“The Sell-Sider” is a column written by the sell-side of the digital media community. Today’s column is the first of a two-part series and written by Esco Strong, Director, Exchange Marketplace Management at Microsoft

Even if you’re but a casual follower of the digital display advertising space, one such option and term you’ve no doubt heard in kind over the past twelve months is “Private Exchange.” From panels to blogs to product pitches, I have seen the term bandied about by a variety of players and in different contexts, to the great confusion of our industry. It is sometimes even used to describe fundamentally divergent concepts and products. I would like to end that confusion.

In this blog series, I will attempt to clarify the key concepts, verbiage and use cases of what a “Private Exchange ” is, and is not. Part one will focus on explaining some of the different use cases and ways this terminology is used.In part two, I’ll dive deeper into what “Private Exchanges” can offer and analyze the various use cases and implications of using the different types of exchanges.

I won’t cover all of the possible permutations here, as the term has been used quite extensively within the industry to mean all sorts of different things. I will instead focus on the most common scenarios that touch the core functionalities involved in this area: Use case #1: “Private Exchange” = a siloed marketplace with controls managed individually by publisher

Read more: AdExchanger
Tapad Brings Retargeting to Phones, Tablets, But Marketers Aren’t Talking
One big growth area of display advertising is retargeting, which is popular with online retailers that want to get ads in front of consumers who’ve abandoned a shopping cart or otherwise left their site. Aggressive retargeting means you might see a lot of one ad from, for example, Bonobos, making it feel as if the internet knows where you’ve been (because it does).

Such ads will soon be following you to a smartphone, a tablet, or both — a technological hurdle, as so-called cookie-tracking can’t happen across different devices.

When we last wrote about Tapad, in September, the New York startup was busy helping advertisers retarget consumers within mobile phones, producing a $20 million revenue run-rate in the process. Tapad has since been working in beta on expanding the offering to help advertisers reach the same consumer across multiple screens: personal computers, cellphones and tablets. The company is releasing the technology out of beta today.

Read more: AdAgeDigital

Replacing the dinosaur in the cockpit Can a major construct of an industry that is only 15 years old be considered a dinosaur? It may seem counter intuitive, but in an industry where the landscape is as quickly evolving as online advertising, the answer is yes. The fact that we are relying almost solely on the same cookie-based targeting strategies that were born at the dawn of the industry is like allowing a Tyrannosaurus to pilot a jet plane.
From the beginning, cookie-based behavioral targeting attempted to leverage the strengths of the online world while downplaying its limitations. But, this online targeting relic has begun to show its age, and while the expectations of online marketers have evolved, the strategies for targeting online audiences largely have not. Now more than ever before, there is a desire for a new targeting paradigm that delivers on the promise of pinpoint focus and scalable reach. Our complex and powerful jet plane of an industry deserves a pilot with more finesse than a prehistoric carnivore.
IP audience targeting is an online targeting strategy that brings the strength, accuracy, and flexibility of offline direct-mail campaigns into the online era by mapping IP address ranges to real-world addresses and leverages the publically available information known about those addresses. Continuing the analogy, partnerships between old-school, offline data-crunching tech companies and online distribution engines are now replacing the Tyrannosaurus in the cockpit with skilled and stealthy Air Force academy graduates.
Read more: iMEDIACONNECTION
DoubleVerify Offers Data To RTBs
To further pique interest in online ad verification among buyers and sellers, DoubleVerify is expected to make its services available to real-time bidder (RTB) exchange environments. Specifically, the ad verifier is making its data available to agency trading desks, ad networks and DSPs.

In the first of several planned RTB integrations, DoubleVerify’s data will be applied to campaigns running through the AppNexus platform.

“Bidders can buy brand safe inventory at scale with confidence, and avoid paying for impressions that are not targeted, safe or relevant for the brand,” according to Oren Netzer, CEO of DoubleVerify.

Driven by rising digital advertising budgets, online ad verification has become big business. Quantifying its worth, comScore agreed to buy ad verification company AdXpose for $22 million late last year, while earlier in 2011, DoubleVerify closed a respectable $33 million funding round.

The verifiers, however, say they’re not the only ones benefiting from their rise in prominence. According to DoubleVerify’s semiannual Trust Indexes, advertisers and networks are increasingly standardizing brand protection and compliance verification as part of their media buys.

Read more: MediaPost

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SocialVibe, a digital advertising technology company, today announced new milestones that further establish the company as the leader in the engagement advertising market. To date, the company has powered more than 500 opt-in engagement campaigns for more than 200 of the world’s leading brands including Toyota, Pepsi, GE and Disney. SocialVibe delivered advertisers more than 1.7 billion seconds of consumers’ active attention in 2011 by leveraging its unique engagement advertising technology platform and its network of premium publisher sites.
SocialVibe’s 2011 milestones include:

• Powered more than 500 engagement advertising campaigns for more than 200 leading global brands across five continents.

• Delivered 1.7 billion seconds of consumers’ active attention with brand messages.

• Doubled the number of engagements served compared to 2010.

• Amassed an extensive network of premium partner sites and apps to reach more than 100 million unique consumers every month.

• Integrated augmented reality technology into brand engagement ads, an industry first

• Published a research study with independent firm KN Dimestore that demonstrates more than 90 percent of people pay active attention to a brand message when interacting with a value exchange engagement ad.

• Introduced engagement advertising internationally into Latin America, and established a U.K. office to lead EMEA engagement efforts. • Secured $20 million in funding led by Norwest Venture Partners.

• Doubled company headcount over 2010.
Read more: BusinessWire
First Cross Channel Tracking Technology for Mobile Devices Unveiled by AdTruth
SAN JOSE, CA–(Marketwire – Feb 23, 2012) – AdTruth, a division of 41st Parameter — the global leader in device recognition technology used in fraud prevention and digital media — today unveiled a critical new capability of AdTruth’s DeviceInsight™ technology: Mobile Web to Mobile App Bridging. This allows marketers to recognize users across Mobile Web and App content enabling more effective mobile ad targeting while fully respecting consumer privacy.
Mobile usage continues to grow and the numbers are staggering; yet, there are real and pressing challenges in reaching mobile audiences effectively. Because so few mobile devices store cookies, tracking and targeting is extremely difficult. Even in cases where tracking is possible, a single user — using the same device to access both the Mobile Web and App-based content — will have two distinct identities: one based on the application they’re using and another based on their browsing behavior. In some cases, AdTruth identified more than a 90 percent overlap between these two audiences. This inaccurate audience recognition results in inefficiencies, wasted impressions and lower overall ROI for mobile advertising campaigns.
“The size, scope and marketing potential of the mobile industry continues to be underestimated,” said James Lamberti, vice president and general manager of AdTruth. “Mobile gaming revenue alone is nearly at par with Hollywood. It’s incredible. Unfortunately though, the capabilities for marketers to reach their audiences on mobile devices are very limited. What we’ve introduced today — the ability to recognize a single user across mobile apps or their mobile browser — is a big step toward removing a critical barrier to effective audience targeting. It’s going to allow marketers to do so much more.”
Read more: marketwire