With Facebook Exchange now three months old and officially out of beta, agencies have started to get a sense of the possibilities. In many cases they’re working through holding company trading desks to source audience and measure results on the fledgling marketplace. For Omnicom Group agencies, that means collaborating with Accuen.
AdExchanger spoke with Josh Jacobs, Accuen’s president, to see how the trading desk is leveraging FBX to date. His answers are below. We’ll soon follow up with an overview of all four major holding company-run desks and how they’re accessing the fledgling ad marketplace.
How do Omnicom advertiser clients access the Facebook Exchange today?
Facebook advertising is a strategic focus across Omnicom, from social analytics, led by our Annalect division, to our recently announced content management initiatives at Resolution Media. Facebook Exchange is the latest approach to integrating Facebook into our clients’ strategies, and we are leveraging our Accuen platform as the mechanism to integrate client data and attribution with Facebook Marketplace ads.
At Omnicom, clients access Facebook Exchange inventory through Accuen’s programmatic buying platform. Accuen is integrated with five of the 15 Facebook Exchange partners (Turn, DataXu, MediaMath, AppNexus and The Trade Desk). Accuen’s philosophy has always been to integrate with the best-of-breed technology partners to give our clients the most choice and flexibility when it comes to executing campaigns in ways that fit their needs.
Any early results you can share?
Preliminary results for Accuen were very positive. Remarketing campaigns showed strong conversion performance and significant cost efficiencies, beating non-Facebook inventory benchmarks and adding additional reach and conversions to existing campaigns.
To date, Accuen campaigns have focused on retargeting tactics using first-party data for performance-focused campaigns. FBX is an exciting opportunity for performance-focused campaigns and Accuen recommends these as the best fit for FBX inventory for the time being.
What’s the specific opportunity available through Facebook’s exchange for Omnicom clients?
We see FBX as a way to extend reach and frequency for campaigns designed to target specific users or audience profiles, whether that means using first-party data or third-party data, such as PRIZM segments. FBX ads can be used as a complement to existing campaigns, allowing any campaign to be optimized in real time across both standard IAB display and Facebook.
We’re also excited about the ability to use Facebook as a way to do follow-on engagement with customers who have interacted previously with an advertiser. Loyalty program and CRM data integration are really interesting opportunities now that clients can bring their own data to the Facebook party.
Can you draw any comparisons – and/or offer predictions – between Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and Yahoo’s Right Media AND the Facebook Exchange?
Both the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and Right Media started as ways to facilitate many-to-many transactions in an ecosystem of buyers and sellers. They were revolutionary because they put more control directly in the hands of buyers and offered ways for ad networks and publishers to drive incremental revenue by tapping into the liquidity of an exchange.
Facebook Exchange is the first time Facebook’s “walled garden” of inventory and audience has been made available for retargeting and web standard measurement. It’s a clear sign that buyers are placing importance on attribution and media mix, and Facebook’s willingness to open its ecosystem to first-party data and measurement means that they can more effectively compete for budget based on true comparisons of performance. Given the breadth of their user base and the huge amounts of attention users lavish on Facebook, it bodes very well for their exchange. Like RMX, having a top publisher making significant, high-quality, inventory available via RTB is a great endorsement for the future of programmatic buying.
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Zach Rodgers contributed.
