Ad exchange

Ad exchanges are technology platforms that facilitate the bided buying and selling of online media advertising inventory from multiple ad networks

The Double-click Ad Exchange is a real-time marketplace to buy and sell display advertising space. By establishing an open marketplace where prices are set in a real-time auction, the Ad Exchange enables display ads and ad space to be allocated much more efficiently and easily across the web. It’s just like a stock exchange, which enables stocks to be traded in an open way.

Who participates in the Ad Exchange?

Again, imagine the Ad Exchange as a stock exchange. Only the largest brokerage houses actually plug into, say, the NYSE. In the Ad

Exchange world, those are:

1.     The large online publishers (sellers)—websites like portals, entertainment sites and news sites

2.     Ad networks and agency holding companies that operate networks (buyers)—companies that connect web sites with advertisers.

But it’s not just the direct participants who benefit. As an individual investor, you can buy and sell shares on the stock exchange through an online broker, without needing to plug in to the NYSE mainframe. It’s the same for AdWords advertisers and AdSense publishers who get access to the extra publishers and certified ad networks in the Ad Exchange, through their AdWords or AdSense interface. Similarly, advertisers who use other participating ad networks can get the benefits of the Ad Exchange.

What does the Ad Exchange mean for the display advertising ecosystem?

Sellers in the Ad Exchange:

1.     Can make the most money for their ad space, every time a page on their site loads with an ad (called an “impression”). In the past, too many sellers had inventory unsold or sold for a price below its potential market value.

2.     Get access to many more advertisers, while still being able to control who can advertise on their site.

3.     Benefit from simplified reporting and payments—a single exchange manages it all.

  

Buyers in the Ad Exchange:

1.     Get access to many more websites and more ad space.

2.     Can use technology that allows them to bid for ad space in real time, depending on how much they value a particular ad impression.

3.     Have more controls over where their ads run and don’t run.

Google AdWords advertisers:

1.     Have easy access to the websites in the Ad Exchange, as well as all the existing websites in the Google Content Network—all through their AdWords interface.

Google AdSense publishers:

Have their ad space available to certified ad networks in the Ad Exchange. This means more quality display advertisers competing for their ad space and higher returns. AdSense publishers get the benefit of this through their AdSense interface, without having to log in to the Ad Exchange itself.

Real Time Bidding (RTB) – what it means in the world of digital media and how it works.

RTB as a relatively new method of selling and buying online display advertising in real time, one ad impression at a time.   Sounds a little confusing?  In absolute layman’s terms, it simply means that it is a platform that allows advertisers to bid for the right to advertise on a given web page that is being opened up at any given time by any given individual.

RTB is the valuation and bidding on individual impressions in real time. The buying takes place over online media exchanges – basically media marketplaces – which connect sellers (publishers) and buyers (advertisers

Basically, it is an individual-targeted module of advertising.

How does it work?

  In ancient times (by that I mean, about 5 years ago!), if Mr. A opened a web page, he would be bombarded with advertisements ranging from air tickets to curtain rods.  Now Mr. A is neither interested in air tickets nor in curtain rods.  So what does he do? He simply ignores those ads and goes about his business.  What he is really interested in is real estate, and should an ad pertaining to that pop up, I am sure he will enthusiastically click on the ad link to find out more.

Now-a-days, an individual’s browsing history or tracking cookies is noted to form a picture of the person’s interests.  So the next time this person opens a web page, an intense bidding war happens behind the scenes for the advertising space on that particular web page.  The highest bidder wins and gets the chance to catch the attention of the unsuspecting browser.  Of course all of this happens in absolute nano seconds and this process is repeated for every ad space on every page he/she opens.

How real time bidding works and who is involved ???.

Real-time bidding (real time advertising): a method of buying online display advertising in which publishers release impressions to be purchased individually, in an auction environment.

Ad networks: an entity that connects buyers and sellers of online advertising impressions. These companies can facilitate the purchasing of real time ad inventory.

Demand side platform (dsp): these entities allow advertisers to manage their purchasing of online display advertising in real-time. DSPs purchase advertising for the advertisers through ad networks and exchanges. DSP functionality varies, and includes things like allowing advertisers to manage their bid amounts, performance metrics and consumer targeting.

Online display advertising (online banner ads): online advertising that appears on top of or alongside the content of a webpage. This type of advertising utilizes banners which come in the standard sizes of 300×250, 728×90 and 160×600.

Targeted advertising: a form of advertising in which ads are delivered to consumers based on demographics and geography, as well as other factors like interests and purchasing behaviour. Real time bidding has enabled online display advertising to become more targeted through the use of first and third party data.

Online contextual advertising: online advertising which is selected to appear on a particular webpage because it is a match for the content of the page.

Behavioral marketing (behavioural targeting): this term refers to several ways in which online advertising campaigns are made more effective by taking into consideration the actions of the consumer. Data needs to be collected to facilitate this process, and what is collected will vary based on the desires of the advertisers.

Supply Side Platform (SSP): an entity that works with publishers and advertisers to release impressions into the real time bidding ecosystem to be purchased by DSPs or other agents.

Second Price Auction: an auction format in which the bidder who offers to pay the highest price pays only the price of the second highest bidder. This system is used in most RTB ecosystems.

Cookie Caching: collecting the cookies of visitors to a webpage for the purpose of making more informed buying decisions about that consumer’s impression.

Retargeting: the process of adjusting your online advertising creative, as well as purchasing strategy, based on the actions of consumers. The simplest example is spending more for the impressions of consumers who have not completed an order form on your website, as well as showing them a more influential creative.

Tagging a Page: the process of adding a piece of code (referred to as a ‘pixel’) to a webpage (usually the landing page and key pages for a campaign) which collect data on the visitors to those pages. This data is then used to make more informed buying decisions later on.

Ad Server: a technology used to store online display ads, then subsequently deliver them to a consumer on a website. This company’s purpose is to maximize revenue for the publisher and/or advertiser, as well as manage campaigns.

Brand Safety Technology: this technology is used to classify the content of webpages and to allow advertisers to avoid running their campaigns on pages which carry content they deem to be ‘negative’ for their brand.

Prospecting: the process through which an RTB campaign is implemented so that promising consumers are sought out so that they can be retargeted throughout the campaign.

How to Setup Google DFP for Selling Ads

Consider the following scenarios:

·         You use an advertising network like Google Adsense for serving ads on your website but would also like to accept ad campaigns from brands, digital agencies and other direct advertisers.

·         You have partnered with multiple CPM based ad networks – say Adsense, BuySellAds, Tribal Fusion, etc. – but would only like to run ads from the network that pays you the most money (or maximum CPM)

·         You would like to display ads based on certain criteria. For instance, visitors from U.S. are shown one set of ads while visitors who are in India and use Windows are targeted with a different set of ads.

·         You are using Adsense across your website and the CPMs may vary. Instead of serving low-cost Google AdSense ads, say when the CPM is less than $1, you would like to display in-house ads that promote your older article or your other website.

Google DFP, or Double-click for Publishers, is a perfect solution in either of the above scenarios. DFP is a free ad server from Google that lets you sell ad space on your website more effectively and also helps maximize your advertising revenue.

 

  With DFP, you may run standard banner ads, text ads (JavaScript based) or even rich-media campaigns that use video and Flash creatives. The tool, which was formerly known as Google Ad Manager, requires no downloads or installation and any website publisher can sign-up for the DFP program as long as they have an active Google AdSense account.

Sell Your Advertising Space with Google DFP

Say you have a blog where you cover a variety of topics including technology, sports and entertainment. An advertiser wants to serve banner ad campaigns on all your tech related pages. As part of the deal, he has agreed to pay $20 CPM for all US impressions and you can fill your remnant inventory through Google AdSense ads.

Let’s see how we can easily setup such an ad campaign through Google DFP.

Step 1: Create Ad Units

We need to tell DFP about all the advertising spaces on our web pages. For this example, we’ll create three ad units – the 300×250 rectangle, the 160×600 skyscraper and the 468×60 banner. These are standard IAB units though you can define custom ad sizes as well.

Go to DFP –> Inventory –> Ad Units –> New Ad Unit (choose Web or Mobile). Give your ad unit a descriptive name so that you can easily determine where that ad unit will be displayed and also include the size of that unit. You may check the option “Maximize revenue of unsold and remnant inventory with AdSense” in case you wish to display Google Ads when there are no direct ads or when Google is offering better CPM than the direct advertiser.

Bonus Tip: If you set the target windows in the Ad Unit as “_blank”, the ads will open in a new window. Google doesn't allow you to open AdSense ads in a new window but if you are using DFP, AdSense ads can be configured to open in a new window without breaking the AdSense program policies.

Step 2: Define Placements

You have multiple ad units on the website and there’s a possibility that an advertiser may want to target one or more of these ad units. For instance, an advertiser may want to target your Medium Rectangle and Skyscraper ad units on tech-related pages of the site. You can group these ad units into a placement that can be targeted by advertisers.

Go to the Inventory tab –> Placements –> New Placement and add your placement. To keep things simple, we will associate only one ad unit (300×250) with our ad placement. Check the option that says “Offer this placement to advertisers” through AdWords to attract more advertisers. You should carefully fill the AdSense targeting section for that placement since whatever you write here will be viewable by AdWords advertisers.

Step 3. Create an Order

Now that we have defined our ad inventory, it’s time to create the client’s order (or campaign). The client /advertiser will specify where he wants to place the ad, what kind of demographics he wants to target, what the price he is willing to pay is and how long the campaign will run on the website.

Go to DFP –> Orders –> New Order. Create a company for the advertiser and then fill-in the order details under “New Line Item.” Set the Type to “Price Priority” if you want the highest paying ads to be served on your site. Set Value CPM equal to the price that the client will pay and then add the targeting criteria.

Also see: Increase AdSense Revenue with Google DFP

Step 4. Upload the Ad Creative

Next you have to upload the ad creative that will display on your web pages. You can either upload images, Flash videos or even snippets of HTML and JavaScript in case you’re going with text ads.

Go to DFP – > Line Items and select the “Line Item” that you’ve created in the previous step. Click Add Creative’s and either upload the image / SWF Flash file or choose the Text Ad format to enter a text-on ad (like the one you see on Google search pages).

You can even upload multiple creative ads per line item and they’ll display evenly across the site – you can compare the click-through rates of these creative’s to determine the ad copy that performs best with your visitors.

Step 5. Get the Ad Tags for your Site

We’ll grab the JavaScript code from  DFP and copy-paste it into our website /blog template.

Click the Inventory tab in your DFP dashboard and choose “Generate Tags” – select the appropriate ad unit (the one you created in Step #1) and choose “Generate Tags.”   Use the Google Publisher Tag (asynchronous) option from the drop-down and add this code to your website. Google DFP should begin serving ads on your pages in the next 10-15 minutes.