Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Turn Says RTB Working
In a release, demand-side platform Turn announced that it is seeing “dramatic” initial results in its real-time bidding integrations with PubMatic and AdMeld. The company says that it’s seeing conversion rates more than double the rates seen with non-Real-Time Bidding inventory. Read more. Turn’s Emile Litvak
talks more about RTB’s potential on the Turn blog.
[x+1] Flying Delta
[x+1] said that is rolling out its updated Site+1 targeting technology after running it successfully with their Delta Air Lines client. In a release, [x+1] said, “despite a down economy, Site+1 has helped Delta drive a significant increase in lift and response rate for its onsite offers.” Read the release.
Bartz At Analyst Day
InternetNews.com’s Kenneth Corbin covers Yahoo!’s Wall Street analyst day that took place on Wednesday. CEO Carol Bartz admitted in her presentation to analysts that Yahoo! was once “the big shining star in the mid-2000s. Then somehow we weren’t so shiny anymore.” Read more.
ValueClick Earnings, Display Outlook
ValueClick’s third quarter for 2009 met analyst expectations which included earnings per share of 15 cents. But, the company reduced 4th quarter 2009 revenue guidance to “$128 – $138 million range. Revenue is below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $141 million” according to Seeking Alpha. Display looks good though as the company expects its display business to grow in the “mid-teens” percentage-wise. Read more.
$8.5 Million For ScanScout
Video ad network company, ScanScout, announced that is has taken a Series B round of funding from investors that include EDB Investments in Singapore, Time Warner, General Catalyst Partners, and First Round Capital according to VentureBeat’s Paul Boutin. Read the release.
The VC Experience
Andrew Chen revisits the venture capital world on behalf of the startup entrepreneur and offers several key learnings for startups when dealing with the VC community – among them, the inability to help with hiring and managing beyond generalities and an understanding of the finanacials. Read more.
New Agency Models
The New York Times’ Stuart Elliott looks at what he thinks may be a new agency model that uses crowdsourcing (“the wisdom of crowds”) as former executives from Crispin Porter & Bogusky have started a new Boulder, Colorado-based agency titled Victors and Spoils. Elliott says clients are always hungry for new ideas and agencies are looking for new ways to meet the hunger. Read more.
Agency Roles
On Imedia Connection, Underscore Marketing’s Tom Hespos says that agencies need to act more as agents on behalf of clients and, in turn, solve their business problems rather than selling media or technology to them – similar to salespeople. Agency demand-side platforms would appear to be one of the centerpieces of Hespos’ argument. Read more.
Akamai CEO Defends Acerno
Akamai reported Q3 earnings that were slightly higher than analyst expections as the company’s profits reached $32.7 million in Q3 according to The Boston Globe. Read more. During analyst questions at the end of the earnings conference call, Akamai CEO Paul Sagan defended the Acerno acquisition and the perception that it’s benefits have been “flat.” Sagan said, “I think the important thing on Acerno, which is really an advertising based business, it’s driven by e-commerce so Q4 is important but advertising is very much a Q4 business. 40% comes in one quarter business, so you’ve got 60% spread for the rest of the year.” Read more on Seeking Alpha.
Adometry Launches Verification Biz
Seattle-based Adometry publicly announced it’s product plans around display ad verification metrics. Started by two former employees of the Walt Disney Internet Group – John Dietz and Robert Perrier – the company also also said that it has a hired CEO Jim Ewel, lately of Microsoft and GoAhead Software. With its $400,000 of angel financing, Dietz told TechFlash that the funding should allow them to get to profitability. Read more.
Fraudsters In Retreat?
Anchor Intelligence says that according its data, click fraud declined in the third quarter of 2009 to 18.6 percent from 22.9 percent in Q2. Kristina Knight of BizReports notes that similar to a Click Forensics report, Anchor Intelligence says that fraudsters are getting more sophisticated and using coordinated, automated click machines, if you will, called “botnets.” Read more.
The Apple Ad Budget
The Apple ad budget for 2009 came in at half a billion dollars according to a recent 10-K filing (PDF) as reported by CNN Money’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt. The budget break out as a mere 1.3% of overall revenues. No word on what percentage of ad spend is devoted to digital. Read more.
