BrightRoll Unveils Video Analytics Suite

Video ad network BrightRoll Thursday rolled out a new suite of analytics tools from third-party research firms including comScore, Nielsen and InsightExpress. Among them, the firms will track campaign performance in five areas: validation, awareness, impact, effectiveness and optimization.  The idea is to go beyond standard metrics delivered by BrightRoll, like views and unique viewers, to offer more in-depth reporting to advertisers that are still skeptical about the medium’s efficacy. BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti explained the company put together the group of analytics partners after surveys it conducted with agencies last year. “The thing that jumped out to me was that no one has any idea if online video advertising is working,” he said.

Read More: MediaPost

Increased Focus on Real-Time Bids

The Rubicon Project is doing a mix of hiring and firing as it brings in more automated services to meet clients’ demand for real-time bidding services, the company told paidContent. The company is letting go three staffers in the U.S. as well as two others in Hong Kong, as Rubicon decides to pursue partnerships in the region, as opposed to building its business there from scratch. Financially, the two-year-old company is doing well, says Frank Addante, the company’s founder and CEO. This is the first year that Rubicon will hit $100 million in revenue and it expects it will reach profitability within the next two quarters, Addante added.  The company is preparing a new product launch in Q3, though Addante wouldn’t go into details. But while it is losing five staffers out of 154, it is also actively looking to recruit 10- to 12 new hires: 6- to 7 for product & engineering (U.S.) and 4- to 5 sales (U.S. and UK).  Aside from the dismissals, Rubicon is also experiencing another personnel change. JT Batson, EVP for Revenue and Global Development at Rubicon, will be leaving the company to run what Addante described only as a “multi-million dollar traditional media company.” Batson also had gotten married and had been working from New York, away from Rubicon’s Los Angeles headquarters. He will remain as an advisor to Rubicon following his departure.

Read More: PaidContent.org

Google Launches Click-to-Call for Mobile Apps and Content

Last month at Google I/O, we previewed a new mobile advertising format, click-to-call for apps and mobile website content. We wanted to follow-up and let you know that this feature is now fully live and available to everyone who advertises with AdWords.  Expanding our popular click-to-call functionality on mobile search ads to now include mobile content and apps helps increase the reach of your ads across the mobile web and provides mobile publishers and app developers with even more ways to make money and grow their businesses.  With click-to-call, potential customers can connect with your business via a phone call when they use their favorite mobile apps or when they browse the web from their mobile devices.  Ads will appear as animated banner or text ads with a call button on mobile devices with full Internet browsers.  To use this new format, you need to enable phone extensions and run your ads on both the Google Content Network and mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

Read More: Adwords.Blogspot.com