pubgears

Empowering publishers with intelligently routed connections to revenue providers.

[pubgears]

You Got Served!

For an industry that has so many acronyms, it’s no surprise we have industry coalitions with funny abbreviations as well- IAB, ANA, 4A’s- all working on the 3MS, Making Measurement Make Sense. But for an industry as segmented as online media and publishing, who are they making sense for? Although there are five guiding principles to consider within the 3MS, a large push in the industry is centered around the first principle: Move to a “viewable impressions” standard and count real exposures online.

What’s the Big Idea? The IAB is determined to assure advertisers their branding budgets, typically flushed into television, are safe AND measurable online.  

Who’s leading the charge? The IAB, comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies that are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. The ANA, whose membership includes 450 companies with 10,000 brands that collectively spend over $250 billion in marketing communications and advertising. And the 4A’s, comprised of agencies with a leading objective to promote and further the interests of advertising agencies and other marketing communications organizations.

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) and the Online Publishers Association (OPA) are listed as supporters of the initiative.

What does this initiative change? If a tree falls in a forest and no one heard it, the tree did not make a noise. Or in this instance, if an adserver made 1000 ad calls, but only 750 of the ads 1) completely rendered and 2) were more than 50% in view 3) for more than 1 second, then only 750 ads count as viewable impressions.

So now what? That’s a really great question. Momentum is building. Comscore, C3 and RealVu have products ready to support this measurement initiative. (Among the three platforms putting forth a product, RealVu is the only one with full Media Rating Council accreditation; while C3 and ComScore are in the process of applying for it.) Case studies have been formed and it seems, in some instances, as many as 68% of all display ads served are not ‘viewed’ by consumers according to the current IAB viewable impression standard.  However, according to C3 it also seems that when only taking into account viewable impressions, the true click-through rates on banner ads are 179% higher than those reported for marketers basing their measurement using gross number of impressions. Will we see media buyers only willing to be pay for Viewable Impressions? Will we start to see the time required increase for a viewable impression? Will we see publishers garner higher revenues from this new ‘premium’ inventory? All are really good questions that only time will tell.

Online advertising has definitely seen its share of buying trends and the amount of data available pre and post campaign certainly hasn’t hurt us. The idea of spending branding dollars online seems a little passé now that we can target based on purchasing behavior and deeper demographic information, but ultimately this is coupled with the desire to better understand attribution. Typically it is assumed brand dollars mean splashy invasive units and audience means strategic purchasing of standard media. What we are looking at is an attempt for these two spending ideologies to converge in a way we haven’t previously seen enforced. As publishers, we should prepare for this shift back to brand dollars, whatever that new definition may be.

[pubgears]

How did we get here?

The very first banner ad was placed in 1994 on HotWired.com. The ad was for MCI and read: "Have you ever clicked your mouse right HERE? You will!" Ironic, right? Because now it would read: "Do you ever click here? Or will you search for something relevant to me?"

Anyhow, that ad was bought the way other media was bought- traditionally. Advertiser worked with agency, agency worked with media property. This is how it continued for over a decade. Unfortunately, the downturn of the economy had brands grabbing their purse strings and Madison Avenue was accountable for data that supported the dollars they spent.

Concurrently, agencies were frustrated with the status quo media buying methods, which lead to over a third of a display media budget being wasted in the process: sending out RFPs, IOs, trafficking tags, compiling disparate reports, and de-duplicating attribution. Agencies and brands wanted more- more data, more targeting, more control, but publishers lacked the tools to satisfy their demands.

These wants lead to a technological renaissance, suddenly companies catering to agencies and brands were coming out of the woodwork. They promised and delivered more in-depth data mining, audience targeting and faster transactions. Suddenly it was half the cost to target the same audience in half the time, but the publisher was not invited to the negotiations table. Networks and exchanges multiplied with an endless supply of bells and whistles provided by these new tech partners promising scale and efficiencies, while publishers were still left with their old offering. Fortunately, this pushed advertisers and publishers to treat online banners like something other than traditional media- new media.

Publishers needed to act quickly. The obvious and immediate way to get a piece of the action was to partner with as many of these businesses as possible, transposing the old problems of an agency to be new problems of a publisher. Now the publishers were left managing multiple business partners, a fragmented revenue stream, and the pressure of monitoring their brand in the market.

Although publishers didn’t have much time to learn the nuances of these new tools, their participation with them, knowing or unknowingly, influenced a shift in media spending that we see continuing today. The ecosystem is now flooded with new technologies catering to advertisers. Unfortunately the options for publishers in the current market typically have to follow the dollar, making advertisers their number one priority. This has left publishers with limited customer service and the victim of numerous offenses; delayed payment terms, exuberant revenue reconciliations, data theft via pixel and cookie dropping, hidden fees, and arbitraged inventory.

This is where PubGears comes in- if advertisers have agencies who specialize in this new ecosystem, why shouldn’t the publishers? These agencies develop best practices, have strategists, research teams, and provide course correction to campaigns when things aren’t working, on a regular basis. We do the same thing for a publisher.

The ad agency advises what price point to buy- we advise what price point to sell.

The ad agency advises how much money to spend where- we advise how much traffic to send where.

The ad agency advises on new inventory outlets- we continuously research new revenue streams.

For a publisher worrying about content and direct sales, keeping up with this part of the business is hard to do. We saw a need, and we are here to fill it. 

[pubgears]

The Year of the Broker

If I had a dime for every time I heard ‘This will be the year for…’ I’d be too busy in the Maldives to write this but here I am, so here we go.  In a recent article David Gaines, CEO of Maxus, claims 2012 will be the tipping point for media buying. The pinnacle moment several of us have been waiting for, where agencies finally accept anything other than custom content or high impact units should be purchased thru some type of buying technology. This wouldn’t be the first year this claim was made, but will it finally be the last?

If we review a recently released infographic it seems the infrastructure is already there. The broader definition of trading desk can include ad networks trying to stay relevant, but for the most part all of the large holding companies have established their own in house solution. For example, Digitas and Razorfish (agencies) are part of Publicis so they use VivaKi (trading desk), also part of Publicis. This should have been the catalyst for change- a simple way for agencies to manage real-time buying. Now they can partner directly with DSP’s and cut out networks, limiting artificial inflation. So what’s the issue?

Today agencies are really good at buying reserved media. They work with a partner who has a direct line into a guaranteed amount of publisher inventory, because they can then guarantee their clients will see their money spent. Think of the security involved in that execution. If I am purchasing media for Nike on an exchange via a DSP, I can get really targeted. I could buy users between the ages of 18 and 34 who have purchased sports paraphernalia online at least 3x in the last 3 months. My client may be a 35 year-old female who has purchased sports paraphernalia never. Will she trust this ad is running? The contrast between an exchange buy and a 100% share-of-voice homepage takeover is dramatic, but this is what we are dealing with.

My point is I don’t think we are waiting on simplicity to perpetuate this change. With more than enough quality impressions circulating through the exchanges, it’s clear the publishers are not slowing us down. What’s missing may be no more than an education series for agencies and brands alike that clearly communicates the new benefits and detriments associated with this new strategy.  Perhaps it is the fault of those most involved in the industry. Our fancy acronyms, elaborately vague explanations and new jargon have scared away the people who really need to understand, causing a massive delay in adoption. Maybe there is resentment toward the word broker? Whatever it is, just like most things, the proper education and understanding will be the best foot forward for those of us who would like to see this change. So here’s to 2012! What will this be the year for?