New Atlas Offering Lets Biggest Publishers Run Remnant Auctions

AQuantive unit Atlas is now making available to large enterprise publishers its AdMarket ad serving technology, tools that were previously available only to a chosen few companies.

AdMarket allows large publishers to create a direct marketplace where advertisers can bid on discretionary inventory. Atlas said the marketplaces enabled by AdMarket are “self-serve,” and enable publishers to create their own performance-based ad sales systems.

Atlas spokesperson Mark Naples said AdMarket gives publishers the ability “essentially to run their own private (ad) exchanges” and keeps publishers in the mix “by enabling them to operate a managed marketplace to auction off unsold discretionary inventory.”

The product was developed by Accipiter, a sell-side ad trafficker acquired by Atlas in December 2006 for $30.3 million. Atlas said in a statement that the tools were previously available to “a handful of strategic partners,” which have used them to deliver approximately 50 billion impressions per month.

Publishers using AdMarket can set up display ad marketplaces based on CPM, CPA, CPC or any combination. They establish the rate structures for their sites and select the placement categories, page and content areas they are making available to advertisers.

The company believes AdMarket will enable large publishers, such as Atlas’ new customer IAC, to more easily increase their yields.

Atlas stressed that AdManager “complements” rather than replaces its Atlas AdManager ad management system, including AdManager’s Network Control Panel, a tool that helps optimize discretionary ad network deals. According to Atlas, the Network Control Panel allows publishers selling discretionary inventory through ad networks to make higher profits while enjoying less effort than that needed with manual network sales management.

AdMarket and Network Control Panel “support rather than cannibalize” publishers’ premium campaigns. Naples said site-owners can control who is allowed to buy inventory, including large agencies and ad networks.