Magnetic Appoints James Green CEO
Josh-Shatkin Margolis, Magnetic founder and former CEO, seems to have a successful habit of mixing things up. On Thursday, the company, which launched in 2008, will announce James Green’s appointment as head. Green is an ad industry veteran with experience in the movie industry. He worked at various media/tech companies in CEO posts, including Giant Real, PVI and 24/7 Real Media. In the late 1990s, he worked as a vice president, marketing at Pixar Animation Studios, reporting to Steve Jobs.
After starting four companies, Green is ready to take on the CEO spot at Magnetic. The company supports display ad retargeting with search data. He will focus on driving overall company expansion and build out Magnetic’s search retargeting infrastructure.
During his year-long sailing excursion, from October 2010 until now, Green had time to think. Two trends in the ad industry stood out during the journey: data and technology. “I’ve been hired before to turn around companies having difficulties, and I didn’t want to do that this time,” he said. “I wanted to join a team in a company poised for growth. Magnetic is driven by technology and data.”
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AdSafe Media Launches New Real Time URL Analyzer Tool
Network Monitor+ Allows Brands To Instantly Check The Brand Safety of Specific URLs
More Than Half of the Top 50 Global Ad Networks Now Use AdSafe Media’s Network Monitor Solution
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Today, AdSafe announced the growth of its business with Networks and Publishers, as well as the release of a new feature to expand its Network Monitor product offerings.
With the new Network Monitor+ feature, clients can manually input a series of URLs and instantly receive the brand safety ratings for those specific web pages.
AdSafe Media now monitors and protects over 1.5 billion impressions every day across their network and exchange partners. The company ranks individual web pages on a 1-1,000 numerical scale, — the most granular system industry-wide — measuring how brand-safe a page is across multiple content categories. AdSafe Media’s proprietary and massively scaled system examines each page on a wide spectrum of data points to determine a page’s brand safety rating. With AdSafe Media’s continued growth and close partnerships across ad networks and publishers, the company now has visibility across 98% of the commercial web.
“Publishers and ad networks find our ratings invaluable. They proactively use these ratings to improve their Media Risk Index (MRI) — the overall content quality of their network,” said Scott Knoll, CEO, AdSafe Media. “On average, networks and publishers using the AdSafe Network Monitor record a 32% lift vs. the industry benchmarked MRIs. And now, with Network Monitor+, publishers and advertisers can instantly check on the brand safety of specific pages.”
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Rocket Fuel Expands Executive Team Amid Record Year of Global Growth
Leading Real-Time Ad Targeting Company Names Peter Bardwick as CFO and Hits $50M Run Rate Milestone
REDWOOD SHORES, CA, Sep 30, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Rocket Fuel Inc., the leading real-time ad targeting company, today announced that it has named media and technology industry veteran Peter Bardwick as CFO. The company also announced that Dinny Devitre, former CFO of Altria and current member of the Board of Directors of Altria, SABMiller, and Western Union, has become a strategic investor in the company. For the first half of 2011, Rocket Fuel tripled six-month revenues, quadrupled gross profit compared to a year earlier, launched a UK operation, and is on a $50M annual run rate based on August revenue.
News Facts:
- Rocket Fuel is announcing these key additions at a time of rapid growth and expansion. The company grew its headcount by 2.5 times in the last six months, adding nearly 40 employees. According to LinkedIn, Rocket Fuel is the fastest-growing digital advertising
technology company in the U.S. — and the company continues to sign new leading brands and agencies each month.
- Bardwick is an IPO-ready CFO with a proven track record directing the financial strategies of high-growth technology and media companies. He was instrumental in taking CBS Marketwatch public and has supported over $10B in transactions. He joins Rocket Fuel from online brokerage Zecco, where he served as CFO. A former investment banker, he also has a wealth of hands-on operational experience, having served as CEO, CFO, COO and board member of a number of leading Internet, media, and data companies.
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DoubleVerify Report Shows That Media Verification Improves Compliance for Online Advertising Industry
Trust Index Recognizes Best Performing Ad Companies — Ad Networks Are Proving to Be Brand Safe, and Advertisers Are Finding Value in Top Platforms
NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – Sep 30, 2011) – DoubleVerify, the pioneer and worldwide leader in online media verification and compliance, today published its 1H 2011 Trust Index. The report found a significant reduction of non-compliance among the industry’s best-performing ad networks and platforms. The findings illustrate that advertisers and networks are continuing to standardize their brand protection and compliance practices, ensuring their online media spend brings the highest return on investment. The worst-performing online advertising companies continued to demonstrate inconsistency in their ability to comply with advertisers’ preferences. According to the report, the most compliant ad networks from January to June 2011 were (alphabetically): AudienceScience, Casale Media, Dedicated Media, Epic Marketplace, interclick, Microsoft Media Network, Specific Media, Spectrum, a Centro product, Undertone, and Yahoo! Network Plus. Advertising platforms that were most compliant include (alphabetically): DataXu, Invite Media, The MIG’s Zeus Advertising Platform.
As advertisers have increasingly demanded verification to be included with third-party buys from ad networks, exchanges, DSPs and agency trading desks, the Trust Index has provided advertisers with in-depth data about partner compliance and brand safety trends in online advertising. Other key findings from the report showed:
- In the first half of 2011, the non-compliance rates for ad networks were at their lowest ever, since 18 months ago. The best-performing networks had an average non-compliance rate of 0.6 percent, but the bottom tier’s rate was 26 percent (compared to 2 percent and 35 percent respectively in 2H 2010).
- The most compliant ad platforms (DSPs and agency trading desks) maintained an average non-compliance incident rate of 4 percent, and the lower tier platforms decreased their average non-compliance rate to 20 percent — showing that ad exchanges can provide great value when verification is applied.
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Ad Execs: More Than Half Our Display Ads Now Bought Via Nets, DSPs, Exchanges
More than half of all online display advertising is now bought via an ad network, exchange or DSP (demand-side platform), according to findings of an Econsultancy survey of advertisers, agencies, publishers and their reps released Friday by Rubicon Project.
By platform, the study found that ad networks still account for the majority of online display advertising buys, representing 55% of the inventory, according to the respondents, followed by DSPs (32%) and exchanges (30%). Those numbers add up to more than 100, because the purchasing platforms are not mutually exclusive and are frequently used together.
The study found that the role of DSPs is much greater in North America than in Europe. Half of all online display ad buys placed by American companies are now made through a DSP vs. only 27% in Europe.
The study also found that almost half (46%) of online display advertising media plans now include ad networks, up from 32% in 2009.
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comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for August 2011
Americans Gear Up For Back-to-School at Education Information and Book Sites
Seasonal Allergies and Weather Drive Traffic to Pharmacy and Weather Sites
RESTON, Va., Sept. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. web activity at the top online properties for August 2011 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Millions of Americans prepared for the 2011-2012 school year by browsing Education Information and Career Training sites, and making purchases on Book sites. Between summer travel, seasonal weather and Hurricane Irene, visitors had plenty of reason to browse Weather sites, while information on allergies and flu shots drove traffic to Pharmacy sites.
“Online activity was largely driven by back-to-school in August as Americans made final preparations on all fronts for the upcoming academic year,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore. “Weather was also top of mind for many Americans, especially on the east coast with the onset of Hurricane Irene, and Pharmacy sites saw pickup in time with allergy and flu shot season.”
Web Receives A’s in Back-to-School Planning
Education Information represented the fastest growing category in August, growing 19 percent to 73.7 million visitors in July. Pearson Education ranked first in the category with 15.6 million visitors (up 35 percent), followed by HotChalk with 13.6 million (up 31 percent), ClassesUSA.com with 6.6 million (up 8 percent), About.com Education with 6.4 million (up 29 percent) and CoolMath.com Inc with 3.7 million visitors. College students checked out the reviews on their professors for the semester at RateMyProfessors.com, which jumped 45 percent to 3.2 million visitors, while Blackboard.com attracted 3 million visitors (up 64 percent).
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AdSafe Media Debuts New Engagement Quality Ratings
New Data Solutions Inform Advertisers of The Probability of Their Ad Being Viewed
NEW YORK, Sept. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — AdSafe Media, the industry leader in online brand protection, ad verification and campaign performance data, announced today the debut of the AdSafe Engagement Quality Ratings. These new ratings work within AdSafe’s existing protection and verification products but are also designed to enhance the RTB process, pre-bid. They inform advertisers and DSPs in real-time of the probability of their ad being in view to a user, as well as the level of user engagement and the amount of time in view.
The ability to verify whether a user engages with an ad directly increases the accuracy of determining overall campaign effectiveness. With the addition of Engagement Quality Ratings to its existing capabilities, AdSafe provides the most comprehensive suite of protection, verification and performance data solutions available, while now further enabling advertisers to easily direct their ads to more relevant online environments, driving greater ROI.
Information around whether ads are viewed is quickly becoming even more valuable than metrics on the specifics of ad location. Ads served in what are considered premium, above the fold placements, may not necessarily be viewed by a user depending on device type or browser settings. Alternatively, ads considered below the fold may in fact be viewed in a more contextually relevant environment – given a specific page’s content and layout and how far down a page a user scrolls. With this engagement model in mind, AdSafe’s new ratings metrics take into consideration web browsers, monitor sizes, screen resolutions, ad size, the placement on the page the ad is being served to, the amount of time a user spends on a page and the likelihood a user will scroll until the ad is view.
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Datran Media And ContextWeb Assume Merger
Datran Media and ContextWeb are in the midst of a quiet merger, according to several sources. Datran Chairman and CEO Patrick Vogt will lead the combined companies. Technology from the combined companies will give advertisers the ability to more accurately target ads, MediaPost learned late Wednesday. A Datran company spokesperson declined to confirm.
ContextWeb’s business model varies from Rubicon and Pubmatic. The company buys and offers ad inventory, guaranteeing CPMs to publishers by not promising to serve impressions unless the chances of conversion remain high.
One of Datran’s products, Aperture, provides real-time audience measurement and audience targeting. Combining audience targeting with contextual content would allow advertisers to target contextual content. Advertisers would have an option to reach consumers who are reading about sports and generating an income of more than $100,000 with children at home.
ContextWeb first reviews the inventory, and if there’s a contextual buyer for the segment, they buy it and guarantee a CPM to the publisher. The company can pay higher CPMs because they guarantee 100% sell through, according to one source that calls it “the holy grail.” They hold the right to take the ad unit at a certain CPM, but also have the right to kick it back to a publisher.
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