equity, consumer behavior and the bottom line.

“With access to more than 10 million people globally through AdRadar linkages, Dynamic Logic is broadening online sampling options, simplifying data integration and empowering clients to better understand the lasting effects of their digital and cross-media campaigns,” said Jean Robinson, President of Dynamic Logic. “The result is deep insights about campaign performance, benefiting advertisers, agencies and publishers.”

AdRadar currently enables linkages to third-party databases (i.e. consumer packaged goods, retail, travel, lodging, dining, entertainment, services), a client’s own proprietary databases, financial databases, as well as data from existing industry partners such as Compete, Cymfony, Federated Sample, Kantar Shopcom, Lightspeed Research, SymphonyIRI, and uSamp.

The strength of the AdRadar technology can be seen in the insight it provides to clients.

- An Auto brand that is running multiple ad campaigns throughout the year can not only test each campaign’s individual effect on search, site visitation, and sales, but also track the longitudinal impact of these campaigns and other digital assets on overall brand health.
- A Consumer Packaged Goods company can assess how their digital ads shifted consumers’ attitudes of the brand, influenced people to voice their opinions through social media, and drove in-store sales.
- A Pharmaceutical company can understand how their ad campaign raised awareness of a new drug by surveying doctors through an AdRadar-linked panel. Ad exposure among opted-in panelists can also be tied directly to script writing, enabling a measure of pharmaceutical sales.

“AdRadar is a powerful technology that complements BrightRoll’s online video technology, and helps our advertisers determine the overall impact of individual digital marketing initiatives,” said Daryl McNutt, SVP Research and Marketing for BrightRoll, a Dynamic Logic AdRadar client. “The technology’s flexible solution adds value to our clients’ video campaigns through its multi-sample option, and offers great linkage to other third-party data.”

“We’re excited about testing Dynamic Logic’s panel-based platform as a possible means to reach our niche target audiences,” says Lucy Kon, Director, Portfolio Strategy and Research at Marriott International.

AdRadar can also serve as an effective solution for campaigns that may not lend themselves to standard online intercept methodologies due to site and placement restrictions. In a recent project with Google to measure the impact of a client’s advertising campaign, Dynamic Logic leveraged an AdRadar-enabled approach to find the sample needed for a thorough research analysis.

AdRadar advantages include:

- Multiple panel linkages, which provide more flexibility in analysis and pricing
- Quicker turnaround for hard-to-recruit demographic groups
- Continuous measurement of digital ad exposure for brand health tracking
- Easier implementation for publishers and agencies
- Ability to define a control sample based on campaign footprint by identifying consumers who have visited the sites within the campaign, but were not exposed to the campaign itself. This provides the best match possible, resulting in a more accurate read of the campaign’s brand impact.
- Campaign profiling that explores whether a campaign hit intended target groups on select sites

To learn more about how you can leverage AdRadar, contact Ken Greenberg, vice president of product development, at keng@dynamiclogic.com or 212-844-3700.

About Dynamic Logic

Dynamic Logic (www.dynamiclogic.com) is the world leader in digital insights. Founded in 1999 as a pioneer of the digital revolution, Dynamic Logic helped establish the Internet’s true marketing value to businesses by developing solutions that measure beyond click-through to quantify the full brand impact of online advertising. Now, as part of Millward Brown, Dynamic Logic continues to lead the industry — developing innovations to optimize and track digital ad impact, specializing in emerging media platforms, and integrating insights across all digital and non-digital media. For marketers, agencies, and publishers alike, Dynamic Logic offers the most cutting-edge and adaptable solutions to make the most of every digital marketing dollar.

About Millward Brown

Millward Brown is one of the world’s leading research agencies and is expert in effective advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research. Through the use of an integrated suite of validated research solutions — both qualitative and quantitative — Millward Brown helps clients build strong brands and services. Millward Brown has more than 78 offices in 54 countries. Additional practices include Millward Brown’s Global Media Practice (media effectiveness unit), The Neuroscience Practice (using neuroscience to enhance traditional research techniques), Millward Brown Optimor (focused on helping clients maximize the returns on their brand and marketing investments), Dynamic Logic (the world leader in digital insights) and Firefly Millward Brown (a global qualitative research business). Millward Brown is part of Kantar, WPP’s insight, information and consultancy group.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/10/dynamic-logic-introduces-adradar/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/06/capitalizing-on-the-resurgence-of-online-display-media-eric-schmidt-and-jim-pallotta-invest-in-spongecell/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/06/capitalizing-on-the-resurgence-of-online-display-media-eric-schmidt-and-jim-pallotta-invest-in-spongecell/#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:01:24 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14769 Track Record of Growth and Innovation Attracts Top Investors

New York – Spongecell, the interactive display advertising company that is leading the creative resurgence of online display, has completed a new round of financing led by Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman, and Jim Pallotta, Chairman and Managing Director of Raptor Group.  Also participating in the round are Brian Rooney, Board Member of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Silverhaze Partners. The amount of the round was not disclosed.

Incorporated in 2006 by a team of Carnegie Mellon computer science graduates, Spongecell previously raised capital in 2007 from Halo Venture Partners, The Pilot Group and SilverHaze Partners.

“Spongecell’s growth has been extraordinary, gaining more than 200 major brands in 2010 alone.  Founding CEO Ben Kartzman and his team are at the forefront of API-enabled technology that is pushing the boundaries of the next generation of display advertising,” says Raptor’s Mr. Pallotta. “We look forward to a bright future for Spongecell.”

In recent independent tests conducted by IPG’s Media Lab, API-enabled ads, including Spongecell’s, outperformed competitors and static control ads. Engagement rates improved anywhere from 2.4% to 11.9%. Interactions within the test ads were anywhere from twice to eight times as frequent in comparison to the control.

“Since the introduction of Spongecell’s dynamic advertising technology in late 2008, we have been very fortunate to have been able to grow the business rapidly from profits rather than additional capital investment” says Mr. Kartzman. “The new funds will be used to accelerate sales growth and further bolster the product development team. Clearly, we are very excited to have the advice and counsel of Eric Schmidt, Jim Pallotta, and Brian Rooney.”

Spongecell Ad Gallery

About Spongecell (https://Spongecell.com/) is leading the creative resurgence of online display advertising by combining speed, innovation and advanced engineering to transform standard banner ads into rich-media-like interactive ads that can run in any ad placement on the web.  The company works with creative and media agencies to serve thousands of engaging campaigns across billions of impressions for global brand advertisers every year. Spongecell is an independent company founded in 2006 with headquarters in New York and offices throughout the United States and Europe.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/06/06/capitalizing-on-the-resurgence-of-online-display-media-eric-schmidt-and-jim-pallotta-invest-in-spongecell/feed/ 1 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/23/us-online-display-advertising-market-delivers-1-1-trillion-impressions-in-q1-2011/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/23/us-online-display-advertising-market-delivers-1-1-trillion-impressions-in-q1-2011/#comments Mon, 23 May 2011 18:09:38 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14726 Facebook.com Now Accounts for Nearly 1 in 3 Online Display Ads in U.S.

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released an overview of the U.S. online display advertising market for Q1 2011 based on data from comScore Ad Metrix, indicating that nearly 1.11 trillion display ads were delivered to U.S. Internet users during the quarter. Facebook accounted for 346 billion impressions, nearly double the number it delivered in Q1 2010, and accounting for nearly one third of all display ad impressions delivered.

“The U.S. online display advertising market maintained its strong momentum from last year with a terrific first quarter,” said Jeff Hackett, comScore executive vice president. “We are now seeing more than one trillion display ads delivered every single quarter and nearly 300 individual advertisers spending at least $1 million a quarter on display, numbers which underscore just how large and vibrant the online medium has become. And it’s not just about the volume but about the quality of the advertising experience that can be delivered as we see continued investment in compelling, high-quality creative that helps cultivate long-term brand equity.”

Facebook Ranks as Top Display Ad Publisher in Q1 2011

Popular social networking site Facebook.com led all online publishers in Q1 2011 with 346 billion display ad impressions, representing 31.2 percent market share. Facebook’s market share has increased 15 percentage points from 16.2 percent in Q1 2010. Yahoo! Sites ranked second during the most recent quarter with 112 billion impressions (10.1 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 54 billion impressions (4.8 percent) and AOL, Inc. with 33 billion impressions (3.0 percent).

Top 10 U.S. Online Display Ad* Publishers Q1 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix
	Total Display Ad Impressions (MM)	Share of Display Ad Impressions
Total Internet : Total Audience	1,110,448	100.0%
Facebook.com	346,455	31.2%
Yahoo! Sites	112,511	10.1%
Microsoft Sites	53,592	4.8%
AOL, Inc.	33,454	3.0%
Google Sites	27,993	2.5%
Turner Digital	18,050	1.6%
Fox Interactive Media	11,697	1.1%
Glam Media	10,207	0.9%
CBS Interactive	9,208	0.8%
Viacom Digital	9,051	0.8%

*Display ads include static and rich media ads; excludes video ads, house ads and
very small ads (< 2,500 pixels in dimension)

AT&T Ranks as Top Display Advertiser in Q1 2011

AT&T ranked as the top online display advertiser in the first quarter with 19.5 billion impressions, accounting for 1.8 percent of display ads. Experian Interactive ranked second with 16.6 billion impressions (1.5 percent), followed by Scottrade ranked third with 11.2 billion (1.0 percent) and Intuit with 11 billion (1.0 percent). Groupon entered the top ten display advertisers at #7 with 7.7 billion impressions (0.7 percent).

Top 10 U.S. Online Display Advertisers Q1 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix
	Total Display Ad Impressions (MM)	Share of Display Ad Impressions
Total Internet	1,110,448,112	100.0%
AT&T Inc.	19,467,236	1.8%
Experian Interactive	16,635,360	1.5%
Scottrade, Inc.	11,225,895	1.0%
Intuit Inc.	10,980,711	1.0%
Verizon Communications Inc.	9,687,999	0.9%
Netflix, Inc.	8,787,348	0.8%
Groupon	7,681,414	0.7%
Toyota Motor Corporation	7,043,887	0.6%
Progressive Corporation	6,773,297	0.6%
Weight Watchers International, Inc.	6,425,473	0.6%

Additional findings from Q1 2011 include:

- The top advertisers in Q1 by estimated share of online display ad spending were: AT&T (2.1 percent), Experian (1.9 percent), Scottrade (1.6 percent), Toyota (1.2 percent), and Netflix (1.1 percent). Rounding out the top ten were Intuit, Verizon, Progressive, Sprint Nextel and ING, each with 1.0 percent.
- The top consumer goods advertisers ranked by display ad spending were: Procter & Gamble, Mars, Kellogg’s, General Mills and Kraft Foods
- 95 different advertisers delivered at least 1 billion display ad impressions and 293 advertisers spent at least $1 million on display ads during the quarter.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/23/us-online-display-advertising-market-delivers-1-1-trillion-impressions-in-q1-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/10/247-real-media-releases-the-latest-version-of-its-ad-management-platform-open-adstream-11/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/10/247-real-media-releases-the-latest-version-of-its-ad-management-platform-open-adstream-11/#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 08:00:03 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14702 Open AdStream 11 Brings Video Enhancements Including IAB Vast 2.0 Compliance Among Other New Features

NEW YORK – 24/7 Real Media is pleased to announce the release of Open AdStream® 11, its proprietary ad management technology platform that provides publishers with flexibility, control and the tools they need to streamline ad management operations and drive value and revenue from their inventory. Online advertising is estimated to reach $11.06 billion for the overall display market in the US in 2011 and it continues to grow at a fast pace — especially online video advertising, which is expected to grow 45 percent to $2.1 billion in the US in 2011, according to Barclays Capital. The release of Open AdStream 11 provides Web publishers with the capabilities to participate in the upswing of growth in display and video advertising.

New Features Include:

* New Video Capabilities
o IAB VAST 2.0 compliance and video template and reporting enhancements
o New Creative Library
* Targeting & Optimization Enhancements
o Psychographic targeting with Mindset Media®
o Optimization of campaign inventory by site
* Workflow Developments
o Deeper third-party CRM integration workflow
o Simplified workflow and usability

Open AdStream 11 enables publishers to further maximize revenue across all platforms and mediums and demonstrates 24/7 Real Media’s continued commitment to add advanced functionality and quickly incorporate market and client priorities and requirements with each new release.

Open AdStream 11’s new video capabilities not only empower publishers to expand monetization of more engaging video ad inventory, it also allows publishers to track, monitor and analyze the success of video campaigns running on their sites. In the evolving video space, Open AdStream 11 is built to support various emerging advertising opportunities in display, rich media and video advertising. This flexibility will provide the support that publishers need to begin and enhance video delivery, integrate with third-party platforms and much more.

Always a proponent of responsible advertising, 24/7 Real Media has upgraded Open AdStream to support the IAB Standard VAST 2.0 compliance, providing optimal tracking of companion ads and other ad elements as well as multi-part creative in-video campaigns. The support of VAST 2.0 enables efficient setup and implementation of video campaigns.

“This release demonstrates our commitment to constant innovation within our Open AdStream technology,” said Nicolle Pangis, SVP, Product Management, Global Media and Technology at 24/7 Real Media. “Open AdStream enables publishers to seamlessly incorporate video with display ad management, to offer advertisers compelling avenues for engagement and advanced insights into performance, which really drives value.”

Psychographic targeting through Mindset Media®, part of Meebo, Inc., is featured as one of 24/7 Real Media’s targeting solutions, which also includes, search retargeting, geodemographic, content, behavioral, retargeting and custom. Many of these can be combined to form an almost limitless number of specific targeting options that can be delivered to any digital medium. Using Mindset Media, marketers can target users based on 21 personality traits that drive buyer behavior and brand choice across a broad range of consumer goods and services. Mindset targeting enables publishers to deliver online users with the Mindsets that matter to brands.

By integrating all of the vital and progressive capabilities in one platform, Open AdStream gives website publishers a quantum leap forward in productivity, facility and potential. Open AdStream is the only ad management system that combines the technologies, services and business intelligence that publishers need most to improve results, maximize revenue and lower operational costs. From website analytics and targeting, to video and rich media capabilities and contract management, Open AdStream brings publishers a complete advertising management system, empowering them to better manage their ad delivery with ease and efficiency.

To learn more about 24/7 Real Media, visit www.247realmedia.com.

About 24/7 Real Media, Inc.

24/7 Real Media, Inc., a WPP company, provides digital marketing solutions for advertisers and publishers globally by empowering them to reach their target audiences with greater precision and transparency, resulting in better ROI. 24/7 Real Media’s award-winning ad management platform, Open AdStream®, and its Global Web Alliance of high quality publisher websites, have turned the art of reaching audiences across any digital medium into a measurable science. Behind every insight, there’s the experience of 18 offices in 12 countries, billions of global advertising impressions served every month and a stellar reputation as a leader in the digital marketing industry. 24/7 Real Media is headquartered in New York and operates throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.247realmedia.com.

24/7 Real Media: The Science of Digital Marketing

24/7 Real Media is a member of the NAI and adheres to the NAI privacy principles that have been applauded by the FTC. These principles are designed to help ensure Internet user privacy. For more information about online data collection associated with ad serving, including online preference marketing and an opportunity to opt-out of 24/7 Real Media cookies, go to: www.networkadvertising.org.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/10/247-real-media-releases-the-latest-version-of-its-ad-management-platform-open-adstream-11/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/03/digital-marketing-sector-starts-off-strong-in-q1-2011-retail-demand-for-facebook-ads-soars/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/03/digital-marketing-sector-starts-off-strong-in-q1-2011-retail-demand-for-facebook-ads-soars/#comments Tue, 03 May 2011 19:01:14 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14682 Data Based on Efficient Frontier’s Q1 2011 Digital Marketing Performance Report

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – The first quarter of 2011 started off strong in the U.S. for digital marketing, with search engine marketing growing by 17% Year on Year (YoY) due primarily to solid increases in the retail and finance categories. Facebook advertising is also getting more competitive, with Cost Per Clicks (CPCs) increasing by 40% Quarter on Quarter (QoQ). Display advertising also showed positive signs with a 300% increase in exchange ad inventory and a 30% Cost Per Thousand (CPM) decline, indicating greater gains in reach and efficiency within the ad exchanges.

This is according to Efficient Frontier, a leading performance marketing company managing more than $1 billion in marketing spend annually on behalf of advertisers worldwide. This data and specific industry trends were released in the company’s Q1 2011 Digital Marketing Performance Report.

“The strong showing for digital marketing in the first quarter of 2011 was in line with our prediction of a 15% to 20% increase in spend in 2011,” said David Karnstedt, President and CEO, Efficient Frontier. “We’re also seeing great demand for Facebook’s ad products as the social networking giant’s ad offerings continue to evolve. This is all solid evidence of an economic recovery, and that marketers are seeing tremendous results when they intelligently allocate their marketing spend and optimize across channels.”

Report Highlights

Digital marketing continues to show strength in the first quarter of 2011. While search marketing decelerated as expected off of a big Q4 2010, YoY growth remains robust at 17%. Advertiser demand for Facebook’s ad products increased significantly with spend rising sharply on 40% QoQ CPC growth. The display ad exchanges also rapidly expanded with Efficient Frontier’s advertisers accessing more than 300% more inventory than a year ago at 30% lower Cost Per Thousand (CPMs). This means that display advertisers are gaining both reach and efficiency as new technologies like Real Time Bidding (RTB) become more prevalent.

Broad-Based Search Growth Across Nearly All Sectors

The retail sector was the big winner this past quarter, as retail impressions grew by 30% YoY, showing higher consumer interest in retail products. The Finance sector also fared well, growing at 18% YoY. The travel sector was the only sector that saw a decline in spend as CPCs remained flat.

Retail: Spend was up 22% YoY on increased consumer demand
Travel: Spend is down 13% YoY as CPCs are flat
Finance: Spend was up 18% YoY on CTR gains
Auto: Spend was up 10% YoY on CPC gains as well as increased in consumer demand
Bing-Yahoo! ROI Increase

Google continues to have the majority of overall market share in SEM spend and clicks post the Bing-Yahoo! integration. However, Bing’s ROI is currently higher than Google’s ROI. Bing’s ROI has increased 10% YoY while Google’s ROI has decreased by 12% YoY. While the revenue per click (RPC) on Bing is 12% lower than Google, the CPCs on Bing are also lower than the CPCs on Google, which is driving Bing’s higher ROI.

Facebook Becomes More Competitive

Efficient Frontier saw tremendous momentum in Facebook advertising throughout the last several quarters. Advertisers are eager to take advantage of the full capabilities in the Facebook Marketplace to engage with their fans and promote their brands. Because of this, spend on Facebook is growing. Our analysis shows CPCs have grown by 44% QoQ, indicating that Facebook is becoming more competitive as advertisers realize its tremendous value.

International SEM Analysis

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, spend grew 9% YoY, reflecting increased confidence in consumer consumption power. ROI in the U.K. increased by 6% YoY. Google dominates the SEM market with a 91% market share. Unlike the U.S., where the travel industry has declined, the overall demand for travel has increased in the U.K., with spend in the travel sector growing by 8% YoY due to impressions and click growth. ROI in travel has increased 14% YoY, indicating strong consumer buying intentions.

France, Germany, Australia

SEM market share is dominated by Google in France, Germany, and Australia with approximately 93% of the market. Yahoo! comes in second place in Germany and Australia while in France, Bing has a larger market share than Yahoo!.

Japan

Unlike the U.S. and Europe, Japan’s SEM market is more evenly divided between Google and Yahoo!, with Google taking a slight edge at 53% market share. Amidst the horrific crisis in Japan, SEM spend has grown by 13% YoY. The growth is due to a CPC increase of 7% YoY as well as click volume increase of 5% YoY.

Outlook for 2011

SEM Growth Continues

Efficient Frontier continues to be optimistic about SEM growth. Our prediction is that search will continue to grow 15% this year in the U.S. due to the strength in the finance and retail sectors. Our prediction for the U.K. is that search will continue to grow at 10%.

Bing-Yahoo! Market Share Increase

As Bing expands its network, it is likely that the traffic quality will drop. Having a 12% higher ROI puts Bing in a good position to expand its network while giving it a significant margin of error. The higher return on Bing-Yahoo! should cause rational advertisers to shift their advertising dollars from Google to Bing.

Cross-Channel Marketing

Advertisers should allocate their advertising spend across the various digital marketing channels including search, display, and Facebook. Each channel serves a significant yet different role in overall management of advertising campaigns. The ability to manage advertising in a transparent cross-channel manner will give advertisers a leg up in getting consumer attention in a market that is becoming increasingly competitive. Efficient Frontier’s prediction is that channels like display and Facebook will double over the next year.

Research Methodology

This analysis was completed based on data from Efficient Frontier search engine marketing customers and the resulting Efficient Frontier Customer Index. The Efficient Frontier Customer Index represents a subset of the company’s clients with spend data for six consecutive quarters or more, whose resulting SEM metrics are then normalized to average industry category contributions established by multiple third-party data providers. The Efficient Frontier Customer Index consists of a fixed sample of large-scale search engine advertisers across multiple sectors, including finance, travel, retail and automotive. The Efficient Frontier Customer Index sheds light on trends in search engine spending and performance on YoY and QoQ basis.

The complete U.S. Digital Performance Marketing Report: Q1 2011 is available for download from the Efficient Frontier website at: http://news.efrontier.com/Global-Q12011-Report.html

http://twitter.com/efrontier

http://www.facebook.com/efrontier

About Efficient Frontier

Efficient Frontier is a leader in online performance marketing managing search marketing, display and social media campaigns for advertisers and agencies around the world. Efficient Frontier currently manages more than $1 billion in annual marketing spend on behalf of their clients globally. Founded in 2002, Efficient Frontier pioneered the application of modern portfolio theory for search engine marketing and today combines its core predictive modeling algorithms and bidding technology with comprehensive strategic and tactical value-added services. The largest and most sophisticated advertisers and agencies partner with Efficient Frontier to achieve and sustain optimal campaign performance and growth in highly complex and competitive marketplaces. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in New York, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and India, and technology licensing partnerships in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. Efficient Frontier is a privately held company with funding from Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. For more information, please visit http://www.efrontier.com and subscribe to the Efficient Frontier blog at blog.efrontier.com.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/05/03/digital-marketing-sector-starts-off-strong-in-q1-2011-retail-demand-for-facebook-ads-soars/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/29/vibrant-brings-contextual-dynamic-video-to-display-advertising/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/29/vibrant-brings-contextual-dynamic-video-to-display-advertising/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:22:59 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14673 Contextual Solutions Leader Highlights Groundbreaking Innovations in Display and Video at AdAge Digital Conference

2011 AdAge Digital Conference
NEW YORK – Vibrant, the leader in premium contextual advertising solutions, introduced the industry to a new offering in display advertising: ads that leverage the power of contextual by delivering video that dynamically changes to match the page content.

The innovations have been presented at the AdAge Digital Conference, the premier event highlighting how technology is changing the marketing landscape and consumer behavior.

Anna Kassoway, Vibrant SVP Global Marketing & Creative Director, will briefly showcase campaigns that engage consumers through their recently introduced VIA Dynamic display ad technology – which can now leverage brands’ video content.

VIA Dynamic uses Vibrant’s contextual platform to deliver scalable display ad campaigns with creative that changes in real-time based on the content of the page. The ads adapt to what the user is reading about, creating a highly relevant and impactful brand experience. VIA Dynamic can deliver CTRs up to 5x higher than the average rate for standard display ads.

“Vibrant offers the leading tech platform for understanding content and empowering advertising to become relevant to a Web page in real-time,” says Kassoway. “The Internet is finally delivering on its promise of a more relevant advertising experience for consumers and smarter brand engagement for marketers. AdAge Digital is the ideal forum for addressing the role contextual relevancy will play for future media platforms.”

Vibrant is #12 in the ComScore Top 50 Ad Focus ranking, reaches more than 250MM monthly global unique visitors, and has a network of over 6,000 premium publishers.

About Vibrant

Vibrant (www.vibrantmedia.com) is a world leader in contextual technology aligning billions of words across the Internet with relevant video, information, tools, and advertising. With over 6,000 premium publishers, reaching more than 250 million unique users per month (comScore, February 2011), Vibrant gives top brand marketers the opportunity to deliver highly targeted advertisements within premium Web content and offers publishers premium editorial tools to re-circulate users throughout their websites. Vibrant works with top brand advertisers such as Microsoft, Unilever, Warner Bros and AT&T. The company was founded in 2000 and has offices in London, New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Hamburg, Munich and Dusseldorf. Vibrant’s rapid growth has been recognized by the Inc. 500 and Deloitte Fast 50 lists. Vibrant CEO and Co-founder Doug Stevenson was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2010 for Metro New York. For more information, www.vibrantmedia.com or www.hyperlinkevolved.com or www.facebook.com/vibrantmedia or http://twitter.com/vibrantmedia.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/29/vibrant-brings-contextual-dynamic-video-to-display-advertising/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/20/collective-acquires-uk-video-network-web-tv-enterprise/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/20/collective-acquires-uk-video-network-web-tv-enterprise/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:21:20 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14640 Integration Expected to Speed Shift of Broadcast Ad Revenue to Online Video

NEW YORK – Collective, a full service provider of media and technology solutions for display and video advertising, announced that it has acquired premium online video advertising network, Web TV Enterprise. The deal, which follows only six months after the Company’s expansion into the UK and just weeks after acquiring video advertising platform OggiFinogi, furthers Collective’s position as a leader in delivering audiences to brand advertisers utilizing unified in-banner and in-stream video ad formats.

Web TV Enterprise is the UK’s largest premium online video ad network, representing many of the UK’s leading web publishers and content owners. A pioneer of the VOD (video on-demand) advertising space since 2006, Web TV presents advertisers with the widest range of premium video channels on the web, reaching more than 25 million UK viewers a month.

“Slow adoption of online video advertising has resulted in the format’s potential being left largely untapped with video companies remaining a small subset of overall television advertising spend,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO, Collective. “Unlike most video networks, Web TV’s revenues come largely from broadcast media budgets versus smaller digital plans. This is a trend that we see accelerating in the UK, US and globally.”

In its Online Video Advertising Market Report based on a survey of UK media buyers, Web TV Enterprise revealed that more than seventy percent expected online video advertising to increase by twenty five percent over the next six months. The research also suggested digital buyers are responding to improvements in audience measurement techniques, which has long been an obstacle for many, as noted by eMarketer which reported 31 percent of UK advertisers said online video ads need better measurement.

Collective also makes available Internet Gross Rating Point (iGRP) reporting for all Collective video and display campaigns, making the integration a natural extension of Collective’s product suite as the company continues to align its business with meeting brand advertising objectives.

“The promise of online video advertising lies in its ability to allow brand advertisers to engage with their audiences within the most appropriate content environments, where the most impact and opportunity exist,” said Jamie Estrin, founder and managing director, Web TV Enterprise. “Collective’s success in combining audience targeting and analytics with the most engaging advertising format available makes this a natural fit for us. Our combined efforts will drive the advancement of online video advertising.”

“We are delighted for Jamie Estrin and his team. His vision in 2006 has found success in a rapidly evolving industry through hard and smart work,” said Mark Sterling, Managing Director, Marster Capital, which backed the Web TV Enterprise Ltd.’s creation and supported the company through its growth and onto sale. “Backing the individual as much as the idea, we saw an opportunity to partner Jamie in a world before video existed on the Internet.”

The deal closed at an undisclosed amount.

About Collective

Founded in 2005, Collective is a full service provider of media and technology solutions for display and video advertising. We help brand advertisers and leading publishers monetize trusted audience data and brand safe ad inventory. Collective’s industry expertise provides a strategic advantage to its clients by leveraging proprietary audience modeling, insights and ad effectiveness metrics. Our flagship products, Collective Display and Collective Video®, are powered by AMP®, our market-tested data and media management platform. Collective is headquartered in New York with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London. Collective’s investors include Accel Partners®, Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital. For more information, please visit www.collective.com.

About Web TV Enterprise

Web TV Enterprise (www.webtventerprise.com) is the UK’s largest premium online video ad network, representing many of the UK’s leading web publishers and content owners. As a pioneer of the VOD (video on-demand) advertising space since 2006, the company presents advertisers with the widest range of high quality premium video channels on the web, where it places audio-visual advertising. Web TV Enterprise exclusively represents premium content from partners including Sony Music, iVillage, The Independent, E! Online and IPC Media. Over 250 leading advertising brands have run pre-roll campaigns on Web TV Enterprise’s premium video channels including Sony Playstation, COI, Vodafone, L’Oreal, Renault and Unilever.

Founded in 2006 by Jamie Estrin, Web TV Enterprise’s premium video ad network reaches over twenty five million online viewers.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/20/collective-acquires-uk-video-network-web-tv-enterprise/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/08/adotube-in-video-format-index-shows-that-banner-like-ads-placed-in-the-video-stream-are-7-times-more-engaging-than-display-counterparts/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/08/adotube-in-video-format-index-shows-that-banner-like-ads-placed-in-the-video-stream-are-7-times-more-engaging-than-display-counterparts/#comments Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:49:08 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14626 New advertisers such as CPG, Fashion, Travel, and Finance made a concerted push after the growing and broadening online video audience in 2010

Full Adotube Q4 2010 Index available at http://ftx.bz/adotubeadindexq410

NEW YORK – AdoTube announced the release of its Q4 2010 In-Video Ad Format Index. The index highlighted how placing similarly constructed rich media banner ads into the video stream led to engagement rates that are 7 times higher and click-thru rates that are 8 times higher than leading display benchmarks.* In terms of growth, the online video audience broadened in 2010 courting significant pushes from new advertisers such as CPG, Fashion, Travel and Finance.

The index is the result of analysis on 3.5 Billion impressions across the AdoTube network and provides an overview of the growth and effectiveness of their different in-stream video ad formats across industry verticals. Highlights from the index findings include the following:

- As the overall number of ads served grew, interactive ads benefited the most rising to account for 50% of Ads Sold; Pre-Roll fell to 30%.
- In-Video Ads have 7X higher engagement, 8X higher CTR than their rich media display counter parts.
- Despite the fact that Polite Pre-Rolls® feature far more 30+ second ads, the Polite Pre-Roll® View-Thru Rate continued to grow rivaling the 15 second dominated Standard Pre-Roll.
- In 2010 the online video audience broadened, while CPG, Travel, Fashion, and Finance Advertisers made a concerted push into the space.

Included are discussions of overall trends in adoption across formats and verticals as well as metrics regarding click-through, engagement, and retention rates. To view the full index and findings, visit the research section of their site. (http://news.adotube.com/research)

*Source: DoubleClick for Advertisers, U.S. Advertisers, DoubleClick Rich Media formats (video only), January – December 2009

About AdoTube

AdoTube is a complete in-stream/in-video solution that enables each part of the industry (agencies, advertisers and publishers) to have easy and efficient access to in-stream ads. AdoTube’s platform includes the Adotube Ad Network, Publisher Management Tool (PUMA), In-Stream Ad Exchange (AdEx), Network Partner Console(NPC) for third party networks, and Creative Services. AdoTube’s complete platform helps each part of the industry to deliver high-quality, in-stream advertising solutions through a quick, easy and cost efficient platform. AdoTube is headquartered in New York, with offices in California and Europe. To learn more about AdoTube, become a partner, or see their solutions for agencies, advertisers, publishers and ad networks, visit www.adotube.com.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/08/adotube-in-video-format-index-shows-that-banner-like-ads-placed-in-the-video-stream-are-7-times-more-engaging-than-display-counterparts/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/08/collective-integrates-with-adobe-audience-syndication-solution-to-deliver-targeted-display-advertising/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/08/collective-integrates-with-adobe-audience-syndication-solution-to-deliver-targeted-display-advertising/#comments Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:33:37 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14624 Integration of Collective’s AMP Audience Cloud with Adobe SiteCatalyst, Powered by Omniture Delivers Enhanced Audience Reach and Data Analytics

NEW YORK – Collective, a full service provider of media and technology solutions for display advertising, announced they have partnered with Adobe to integrate Collective’s AMP Audience Cloud media technology with Adobe SiteCatalyst, powered by Omniture, to allow advertisers to perform advanced display targeting leveraging their web analytics data.

The combination of media technologies promises to combine retargeting—proven to be one of the most effective means of online advertising—with a pixel-free integration that avoids adding more cookies to a customer’s browser. The integration was built using Adobe Genesis™, which automates the integration of partner solutions with the Adobe Online Marketing Suite, powered by Omniture.

“This represents a step forward in Collective’s strategy to enable brands to use their own data for online marketing, utilizing their own classification of their best customers and prospects when executing a targeting strategy—in a consumer-friendly manner,” said Justin Evans, SVP Audience Development, Collective. “This is the next stage of the evolution of online marketing—to combine the personalization of customer relationship management with the scale of mass communications.”

The AMP Audience Cloud is a unified pool of audience information which allows advertisers to build highly scalable custom segments across multiple data sets, representing over 80% of the U.S. Internet population. SiteCatalyst helps marketers identify the most profitable paths through their Web site, determine where visitors are navigating away from their site, and identify critical success metrics.

Collective will enable advertisers to pass segment data for targeting in an automated manner, enabling them to execute retargeting campaigns with more automation, scale and control. In addition, advertisers will be able to optimize for conversions by identifying the best converting segments and increasing the media focused on those segments.

In addition to maintaining direct control of their customer data, brand advertisers can also leverage display advertising to maintain more meaningful conversations with their customers.

About Collective

Founded in 2005, Collective is a full service provider of media and technology solutions for display and video advertising. We help brand advertisers and leading publishers monetize trusted audience data and brand safe ad inventory. Collective’s industry expertise provides a strategic advantage to its clients by leveraging proprietary audience modeling, insights and ad effectiveness metrics. Our flagship products, Collective Display and Collective Video®, are powered by AMP®, our market-tested data and media management platform. Collective is headquartered in New York with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London. Collective’s investors include Accel Partners®, Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital. For more information, please visit www.collective.com.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/08/collective-integrates-with-adobe-audience-syndication-solution-to-deliver-targeted-display-advertising/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/05/leading-agencies-select-casale-medias-online-video-solution-to-deliver-results-for-top-tier-brand-advertising-clients/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/05/leading-agencies-select-casale-medias-online-video-solution-to-deliver-results-for-top-tier-brand-advertising-clients/#comments Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:07:27 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14596 Casale Media Launches Videobox Platform to Transform Standard Display Inventory into Video-Ready Media to Simplify and Scale Highly-Targeted Video Ad Campaigns

NEW YORK – Casale Media Inc., a leading premium online media network, announces Videobox, a fully customizable branded video environment. The platform transforms Casale Media’s existing network of high-quality premium display inventory into video-ready media with high branding value. Videobox makes it easy for agencies and their advertising clients to run scalable, targeted and fully customized video campaigns using Casale-hosted serving that eliminates traditional cost barriers associated with running video advertising online.

Videobox removes the guesswork and complexity from interactive video through a highly simplified approach that consolidates all of the technical assembly, hosting, delivery, and media required to deploy video campaigns online. Casale’s Videobox operations team works directly with agency creative teams to obtain campaign assets and then assemble them into a Web optimized Videobox. On user interaction, Videobox expands to deliver a fully customizable brand experience with interactive functionality like social media sharing, player frame controls and multiple viewing choices. To make the transition seamless for advertisers, Videobox companion ads are available in all standard IAB ad units offered through Casale Media’s premium network, MediaNet. The entire experience from companion ad to full screen overlay is designed for the advertiser, with no player co-branding of any kind.

“The most impressive value we are seeing from Casale Media is the branding options they enable on the unit and the total elimination of ad serving costs to make this an easy and effective solution for our advertisers,” said Jim McHugh, President of Gigante Vaz. “Together with Casale Media, we are empowering advertisers to broaden creativity in online display by leveraging video to engage targeted audiences on a wide scale.”

At launch, the brand advertisers slated to run video campaigns on Casale Media’s network include Febreze Carpet Care Products, US Airways Vacations and St. Martin’s Press. To offer agencies and their advertising clients the precision and scale they have come to expect from Casale Media’s network, Videobox campaigns can be tailor-made using any combination of Casale Media’s existing targeting solutions, including audience, demographic, psychographic, technographic, contextual, and associative filters.

For publishers, the Videobox platform offers improved revenue opportunities by seamlessly enabling video buys on their sites. Videobox creates an ideal balance between revenue and user experience, generating high average CPMs for publishers, while maintaining user control and improving the user experience. Upon engagement, the user stays within the host site, making it easy for them to return to the publisher’s content.

“Video advertising evokes a more emotional response from users, which is what online display advertising needs more of. If advertisers can deliver that in creative and easy ways at scale, they will extract far more value from their display ad dollars,” said Joseph Casale, CEO of Casale Media. “Video advertising should be a key part in major brands’ campaigns. Combining this opportunity with high quality inventory and audience data creates an impressive synergy that makes Casale Media and our agency partners stand out to advertisers.”

The potential in online video advertising is well-documented. According to comScore, Americans viewed more than 4.3 billion video ads in January, where time spent watching video ads totaled 1.7 billion minutes during the month. Furthermore, according to eMarketer, advertising dollars are shifting from traditional banner ads, and even from rich media ads, to video. The firm claims that by 2014, the share of video will amount to almost 40% of the entire online display ad market.

About Casale Media

Casale Media is redefining the standard for online media quality, ad delivery management and media optimization technologies. Its premium advertising network is a brand-safe media environment that is used by 8 of the top 10 U.S. online display advertisers and seamlessly integrates survey, panel and actual product consumption data from leading market research firms to make it easy to reach the best customers quickly and at scale. Casale Media obtains quality inventory from 3,000 actively monitored premium publishers, across which it reaches nearly 70% of the U.S. online audience. Generating measurable success for all stakeholders in media and marketing, Casale Media is guided by its dedication to needs based development and its quality focused culture. More information is available at www.casalemedia.com.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/04/05/leading-agencies-select-casale-medias-online-video-solution-to-deliver-results-for-top-tier-brand-advertising-clients/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/24/adxpose-audit-identifies-interclick-as-top-brand-safe-solution/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/24/adxpose-audit-identifies-interclick-as-top-brand-safe-solution/#comments Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:13:05 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14551 Comprehensive Audit of Data & Inventory Validates interclick’s Commitment to Brand Safety

New York, NY  – Mpire’s AdXpose, the leading provider of online display verification and optimization, announced the results of a brand safety and performance analysis conducted which ranks interclick among the highest quality solutions.   AdXpose evaluated interclick using an all-inclusive methodology comprised of placement, time in-view, transparency, geographic, category and demographic data, as well as 10 types of brand safety.

According to the analysis, interclick consistently performed in the top-tier across numerous campaigns, compared to other DSPs and networks in the same media buy.  In recent campaigns where AdXpose was implemented for major financial and technology brands, interclick scored significantly above the industry average, increasing Return On Ad spend (ROAS) by minimizing risk and delivering reach in brand-friendly environments. interclick also scored well above the industry average in geographic and technographic targeting, and registered zero brand safety violations in January 2011.

“Trust is more important than ever in the online advertising space, and AdXpose delivers the holistic insights around transparency and audience interaction essential for each and every ad impression,” said Kirby Winfield, Mpire CEO. “With this perspective, we can strongly attest to interclick’s commitment to brand safety.”
interclick’s proprietary data valuation platform, Open Segment Manager (OSM), offers quantifiable insight into data that drives optimal outcomes for marketers. Through its integration with AdXpose, interclick verifies each data segment through AdXpose’s patent-pending real-time event capture.  Additionally, interclick implemented AdXpose’s proactive brand safety and verification features to block any potential conflicts in real-time.

“Connecting our clients with consumers in premium environments has always been a pillar of our success”, said interclick CEO Michael Katz. “Implementing AdXpose has allowed us to independently verify our commitment to bringing the safest and most trusted solutions to market”.

About Mpire
Mpire’s AdXpose is the market-leading advertising optimization technology that is evolving traditional online advertising into a more relevant and engaging medium for publishers and advertisers.  The patent-pending and award-winning technology is the first and only verification and optimization suite that gives brand marketers and agencies transparency and confidence anywhere their ads run across the Internet including exchanges, ad networks, and direct publisher placements.  AdXpose has helped advertisers and platforms verify and optimize billions of campaign data points captured in real time.  Agencies representing the major holding companies, multiple Demand Side Platforms, and more than 20 percent of the comScore Ad Focus Top 40 Properties currently use AdXpose technology. For more information about AdXpose, visit www.adxpose.com.

About interclick, inc.
interclick, inc. (Nasdaq:ICLK) is an audience intelligence company providing solutions for data-driven advertising. Combining scalable media execution capabilities with unique analytical expertise, interclick delivers exceptional results for marketers. The Company’s proprietary Open Segment Manager (OSM) platform organizes and valuates billions of data points daily to construct the most responsive digital audiences for major digital marketers. For more information, visit http://www.interclick.com.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/24/adxpose-audit-identifies-interclick-as-top-brand-safe-solution/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/18/x1s-new-reachfrequency-manager-analytics-tool-enables-improved-digital-media-performance/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/18/x1s-new-reachfrequency-manager-analytics-tool-enables-improved-digital-media-performance/#comments Fri, 18 Mar 2011 19:40:54 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14517 NEW YORK – Online targeting platform leader [x+1], www.xplusone.com, announced the introduction of Reach/Frequency Manager, an advanced analytical tool that is part of its Media+1 Platform. Reach/Frequency Manager is a single-source tool that can be used to centrally analyze and recommend reach and frequency delivery across an entire online display media plan.

Reach/Frequency Manager is now in alpha testing with a group of [x+1] clients, with a beta version planned for a late April launch.

Using Reach/Frequency Manager, digital media planners can recommend changes in media investment allocation by property in order to achieve Optimal Frequency Range (OFR) across properties. The concept of OFR is not a new one, referring to the increase of reach productivity by reducing both over- and under-targeted effective frequency. However, Reach/Frequency Manager applies OFR in a whole new way to display media, allowing reach and frequency to be planned and monitored across all display media buys, both exchange- and non-exchange-based.

Reach/Frequency Manager brings incremental scale and impact to the digital media plan by identifying unique reach and frequency delivery in a publisher matrix so allocation can be adjusted on the fly to boost performance. Used in combination with the other Media+1 analytical tools, agency media planners and marketers can use Reach/Frequency Manager to understand audience overlap and improve delivery from the top to the bottom of the purchase funnel for enhanced effectiveness and greater impact of their entire digital spend.

Benefits of Reach/Frequency Manager include:

Provides reporting though a centralized view of reach/frequency delivery across the digital media plan of all display sources, including a “heat map” report illustrating the unique percentage reach contribution of each property.
Makes recommendations that show the unique percentage reach contribution from each property to achieve OFR, allowing for a pinpoint re-balancing of plan allocations.
Includes programming that allows display media to be sourced through Real-Time Bidding (RTB) in the Media+1 platform in response to the reach/frequency levels set by the media planner.
“[x+1] has taken the lead in helping agencies and marketers improve the effectiveness of their online display media through better analytics, and our development of Reach/Frequency Manager takes this concept to the next level,” said Leon Zemel, Chief Analytics Officer of [x+1]. “It’s the tool that media planners have been waiting for to not only centralize their view of reach and frequency delivery, but also provide a system that can recommend improvements to improve campaign effectiveness.”

About [x+1]

[x+1], the online targeting platform leader, maximizes the return on marketing investment (ROI) of websites and digital media using its patented targeting technology. Providing the first end-to-end digital marketing platform for advertisers and agencies, it optimizes engagement rates and lift conversion in both media and on websites. Its predictive marketing solutions enable automated, real-time decision making and personalization so the right advertisement and content is delivered to the right person at the right time. Top companies in financial services, telecommunications, online services and travel have significantly increased the performance of their digital marketing using the services of [x+1]. The company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, please visit www.xplusone.com; follow us on twitter @xplusone.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/18/x1s-new-reachfrequency-manager-analytics-tool-enables-improved-digital-media-performance/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/15/local-online-advertising-leader-yodle-announces-launch-of-display-advertising-service/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/15/local-online-advertising-leader-yodle-announces-launch-of-display-advertising-service/#comments Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:00:16 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14500 NEW YORK – Yodle, a leader in local online advertising, announced the launch of its full-service online display advertising product, Yodle Display. Designed with the specific needs of Franchises and multi-location businesses in mind, Yodle Display is the perfect complement to Yodle’s Sponsored and Organic search products.

Yodle Display targets and optimizes display ad placements in a unique manner. First, it targets the following:

- sites that have content related to the advertiser’s specific service (contextual targeting)
- consumers who previously visited the advertiser’s website (re-targeting).

Then, Yodle Display uses a proprietary algorithm that tracks and optimizes ad placement based on leads, spending more of the budget where advertisers can expect better results. This unique approach delivers high impact branding that is confirmed by leads tracked in our powerful reporting platform.

“The conventional wisdom is that online display advertising is strictly for branding and cannot also deliver quantifiable business results,” said Yodle CEO Court Cunningham. “We decided to challenge that notion by building a product that delivers both targeted branding and measurable leads – using advanced optimization techniques that drive the best possible return on investment for our clients.”

Yodle Display addresses many of the complexities inherent to franchises and multi-location businesses – including supporting multiple billing parties, targeting dense regions of franchisee locations for the same Franchisor account, and directing leads to a specific local franchisee. Additionally, Yodle Display provides a central management and reporting system that even the largest Franchisors can use to effectively monitor and coordinate the advertising campaign of each local franchisee.

“We are very excited to launch Yodle Display for the Franchise community,” said Vice President of National Accounts and Co-Founder John Berkowitz. “Working with premier franchisors over the last several years like Two Men and a Truck and Meineke, we learned quickly that franchise systems have very unique needs and challenges. From feature definition to our premium customer service, we feel Yodle Display is the most custom Franchise display offering on the market.”

Research also shows that display advertising drives improved performance for paid and organic search marketing, which Yodle offers through their Yodle Sponsored and Yodle Organic products, respectively. Specifically, results have shown display advertising drives more searches for a company’s brand terms, increased click-thru rates on search engine results pages and improved conversions on websites and landing pages.

Yodle, a leader in local online advertising and named #35 on the INC 500 List of fastest growing private companies in the U.S., connects thousands of local businesses with consumers in a process so simple and cost-effective that business owners can’t imagine any other way to advertise. Yodle has developed an integrated approach to signing up and serving local businesses that are transitioning their marketing budgets online. Yodle is headquartered in New York, NY with a presence in 25 major cities across the United States.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/15/local-online-advertising-leader-yodle-announces-launch-of-display-advertising-service/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/14/ses-new-york-features-iab-local-advertising-forum-and-ad-networks-exchanges-sessions-track/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/14/ses-new-york-features-iab-local-advertising-forum-and-ad-networks-exchanges-sessions-track/#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:00:40 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14493 Expert Publishers, Advertisers and Members of the Agency Community Come Together to Discuss Best Practices and Latest Trends

SES New York 2011
NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)’s Local Committee and Ad Networks and Exchanges Committee are programming a forum and track at SES New York, which takes place March 21-25, 2011 at the Hilton New York. SES New York, which is expected to attract more than 5,000 industry professionals, is the industry’s leading search and social marketing conference and expo. To attend SES New York and the IAB forum and session track, register before March 21 and receive the pre-show discount of up to $200.

The IAB Forum, scheduled for Monday, March 21, is a full day of sessions on Local Advertising, including a keynote speech by Warren Webster, President of Patch by AOL. The forum is a perfect guide for brands and agencies who are building a local advertising program.

Scheduled for Tuesday, March 22, the IAB track features the leading voices in the advertising industry who will be examining the latest trends and opportunities in ad networks and ad exchanges.

“We love partnering with the IAB’s industry gurus to present the latest developments and best practices to our attendees,” said Matthew McGowan, Managing Director of Americas for Incisive Media. “There are so many critical changes taking place in the advertising industry that it’s hard to keep up. The specialized networks and exchanges track will save anyone working in this arena a lot of time and effort, and the forum is perfect for local advertising professionals.”

“We’re particularly interested in participating in SES New York at this juncture of our committee because we will only be days away from certification against the new IAB Quality Assurance Guidelines,” said Jay Sears, General Manager of CONTEXTWEB, Inc. and co-chair of the IAB Networks and Exchanges Committee. “It will give us a great opportunity to hear from our constituents in the ad networks and exchanges community.”

Following the Webster keynote, the five sessions of the IAB Forum are:

“Geofences make good customers: Mobile targeting and local results” presents ideas on how to drive the right local audience to commercial opportunities.
“When it rains, it pours: Using apps to drive mobile and iPad engagement” lets attendees in on the first industry-wide study on the intersection between mobile and tablet devices and user engagement in the away-from-home market.
“Back at the wheel: How big auto drives sales” delivers information about how to use display, local and onsite-search to drive local sales.
“Clip and save: Group buying, digital couponing and content that works” addresses the group-buying craze and how marketers can incorporate it into their marketing campaigns.
“In El Barrio: Reaching US Hispanics where they live and shop” presents ideas for going after the $1 trillion purchasing power of the US Hispanic market.

The four sessions within the IAB Ad Networks and Exchanges Track focus are:

“Meet the Buyers: Defining Quality in the Buying Experience”
Chuck Moran, CMO of BURST Media, will moderate a discussion among leading New York City digital buyers about what they are looking for in an ad network or ad exchange.
“The QAGies Are Coming: The Movement for Quality in Display Advertising”
Rob Rasko, President and COO of CPX Interactive and co-chair of the Quality Assurance Guidelines Go-To-Market Working Group, will moderate a discussion about what it will mean to certify against the IAB Quality Assurance Guidelines starting in April 2011.
“The AAAA Digital Committee Speaks About Quality”
David Jacobs, Senior VP of Publisher Services, Advertising.com and Jay Sears, co-chairs of the IAB Networks and Exchanges Committee, will moderate a discussion among representatives from the 4As Digital Committee: Agency.com, Digitas, Kirshenbaum, MEC, MediaSmith, Moxie, Neo, OMD, and Starcom about the relative importance of transparency, control and simplicity in partnering with ad networks and exchanges.
“RTB, DSP, ATD, WTF: Finding Quality in a Sea of Solutions”
Jay Sears will moderate a discussion with demand side platform leaders about the role demand side platforms play in the digital media supply chain.

Through March 21, marketers can register to receive the SES New York pre-show discount of up to $200. For the first time at SES New York, Incisive Media has designed an attractively-priced All Access Passport, which includes access to all conference sessions, keynotes, the expo hall, training sessions and partnered events.

About SES

Incisive Media’s SES is a leading global conference and training series focused on search and social media marketing. Other Incisive resources for interactive marketers include ClickZ for digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion and research and Search Engine Watch, which provides news and information about search, analysis of the search engine industry and tools for improving search marketing effectiveness.

Incisive Media is a leading global provider of specialized business news and information, in print, in person and online. The company’s principal markets include financial services, legal services, commercial real estate, marketing services and risk management. Incisive Media’s market-leading brands include Accountancy Age, Computing, Investment Week, Legal Week, Post, Risk, and SES Conference and Expo. For more information, visit www.incisivemedia.com

About the IAB

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

]]> http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/14/ses-new-york-features-iab-local-advertising-forum-and-ad-networks-exchanges-sessions-track/feed/ 0 http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/10/tumri-integrates-with-appnexus-platform-to-offer-dynamic-ads-and-creative-optimization-for-real-time-media-buys/ http://www.adoperationsonline.com/2011/03/10/tumri-integrates-with-appnexus-platform-to-offer-dynamic-ads-and-creative-optimization-for-real-time-media-buys/#comments Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:00:00 +0000 Otilia Otlacan http://www.adoperationsonline.com/?p=14458 SAN MATEO, Calif. – Tumri announced that it has integrated its self-service platform with the AppNexus real-time ad platform to offer dynamic creative and offer optimization to AppNexus clients along with custom data integration. As a result, existing AppNexus clients can now implement dynamic creative and offer optimization at unmatched production scale via Tumri Ensemble. Tumri will leverage AppNexus’ leading ad serving technology to build out a combined creative plus media bidding feature for AppNexus clients.

AppNexus clients, including leading ad networks, demand-side platforms (DSPs) and other sophisticated online advertising companies, benefit from its powerful and scalable ad technology for executing and optimizing both real-time and directly negotiated media buys across the major ad exchanges and other sources of inventory. Through the new arrangement with Tumri, AppNexus’ existing client base will have access to dynamic ads and creative optimization, integrated with custom data, to significantly improve ROI on real-time media buys.

“Teaming up with Tumri will give AppNexus the opportunity to provide clients with even more powerful creative and offer optimization tools,” said Brian O’Kelley, CEO, AppNexus. “We’re pleased that AppNexus is now uniquely positioned to integrate its robust real-time ad platform with Tumri data for superior real time decisioning on behalf of our clients.”

Tumri Ensemble offers an easy-to-use user interface and an automated workflow that provides complete control over dynamic display ad campaigns. With the Tumri-AppNexus integration, clients can quickly setup, launch, manage, and analyze dynamic ad campaigns to optimize media buys and improve real-time bidding ROI for clients. The combined effect of real-time media buys and offer optimization is even more compelling for advertisers in categories like retail and travel where the large set offers can be taken into consideration for placing the real time bid.

“The emergence of real-time bidding has created significant market opportunities across the dynamic display and creative optimization space and we believe this is only the beginning of the performance improvements yet to come,” said Hari Menon, CEO, Tumri. “Clients are vying for increased personalization as well as data targeted advertising — in less time and to a much wider and dispersed audience. This combined offering, through our partnership with AppNexus, helps us deliver all of this and more.”

The Tumri Ensemble platform offers automatic display ad optimization, dynamic product level retargeting and display ad personalization, along with analytics and insights. Learn more about Tumri Ensemble and Tumri’s entire suite of solutions here: http://www.tumri.com/platform/overview

About Tumri

Tumri is the leading provider of dynamic creative optimization and personalization solutions for advertisers and agencies. The Tumri Ensemble platform combines next-generation ad-serving with dynamic creative production to enable real-time 1:1 personalized marketing at scale. With Tumri, marketers can effectively cross-sell and up-sell a catalog of products or services to their consumers based on a user’s actual site browse or action, driving maximum relevancy and ROI. Marketers also benefit from a powerful auto-optimization engine and dynamic creative reports that allows for a more accurate and timely view of campaign metrics. Tumri powers dynamic marketing campaigns for many of the world’s most prominent brands including Nike, HP and Travelocity among others. To date, Tumri has executed more campaigns, served more impressions and created more distinct dynamic creative experiences than anyone in the space.

Tumri was named a 2009 American Business Awards winner, an AlwaysOn 2010 and 2009 OnMedia 100 winner and a “One to Watch” company for Dealmaker Media’s 2007 Momentum Growth Conference. Tumri is funded by Accel Partners, Shasta Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Time Warner. Tumri is a member of Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI). To learn more about Tumri visit www.tumri.com or follow us on Twitter.

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