Better**
**by Josh Dreller**
Recently, my agency has been putting a lot of time and resources into
the ad exchange space. For those of you paid search folks with SEM
blinders on, let me elaborate because the opportunity here for those
with paid search experience is about to open up tremendously in the
next few years.
Ad exchanges are marketplaces for online display inventory
that have been creeping up on us for the last several years. These
technology platforms create major efficiencies for both the buyers and
the sellers of online display. Effectively cutting out the sales team
and the middle men (i.e. ad networks), advertisers and their agencies
can purchase inventory directly through these exchanges in an
auction-based model without all of the extra soft costs that usually
accompany media buying.
It gets even better with the rise of demand-side platforms such as
Turn, Invite Media and others, users can now manage multiple exchanges
from one tool (the same way DART Search or other SEM tools allow you
to manage your Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft keyword buys.)
The biggest step for the ad exchange business happened in 2007, when
all three major search engine players acquired exchange companies to
strengthen their foothold in the space (Google bought DoubleClick,
Yahoo bought RightMedia, Microsoft bought AdECN.) Since then, the ad
exchange universe has been growing steadily.
The major evolution of exchanges that affects you, the search
marketing pro is the advancing ubiquity of real-time bidding (RTB)
across the exchanges. Instead of loading up targeting and bidding
instructions in your demand side platforms and letting them buy the
compatible inventory, RTB allows you to appraise each and every
available impression and decide on the spot whether you want to bid on
it and how much it's worth to you.
For example, in real-time, you may discover an impression that is
about to be served to a user who has visited your site multiple times
but never purchased. Because of this, you may be willing to pay a
premium to get back in front of that person. As well, data providers
like Blue Kai and Excelate allow you to import valuable third party
data, which may open up the opportunity to be able to identify the
cookies on users who have been to certain websites, taken various
actions online, belong to your target demographic, etc. There are
literally thousands of data points which could influence bidding
strategies.
Ad exchanges certainly won't supplant all media buying as we know it
today. But they are here to stay. In fact, the pundits are predicting
that there will be tremendous growth in the buying of digital media
via these platforms within the next five years. It seems inevitable
that a portion of all inventory that can be digitally bought and sold
will eventually be on exchanges: search, mobile, digital television,
digital out-of-home, etc.
So if these platforms represent a huge shift in the way media is
bought today, where are we going to find the human capital to manage
these systems? (Hint: the name of this website is a clue.)
Check out this quote from one of the thought leaders in the space,
Eric Picard: <http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/24672.asp>
I envision a world where media planners will spend the bulk of their
time defining the goals of the advertiser, and translating those goals
into complex instructions that can be interpreted by software. The ad
platforms of the future will match these instructions against
available ad inventory that is enriched with targeting attributes
based on user behavior and content associations and then optimized
in an automated fashion by very smart systems.
Does that sound like a media buying system you already know and love,
SEMers? Sounds like AdWords to me.
There's further speculation from a recent article
<http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120352>
about how the market will begin to change as more and more buyers
flock to exchange platforms:
with lots of people targeting the same audience the profits to be
made through specialized advertising become more and more spread out&
instead of competing for one large pool& you will have price war in
each targeted segment as the slice gets more and more narrow.
Does this remind you of what happened in the mid-2000s when paid
search keyword costs skyrocketed as the market became saturated with
bidders?
In my experience, digital media scares the bejebus out of traditional
marketing buyers. And for even savvy digital media buyers, exchanges
represent a huge change in what they do. I think it will be you, the
search Analysts, that are most prepared to live in this
data-intensive, auction-based valuation system. You've lived in pivot
tables for years. You've spent countless nights digging into the most
granular of data looking for the trend lines that will make your PPC
efforts sing. That's the kind of mindset that will be worth its weight
in gold very soon.
And if that doesn't make you happy to be in this field, check out
this article from Rob Griffin called The Opportunity Impact of Change
<http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120366>
, where he outlines even more situations where the Search Analyst
skill set will soon be in demand.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Josh Dreller <http://searchengineland.com/author/josh-dreller/>
is the Vice President of Media Technology for Fuor Digital
<http://www.fuor.net>
, an agency concentrated in the research, planning, buying and
stewardship of digital media marketing campaigns. Josh can be reached
at jdreller@fuor.net <mailto:jdreller@fuor.net>
.
<font size="-1">
Upcoming Search Marketing Expo events you won't want to miss:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/west/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BWest%2B2010">SMX
West</a> - Santa Clara, CA - March 2-4, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/munich?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BMunich%2B2010">SMX
Munich</a> - March 23-25, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/toronto?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BToronto%2B2010"
title="SMX Toronto">SMX Toronto</a> - April 8-9, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://www.searchmarketingexpo.com.au/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BSydney%2B2010">SMX
Sydney</a> - April 22-23, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/london/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BLondon%2B2010">SMX
Advanced London</a> - May 17-18, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BAdvanced%2B2010">SMX
Advanced</a> - Seattle, WA - June 8-9, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/east/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BEast%2B2010">SMX
East</a> - October 4-6, 2010</li></ul>Attend a <a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=SMN%2Bgeneral">Search
Marketing Now</a> Webcast - it's free! Upcoming webcasts:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/seo-and-link-building-techniques-for-2010-4535">SEO
and Link-Building Techniques for 2010</a> - January 14, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/ppc-testing-optimization-2010-best-practices-4603">PPC
Testing & Optimization 2010: Best Practices</a> - January 19,
2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/googles-new-ad-formats-what-you-need-to-know-4567">Google's
New Ad Formats � What You Need to Know</a> - January 21,
2010</li></ul>Interested in advertising or sponsoring Search Marketing Expo
or Search Marketing Now webcasts? <a
href="http://thirddoormedia.com/contact/sales.shtml?utm_source=searchcap&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=General%2BSales">Contact
us</a>.
<div><a href="http://www.superbhosting.net/"><img
src="http://www.searchmarketingnow.com/_images/superb.gif"
border="0"></a></div>
You are receiving this email because you subscribed to a Search Engine
Land, Search Marketing Now or Search Marketing Expo newsletter. To update
your subscriptions or unsubscribe, use your newsletter preferences page at
http://third.thirddoormedia.com/lists/?p=preferences&id=2&uid=f9779113b77d03598707df46ae032f9b.
Or send your written request to: 279 Newtown Tpke., Redding, CT
06896</font>
--
Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com --
0 comments:
Post a Comment