Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
BrightTag Announces Funding
Data rights management platform BrightTag (AdExchanger.com Q&A) announced that it has closed its Series A financing led by TomorrowVentures and New World Ventures with participation from Epic Ventures and the I2A Fund – note TomorrowVentures involvement which is an investment vehicle for Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Read the release. DRMP and DMP (data rights and data management platform) are the latest additions to the online ad ecosystems acronym soup. Welcome!
Making Brands Comfortable
Looking to grab brand dollars moving online, video ad marketplace Adap.tv has launched its “Brand Impact” offering which is a combination of partnerships with Affine Systems content verification technology, Vizu’s brand optimization and measurement product line and Adap.tv’s own technology. From the release: “Adap.tv’s Brand Impact provides five key benefits for brands that want to create powerful online video advertising programs…” Read them.
RIM Acquires…
RIM quietly announced that it has acquired a mobile content and app management platform company called Cellmania. No word on how much. In fact, no word beyond what’s on the Cellmania home page. Read more on TechCrunch. Does this mean Millennial Media is off the table? No. The Cellmania purchase looks like a piece of an overall mobile monetization strategy – there still seems to be room for a mobile ad network with scale.
AudienceScience announced its moving into the Far East – Japan. From the release: “The office, based in Shibuya, will be the operating center for AudienceScience’s aggressive expansion efforts in Asia and follows on from the recruitment of Xiaoming Shao in April to be AudienceScience’s first Managing Director for Asia Pacific.” Do you have an office in Asia? Read more.
Tech Cash Hoard
In the Wall Street Journal’s Heard It On The Street column, Rolfe Winkler says that the top 8 public tech companies by market capitalization are sitting on a cash pile of around $125 billion. He adds that 20% of Google and Apple’s market cap is cash and yielding nothing for investors. Is acquisition next? Read more.
CTR Debate
On his personal blog, kbs+p’s Darren Herman has started a debate about the efficacy of clickthrough rate as a success metric for digital ad campaigns. The feedback is decidedly negative from participating industry observers about CTR. Yieldbot CEO Jonathan Mendez takes up the baton on his own personal blog and sticks it in the collective ear (in a friendly way) of all of Herman’s participants and writes, “CTR though is most important in relation to other metrics. Site placements, keywords, conversion rates, average order values and on and on.” Read more.
Android CTR
On GigaOm, Kevin Tofel notes new Chitika research which suggests that Android users are click happy. Tofel shares ad impression data that shows “a click-through rate (CTR) of 1.187 percent on Android devices vs. a lowly 0.654 percent CTR on the iPhone” and then he offers some possible explanations. Read more.
Legolas Marketplace Funding
Marketplace Legolas Media has increased the funding its seeking according to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. According to Citybizlist, the company (AdExchanger.com Q&A) “has upped its $1.05 million May offering to raise $1.55 million” with investors that include Greylock Partners, Whidbey Venture Group and seed investors. Read more from Citybizlist. And, see the filing.
More Video Targeting Options
In MediaPost, Laurie Sullivan notes OneScreen – which according to the article is creating an exchange for video content owners, web publishers and advertisers – is making moves to provide targeting data to marketers “adding behavioral targeting on top of video context. When and what consumers watch will become data, reused for targeting.” Read more.
Targeting Convenience Store Audience
In the digital out-of-home (DOOH) world, DigitalSignageToday reports that ConvenienceTV, a DOOH network, “has expanded its presence in Los Angeles to 28 video advertising displays reaching 1 million viewers.” The network offers the opportunity to target audience in convenience stores. Read a bit more.
The Demand-Side Platform
Laredo Group’s Rob Graham discusses the “Rise of the Demand-Side Platform” in his column on ClickZ. Graham says that certain DSPs are finding new ways to a acquire inventory. He addresses advertisers saying: “You should also be aware that some demand side platforms are willing to work with ‘buying groups’ that buy discounted chunks of inventory that are then divided among participants.” Read more.
A Video Ad Video
Tania Yuki from ComScore’s Video Metrix product discusses the online video ad world in an interview sponsored by the ARF. She notes the disparity in ad placement scarcity between TV and online, “Eager to expand both audience size and time spent viewing, video sites have erred on the side of fewer ads so as not to disrupt viewing or give the user any reason to navigate away.” See it. (source: @pcervieri)
