Google Data » Leila Pflager

Preferred Deals: A New Way to Sell in the Ad Exchange

Leila Pflager — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:13:00 +0000

A few weeks ago at DoubleClick Insights, we announced the beta of Preferred Deals on the Ad Exchange to help you find incremental revenue in the “middle tier” between your direct and indirect sales. Preferred Deals (formerly Direct Deals) is a sales tool that makes it easy for you to privately offer inventory to select buyers in a fixed-price, non-guaranteed fashion--before it enters the general auction.

Preferred Deals are best suited for publishers who usually sell their inventory anonymously and are looking to connect with buyers in a discrete way. The buyers benefit by getting access to inventory they can’t find elsewhere. This interface provides a streamlined process for soliciting and negotiating Preferred Deals, giving you and your demand partners a more efficient alternative to phone calls and emails.

Making Preferred Deals work requires that you and your buyers compromise to find areas of mutual benefit. Though Preferred Deals is currently in closed beta, we’re hosting two joint publisher/buyer webinars to help you understand how they work. Register for the time that works best for you below.

North American Webinar
Friday, June 22nd at 11am PDT (1pm CDT, 2pm EDT)
Register HERE

EMEA Webinar
Friday, June 22nd at 3pm GMT (7am PDT, 10am EDT)
Register HERE

Posted by Drew Bradstock, Product Manager

Announcing New DoubleClick Ad Exchange Features: Improved Ad Review Center and Publisher Toolbar

Leila Pflager — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:59:00 +0000

We have been listening to your feedback on Ad Exchange ad controls and we’re excited to announce some new enhancements to save you time and give you even more control to manage which ads run on your site.

New controls in the Ad Review Center
The new Ad Review Center gives you complete transparency into the ads showing on your site. Ad Review Center now shows you ads of all targeting types that have appeared on your pages including real time bidding ads (RTB) and enables you to review and take action on them.

New features and benefits of Ad Review Center include:

More ad targeting types: You can now easily review and take action on ads of all targeting types -- contextually-targeted, placement-targeted, interest-based, and Real Time Bidded ads.
Ads ranked by impressions: To ensure that you’re always reviewing the most important ads first, we now show ads ranked by the number of impressions that they’ve received. With ads that you’re holding for review, we show the ads according to the number of impressions that we project they will receive.
Take action on individual or bulk ads: You can now easily block ads individually or in bulk by simply clicking on an ad or highlighting multiple ads at once.
Pre-approve and block AdWords accounts: For clarity, we've changed the term "advertiser" to "AdWords account." You’ll find your lists of pre-approved and blocked AdWords accounts on the Settings tab.
Renamed tabs: We’ve updated the names of the tabs to more clearly explain their purpose.

This version of the Ad Review Center uses graphic technology that is too intensive for older browsers. If you use IE7 and are unable to upgrade, consider installing Chrome Frame, an open source plug-in that enables older versions of IE to correctly render all the newest features in Ad Exchange.

If you’ve used the Ad Review Center in the past, the new version is live in your account now. If you haven’t yet enabled this feature, visit the Allow & Block ads tab to get started.

New Publisher Toolbar
The new Google Publisher Toolbar, a Chrome extension, makes it easy to manage your ads without visiting the Ad Review Center. It displays a variety of information about your Ad Exchange and Google AdSense ads, including alert bar notifications, details about current impressions, revenue stats, ad slots, buyers, and creatives on any site where your ad tags are running when you use a Chrome browser. Publishers can also easily block ads in real-time and report any issues to Google right from within the toolbar.

To learn more about Ad Review Center and Google Toolbar, register for one of the webinars on June 14th or contact your Ad Exchange account representative.

Ad Review Center & Google Toolbar US Webinar
Thursday, June 14th at 11am PDT (1pm CST, 2pm EDT)
Register HERE

Ad Review Center & Google Toolbar EMEA Webinar
Thursday, June 14th at 3pm GMT (7am PST, 10am EDT)
Register HERE

Posted by Dan Stokeley, AdSense Product Manager and Drew Bradstock, Ad Exchange Publisher Product Manager

Third-party audience segments now available in the new DoubleClick for Publishers Platform (DFP)

Leila Pflager — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:28:00 +0000

Last week at DoubleClick Insights, we made a number of announcements across our suite of products, all with a common goal: to re-imagine how ads are bought and sold online. One of these announcements, which we believe help our publisher partners grow their businesses, is the ability for publishers to integrate their third-party audience segments in the new DoubleClick for Publishers platform (DFP).

This is the latest feature in our series of enhancements which puts publishers in control of audience management within the new DFP. This feature enables you to seamlessly work with a data provider with whom you have a relationship, directly in your DFP account. Third-party segments in the new DFP mirror the way they worked on the legacy DFP service, but have an improved billing integration. Billing for the data providers’ charges that you agree on can be integrated directly into your DFP invoice.

Third-party segments are fully integrated into your core ad serving workflow. Once you approve the segments in the DFP interface at the provided CPM cost, they are available as if they were your own segments.

This new feature allows you to forecast, traffic & report more easily; you can also augment your inventory offerings via DoubleClick Sales Manager.

There’s no implementation work, no additional third party pixels and no added latency.

We believe this will all make publishers’ life easier, enable better integration with your sales management tools, make your inventory more attractive, give you more control and give you additional flexibility and opportunities to maximize your revenues.

In the coming months you’ll see more announcements from us as we continue to release new features to help you use data more effectively in the new DFP.

Posted by Sean Harvey, Product Manager and Alok Sheth, Software Engineer

An Insights Recap

Leila Pflager — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 13:52:00 +0000

Tuesday I had the pleasure of delivering the opening keynote at DoubleClick Insights, a half-day event in which we brought together the industry’s top digital media executives for a series of honest conversations about where the space is headed and how we can move it forward together. In addition to several announcements I summarize below, the event was packed with viewpoints from ecosystem partners and luminaries. If you weren’t one of the thousands who tuned in for the livestream, you can watch it here on the DoubleClick YouTube channel.

Over the last few years, DoubleClick has focused its publisher efforts on helping you maximize revenues across multiple channels and formats. We introduced the next generation of DFP, expanded our capabilities across mobile and video, and acquired Admeld. Today we’re doubling down on publishers by building on this foundation to help you make smarter decisions, capture new spends, and work seamlessly with partners across the ecosystem.

Make Smarter Decisions
We launched the beta of Ad Exchange Market View, an interface that lets you see an aggregated landscape of pricing and uniques across the entire exchange, including which ad formats and regions are likely to get the best returns. It’s data that’s highly actionable, and no other exchange operates with this type of transparency. In addition, we also introduced the integration of 3rd party audience segments into the new version of DFP. For years, buyers have used aggregate audience data to target particular demographics and segments, and we think publishers deserve the same perspectives for their sales process. The early response to this capability has been enthusiastic and we look forward to expanding it further.

Capture New Spend
With its high-touch private exchange, Admeld took pioneering steps toward helping publishers find value in the elusive “middle tier” between direct and indirect sales. We’re continuing to iterate on this model with the launch of AdX Preferred Deals, a tool for publishers to privately negotiate and sell non-guaranteed inventory to individual buyers. Preferred Deals (formerly called Direct Deals), are best suited for publishers who haven’t yet fully embraced the exchange model, and in the coming weeks we’ll share more information with our clients about how they can take part in this closed beta.

Work Easily with Partners
As the ubiquitous Lumascape attests, our ecosystem is complex and in order for digital advertising to be medium that provides a great experience for consumers, marketers and publishers alike, we all need to work together. DoubleClick believes in the power of openness, and we’re privileged to work with over 200 partners. This includes 100+ for core DFP, 40+ for mobile, 40+ for video, and a dozen each for data and rich media. Together, in partnership with the ecosystem, we’re ready to help you explore the next growth areas, and drive the revenue that funds a new generation of great content.

A Word About Digital Marketing Manager
Lastly, I wanted to mention an big announcement we made on the buy side -- the introduction of DoubleClick Digital Marketing Manager (DDM), a integrated buy-side platform that will ultimately unify audience buying and reporting across all digital channels and formats -- search, display, social, desktop, mobile and video. DDM will help buyers spend more and spend smarter. As a publisher, that means means more revenue for you and better ad experiences for your audience. You can read more about DDM at the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog.

My main takeaway from Insights, is that we’re entering an exciting new phase in this industry--one in which everything is being re-imagined, from the ads themselves to the ways they’re created, delivered, transacted and measured. DoubleClick’s goal isn’t just to help you thrive in this change, but help you drive it in ways that meet your evolving business needs. In short, our success is based on yours.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display Advertising

Chatting with Neal Mohan about DoubleClick Insights

Leila Pflager — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:12:00 +0000

On Tuesday, June 5th, at 9am - 1pm PST, we will be live streaming DoubleClick Insights -- a series of spirited, thought-provoking conversations about the future of digital marketing with leaders from top advertisers, agencies and publishers. We caught up with Neal Mohan, VP of Display Advertising, and the host of DoubleClick Insights to ask him about the event.

Q: Why did Google decide to host DoubleClick Insights this year?
A: Every year, DoubleClick hosts our Client Advisory Board event to talk to our advertising and publishing customers about our plans, and to learn how our solutions could better serve their businesses. Customers at the advisory board have asked that we share more of our perspective on the industry trends we’re seeing. To share these trends not only with our customers, but with the broader digital advertising community, we will be hosting the first DoubleClick Insights event, live streaming on YouTube.

Q: What will the discussions at DoubleClick Insights focus on?
A: We’ve invited executives from leading agencies, advertisers and publishers to help us lead conversations around three important themes:

How do we better adapt to the empowered consumer? In a world where consumers are increasingly in control, what do advertisers and publishers need to do to better engage and increasingly fickle consumer.
Where does the ad technology ecosystem go next? We’ve seen explosive growth in ad tech over the last 20 years, but there’s still a lot that could be done to unlock all of the potential value for publishers, marketers – and ultimately consumers.
Finally, we want to take a look at how all of this technology is being used and ask ourselves if all this technology is leading to better ad creative, or is it just creating complexity that is holding us back.

You can view the full DoubleClick Insights agenda here.

Q: You mentioned other executives helping lead the conversation. Who is speaking at DoubleClick Insights?
A: We've invited an array of the most influential speakers from every facet of advertising and media to join us for DoubleClick Insights. To call out a few of our speakers: Terry Kawaja, Founder and CEO, LUMA Partners; David Kenny, Chairman & CEO, The Weather Channel Companies ; Jimmy Pitaro, Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group; Omar Tawokol, Chief Executive Officer, BlueKai, Kurt Unkel - President, Vivaki; and many more. You can view the full speakers list here.

Q: You’ve said before that digital advertising will become a $200 billion dollar industry. Will DoubleClick Insights answer what the next growth phase looks like for digital marketing?
A: I believe that the only way to create real value for all of us is by working better together because we are on the same journey -- whether that’s ad tech working better together, or advertisers and publishers working better together. There is no single, magic solution for solving all of our challenges, so we need to work across the ecosystem to deliver on the full potential for digital marketing.

Q: Where can I find more information on DoubleClick Insights?
A: You can watch DoubleClick Insights on YouTube on June 5th, 2012 at 9:00am PST.

If you're following us on Google+ or Twitter (@DoubleClick and @DoubleClick_pub), use the #dclkinsights tag as you're watching the event to ask questions or share comments during the event.

Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Future of advertising event – DoubleClick Insights

Leila Pflager — Wed, 30 May 2012 16:11:00 +0000

There has been explosive growth in ad technology over the last 20 years. From each of our perspectives -- whether you are an agency, an advertiser, publisher or a technology provider -- we can all still see unprecedented opportunities as the digital world continues to grow and diversify.

We believe that as an industry, we’re on a common digital journey and that the next wave of innovation in ad tech will come from us all working better together.

However, like all great opportunities, there are challenges and questions, such as:

How do we unlock the next $50 billion of opportunity for digital advertising?
How do we deliver those immersive, interactive experiences to today’s empowered consumer demands?
What do we, as part of the ad tech ecosystem, need to build to create even more value for our clients and consumers?

On June 5th we’re hosting DoubleClick Insights to start exploring some answers to these questions. Senior leaders from top agencies, advertisers and publishers will help lead the conversation -- and you’re invited to join via the live stream! Register here.

The agenda will include topics such as:

Adapting to the Empowered Consumer:
Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising at Google will be joined by David Kenny, Chairman & CEO, The Weather Channel Companies, and James Pitaro, Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group, to discuss how technology is being used to deliver new content and advertising experiences to consumers.

If We Build It, Will They (Consumers) Come?
Terry Kawaja, CEO and Co-Founder, Luma Partners (and creator of the now legendary LUMAscape chart) will lead a conversation about the ad tech ecosystem, and what it needs to do next to add value for agencies, publishers, marketers – and ultimately consumers. Terry will be joined onstage by:

Omar Tawokol, Chief Executive Officer, BlueKai
Greg Stuart, Global CEO of Mobile Marketing Association
Kurt Unkel, President, VivaKi
Shishir Mehrota, Vice President of Product Management, YouTube

Outside the Box: Technology = Creative Friend or Foe?

Technology is supposed to make the life of a marketer easier. For our final conversation, we’re going to focus on the question of: Is this technology exploring resulting in better marketing? Or, is it just resulting in mediocre creative and complexity for both consumers and marketers? Karim Temsamani, Vice President - New Products and Solutions, Google moderates the conversation with leaders from creative agencies, iconic brands and publishers including:

Brad Ruffkess, Global Connection, Coca-Cola
Mike Lowenstern, Managing Director of Digital Advertising, R/GA
Peter Minnium, Head of Digital Brand Initiatives, IAB
John Caldwell, Chief Digital Officer, National Geographic

The live stream will start on June 5, 2012, at 9:00 am PDT, and you’ll be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device. To learn more about our highlighted speakers go to the Speakers page on our site.

Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.

DoubleClick Insights
Tuesday, June 5th 2012
9:00am - 1:00pm PST
Set event reminder today

Following us on Google+ or Twitter (@DoubleClick and @DoubleClick_pub)? Use the #dclkinsights tag as you're watching the event to ask questions or share comments during the event?

Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Mark your calendars for DoubleClick Insights on June 5th

Leila Pflager — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:40:00 +0000

From our vantage point, we see unprecedented opportunity as the digital media world continues to grow and diversify. What does this mean for the future of buying and selling ads online?

Tune in and watch Google's Neal Mohan, VP of Display Advertising, sit down with industry leaders to explore the digital ecosystem's swift evolution, and how advertisers and publishers can work better together to chart a path to capitalize on every opportunity, while simultaneously addressing the challenges we face.

The live stream will start on June 5th, 2012, at 9:00am PST, and you’ll be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.

DoubleClick Insights
Tuesday, June 5th 2012
9:00am - 1:00pm PST
Set event reminder today

Following us on Twitter? Use the #dclkinsights as you're watching the event.

Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Doubling Down on Publishers

Leila Pflager — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:45:00 +0000

This morning, I had the pleasure of addressing the third-annual Admeld Partner Forum in New York. When we completed our acquisition of Admeld this past December, we said that we’d be looking at how to bring the best of their products and ours together to help us achieve our shared vision: helping our publisher partners make the web work for them, and get the most out of what online advertising has to offer.

Over the past couple of months our teams have been hard at work figuring out exactly how this might happen. Today, we’d like to put our cards on the table and share what we’ve done and where we’re headed.

Investing in the team: We realize that helping our partners succeed requires not just the right products, but the right people. So we’re investing in the team, bringing together our sales and services teams from across the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and Admeld. This enables a continued focus on high-touch service for Admeld’s publisher partners, and also boosts Admeld’s presence across the globe.<

Tapping new pools of demand: Next quarter, we’ll start offering AdX Connect, a way for Admeld clients to start getting access to demand from the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. We’ll also be enhancing the advertiser, buyer, and bid transparency levels in the exchange, so that they are comparable with those currently provided to Admeld publishers.

Connecting the dots with DFP: We’re taking two big steps towards tying together Admeld and DoubleClick for Publishers: making it much easier for publishers to leverage SSP-style ad network optimization functionality directly within the DFP platform, and building an API so that Admeld’s mobile optimization capabilities will be more fluidly integrated with DFP mobile.

While we’re excited about these changes, they are just the initial steps. Our long term goal is to create a single, seamless platform for publishers that allows them to manage all their inventory -- across desktop, video and mobile -- with the control and flexibility their businesses require. Our publisher partners make the web the wonderful place that it is today, and by empowering their continued growth and success, we all come away winners.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising

New tools and policies for Publisher Networks in the Ad Exchange

Leila Pflager — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:00:00 +0000

As the size and quality of publisher networks have grown, so has their need to operate more efficiently and profitably. With this in mind, we’ve rolled out a series of updates for publisher networks in DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

First, we’ve revised our policies to allow publisher networks to use the Ad Exchange even if they own & operate few (or none) of the sites they represent. As always, every partner site has to meet the same high-standards of quality as every AdX publisher.

Second, we’ve built a set Network Partner Management tools that make it easy to add new partners, manage hundreds of domains, and monitor their performance.

For current clients, using these features requires no changes to your existing tags. In addition, reporting, payment and site management remains in your hands.

If you’d like to learn more about these new capabilities, please sign up for one of the webinars below, contact your Ad Exchange account representative, or tell us how to contact you and we’ll have someone reach out.

US Webinar
Tuesday, March 13 at 11am PST (1pm CST / 2pm EST)
Register HERE

EMEA Webinar
Tuesday, March 13 at 2pm GMT (3pm CET)
Register HERE

Posted by Drew Bradstock, Product Manager

On stage at IAB: Daring to get the most out of online advertising for publishers, advertisers

Leila Pflager — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:08:00 +0000

The evolution of technology is creating new opportunities in online advertising, in some cases helping improve publishers’ returns; in other cases, allowing them to manage their inventory more efficiently across multiple formats. And this past December, we announced our acquisition of Admeld, and made a commitment to work towards building the next generation of tools to help publishers make more informed decisions about their ad space and grow their businesses.

But there is still much to do, as the industry works together to grow display from the $25-30 billion industry it is today, to the $200 billion industry we believe it could be. Today, at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, Google Vice President Karim Temsamani played a game of truth and dare with the audience and shared some thoughts on how we might get there, as well as how publishers and advertisers can get the most out of the evolving online marketplace.

Truth #1: It’s a Connected World...for Users. There are now more mobile devices than people in the US, and some predict that devices will exceed the global population by end of year.

Dare: It’s not enough that people are mobile, we, as an industry, also need to get the websites, ads, and operations mobilized too. We think, collectively, we can work to mobilize 80% of the largest 2000 websites by end of this year. This means ensuring that content is optimized for mobile, ditto for ads, and that ad transactions are seamlessly connected to the rest of the plumbing. Towards this end, we are launching GoMo for Publishers, where publishers can test their mobile site performance, get a personalized report with recommended actions, and find vendors to assist with implementations. Publishers who’ve optimized their sites are already seeing substantial increases in mobile ad revenue and mobile page visits.

Truth #2: Technology is fundamental. As an industry, we’ve made great strides in using technology to create operational efficiencies.

Dare: Let’s pair high-tech with high-touch. Karim announced that in April we’ll launch the Ad Exchange Direct Deals Marketplace--an interface that enables publishers and buyers to solicit direct deal offers, negotiate, and execute them without sending an email or picking up the phone. However, to complement this automation we’re bringing high-touch consulting expertise through our integration of the Admeld team. Admeld supports private exchanges to complement automation, giving clients a model as a more holistic, customized, and technically savvy vision for their display business.

Truth #3: This industry traditionally thinks of ‘audience’ as bits and bytes.

Dare: Let’s think of audience as people, looking to engage and interact. We can do more to give people what they want. For example, TrueView ads on YouTube let viewers choose which ads they watch. Advertisers only pay for engaged views, meaning their campaigns are more effective. And we’ve found that nine out of ten viewers prefer TrueView ads.

In putting these principles into practice, we believe we can further a growing and thriving online ecosystem, where publishers see improved returns, advertisers reach an engaged audience, and people get the ads and content they want, in the way they want it. Now that’s a dare worth taking on.

Posted by Maureen Bradford, Head of Publisher Marketing

The DoubleClick Ad Exchange delivers revenue uplift to EMEA Publishers

Leila Pflager — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:47:00 +0000

Exchange-based buying has experienced huge growth over the past several years as advertisers focused on improving the targeting and effectiveness of their buys. Most large agencies have set-up dedicated “trading desks” to focus on this method of buying and in tandem, many publishers have aligned their strategies to profit from these trends.

Since the launch of the Ad Exchange, we’ve heard inspiring stories from our European publishers about the revenue uplift they’ve experienced when using the product. Today we’re pleased to share exciting research results which shows the impact of the Ad Exchange on European publishers’ revenue.

The results published in this whitepaper show that when publishers make ad space available in the Ad Exchange, and the Ad Exchange wins the auction, the revenue is 73% higher than if the Ad Exchange hadn't been used. This takes into account competing sales channels such as direct sales teams, other networks and backfills.

And what about inventory that would have gone unsold? The DoubleClick Ad Exchange demonstrated significant success in monetizing these ads. For inventory for which there was no other demand, it delivered a fill rate of greater than 90%.

Many of the tools we roll out are designed to help publishers maximize revenue across their multiple channels. Most recently we introduced minimum CPMs and pricing recommendations. These followed the introduction of private ad-slots and direct deals. We believe that these new tools will continue to help our Ad Exchange publishers make the most out of their inventory.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Product Management Director