Yesterday, Adap.tv announced a new platform it’s calling “Adap.tv for Advertisers,” which it describes as a buy-side management system for online video advertising. The company says Interpublic Group‘s Mediabrands and its agency trading desk, Cadreon, is one of the first to leverage the new platform. Read the release.
Adap.tv CEO Amir Ashkenazi discussed the announcement’s implications.
AdExchanger.com: Are you moving away from your marketplace strategy?
AA: No, Adap.tv for Advertisers is an important extension of the Adap.tv Marketplace.
Similar to our offering for publishers (Adap.tv for Publishers), the idea behind Adap.tv for Advertisers is to provide buyers with the ability to manage and buy video inventory at scale. This model is similar to Google’s combination of Invite Media and AdEx.
Buying and managing video advertising is very different than display advertising in terms of technical challenges, as well as metrics and tools used to track performance. In addition to being a very powerful standalone platform for buying video across any inventory source, Adap.tv for Advertisers seamlessly integrates into display-oriented platforms, enabling display-oriented DSPs and ad networks to offer video as well.
How does pricing work for the new platform?
Adap.tv for Advertisers’ pricing is based on a technology licensing fee model and is negotiable depending on the scale and usage of the product. It is competitively priced and in line with other buy-side platforms.
Can advertisers maintain using DSP technology maintain global, cross-digital channel frequency capping with the new platform?
Advertisers can leverage the same cookie information for video as they do for display and frequency capping can be applied across an entire video spend. However, because there are no standards for cross-digital channel frequency capping, it currently cannot be applied to both. We are working with display technology providers to build cross-digital channel attribution and optimization.
What is the difference between what Adap.tv offers and a video ad network?
Adap.tv does not buy or sell media. We build the technology that makes buying and selling video advertising as easy and seamless as possible. The company has three product suites – Adap.tv for Advertisers, Adap.tv Marketplace and Adap.tv for Publishers – that work in harmony. In short, we connect buyers to sellers directly. Some of the leading display and video ad networks are our customers as both buyers of video ad inventory and users of the Adap.tv for Advertisers platform to manage their video business.
Can an advertiser who uses another video ad server use your tools but not your video ad server? If not, are there switching costs?
The Adap.tv Marketplace supports third party ad-serving and there are no additional or incremental costs associated with this feature. VAST is still an emerging standard and there continue to be interoperability challenges. Many advertisers choose to use the Adap.tv ad server as we have spent years integrating with all of the video players in the market and have built over 70 plug-ins to ensure full delivery across all campaigns.
By John Ebbert
