It seems the industry has battled for years over 4th party ad calls.  Publishers don’t like them because it’s extra load time.  Agencies and advertisers love them because they are usually there to verify, provide additional data, or serve a very useful function.  The real problem is that with many publishers not wanting or allowing 4th party ad calls, ad tags could very easily integrate 5th, 6th, and 7th party ad calls at this point – there are that many great services that deliver value.  How will the industry tackle this?

First, let’s quickly identify where they’re coming from.  Having an audience measurement pixel, like one from Quantcast, in each ad would sure be nice.  Then we can see the general makeup of the audience who is viewing the ad and whether or not it fits the target we wanted to hit.  Having verification is a must, like a pixel from Adometry or DoubleVerify.  Certainly there are times where two ad servers are used, such as a rich media ad server but then also a standard ad server so all data can be in one place.  We’re up to six (user, publisher, and standard ad server are the first three.)  And more valuable metrics and verification services keep coming up.  How can we integrate this value without hanging up the user’s experience to such that no publisher will accept all this?

One solution is a universal tag container that cookie matches with each of these companies and outright transfers the pixel firing to its own servers.  TagMan is a container solution but it still requires pixels to be fired while the user is on the page.  It delays them do it doesn’t delay load, but if the user navigates away too quickly, the calls aren’t made.  The other solution would be for ad serving companies to buy these other companies and integrate them into their own ad call.  If you’re an ad serving company looking to make a real challenge to DoubleClick, installing all of this functionality within a 3rd party ad server would be enough reason for a whole lots of advertisers to make the switch.

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No one has dedicated more resources to grab online dollars from D.C. political advertising than Google.  They have built a team and offer full service search, display, and ad serving.  This past Saturday there was a great irony, however.

We also handle a significant number of digital political campaigns and for anyone who knows political advertising it is a seven-day-a-week job.  Messages change at any time on any day regardless of the standard advertising work week.  We received a client email at 11am CST Saturday that some text changes needed to be made to a current high-profile campaign.  Luckily we had all the files we needed and our production director had the changes done within an hour.  Our VP of Ad Ops was available to make the change out in our ad server 10 minutes later and the entire change would have taken two hours from start to finish – on a Saturday – with no one at Goodway knowing this change was coming. Except for one problem.

DoubleClick, our ad server and the $3.1 billion ad serving acquisition Google made last year, is down every Saturday for maintenance during the day.  So, despite everything being ready to go on our side we were at the mercy of Google’s engineers making regularly scheduled updates.  It took three more hours for Google to get DCLK back online.  In the meantime, a couple hundred thousand impressions were served.  So, Google… Your efforts to bring D.C. into the digital world are admirable and good for everyone.  But, to do so requires you keep their hours, not the other way around.  How about moving DCLK’s maintenance time to overnight to show your real dedication to D.C.’s digital efforts?

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When ad networks launched ten years ago one of the greatest things about them was the ability to run a campaign across hundreds or thousands of sites and, not only get great performance and value, but get learnings from the campaign.  Because you could see what was performing in which channels or sites from the many, it was like free market research.  At the time it was a great approach and despite the cost of non-performing media to get those learnings, it was innovative and a good value for the time.

Fast forward to now and there is no longer an excuse for “Let’s Run It On Our Network And See What Works” campaigns.  We have become too sophisticated with our data and knowledge of users, brands, and digital media use the LRIOONASWW strategy any more.  Through user-level cookie/data exchanges we now have data on almost every single internet user on the planet.  Some of it is true online-based behavior while some of offline and demographic or psychographic-oriented. Using almost any of this data is going to at least help you pre-target better than the LRIOONASWW strategy.  Second, composite indexing through Compete, Quantcast, or even Nielsen can help you include and remove many sites from a larger list to narrow the buy down before you start.  Sure, there is the chance that a site that indexes an 84 against your brand or category ends up to be a top performer, but it’s a small chance.  More likely is that you’d have to spend thousands of dollars of media on other similar sites that follow the logic of the model and end up not performing well at all.

While this may be self-promotional (it is the Goodway Blog after all), there really is no excuse for RON network buys any more.  Our automotive network, Beep!, now has a custom-build site list for every brand based on clickstream shopping behavior from our partner, Compete.com.  Beyond that, we’re applying cookie-level data to every campaign to enhance performance (to be fair, so do many other networks.)  The bottom line is that there is no more room for LRIOONASWW – demand more from your network partners!

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Today’s digital world is rapidly advancing and almost becoming too innovative for the major publishers/portals to handle.  Seems weird writing that since these are the companies that used to be the bulls of the industry when it came to development and innovation.  But somehow, these companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN  and the larger independent publishers are becoming less eager to work with new technologies until they can be fully vetted and approved by their overstretched tech teams.  I truly understand protecting one’s interests, one’s data and ensuring the end user is being protected from malicious companies.  However, agencies and networks are being asked for more efficiencies, transparency and performance from the media buy which would mandate outside platforms are used within buys. This requires a 4^th party ad call to be made when ads are served.

These creative optimization and verification tools like Doubleverify, Adometry, Adexpose, and Tumri are relatively new and each have their own methodology to how they render the ad call and report on the buy.  All different methodology, but they all require a call to be made to their servers to process the data.  If you’re like 90% of all online display agencies you are probably serving the creative through your 3^rd party server for many reasons.  If you add the optimization and verification code to your tags, you are now making a 4^th party call and in violation of all major publishers and won’t be able to serve across their content until the product is certified or you remove the code.  Seems reasonable if the certification process was a 2 day turn around.  But, that’s not the case and many startup’s and clients are being denied the right to optimize, verify and attribute conversations across these platforms on a site by site basis because the publishers will not certify the technology fast enough.  This certification process can take months and we all know that a month is like a year in the digital space!    The online industry is all about quick thinking, resolution driven start ups that fill a need fast.  The need today is for better transparency, optimization and reporting across the exchanges, networks and DSPs.

Yahoo, Google, AOL, MSN – act now, time is of the essence!

We as an industry need to push these publishers for approval of useful and beneficial startups so we can better manage clients’ media.  This isn’t a request from most advertisers and agencies, it’s a demand.  We’re growing the online display space and taking on larger budgets.  With these shifts in media allocations comes accountability.  We are now seeing more money in the space and we want to keep it here so we can continue to creatively evolve the medium.  Approving technology partners faster and with more accuracy will do the trick.  Declining them simply because you enjoy a wall around your garden is to no one’s benefit. It’s an open source world and every major publisher needs to be comfortable vetting and understanding new products developed outside their war rooms.  Publishers, put the onus on the start ups to provide everything you need to certify their product, but make sure the certification is quick and accurate so we can continue to advance.   Otherwise, we could see budgets start shifting back to mediums where clients are more comfortable, and that benefits absolutely no one.

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Can local out of home be the next medium to integrate personalized location based targeting from your handheld?

Those of us that need mounds of caffeine to get going in the morning love watching the flat screens broadcasting the day’s news at our local coffee shops.  Typically, the news from the NY times is being shown and every so often a perfectly placed local billboard is run.  What a great placement to capture a consumer who is engaged because they have nothing else to do but wait in line and look up.  But what if we could personalize the ads shown to those of us waiting in line?  Currently, the out of home placements are channel focused.  Buyers can purchase channelized inventory based on location –fitness clubs, in-flight entertainment, coffee shops etc.  But lets take it a step further and enhance the targeting based on your location and your mobile social profile.

Revive the place based BT concept by integrating data from your mobile social profile?  It’s not outlandish to think a Foursquare or Gowalla could team up with an RMG(who provides the flatscreens to the businesses) to tie in a personalized themes to the ads when you “check in”.  Imagine *The Mayor* of the local coffee shop walking in the door, your handheld synchs with a wireless feed from the flatscreen, which then pings the server and pulls an ad which is relevant to the users cookie/profile?  Of course strip out all PII  to keep the users identity secure.  RMG has developed the reach and infrastructure, now it needs the help of one of the leaders in location based mobile networks to make this real.

Marketers are always looking for new and exciting ways to build their brands and move product.  By creating a hyper local targeting environment on the “4^th screen”, advertisers can personalize incentives and deliver relevant ads which will drive ROI.  Unique targeting capabilities and advancements in technology is what will keep a platform relevant and cutting edge.

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You gotta love how easy it is to make headlines.  Put the words “Google” and “acquisition” in the same headline and wah-bam!  This time, the initial reaction to Google potentially acquiring Invite Media has many ad networks, publishers, and even agencies very nervous.  At this point, won’t Google simply own all search and more than 50% of the display, including the ad serving portion? The answers are, yes, no, and it won’t matter in the end.

Sure, if this acquisition actually happened then Google would have the potential to own the transactions within a disproportionate amount of the display market (through acquisition) in addition to already owning (through its own entrepreneurial development) the majority of search.  The former is only potential, not reality, though.  The “no” part of the answer comes from publisher reactions within Invite or the to-be-acquired DSP.  You think Yahoo is going to keep Right Media as part of a DSP that is owned by Google?  You think MSN will continue with its integration of AdECN into that DSP if Google has the potential to monetize and dominate its inventory?  Additionally, if you look through most DSPs site lists, Google’s own content network already makes up a huge portion of the inventory available within the interface.  Surely Google can’t be buying a company for its interface for accessing its own inventory… for which it already has an interface!

In the end, though, none of this will matter.  You see, sometimes I really enjoy the ‘I told you so’ dance (which I believe was made popular by Grace Adler of Will & Grace fame).  In September, 2008, I proposed that Google’s massive acquisition spree would end in anti-trust litigation.  With the AdMob deal clearing the pole vault bar by a t-shirt’s thickness, it doesn’t seem that any other major acquisitions that spread Google’s tentacles further into the industry for domination’s sake will pass muster.  Or, if they do, it’ll simply lead to a Google break-up.  Just as IBM pounded its chest in the 80s and Microsoft did in the 90s, Google has done so throughout the 2000s.  But it has yet to happen in history that a tech giant has dominated for more than a decade.  It’s my prediction, again, that this won’t change now.

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Lots and lots of years ago someone realized it wasn’t just a good idea to trade one guy’s wares for another’s.  Money was invented to make these transactions easier by trading a commonly agreed upon currency.  Great idea.  Fast forward to May, 2010, in Miami, FL.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Compete, Inc’s CMO Summit in Miami. The CEO of one of the major WPP companies suggested that the need to find a common currency for measuring online and its delivery is one of the biggest things holding us back.  Someone also mentioned this while asking a question from the audience.  While developing currency thousands of years ago was a good idea, we still see the value in having various currencies around the world rather than a one-world bank and currency. There is a reason for that, and to suggest we should adopt a single “currency” online, not to mention the fact that it’s the biggest thing holding us back, has got to be one of the scariest and regressive proposed behaviors I’ve ever heard come across in our industry.  There are two major reasons for this.

First, there is a need for currency in general but simplifying everything to one currency suggests that marketers aren’t capable of thinking for themselves.  You see, the people suggesting this point lovingly to the GRP/TRP.  I can’t think of a worse currency in media measurement today.  Sure, it’s universally accepted, but it’s accepting the notion of measuring very little because it’s hard and too costly to do any better.  400 people in a DMA of four million have “people meters” and provide a statistically invalid sample from which hundreds of millions of dollars are spent.  THIS is what we want online?  But let’s just say we look to Nielsen for a system.  They have one!  If you want to target Men 25-54 with HHI of $75k+, then pull a Nielsen report that gives you these sites, and then work with Nielsen to tag your creative and they’ll show you a report of (a much more statistically valid sample, mind you) how you delivered against that audience.  Plan, deliver, report, all by the same people who measure your TRPs.  How much easier does it get?  But wait, there’s more!  You can get this report from comScore, Compete, or even free for Quantcast. Why would we want a monopoly on this system the way the TV GRP measurement system works?  It’s certainly not better for it!

But the above assumes that all you want to measure is audience.  This doesn’t even put a scratch in the surface of the real reasons to use online media.  Right audience or not, DR advertisers have been using online effectively to deliver real ROI for years.  At this point, who cares about GRPs or audience – they’ve got money in the bank! And, how many businesses are identical in that they can use the exact same ROI calculation or eCPA metric?  None.  That is the beauty of online.  You can measure what is exclusively relevant to your business, down to the penny, user, and action.  Sounds just awful.

Remember back in 3^rd grade math class how everyone in the room understood something except “that one kid”? The teacher then had to take time to bring that one child up to speed while the rest couldn’t move along in learning anything new.  This is what we’ll get if we try to get everyone on one common currency: the lowest common denominator.  The metric that is so easy to understand it, even the least advanced CMO can understand it.  Is this really what we want?  If not, correct people when they suggest the need for this common currency.  We don’t need anything made simpler, but rather we need people to identify their business goals they can accomplish with online marketing and develop a plan to meet those goals.

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So Apple announced its new gouging pricing for its iAd platform.  $10 CPM plus $2 per click, which could $30 CPM if the ad clicks even moderately well.  But the biggest news here isn’t the pricing for 1,000 impressions, but that it’s a one million dollar minimum commitment.  That’s a big chunk of change for most advertisers, and those CMOs who decide to make the leap will definitely be defining a point in their recent careers.  But, will it make these CMOs a star and launch them to greater fame and fortune, or will it be a career killer?  Let’s take a look.

Hyundai was mentioned as an early adopter.  They are certainly on a roll and are positioned to be a top-few automaker in the world by the end of the decade.  But are Apple device owners the right target to spend $1MM?  On one hand, I haven’t seen any research that shows these consumers are any more likely to purchase a new car, or more specifically an import or Hyundai, than any other device user.  For all we know, Blackberry Pearl users could be the perfect target.  On the flip side, Apple device owners surely aren’t any less likely than the average TV watcher, and car companies spend billions on (basically) untargeted TV advertising each year anyway.

So is this a bad use of money, or just questionable?  Other than the pricing being misguided, the CMO who decides to spend this $1MM+ will have to decide if there are future employers they’re hoping to work for.  With CMO tenure averaging only 18 months, they’ll likely soon be working somewhere else and if that company is a PR-driven company, this could be a great move for them.  I believe most of the value in this $1MM will be in the PR generated from it.  However, if it’s a very metrics-oriented company a CMO will be interviewing with next, the iAd pricing is too expensive to justify the near-term ROI.  It’s unfortunately $1MM of some company’s money will likely be spent to further one or a few people’s career, but at this point that’s what the iAd’s early adopters seems to be appealing to.

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Wow, big news about RB’s $40MM online video buy! For those of you who don’t know, RB is the manufacturer of products like Lysol, Woolite, and Clearasil (says AdAge).  The bigger news here – far bigger than the fact that they’re spending $40MM in online video – is the fact that they’re “demanding” $2 CPMs.  This demand was so low that YouTube originally sat out the buy.  Think about that. YouTube, where the majority of videos are still at the quality level of people jumping off their house onto a trampoline, wouldn’t even dip this low.  So why is demanding this CPM such a big story?  Nope, not because it’s going to set a new industry standard.  Not because RB will help single-handedly drive down the cost of online video.  It’s because it shows that despite the vast and rich quantities of available online metrics, most marketers are still using traditional media tactics to negotiate and purchase their media – all their media – including online.

It’s funny.  Articles continue to pop up about the inability to truly measure online video because we can’t convert it backward 50 years to the TRP metric.  Yet, with TV you can’t measure how much of the spot someone watched, whether they clicked a companion banner, whether they converted to an action later based on a click or an impression, interacted with the video if it allowed such a thing, and the list really goes on.  With all of these advanced metrics, and don’t forget brand studies, RB is going to spend $40MM in online video and it appears that their primary goal here is to pay a certain CPM.  Why does the CPM even matter if they have certain interaction goals or even brand goals? What if paying $6 instead of $2 yielded 4x the interaction or 4x the lift in ‘intent to try the product’ from a brand study?  Moreover, what if their biggest competitor used this strategy while RB celebrated its 3x less CPMs and 4x less effective metrics?

My experience with these types of buys is that CPM is the big focus up front, but once the buy starts it must perform to metrics that often weren’t discussed before the buy began.  Wouldn’t it make for a more harmonious relationship between client, agency, and publisher, if everyone was on the same page before and after the buy started? More than I’ve had to realize recently, the online community still has quite an uphill battle ahead of itself to convince marketers that, online is not only its own animal and shouldn’t need to withstand an attempt to shoehorn old thinking into a new more robustly-measured medium, but to be used to its fullest will require embracing the advanced metrics that can drive real learning and real performance when done right.

The RB buy is a big win for the online video community, but it could have been bigger had it been approached with online thinking and objectives.

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So someone tells you they’re going to change the web.  They’re going to index Twitter, make it searchable and sell paid search placements around it.  Nice thoughts but with something like 49 out of 50 startups failing, do they have a chance?  With Bill Gross, the man who, for all intents and purposes, invented search engine marketing, is the guy behind this new venture – it looks better than 50/50.

TechCrunch covered the news yesterday.  The site is still in very early format, but the questions around this new platform are more far reaching than just the site or service itself.  For instance, this gives publishers the ability to monetize it’s Twitter feeds but automatically starts them out at a 50/50 rev share split, relegating them to the land of adsense and unsold inventory prices.  Sure, the prices may start out high, but just like mobile used to be unavailable under $20 but now can be purchased much more inexpensively, these prices too will self-regulate once the novelty wears off.

Second, Google didn’t come up with this. Surely they’re watching closely and surely they wouldn’t hesitate to acquire this company or whichever company ends up succeeding in this space. But would the FCC let that go through?  The “Google monopoly” label is floating around in many corners right now and this might be a deal that tips the scale.  Next, if TweetUp can do it, why can’t someone else wait, watch what mistakes are made, and roll out a copycat version with all the fixes?  This is a proven trend in Silicon Valley – anyone remember AltaVista, Friendster, Palm PDAs (BlackBerry and Apple currently own this slot) and Tivo?

This will be one to watch closely, but more important to watch will be what flaws advertisers and their agencies experience, and whether other startups form to patch those flaws for TweetUp, or instead choose to launch their own service and compete.

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