Mobile, Video Muscle Onto Ad Exchanges

Here's a rundown of the most recent offerings.

Until this year, the ad exchange ecosystem has been ruled pretty much exclusively by that workhorse of digital formats, the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s standard display unit. No longer.

A slew of companies have lately begun supporting new formats, in particular mobile and pre-roll ads. Among them are Microsoft, Adap.tv, BrightRoll, demand-side platform DataXu, and Research in Motion. As with display, ads are auctioned on a real-time basis through ad exchanges and other “sell-side aggregators,” with assets provided by ad networks and demand-side platforms.

Here’s a rundown of the most recent offerings and their implications for media buyers:

Video Exchanges From Adap.tv and BrightRoll

At least two firms are aggregating in-stream video inventory, making it biddable in real-time via an exchange model. Back in February Adap.tv opened its marketplace. Initially available only in pre-roll, the company now allows buyers to bid on mobile video and video interstitials.

Video ad views on Adap.tv’s exchange have grown an average of 92 percent per month since its launch. In September it claims to have delivered 440 million impressions, and this month it surpassed a billion.

In August, video ad network BrightRoll rolled out its own self-serve exchange for video ads and, like Adap.tv, it supports real-time auctions. Called BRX, the platform appears to have gained early momentum, brokering $1 million in video ad inventory in its first month. It’s selling inventory to advertisers directly, as well as to ad network go-betweens like ContextWeb and Media6Degrees and DSPs like DataXu.

“If we can pool a large amount of inventory it will be a significant step,” BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti told ClickZ back in August. “Buyers just don’t have that inventory access.”

Microsoft Prepares Mobile Exchange

Microsoft has put the pieces in place to create a mobile ad exchange, called Microsoft Advertising Exchange for Mobile. The launch is part of an aggressive push in real-time bidding that the company hopes will save it from becoming an also-ran among ad exchange players.

Geared toward developers, Microsoft’s mobile exchange debuted in conjunction with the mobile advertising software developer kit for the Windows Phone 7 operating system. It will allow developers building apps for Windows Phone 7 devices to plug into demand from mobile ad networks like Millennial Media, InMobi and MobClix.

At launch, the mobile ad exchange will be specific to Windows Phone 7 handsets. But the company left the door open to other devices, claiming its mobile Web properties reach 59 percent of iPhone, 45 percent of RIM, and 53 percent of Android users in the U.S.

“It’s interesting they went from not much of a mobile play right into an exchange mobile play,” said Ed Montes, managing director of Havas Digital’s AdNetik trading desk, of Microsoft’s effort.

Mobile Aggregators Proliferate

Aside from Microsoft, a number of companies are seeking to fill demand for mobile inventory by pooling inventory from publishers and app developers.

Just last month RIM announced its Blackberry Advertising Service, an exchange-like product that allows developers of Blackberry apps to plug into demand for inventory through a number of mobile ad networks.

Another firm, Mobclix, is similar to RIM and Microsoft in that it offers developers the opportunity to draw from multiple sources of demand for mobile advertising without building relationships with individual ad networks. It’s different from them in that it’s owned by an agency. The firm announced its acquisition by U.K.-based Velti earlier this month.

Also on the list of mobile aggregators is Nexage, an aggregator of mobile and online ad sources. And, browser maker Opera hopes to use adoption of its mobile browser as a foundation for a mobile ad exchange of its own.

Yet media buyers are cautious about applying the principals of exchange buying to mobile.

“The mobile space is full of aggregators right now,” said Havas’s Montes, who says scarcity and a lack of tracking standards may hinder exchange-based mobile media planning for some time. “We need to find inventory, but I don’t think there’s a ton of availability in that marketplace.”

DSPs Tap Into RTB Mobile and Video Ads

In October, demand-side platform DataXu upgraded its bidding tools for advertisers to enable mobile and pre-roll ads. More recently, it added expandable ads through a deal with Gannett-owned PointRoll.

DataXu does not operate an exchange marketplace itself but relies on distribution partners to make video and mobile inventory available. To supply video ad space, it’s working with BrightRoll and Adap.tv. For mobile it’s sucking inventory from Nexage and Mobclix. To support inventory for PointRoll’s expandable ads, it will lean on yield optimizer AdMeld.

DataXu and other DSPs wishing to tap into mobile and video-based sources of inventory are in some ways at a disadvantage in trying to become major hubs of buying activity – at least initially. That’s because they’re competing with established ad networks for inventory.

A source with knowledge of video ad exchanges, who asked not to be named, said DSPs are not yet significant players in pre-roll. “DSPs are essentially irrelevant from a spending standpoint,” he said. “It’s the ad networks that have all the demand.”

That may change with time. DataXu CEO Mike Baker said the company is preparing for a day when agencies and marketers seek consolidated exchange bidding across all online media – and eventually offline too. He believes the existing field of exchanges will greatly increase in the coming months, increasing DataXu’s value proposition as a potential aggregator of aggregators.

This article was originally published Oct. 25, 2010 in ClickZ News.

 

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