Right Media “Eggs-perts” Share Useful Information Over Breakfast

March 16th, 2010

Dozens of Right Media clients got “eggs-actly” the information they needed at our Eggs & Exchanges breakfast series held on March 2 in New York and March 11 in Santa Monica.

Our first session, Our DSP and Yours, focused on enabling demand-side platform partners to find the maximized advertiser ROI golden egg. Megan Pagliuca, senior director, Right Media Professional Services, outlined the many improvements made to the Right Media Exchange, such as facilitating transparency, integrating with third-party brand-safe vendors, pruning undifferentiated clients, and supporting branding with surveys and other features.

Clients were given a wealth of information about Exchange transparency including that approximately 84 percent of impressions served by Right Media show accurate, targetable validated URLs.  Megan also discussed third-party online brand studies, buyer and seller best practices, and brand safety and emphasized that diligence and creativity were needed to excel with RMX. “If you don’t add value, you get squished,” she said. Megan and Daniel Tse, manager, Right Media Professional Services showed how a top cosmetic brand for the first time was able to measure and monitor purchase intent, which led them to profitably redefine its target audience.

During the second session, A Closer Look at Real Time Bidding, Pedro Ponce de Leon, senior manager, Right Media Solutions Architecture, explained the advantages of RTB for ad networks, intermediaries, publisher aggregators and buy-side platforms.  He also addressed concerns such data collection and rights and whether there’s a risk of eCPM cannibalization on premium inventory.

Even the most hard-boiled clients profited from the eggs-posure to Right Media’s presentation, which came with a tasty and generous breakfast buffet. Right Media clients can watch their e-mailboxes for an invitation to the next one!

Posted in Advertisers, Demand-Side Platforms, Events, Right Media Exchange, Right Media News | No Comments »

Demand-Side Platforms: The Pilot

March 15th, 2010

Using Yahoo!’s science, art and scale to deliver audience-based buying

Earlier this month at the 4A’s conference, we talked a lot about how Yahoo!’s unique combination of science, art and scale unlocks exciting new opportunities for advertisers. Based on conversations we’ve been having with marketers, agency partners and technology providers, one area that’s in need of further exploration and innovation is in how media is purchased.  At Yahoo!, we’re very focused on finding new ways to research, plan, target and measure digital media so we can help speed the flow of ad spending online. We believe that demand-side platforms (DSP) represent an interesting new way to leverage Yahoo!’s science, art and scale to deliver on the promise of audience-based buying.

As a result, Yahoo! is working closely with DSP leaders, including Invite Media, Mediamath, Data Xu, Turn and X+1 as part of a new pilot program to establish best practices in audience buying for their clients.  DSPs are driving significant innovation in the science and underlying technology of audience-based, display buying for our largest partners.  Some early innovations are focused on identifying and engaging audiences, controlling frequency of ad exposure more effectively and developing real time bidding (RTB) capabilities for buyers.

The pilot will demonstrate how Yahoo!, in partnership with these industry leaders, can provide marketers with access to the audiences they most want to reach by leveraging insights from buyers, sellers and 3rd party data providers. This pilot will also enable DSPs to establish a more integrated, deeper relationship with the Yahoo! Network and the Right Media Exchange.  Many of these DSPs have been members of the Right Media Exchange for years, and through this pilot, they will gain access to Right Media’s real-time bidding (RTB) capabilities.

DSPs have made great strides to provide the largest display media buyers with enhanced technology and services that make digital media more effective overall.  We look forward to exploring this exciting opportunity with our pilot partners, and we will share updates on our progress here on this blog.

There’s a huge audience out there, and it’s going to take a little science, art and scale to really unlock the potential of audience buying.

—Ramsey McGrory (VP, North American Marketplaces) & Seth Dallaire (VP, Mid Market Sales)

Posted in Advertisers, Demand-Side Platforms, Technology | No Comments »

Wise Words for the Wall Street Journal

March 15th, 2010

Right Media’s General Manager Bill Wise was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal last week, touting our “significant” lead over the competition. He also explained how Yahoo’s web sites are part of the Exchange ecosystem and represent a “must buy” for advertisers.

Wall Street Journal subscribers can read the full article.

Posted in Right Media Exchange, Right Media News | No Comments »

The New Real-Time Bidding

March 12th, 2010

There’s an article in today’s New York Times about real-time bidding that includes Yahoo!’s Right Media.

We are really excited about the momentum we’re seeing in the real-time bidding space.  Right Media was the first marketplace to offer real-time bidding (RTB) in our own marketplace over five years ago (see the story we posted on this last year). We have been testing a new kind of RTB for over the last six months.  In the newer version of RTB, we broadcast bid requests to companies who have a decision engine to return a bid.  While this may not seem like big news, RTB provides some big benefits for buyers, sellers and consumers.

  • Buyers benefit because they have greater control of their bidding across all available inventory.  For example, buyers can control campaign ad exposures more discretely.  When bid requests happen, buyers can assess whether a user has seen an ad and determine whether another ad is appropriate.  Because of the way ad serving happens today, that’s hard to do across all buys.
  • Sellers (e.g. publishers) benefit from less latency and redirects and can monetize their ad inventory more effectively.  Far too often, an internet page loads more slowly than it should in part because of the way the ads are served.  Also, RTB allows for more buyers to bid on ad calls and competition drives revenue yield for sellers.
  • Consumers benefit because the ads will be delivered faster and with less redirecting, piggybacking and all the things that create latency when delivering an ad.  Research has shown the faster you deliver content (including advertising) to consumers, the better their experience is and the more likely they will be to engage.

RTB is a necessary step toward improving the overall digital advertising process, but there’s still a long ways to go until RTB becomes a reality for the entire industry.  Among other things, the companies that provide RTB don’t all do it the same and the infrastructure required is different.  In an advertising world that is part science and part art, we have our best and brightest engineers working to stay at the forefront of the innovation and driving value for all partners in our ecosystem.  Stay tuned, more to come on RTB.

—Bill Wise, VP and general manager, ad platforms

Posted in Ad Networks, Advertisers, Publishers | 1 Comment »

The Road Ahead for Right Media

February 12th, 2010

As brand marketers bring more dollars online, Right Media is actively addressing the needs of the differentiated ad networks, direct advertisers, and global agencies to enable brand safety in our premium marketplace.  In the coming weeks, we will further define how the Right Media ecosystem is evolving in the following areas:

  • Right Media Goes Premium: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again! Last year, we tightened our focus on providing premium, differentiated demand and premium, transparent supply.  We’ve adjusted our strategy and charged our business development team with signing only premium, transparent brand buyers and sellers.
  • Third -Party Technology: Right Media is focusing on developing relationships with partners who provide brand safety and verification technologies.  Our Exchange Technology Partner Program helps identify and support third-party technology to extend the capabilities of the Right Media Exchange.
  • More Metrics: Our customers have asked for it and we plan to deliver! Right Media is in the process of identifying a set of Exchange-wide metrics as brand safety indicators. 

  • Publisher Transparency: Marketplace Select was launched in July 2007 to facilitate site list sharing between sellers and buyers. Today, the program has 145 members.  We’ve also significantly increased the percentage of transparent exchange-wide validated URLs (VURLs).  Now, we are working on an initiative to help facilitate launching more types of premium buys on the Exchange and removing some of the obstacles created by rich media, expandable ads, and brand surveys.

We are looking forward to sharing our 2010 plans with you and welcome your feedback!

— Brooke Wyard & Megan Pagliuca

Posted in Right Media Exchange, Right Media News | No Comments »

Right Media is Open for Premium Business

December 3rd, 2009

Earlier this week, we announced that Right Media will discontinue supporting the Direct Media Exchange (DMX) – our self-serve platform for small publishers looking to monetize their sites.  The DMX site will serve ads through January 31st and DMX participants can access their reports through March 1st.

This was a strategic business decision and it was made after careful consideration of our business model.  We believe that the future of the Right Media Exchange lies in the premium marketplace and we have spent the second of half of 2009 paving the way for what we anticipate will be a very exciting 2010.

We welcome the opportunity to share how we can help our clients and potential partners leverage the Exchange to enhance their businesses.  I encourage existing Right Media clients to reach out to their account manager or directly to me so that we can craft a specific strategy for your business.  If you are not currently a client, we would like to explore how we may work together in the future.  Potential partners may contact Steven Woolway at stevenw@yahoo-inc.com.

We’re looking forward to sharing our success with you in the coming months.

Stephanie Dorman
Senior Director, Client Services and Operations
skane@yahoo-inc.com

Posted in Right Media Exchange, Right Media News | No Comments »

Right Media Takes Steps to Extend its Lead in the Ad Exchange Marketplace

November 16th, 2009

We have always been, and continue to be, an entrepreneurial group here at Right Media:  We continually challenge the norm.   We push each other to iterate and innovate– if not through code then through creative solutions.  We challenge, learn, and evolve with our top customers.  In fact, we challenge each other so much I urge people to yell, “challenge” in internal meetings if they don’t agree with something being said- it could be on a position during a heated discussion, could be on a market theory, could be on product prioritization… heck, it could be on what we decide to order for lunch!

In 2005, Right Media established ourselves as the first ad exchange when there was so much friction in the market that it seemed like anyone with an ad server could call themselves an ad network.  Today, we are the largest exchange with tremendous scale.  More than 120,000 active global buyers and sellers and roughly 9 billion transactions pass through the Right Media Exchange every day. It was always our goal to take the installed base of buyers, sellers, and overall marketplace liquidity and continue our maturation towards a more premium and differentiated offering.

Today, online advertising is again at a critical point in its evolution. Consumers are spending more and more of their time online and we as an industry have not effectively shown large marketers why the dollars should shift as well.  Now, that’s changing: The advertising community wants an upscale, high-quality marketplace where audiences can be bought at scale, and in real-time.  Yahoo! and Right Media have been at the forefront of this shift and we will continue to leverage the Exchange to capitalize on this trend.

That’s why I’m excited to announce that Right Media has refined its strategy to become a premium exchange focused on being transparent, differentiated and interoperable.  Our premium supply and demand ad platform will support an ecosystem of leading and differentiated digital advertising companies, including differentiated ad networks, leading advertisers, global ad agencies, premium publishers, data providers, and technology innovators in our non-guaranteed marketplace.

We also will have demand-side platform (DSP) capabilities, which is a marketer-focused buying solution that transparently manages media spend across multiple supply marketplaces.  Our premium ad exchange will enable clients to leverage value-added data across the supply and demand of the Exchange and offer  integration (interoperability) with other exchanges.

To read more about this topic, Advertising Age posted a story today about our new strategy. I hope that you will keep reading our blog for more updates about the Exchange.  And please feel free to tell us what you think by leaving a comment.  As you now know, I love a good “Challenge!”

—Bill Wise, Yahoo! VP/GM, Ad Platforms

Posted in Right Media Exchange, Right Media News | 1 Comment »

A Closer Look at Online Data

November 10th, 2009

Right Media clients talk shop, spot trends

Everyone knows how powerful online data can be – but not everyone agrees on exactly how to use it. That was the focus of a panel I moderated as part of the Right Media Forum last week.

The panel, “The Power of Online Data, Today and Tomorrow,” looked at the use of data in today’s online advertising industry and helped attendees identify data-driven opportunities, and applications that may exist in their current strategies.

Panelists included:

  • Mike Benedek, Vice President of Business Development, AlmondNet
  • Alan Edgett, Senior Director of Interactive Media, Experian
  • Mark Mannino, Vice President, Supply & Data, MediaMath
  • Steve Sutton, Chief Operating Officer, Ziff Davis Media
  • Mark Zagorski, Chief Revenue Officer, eXelate

This great mix of execs joined in an engaging discussion about major challenges for the industry, ownership of data, government regulation and the role of the Exchange.

Taxonomy was discussed at length on the panel, as concerns about differences in the classification of data came to the forefront.  Panelists debated: Should the industry have a universal taxonomy as a way to help standardize data across the board?  One panelist said that his sales people can’t keep up with the algorithms doing the classifications and, therefore, are not in sync with the different data segmentation occurring in the industry. Another panelist felt that taxonomy creation should not be the role of an exchange, comparing it  to a government that is so  involved in the  mechanics of the economy that it  erodes open nature of the market.

The need for flexibility was another central theme in the discussion. Panelists felt that any standardization or taxonomy would need to be flexible.  Advertisers who focus on performance need to be flexible with the audience segments they target.  Demand aggregators, networks, and publishers need to be flexible with the various data providers they choose to partner with.  Panelist agreed that there is no “one size fits all” data strategy and businesses will need to tolerate constant experimentation and its potential financial impact.

When government regulation was raised, panelists said they supported the efforts of the Network Advertising Initiative and felt confident that decision makers were being educated and moving in the right direction.

Naturally, everyone in the room was curious about future enhancements to the Right Media Exchange.  I know our clients would like our platform to better enable segment exposure and provide more robust reporting and control.   As I said during the discussion, we hear your needs and we are working on them!  I look forward to seeing you at our next event.

–Ryan Maynard, Senior Engagement Manager

Posted in Data Providers, Events, Right Media Exchange | No Comments »

Balancing Act For Ad Exchanges

November 3rd, 2009

Staying Open While Closing the Door on Harmful Content And Behavior

The following is an excerpt from an AdExchanger.com article by Bennie Smith, Yahoo! VP Exchange Operations/Platform Policy.

Online advertising in the age of media fragmentation does not have to be like a box of chocolates. Both advertisers and publishers should know exactly what they are going to get with every ad impression.

Ad exchanges have played a crucial role in making this possible – by running transparent, fair, and open platforms that have enabled targeted and efficient media buying in the highly-fragmented and ever-expanding media universe. However, the benefits of seamless transactions in an open ecosystem can quickly be eroded (along with your brand equity), if appropriate controls are not put into place.

Threats to the online advertising ecosystem include harmful ad and Web site content, spyware, traffic quality and the emerging and rapidly evolving threat of malvertising (the delivery of malicious code or software via Internet advertisements). These threats have the potential to cause significant harm to all the primary stakeholders in the online advertising ecosystem. Advertisers face the risk of brand erosion and publishers can face user attrition, loss of revenue and public relations risks. Ultimately, consumers are exposed to harmful content and privacy and security risks.

In light of these risks, Right Media remains committed to helping its customers do business in an open ecosystem with greater transparency and control. These issues are not unique to us, but impact the Internet as a whole. In fact, recent malvertising incidents at New York Times and Gawker.com were direct buys and have illustrated the need for every stakeholder in the online advertising value chain to work equally hard and collaborate with each other to address these growing threats.

Our continued investment in protective measures and the implementation of innovative mechanisms are helping Right Media protect participants in the exchange ecosystem from potential harm. For example; in response to new malvertising threats that were observed this year, we made some enhancements to our Creative Tester tool that help us detect and ban creatives that load non-standard file types that can install malicious code by exploiting security vulnerabilities in standard applications that open such file formats; contain an automatic page redirect that is non user-initiated and also identify ads that triggers click streams or click activity without any user interaction. In addition, we continue to educate our customer base about Right Media Exchange tools and policies and how customers can work to prevent the introduction of harmful content, viruses and other malicious code into our ecosystem. By implementing their own controls and being more diligent about whom they do business with, we can work together to preserve our vibrant and secure marketplace.

For the full article, visit AdExchanger.com.

Posted in Ad Networks, Advertisers, Publishers, Right Media Exchange, Technology | 1 Comment »

Search, Meet Display. Display, Meet Search

October 8th, 2009

An SMX East panel yields research and strategy for combining search with display

For the online community, today marked another step forward in understanding how to service multiple products for advertisers. At the Search Marketing Expo East conference, our own Megan Pagliuca, Director of Professional Services, participated in a panel discussion with the clever name “Search Meet Display; Display Meet Search.” Also on the panel were executives from iProspect, ComScore and Didit. To quote “Law and Order,” here are their stories…

We first heard from ComScore and iProspect, who had very exhaustive research proving that when search and display are incorporated into a single media buy, the overall results are much better. Comscore contends that in the search + display synergy, 1 + 1 = 2.5, whereas iProspect asserts that it’s actually 1 + 1 = 3.

And it’s not just based on performance improvements (increased CTR and conversions), but also specific, very interesting, data points:

  • Display ads drive search: Consumers are still leery of clicking on display ads; however, they will search for a brand name using their favorite search engine (which should be Yahoo!’s, naturally) after viewing a search ad.
  • Display ads also drive the halo effect with search: Consumers will sometimes search for competitor keywords after viewing a display ad.
  • Offline sales are impacted by the synergy: Search lifts offline sales and display lifts offline sales, but search + display lifts offline sales more than the two do individually.

Yahoo! has experienced the same results from our own research, and we applaud the detailed research that these two companies undertook.

Next up, Kevin Lee from Didit dove into some sophisticated best practices around search retargeting, which is another excellent starter strategy for marketers looking to blend a search and display budget.

Then Megan finished up the round of presentations, and focused on the “how” of search + display. Given that it’s a complex capability to develop end to end, Yahoo! has two main flavors: We’ll manage it for you, or we’ll enable you to build the capabilities in house with specific tools and practices. Megan started with a quick review on how the consumer consideration cycle works, and pointed out that display and search need to work together to seamlessly guide the consumer down the funnel to the point of sale. She then moved into the two ways that Yahoo! delivers a great search and display product.

The first way we do this is by enabling our network partners to buy Yahoo! display inventory and Yahoo! search keywords, and ensuring that users who search on certain keywords are retargeted with relevant display ads. The second way we do this is by providing a technology platform and services team (Right Media, and Professional Services, respectively) that can work to enable an agency or marketer’s business to buy display and search from multiple sources. In this way, we manage the product or enable eligible businesses to develop the capability on their own. Or both.

This is something that we’re really proud of at Yahoo! Fact is, we should all be making the size of the digital market bigger, so listen up marketers and agencies: Here’s another way to bring your digital spend online!

— Jacob Ross, Director, Business Development

Posted in Ad Networks, Advertisers, Events, Technology | No Comments »

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