Openads: Programmatic Premium: Your Programmatic Premium Questions Answered Pt. II Options

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If you attended the Digital Media Summit, part of Internet Week New York, last month you might have had the opportunity to hear OpenX CEO Tim Cadogan discussing Programmatic Premium as part of a panel session. Representatives from iSocket, The Weather Channel and Media6degrees all joined the discussion, moderated by Brian Morrissey from Digiday. Clearly, there are still so many questions being asked about Programmatic Premium. Indeed, some might say that we’re not even set on the choice of term, with some favoring β€œProgrammatic Guaranteed” or β€œProgrammatic Direct” as a more appropriate title.

I’m answering some of the insightful questions on this subject that were posed following our recent webinar: Programmatic + Premium. Thank you to those who emailed and tweeted us these additional questions.

Q: For buyers who would like to get into the programmatic world for the first time, which is the best route to take: work with a Demand-Side Platform (DSP) to launch a campaign, or integrate directly to an ad exchange?

A. This is an interesting question. At the end of the day, I think it largely depends on buyer’s level of sophistication. If a buyer has used programmatic tools in the past, the buyer probably won’t have any trouble directly integrating with an exchange, setting up an account and buying inventory directly. OpenX provides buyers with the ability to do just that.

On the other hand, if buyers don’t have the bandwidth or internal expertise in programmatic trading to take on that function themselves or are new to programmatic buying, they’re probably best off finding a DSP partner to manage those buys on their behalf.

Q: Will programmatic trading be efficient on computers, iPads, mobile platforms and across all digitally connected screens?

A: Yes, absolutely. From our perspective, programmatic trading is generally agnostic to the screen. In other words, programmatic trading comes down to connecting buyers and sellers, so the screen type – be it desktop, mobile, tablet or connected TV – is irrelevant. That being said, there are certainly nuances associated with various platforms that buyers, sellers, and the partners that they leverage for programmatic trading need to contemplate such as the lack of cookies on mobile apps.

Q: If publishers don’t want to cordon off inventory from potential buyers, would Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) be a good solution for publishers because they market their services to provide strong yield management across many buyers?

A: Ultimately, no. In our view, publishers benefit most when they allow all demand channels to compete simultaneously for all impressions. That scenario makes no distinction between inventory as designated for guaranteed buyers vs. non-guaranteed buyers. Obviously, the publishers need to have controls with respect to participation, particularly in terms of price floors and the ability to block buyers they don’t want to access their inventory through a particular channel. Bu, in an effort to drive up holistic yield, publishers need to allow all demand to compete simultaneously for their inventory.

The SSPs only work with a publisher’s non-direct sold or non-guaranteed inventory; they don’t have access to inventory that’s sold by the publisher’s direct sales force. These kinds of silos are sub-optimal for maximizing overall yield.

Q; Right of First Refusal was implemented as a daisy chain before Real-Time Bidding (RTB). Since the advent of RTB there is no daisy chaining. How is OpenX implying that it will be implemented within RTB?

A: Right of First Refusal is actually one of the first executions of Programmatic Premium, and it’s one we provide publishers today through something we call Deal ID. The way that works is rather simple. The publisher and buyer enter into a private deal, and once it’s consummated, OpenX will send the RTB request to the buyer – along with the Deal ID. If the buyer opts to bid on the impression based on the agreed upon terms of the private deal, that buyer wins the impression. If the buyer passes, the impression is sent to OpenX Market.

Q: Programmatic Premium is ultimately about mapping the data models of buyers with that of the sellers, and building inter-ad server pipes. Is OpenX delivering these services now?

A: This question is addressing an element of programmatic trading that enables buyers and sellers to create direct relationships, and the publisher giving its buyers the control to identify the impressions they want from within the publisher’s ad server. RTB has allowed publishers and buyers to consummate this kind of relationship today.

Historically, this kind of trading has been done in a spot market, but when we shift gears to Programmatic Premium, we’re talking about moving it to a forward market that tends to have more premium inventory. OpenX is delivering the ability for buyers and sellers to consummate deals in the forward market now, where the buyers are able to influence the impressions that are delivered to them.

Q: When do you believe the online world will be mature enough that publishers can purchase all of their tools from a single provider, and will OpenX be the first to provide tools beyond ad serving?

A: Actually, we’re in that world today. At OpenX, we see our mission as helping publishers maximize all of their digital advertising revenue. Let’s break that down a little to see how that applies to the tools we offer publishers.

Publishers have direct sales teams that go out and sell packages of premium inventory to advertisers. The publisher uses our ad server, OpenX Enterprise, to schedule, forecast and execute those campaigns.

All of the inventory that’s not sold by the direct sales force usually gets sent off to ad networks or other non-guaranteed providers. We have a yield management solution – integrated into the OpenX Enterprise ad server – that optimizes non-guaranteed, non-direct sold inventory.

The third slice of indirect demand stems from the exchange environment. OpenX Market, one of the world’s largest and most vibrant exchanges – is also directly integrated into OpenX Enterprise.

So from our perspective, we provide publishers with all the tools they need to sell, manage and optimize 100% of their non-search digital ad inventory.

Be sure to download our white paper Programmatic + Premium to learn more.

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