Demand More

The latest from Nexage

The pace of change and growth in mobile advertising is extraordinary. Largely due to the pivots and new entrants into the ecosystem, mobile advertising is still largely considered immature. However, the market is dynamically scaling, adding capabilities, consolidating and generally maturing as it searches for equilibrium, efficiency and value. In this noisy market, it’s important to understand what impact a platform has on the value and efficiency of the marketplace.

To drive liquidity, a platform should enable publishers and buyers to sell and buy inventory at the best possible price. Sellers need access to buyers with controls of how they sell. Buyers need access to inventory with the ability to efficiently target and buy audience. And they both need the confidence and transparency to determine fair market price.

Efficiency can be difficult to define as it is often subjective unless directly connected to cost or margin considerations. But we can probably argue that mobile advertising today is not (adequately) efficient; we have an overly complex ecosystem with too many hands taking a share of the advertising dollar.

Automated markets are intended to improve efficiency; to do so, players in the market will need to consider new table stakes, and buyers and sellers should use these table stakes as selection criteria.

With these comments in mind, let’s look at the emerging table stakes for a mobile advertising marketplace:

• Mediation + RTB. Marketplaces need to connect as many buyers and sellers together as possible to drive both efficiency and liquidity. For publishers and developers, marketplaces will need a tightly integrated mediation and RTB platform that enables them to access all types of buyers—ad networks, demand side platforms (DSPs), and beyond.
• Business controls + visibility. Customers need a set of controls, notably brand safety and price controls, to run their business the way they want. Full visibility and insight into daily performance and weekly/monthly/quarterly trends enable customers to dynamically tune their business.
• Public + private markets. Private markets include the ability to stand up a fully orchestrated private market on mediation and RTB (via a private exchange), so sellers select whether they want to gain access to the full public market of all buyers or to pre-select buyers based on business needs, brand safety or simple preference.
• Abundance + variety of advertising opportunities. A marketplace should enable, not constrain, the types of ads available or where they are available. Standard banners, rich media, video, and interstitials should be available across both mobile web and applications.
• Any buyer. The mutual goals of liquidity (accessing as many buyers as possible) and efficiency (giving buyers the most efficient access to the market) require marketplaces to enable and empower any buyer that wants to enjoy the benefits of automated markets. This includes, but is not limited to, ad networks, DSPs, agency trading desks (ATDs) and game developers pursuing new customers. A marketplace should be accessible whether or not the buyer has undertaken the daunting effort of building scalable ad delivery technology.
• Reliability.  Amongst the sea of seemingly outlandish claims, it can be difficult to figure out what is real and what is a façade. Though commonly overlooked, delivering reliability and scale is critical and necessary. In mobile advertising, some players have chosen to skip right past the necessary step of building a rock solid, reliable, scalable platform in order to focus on “shiny objects” – typical cases of too much sizzle and not enough steak. Reliability is only “optional” if revenue is speculative; it is vital when revenue is important (read: you have targets).

Advertisers, publishers and developers are taking a more strategic view of mobile advertising, mandating that the ecosystem and underlying technologies should both enable and drive business success. This changes expectations and, inevitably, realities.

End-to-end marketplaces that benefit buyers and sellers will diminish existing complexity and inefficiencies and allow simple, efficient transactions to take place. And now that you know the table stakes for a mobile advertising platform, look around and find a platform that converts your company’s potential into bottom-line results.