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Category: RTB

• DataXu MarketPulse: “Beyond Audience: What Drives Campaign Performance?”
  06/28/2010 | Categories: data, demand side platform, DSP, MarketPulse, online advertising, performance, real-time bidding, RTB, trends

  Today we published the second issue of the DataXu MarketPulse, a research newsletter designed to highlight trends in digital advertising based on DataXu’s own proprietary data.

  In this month’s issue, we explored campaign performance and the impression attributes that are most highly correlated with conversions and the results were surprising!

  DataXu MarketPulse, June 2010

  Beyond Audience: What Drives Campaign Performance?

  Since the dawn of the Internet, advertisers have been on a quest for the holy grail of digital advertising: delivering the right ad to the right consumer at the right time.  This quest has yielded great insights about how to improve each of these ad dimensions. Consumer targeting is the current priority for some high-profile ad agency holding groups. But which factor is the most important driver of a campaign’s success?

  With real time bidding (RTB), advertisers can get closer to the answer than ever before. Impression level data essentially maps the path to the grail. At MarketPulse, we like to look past the hype and let the data do the talking.

  With 100s of millions of impressions served daily, we recently evaluated whether consumer, context, or creative attributes of ad impressions were most predictive of conversions.

  

  The result? Each category was well represented, but creative attributes were the winner — correlating most highly with conversions for 48% of the campaigns.

  “The data shows that a single campaign performance driver cannot be predicted with confidence in advance. This suggests that a more effective ‘media plan’ is one that instead responds to the nuanced, unique data each campaign generates. The implication is that brands and their agencies need systems that can glean the data and automatically adapt, rather than relying on a rigid, one-size-fits-all approach,” noted Mike Baker, CEO of DataXu.

  Our analysis included nineteen large-scale, online display campaigns that ran for at least four weeks, across the leading RTB ad exchanges. In each campaign, we evaluated multiple impression attributes in the categories of consumer (who saw the ad), context (where the ad appeared), and creative (what the ad looked like) to see which attributes appeared most consistently across ad impressions that preceded conversions.

  For additional results and takeaways from this month’s MarketPulse, you can download the pdf: DataXu MarketPulse_Campaign Performance Drivers_June 2010

  DataXu’s MarketPulse explores the data that defines today’s digital advertising marketplace. Sign up here to have future MarketPulse newsletters delivered directly to your inbox.

  
  

• Hyper Target without Sacrificing Scale: DataXu Introduces Audience Optimization
  06/22/2010 | Categories: audience buying, audience insights, audience optimization, audience targeting, campaign parameters, data, demand side platform, DSP, impressions, performance, real-time bidding, RTB, target audience, targeting, third party data

  As digital moves from the fringe to the core of most media plans, marketers are looking for more effective ways to engage the online consumer.  From traditional demographic targeting to social influencers to search intenders, finding your audience and delivering the right message is key.  Third party data enables advertisers to more precisely target their audience, but advanced targeting techniques can also have the unwanted effect of limiting campaign reach and scale.

  Today, we announced our Audience Optimization program that allows advertisers to easily integrate proprietary and 3rd party data into the DataXu system for advanced audience targeting, optimized campaign performance and sophisticated audience insights.

  What makes DataXu’s Audience Optimization unique is actually the same thing that makes DataXu unique, our proprietary learning system.

  Unlike other DSPs, DataXu is able to not only target specified audience segments, but actually learn the most effective combinations of creative and context within those segments and apply those learnings to extend the campaign beyond the originally defined audience segment.  This solves the scale problem that plagues pure play audience buying strategies.  DataXu’s real-time bidding system then uses a variable-pricing model to “bid down the curve” or value impressions relative to how closely they resemble the optimal performance patterns.

  Here’s how it works in practice: a financial services company is looking to target 34-54 year old males with a high household income for a new “retirement product.”  Their media plan projects a target audience of 2 million consumers  online, but with the specific campaign parameters in play, they are able to reach only 250,000 unique impressions initially.

  Using DataXu, the advertiser can then run an Audience Optimized flight across an additional 1.75 million uniques, all of which resemble the consumers that are converting on the offer.  The Audience Optimized flight is built from impression- level data and web site activity and predicts which combination of consumer, ad creative and context signals are most likely to result in a conversion – pattern matching from our learning system.  The media is valued and purchased, and creative selected, based on how closely the pattern resembles the target audience conversions.

  For more about our new Audience Optimization capabilities, see the full press release here: http://www.dataxu.com/news/audience_optimization.php or contact us at sales@dataxu.com.

  -Mike Baker, CEO, DataXu

  
  
• Predictions: “Mobile Will Surprise People This Year”
  05/07/2010 | Categories: demand side platform, DSP, IAB, Mobile, mobile advertising, real-time bidding, RTB

  This past Monday, DataXu CEO Mike Baker spoke on the “Looking Forward…DSP, RTB, OMB!?!” panel at the IAB Networks & Exchanges event.  Mike was joined by representatives from both the agency and vendor side of the digital advertising space for a rousing discussion that covered topics such as:
  •    Content vs. context in digital advertising
  •    Premium advertising inventory in the DSP space
  •    Buyer, seller, and media trader differentiations
  •    Evolving ad standards, and more…

  Jay Sears from ContextWeb moderated the panel and ContextWeb posted a full-length video of the session to their blog. Check it out here: http://blog.contextweb.com/blog/bid/32659/IAB-Marketplace-Video-Looking-Forward-RTB-DSP-OMG

  At about 23 minutes in, Jay poses a very interesting question around the ability for rich media, mobile and pre-roll advertisements to deliver the same standardization, volume and liquidity as display ads.

  Mike explains that in his opinion, mobile will surprise people this year.  With the tremendous growth of smartphones and data plans, he believes the volume will definitely be there to make mobile a significant channel for advertisers.  And while the mobile platform may not be as visually glamorous as digital, its static display capabilities will help mobile advertising to eventually be traded in a similar fashion to online display.

  Check out the video and see what YOU think.

  
  
• DataXu CEO Speaking at IAB Networks & Exchanges Event
  04/30/2010 | Categories: advertising, demand side platform, DSP, IAB, real-time bidding, RTB

  On Monday, May 3rd DataXu CEO Mike Baker will be in NYC to speak at the IAB’s Marketplace event: Networks & Exchanges. Mike will discuss RTB, DSP and the future of digital advertising on a panel moderated by Jay Sears, General Manager of ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange.

  The Networks & Exchanges event brings together luminaries from across the advertising ecosystem to help advertisers navigate the complicated ad buying space by defining the field, detailing successful campaigns, breaking down the value and offering a look at what the future holds—and where the next opportunities lie.

  Mike will be speaking alongside Sloan Broderick, Managing Director, MediaCom Interaction; Steve Katelman, VP, Publisher Development, Omnicom; and, Philip Smolin, General Manager, Platform Solutions, Turn on a panel titled “Looking Forward: RTB, DSP…OMG!?!”

  Event Details
  What: Networks & Exchanges: IAB Marketplace
  Panel Discussion: “Looking Forward: RTB, DSP…OMG!?!”
  Who: Mike Baker, DataXu, CEO
  When: Monday, May 3, 2010 at 5:25 p.m. ET
  Where: Crowne Plaza Hotel – New York, NY

  The event is SOLD OUT, but you can sign up to be on the waiting list here: http://www.iab.net/events_training/ne2010/register

  
  
• DataXu Named Partner in Rubicon Project’s Beta RTB Program
  04/14/2010 | Categories: ad inventory, data driven decisioning, real-time bidding, RTB, visibility, Web publishers

  Today, the Rubicon Project announced its launch of “Permission Control 2.0”, a new technology infrastructure that gives premium Web publishers complete visibility and control over their ad inventory and demand partners.  In tandem with these new controls, the Company is also launching its beta real-time bidding (RTB) program and DataXu is pleased to be a Rubicon RTB demand partner.

  The launch of Rubicon’s beta RTB program reinforces the market’s embrace of RTB by both buyers and sellers as a more efficient way of doing business. The range of buying models represented by the partners in the program also validates RTB’s significance. We at DataXu are looking forward to extending our partnerships as we continue to connect our customers to the widest reach and highest frequency media possible through our advanced, data-driven decisioning approach.

  
  
• DataXu Joins Yahoo’s Demand-Side Platform Pilot Program
  03/15/2010 | Categories: demand side platform, display advertising, DSP, innovation, real-time bidding, RTB, Yahoo!

  Big news today: Yahoo has today announced their demand-side platform pilot program (see Yahoo’s announcement). This marks a significant milestone in the emergence of demand-side platforms and real time bidding because the industry’s largest publisher is embracing this new paradigm.

  We are pleased to be one of the demand-side platform partners selected to participate. Yahoo has a great history of innovation through leadership when it comes to display advertising, and we look forward to working with them—along with major agencies and advertisers—to create a sustainable ecosystem that makes digital advertising more effective. We share Yahoo’s vision that innovations such as RTB will benefit all participants.

  
  
• Yahoo’s Right Media Upgrade Is on Target
  11/17/2009 | Categories: demand side platform, DSP, media buying, real-time bidding, Right Media, RTB, transparency, Yahoo!

  AdAge wrote a great article today regarding Yahoo’s announcement about the next evolution of their Right Media Exchange, offering more premium inventory and better transparency for advertisers. It’s encouraging to see all of the participants in our market – from inventory suppliers to demand side platforms – offering up exciting new features and innovations that will offer real, measurable value to advertisers. I also see it as market validation of the opportunity that real-time bidding for auction media represents.

  Beyond any press releases or marketing hype, however, the real validation for these developments will come from advertisers themselves. As I speak with agencies and advertisers each day, I am hearing firsthand about both their reservations and their expectations for this new media buying paradigm. These conversations are what keep our entire team grounded and focused on the end value we want to bring to our clients. In my view, the eventual leaders in this space will be the ones who keep listening – and keep responding – to the real needs of advertisers, as Yahoo has clearly done in this case.

  
  
• Welcome to the DataXu Blog
  09/14/2009 | Categories: ad impressions, ad optimization, data, dynamic bidding, MIT, online advertising, real-time bidding, RTB

  Hi, and welcome to the DataXu blog. On this blog, the DataXu team and I will share our take on online advertising and its future. Big things are happening. Specifically, the advent of “real time bidding” on individual ad impressions is happening, and it is set to revolutionize online advertising for agencies and brands. That transformation will be a large part of our focus here.

  I’ve been in the industry for a long time now and have seen one advancement after another, but in my view nothing before compares to what is going to happen in the months ahead and the transformative effect real-time bidding will have on the advertising industry. I expect a couple of years from now we’ll all look back and shake our heads in amazement at what passes for online advertising management today.

  Who and what is DataXu you ask? We are a Boston-based company launching today with a real-time online advertising optimization platform. Our core technology was developed by my co-founders, an MIT aerospace professor and his PhD students. Its original purpose was to quickly sort through massive quantities of data (what they humbly refer to as a “complex combinatorial space”) in support of NASA’s Mars Mission planning. DataXu’s founders – from the distinct but highly data-driven worlds of aeronautics and online media – recognized a unique opportunity to apply these analytic innovations to improve upon the current inefficiencies of online media placement. In the words of John Wanamaker (who many consider the father of modern advertising), “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” We’re out to solve that problem.

  As a starting point for our conversations here, I thought it would be helpful to briefly discuss what we mean by real-time bidding. As you likely know, the first generation of ad exchanges has operated for several years now and relies on the use of “static bidding,” which allows an advertiser to list a bid price and receive impressions by the thousand that meet the bid. The new generation of ad exchanges—being led by Google and Yahoo—is all about real-time bidding, which replaces the static bidding paradigm with dynamic bidding at the impression level.

  This means that an ad buyer, for the first time, can automatically review and differentially value each individual opportunity to buy an ad impression in real time, while a consumer browses the web .The ability to buy advertising in this manner will result in a dramatic efficiency gain for buyers and sellers alike (that’s right, less manual media management!). With our platform, advertisers can greatly increase their ability to drive sales and other web conversion actions.

  There is obviously much more for us to talk about in regard to DataXu and the industry overall, and you probably have a lot of questions about where this is all headed. Hopefully you’ll visit this blog often to ask those questions, and share in the discussion about where online advertising is going. In the meantime, please visit our web site often to hear more about what we’re up to. Stay tuned. We will dive deeper into the online advertising market and technologies in future posts.

  Thanks for reading. I look forward to continuing the conversation.

  Mike Baker, President & CEO