by Wayne Friedman on Mar 18, 6:36 PM
Jag Duggal, senior vp of product management for Quantcast, in speaking at OMMA RTB in San Francisco says the business needs to take a step back. He says too many online marketers and agencies are focused on re-targeting. Duggal notes for example that having "a pair of shoes from Zappos following you around" the internet isn't good. Duggal says its important to get back to the beginning: "The upper funnel is important."
by Mark Walsh on Mar 18, 5:56 PM
What impact is programmatic buying having on agency culture? Among other things, it’s placing a premium on people with more knowledge of ad technology. Nicole Rawski, manager of analytics at JWT’s Digitaria unit, pointed out that the agency used to hire people for its analyst team directly from college and train them from the ground up. Now it sees applicants with more experience and background in search and social analytics, which is a benefit to Digitaria. Likewise, Marcus Pratt, director of Insights & Technologies, at Mediasmith, noted the rising importance of the media technology planner that understands the right types …
by Gavin O'Malley on Mar 18, 3:07 PM
What is Facebook Exchange doing for buyers? It may be easier to ask what it isn't doing, says Christina Beaumier, Vice President of Global Client Development at Xaxis. Regarding one client with an online purchase, Beaumier told OMMA RTB attendees on Monday: "We've been able to drive enormous saving as a cost-per-order." For this unnamed brand, Xaxis has used retargeting to get users to come back, and third party data to get new people to come to the brand's site. The result? "With Facebook Exchange, we achieved over 40% [cost per order] in the first month," according to Beaumier. Feeling …
by Tyler Loechner on Mar 18, 3:02 PM
Brian Quinn, senior director, advertising partnerships, Kenshoo, believes that on a fundamental level, it is. However, AdRoll President Adam Berke disagrees, saying that Facebook itself would consider FBX "anti-social" because it doesn't leverage the social graph. Berke did admit that the verticals that do well on FBX happen to be social in nature, such as ticketing or shopping. Quinn and Berke are on the "Facebook's FBX: The Year Zero View" panel at today's OMMA RTB in San Francisco.
by Tyler Loechner on Mar 18, 2:52 PM
At OMMA RTB in San Francisco today, AdRoll President Adam Berke gave three reasons why ad quality problems are solved via the Facebook Exchange (FBX). The first reason he gave is that ads are served in predictable places on the page. Berke said that because users are familiar with where the ads are located, "things like clicks are intentional." The second reason, according to Berke, is that "ads are always above the fold." This helps with predictability.
by Mark Walsh on Mar 18, 2:16 PM
IDC's Karsten Wiede says publishers have good reason to fear the rise of RTB. He suggests publishers are in for a major disruption when brand advertising—premium inventory—is traded via RTB on a large scale as “indirect” or unsold inventory is now. He thinks that day is coming because of improvements in closing the feedback loop between campaigns and conversions as well as advances in digital attribution to perfect the media modeling mix for a given campaign. Once agencies master that process, there won’t be anymore need for direct sales forces at Yahoo, AOL and other publishers. Wiede also expects RTB …
by Wayne Friedman on Mar 18, 2:05 PM
When will real-time media buying move into mobile? "Maybe around year or so," says Karsten Weide, program VP, IDC, at the OMMA RTB event in San Francisco. The mobile market is $4 billion right now and still growing -- but RTB activity slow. There are different platforms and the technology is different, says Weide. There are also latency issues -- that is, the slow distribution of signals where mobile resides. Also, Weide says : "There is a not enough demand and not enough supply." All this is worse in video, he says.
by Mark Walsh on Mar 18, 1:50 PM
Speaking at the OMMA RTB conference, Karsten Weide, Program Vice President, Digital Media and Entertainment, said the RTB market is already worth $2 billion, with spending growing at a 50% annual rate over the next four years. The U.S. is the largest market so far, followed by Europe and Japan, but not much happening elsewhere yet when it comes to RTB.
by Gavin O'Malley on Mar 18, 1:27 PM
Technology and optimized ad buys aside, brands are imploring the audience at OMMA RTB to think more about digital's ability to carry great content, and do so at scale. "As an industry we need to create better content," Brendan Moorcroft, CEO of Mediabrands Audience Platform, said on Monday. Case in point, "Red Bull Stratos [which captured daredevil Felix Baumgartner descending 24-miles from earth] stunned the industry," Moorcroft said. "Red Bull crushed it," and, he added, showed how digital can scale just as well as traditional media ever did. Regarding digital, "There is so much potential to create more impact," agreed …
by Mark Walsh on Mar 18, 1:25 PM
Besides continuing to refine the mechanics of programmatic buying, Brendan Moorcroft of Mediabrands says marketers have to create better ad content attuned to digital media. As an example, he points to Red Bull’s sponsorship of Felix Baumgartner’s 24-mile freefall from the edge of space in October. “We’ve got to do more of those types of things,” he said, pointing to the millions of times the video was viewed and shared on YouTube and other platforms. Fellow panelist Marcus Pratt, head of technologies and insights at Mediasmith, noted most advertisers are simply interested in porting over 30-second TV spots to the …