There should be more to this announcement, no?
There is a hint of a new, Google ad exchange strategy involving AdSense if we are to believe David Rosenblatt, Google’s president of display advertising, during his IAB keynote.
David Kaplan of PaidContent.org wrote yesterday:
Google’s approach: The ad exchange extends the AdSense marketplace. It’s neutral and will support all formats, not just text, which has been Google’s mainstay. Not just the auction method, but reservations-based buying. We launched a new design tool for display ads in October. “What we found was that 80 percent of those who used that program never bought display before.”
So, it appears the new Google display ad exchange will support multiple formats and reserved and spot buying. But why is this just about AdSense and the publisher side of the business? Where’s the AdWords or advertiser side? -apparently, because it’s about yield and not pricing according to Rosenblatt.
We did enjoy the quote from MediaWeek where we’d like to think that Rosenblatt borrowed from our recent post and, according to Mike Shields of MediaWeek, said:
“Technology and networks appear to be at risk of becoming dirty words,” A sentiment he referred to as “delusional.”
Couldn’t agree more, David.
More from MediaWeek on what Rosenblatt said about the new exchange during his IAB keynote:
“Instead, an exchange like Google’s which enables publishers to control pricing, control which buyers can see which inventory and employ varied pricing models will result in sites “selling each piece of inventory at the highest price possible,” he said.
[snip] “We believe that premium sales and premium inventory is the bedrock of the industry. But it cannot live in isolation from networks…the issue isn’t pricing, it is yield.”
It will be interesting to see how the new publisher exchange model works out on AdSense.
For example, will Google let publishers set different prices according to AdSense contextual categories and/or ad sizes?
How will this effect yield optimization companies like AdMeld, Rubicon Project or Pubmatic and will they be allowed to trade via the new exchange on behalf of publishers? It would seem to make yield optimization services even more valuable as real-time pricing options for the publishers increase.
How will the ability of publishers to set pricing affect the large, so-called “premium” publisher, tier? Will they be more likely to take a run at using the Google AdSense ad exchange while risking latency if they can get filled at designated CPMs, CPCs or CPAs?
How about re-targeting opportunities – like Yahoo!’s APT Platform – for AdSense publishers so that they can host a cookie for an advertiser and reap the benefits of higher behavioral/retargeting CPMs and thereby turning once remnant inventory into premium?
We look forward to more details on the new AdSense exchange as well as a possible roll-out date for the unending beta.
