RTB Transparency

This is about to be a very big issue in the industry. Mike Baker at DataXu and I have been discussing this, and he has written a very thoughtful piece on the topic today:
"A Call for transparency"

I'm planning to write some more about this topic in the coming weeks. there is a big revolution going on in display, where finally the use of technology can transform display in the way that it did with search 10 years ago - with the result that spend on display will grow dramatically. Getting transparency about how a price is determined, and providing the right incentives for buyers to bid the full value of an impression (ie a second price auction, which can include a fixed floor) is critical if publishers want to benefit from the uplift in revenues that I believe someone like Criteo can provide.

More to come...

In the news

For once, a couple of articles this week interested me so much that I wanted to share them:

I thought that Walrath on Yahoo's options with Rightmedia is very interesting for anyone in the digital advertising space: you may disagree with all his conclusions, but the analysis about the complexity of delivering a complete adserver to compete with doubleclick for publishers + the adexchange is spot on. As an advertiser, we aren't in this game, but it is fascinating to watch, and the quality of the technology that a large publisher has is very important for how much we can spend with them.

The other article I loved is from CMO magazine and is talking about retargeting. Partly I love it because I believe Criteo invented the word retargeting instead of remarketing, and so it's great to see it being adopted. But more because if you buy into what they say, you really have to start working with us :-).