DoubleClick Ad Exchange: First Truly Cross-Format Exchange

Our product teams have been rapidly innovating to bring more format support to DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Recent format innovations include:

• Mobile web inventory. According to internal data from October, mobile web inventory on DoubleClick Ad Exchange from high-end phones and tablets already makes up around 9% of global inventory and 15% of U.S. inventory.
• Mobile in-app inventory. In the coming weeks, AdMob publishers and application developers will be able to make their in-app mobile inventory available on DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Read the full announcement here.
• In-stream video. Q3 was our first full quarter of making in-stream video inventory available to buyers. Between the beginning of Q3 to now, we’ve tripled the number of buyers accessing this inventory.
• Rollover to expand. We’ve added the rollover to expand rich media format to our existing click-to-expand and in-page formats.

Recently at OMMA Display, Chip Hall, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, spoke about these innovations in a presentation titled, “Unlocking Opportunities With the First Truly Cross-format Exchange.” In case you missed it live, you can watch it here:

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

Streamlined Workflow for AdMob Rich Media in DoubleClick Studio and DFA

Since the launch of DoubleClick Studio in April 2009, we’ve streamlined the workflow for thousands upon thousands of rich media creatives for advertiser’s online campaigns. In May 2011, DoubleClick Rich Media creatives were certified to run in AdMob inventory. Now, we’re building on these two innovations to improve the efficiency of mobile display campaigns, too.

This Saturday we added support to DoubleClick Studio and DoubleClick for Advertisers for “Mobile In-App” AdMob rich media formats. With this addition, it’s much easier for creative agencies and media agencies to work together to build, preview, manage and serve mobile display campaigns across AdMob inventory. AdMob’s mobile display ad network is comprised of 89,000+ mobile sites and apps across 230 countries. Mobile advertisers will benefit by combining the efficiency of DoubleClick tools with the scale of AdMob inventory.

Here’s what the creation of a new “Mobile In-App” creative looks like in the DoubleClick Studio interface:

You can preview what your “Mobile In-App” creative will look like on a tablet or phone. The preview tool in DoubleClick Studio includes options to view the ad in landscape and portrait mode and the ability to zoom to 100% or 50% resolutions. Here’s what a tablet preview of a “Mobile In-App” creative looks like:

Just as you can with other rich media formats in DoubleClick Studio, you can now push a “Mobile In-App” creative directly to DFA. The ad will show up to traffickers when they import advertiser-level creatives, as in the screenshot here:

Once the “Mobile In-App” creative is in DFA, traffickers can change properties of the creative, such as its landing page, much like they do for other rich media formats. Here’s how a “Mobile In-App” creative looks in DFA:

Initially, all campaigns and creatives using this new workflow will run through our full-service team. Please contact your DoubleClick Rich Media representative if you're interested in running Mobile In-App creatives or campaigns.

Research shows that rich media campaigns across multiple screens work better than those targeting just one screen. By making the mobile rich media workflow easier, we hope this helps you include captivating mobile display ads in your next campaign and drive campaign performance across screens.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

Bringing AdMob Mobile Inventory to the DoubleClick Ad Exchange

In 2009, we launched the DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a way to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, drive performance for our advertiser and publisher partners, and open up the display marketplace. In the two years since, exchange-based trading has taken off -- we’ve seen the volume of trades on our own exchange grow by more than 150% in the past year. At the same time, display, as a medium, has evolved.

Display started as just banner ads on websites, but has grown to include a range of formats as diverse as the web itself -- rich media ads that bring a page to life, in-stream ads that play before your favorite online video, and ads that run in the mobile version of your daily newspaper. To reflect this growing diversity, we have been expanding the types of formats in the Exchange. We support the most popular types of rich media ads, including units that run in-page with video, or expand when you click or mouse over them. It’s also possible to buy ads across the mobile web. Earlier this year, we announced that in-stream video formats were coming to the Exchange, and we’ve seen huge demand since launch: the number of buyers for in-stream video has tripled over the past quarter.

Today, we are announcing another step forward -- in the coming weeks, AdMob developers will be able to make their in-app inventory available on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Initially, a small number of pre-qualified buyers will be able to compete for this inventory. Over time, we'll be rolling it out more broadly. Ultimately, this will give app developers and publishers access to a wider pool of buyers like demand-side platforms and agency trading desks, improving their potential returns, and helping grow the overall mobile web economy. And marketers on our Exchange will be able to buy, in real time, ads that run inside people’s favorite mobile games, news apps and more. With this important addition, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange will be truly cross-format...and will become the first exchange to support this full range of ad formats.

VivaKi, one of our key partners on the Exchange, is gearing up to start buying in-app ads on the Exchange. “We are delighted to be working with Google as they open up the DoubleClick Ad Exchange to include AdMob in-app inventory, and to deliver this opportunity to our clients,” says Kurt Unkel, Senior Vice President, VivaKi Nerve Center. “We anticipate this experience will help us bring mobile to scale to our partners, and will provide insight into the operational elements and the creative assets that work best in this environment.”

A cross-format exchange is just one of the ways we’re looking to simplify the process of buying and selling display advertising, but one we think will create tremendous value for advertisers and publishers. We will continue to work with our partners to help them get the most out of what the evolving display market has to offer -- today, tomorrow, and in the years ahead.

Posted by Chip Hall, Director, DoubleClick Ad Exchange

Delivering Mobile Rich Media Ads to Mobile Apps with AdMob

In January, we announced mobile support in DoubleClick Studio for rich media ads that are based on HTML5 standards. Today, we’re expanding the number of places that these creatives can be delivered in mobile. Now, both standard and rich media ads trafficked in DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) can run on AdMob inventory. Acquired by Google last May, AdMob is a mobile display ad network comprised of 89,000+ mobile sites and apps across 230 countries. DoubleClick is the only 3rd party ad serving platform from which rich media ads can be delivered into the AdMob network.

Today, through the mobile rich media beta with AdMob, advertisers can build HTML5 ads in DoubleClick Studio and run them across select apps on the AdMob network. AdMob’s certification of DoubleClick Rich Media covers three main HTML5 mobile rich media formats: banners, interstitials and expandables. When HTML5 ads are built in DoubleClick Studio, trafficked in DFA and run on AdMob, advertisers benefit from the integration of their mobile rich media metrics within the same reporting system they’re using for other channels such as search, online display and in-stream.

To date, advertisers have enjoyed the ability to build an ad once and run it anywhere with online display and rich media ads. Our work with AdMob gets us one step closer to making this possible for mobile display advertising too. At Google, we are committed to helping mobile scale and perform even better for brand advertisers.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

Tracking Mobile Conversions in DFA

When talking to advertisers about mobile advertising, one topic that comes up again and again is the need for consistent, independent ROI tracking for their mobile campaigns. As users spend even more time in Mobile Apps and on the Mobile Web, these have become excellent channels for advertisers to reach their customers. However, despite the growth in scale and innovation in formats it has remained difficult to use just a single solution to track the performance of all those campaigns and to compare them to their online advertising counterparts.

We’ve been listening and are excited to announce two improvements to our mobile ad serving solution today that will help advertisers do just that.

Tracking conversions for mobile ads
First up, we are pleased to introduce conversion reporting for mobile ads in DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA). Now it is possible to see post-click conversions for mobile ads right alongside your existing conversion reports for display ads, enabling even more efficient allocation of budget.

To enable conversion tracking for a mobile site you can use exactly the same Floodlight tags as regular DFA conversion tracking. We’ve optimized the system to handle the quirks of cookie handling and javascript support on different mobile devices so it now supports a huge range of mobile phones, from older generation phones to the latest model smart phones covering the vast majority of the mobile traffic that we see. In addition, because it uses Floodlight, mobile conversion tracking in DFA allows you to use conversion counters and even e-commerce tags with your mobile campaigns so that you can track not just visits and actions but value too.

Now that mobile conversion reporting is captured in DFA, you have more information at your disposal to better understand the elements (search, display, apps and websites) driving traffic to your mobile websites and to compare them directly to the online campaigns you are already running.

Click trackers for mobile placements
DFA users create click trackers to record the number of clicks on text links, links in emails, or on other elements that are hard-coded on a website. They can also be used to track clicks on creatives that are not delivered by DFA, including clicks on distinct parts of multi-file creatives.

Now we are allowing clicking tracking in DFA to include mobile placements so that you can track clicks on site-served creatives or text ads (such as search ads) on mobile sites, with reporting by platform, carrier and country. These click-trackers are also optimized to use the same conversion tracking system as regular mobile ads in DFA.

>> Read more (login required)

Expect to see further enhancements in the coming months to DFA to enable you to serve mobile ads with the same ease and functionality as the display ads that you already serve through the system.

Posted by Alex Gawley, Product Manager

Introducing mobile ad serving in DoubleClick for Advertisers

As the popularity of mobile advertising rises, so too do the challenges for advertisers. The proliferation of mobile devices along with emerging standards make for a challenging environment in which to execute on mobile campaigns.

Serving mobile ads through DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) is the answer to tackling some of these pain points head on. This latest DFA release allows advertisers and agencies to traffic mobile ad campaigns alongside the rest of their online advertising campaigns.

Serve mobile ads in DFA
Trafficking mobile ads in DFA is easy. You use the same process as you would for any campaign in DFA. Mobile is just another ad type and placement type that you would select within the DFA trafficking interface. You don’t even need to create a separate campaign for your mobile ads in DFA, you can include them in any existing campaign alongside the rest of your online creatives assets.

Serve mobile ads to a variety of mobile platforms
DFA mobile ads are designed to be trafficked on inventory that is optimized for mobile browsers or within a mobile application. Tailor your message to each of the major mobile platforms and automatically serve the appropriate Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) creative size to a broad array of mobile devices. You also have many of the existing DFA targeting features at your disposal such as day-parting, keywords and geo-targeting.

Integrated reporting
With fully integrated reporting you get mobile impression and click data all in the same place as the standard DFA reports. There is also a mobile-specific report which shows a breakdown of stats for your mobile placement by wireless carrier, mobile platform and country.

Mobile-optimized tags
The mobile placement in DFA generates tags that are optimized to run on a wide variety of mobile devices ensuring that your campaign has the reach you desire. These tags work seamlessly with the Doubleclick Mobile publisher platform and have been tested successfully on a number of other leading publisher technology providers. If you’re a publisher and want to accept DFA mobile placements, just log into your site directory account or email sd-support@google.com.

Standard ads go mobile too
As many mobile phones come with full Internet browsers, you’ll often find that your standard ads are being viewed on mobile devices too. So, alongside the mobile placements we’re also releasing mobile browser targeting for standard ads. This gives you the opportunity to control the creative you serve alongside standard web content when it is viewed on a mobile device (e.g., iPhone, iPad or Android devices).

Just the beginning
We’re working hard to add new features to mobile in DFA so expect to see multiple enhancements to your mobile advertising experience in DFA in the coming months.

Posted by Alex Gawley, Product Manager