Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Permuto Gets $10 Million, New Name
Retargeting company Buysight (which was Permuto – Q&A from last year) announced that it has closed an initial, $10 million round of funding from ONSET Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners, and others including LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman. The company is looking to leverage the growing, if not rocketing, needs of ecommerce companies who wish to target shoppers who visit their sites and then leave them. Read the release. And, more here from TechCrunch.
New IAB Local Ads Study, New Ad Formats
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the results of new industry-sponsored, local advertising study called, “Targeting Local Markets.” According to an IAB rep, the study looks at different ways publishers can slice and dice their inventory such as “IP-Based Geo-Targeting, Search Targeting, Explicit Profile Data Targeting…” and more. Read the release. Download the study (PDF). Also, the IAB announced a competition whose goal is to create new ad formats in order “fuel online creativity.” Read the release.
MIXX Live: AOL Talks Big Ads
Jeff Levick took the stage at the IAB’s MIXX Conference during Advertising Week in New York City to show off Aol’s new big ad strategy which big brands such as General Mills, Columbia Pictures and Lexus are already buying. ClickZ’s Anna Marie Virzi quotes AOL exec Jeff Levick who says, “The majority of investment on the Web has been focusing on the plumbing – the data, insights, targeting. There has been little time and money spent on the aesthetics of the experience.” Read more.
Om Malik of GigaOm reports that Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch, a hugely popular tech news blog, is on the verge of being acquired by Aol. Malik says, “The deal is at a sensitive stage and might fall apart yet, but I don’t think so. Sources familiar with both entities says that the announcement is likely to come onstage at Disrupt, TechCrunch’s flagship conference currently underway in San Francisco.” Read more.
Nielsen And The Online GRP
Brand marketers looking to merge their offline buying methods with online may be smiling. Following up last week’s unconfirmed story from the WSJ, Nielsen announced an online GRP (Gross Rating Point) which combines “traditional Nielsen TV and online panel data with aggregated, anonymous demographic information from participating online data contributors.” The new metric will also mean that media publishers will/may have to install a Nielsen pixel. This creates privacy implications for Nielsen which says in the release, “This system is designed to measure the audience composition of a particular advertisement and cannot be used for targeting web users. It does not track consumers from one website to another. Consistent with its privacy standards and practices, Nielsen will enable consumers to opt-out of inclusion in this measurement system.” Read more. The wide roll-out comes in 2011.
Magazines Aren’t As Dead, Digital Impervious?
Mediaweek provides an annual review of the several media industries including magazines. One buyer puts it succinctly about conversations he having with magazine publishers, “I’m having less conversations about, ‘Are magazines dead?’ than last year.” Media Kitchen’s Barry Lowenthal says in the article, “2011 is going to be the year when you start seeing magazines develop compelling and meaningful cross-platform packages.” Mags are going digital! Read more. Meanwhile in digital, “Is the digital marketing channel recession proof?” is the question. Mediaweek’s Mike Shields writes, “People now live their lives on the Web—consider Facebook’s hold on people’s attention alone compared to 2008. Most believe that brands simply won’t be able to cut back on the medium, even if the economy sputters.” Read the digital outlook.
Google Mobile Display Share Dropping
Google’s mobile display ad share is on a significant decline according to a story from BusinessWeek. The chief culprits appear to be competition from networks like Jumptap and Millennial Media as well as Apple’s iAd platform. Quoting New IDC research, BusinessWeek says, “Google’s share will drop to 21 percent, from 27 percent last year, when combined with results from AdMob, the ad network it bought in May.” Read more.
Adify Issues Vertical Industry Metrics
Everybody has an index or metric of some sort these days- and AdExchanger.com loves the data. In the new Adify Vertical Gauge, data shows that the display advertising industry continues a resurgence -albeit with constraint according to Adify. Still, B2B CPMs are on fire on a quarter over quarter basis: “The business vertical had the greatest eCPM growth (in Q2 2010) of all eleven verticals, posting a 26% increase,” according to the release. Download the report (PDF).
PubMatic Amps Event Agenda With RTB
PubMatic announced that has finalized the agenda for its October 7 Ad Revenue Conference in NYC and it will include a panel led by PubMatic’s Jeanne Houweling on companies using real-time bidding (RTB). Case studies will be presented by [x+1]’s Eric Simon, DataXu’s Bruce Journey, MediaMath’s Ari Buchalter and Turn’s Maureen Little. See the agenda. And, request an event invite.
Audience Data Vs. Ad Inventory
Lotame CMO Eric Porres urges publishers to consider the value of their audience data as they look to boost ad inventory valuations – but do it carefully with a brand dollar focus. He writes, “Rather than look to push audience data toward direct response or “click-to-conversion,” it’s now possible to drive premium CPMs by developing a marketplace for intent-related brand metrics like brand awareness, ad recall, and favorability.” Read more.
New Audience Platform, Was Content
The beta of a new audience targeting platform has been released from Sociocast which is led by a former Lehman analyst Albert Azout and funded by Quicken Loans chief (and Cleveland Cavaliers owner for you NBA fans) Dan Gilbert. Sociocast moves into the audience data space after focusing on content recommendation similar to companies like Aggregate Knowlege. Read the release. There’s no truth to the rumor that when the platform was launched, a company rep said, “We’re taking our talents to audience buying.”
