Björn Brouwer, MD Netherlands Adnetik, Discusses The Dutch Offering, The Evolving Local Data-Driven Display Market, And The Possible Implications Of The Opt-In Cookie Directive
Adnetik opened its office in Amsterdam last year. What success have you had so far in the Dutch market?
From a sales perspective we have run campaigns for more than 15 of the top 100 advertisers in the Netherlands, of which 3 are in the top 10.
These campaigns have mostly consisted of display although we have the capabilities to run both video and mobile campaigns. For these display campaigns, we have been most successful in optimizing for low CPM, click and conversation rates of standard display campaigns via our click optimization tool.
Since our start, we have been able to secure inventory from almost all premium inventory sources. Via our bidder we have the right to buy inventory on a RTB basis from almost all well-known sales houses and publishers. This has been the result of being one of the first independent trading desks pushing its own proprietary technology into the market. Most of our competitors lack a platform to buy on RTB and are therefore reluctant to buy in bulk at a fixed price instead of having the flexibility of to buy on an impression-by-impression basis.
Can you give some overview on the Dutch display market, and how automated ad buying is evolving there?
The Netherlands is evolving in terms of automated buying. Both buyers and sellers have taken a big step forward in the last 6 to 12 months. The (big) media agencies on the other hand are still somewhat conservative and are losing market share to niche competitors and clients taking matters into their own hands. It is our expectation that automated trading will become a dominant factor in the Netherlands and in most other European markets. In every market where CPM rates are relatively high, automated trading can bring a significantly higher efficiency to a media plan/buy.
How would you define Adnetik’s business in the Netherlands? Are you serving the requirements of local agencies – or do you work directly with advertisers?
Both. We are working with a number of agencies. Most of them are independent and lack the scale to compete on price with the big network agencies but when using our technology, price is no longer a differentiator. We also work with a few network agencies that lack their own technology and want to make use of the fact that we are linked with almost all available inventory sources. Finally, we approach those clients that do not work with an agency at all. This market is quite substantial in the Netherlands.
Is there enough dynamic supply available? Who are the main exchanges or SSPs, Adnetik is currently buying from?
More than enough! Our top priority last year was to increase the volume of (premium) inventory. At this moment in time we have access to 98% of the NL internet population via Admeld, Google AdEx, Improve Digital, OpenX, Appnexus, Adbrite, Rubicon, RightMedia and others. We buy most of our inventory on well-known Dutch websites and set up client specific whitelists for content specific inventory. We manage oversupply by generic blacklisting domains that do not perform, are too expensive, or do not meet our client’s campaigns requirements.
Are premium publishers making inventory available through the automated platforms?
Yes, we have access to almost all premium publishers like Telegraaf, Sanoma, STER (public broadcasting network), RTL and many more. These parties are positively contributing to the development of the market and noticing that proper yield management allows them to increase CPM rates and campaign performance.
How evolved is the Dutch data market? And is the cookie directive having a major effect on audience buying?
It is very evolved but it is not that big by comparison to other European countries. There are many parties using data. Most of them make use of a client’s own data for retargeting purposes. Only a few companies are active in selling 3rd party audience data. The most important reason for that is that the Netherlands is not big enough in size and number of inhabitants. So the number of valuable 3rd party cookies is limited. And with limited supply comes a relatively high price. Especially in reference to the media rates. So the overall potential for 3rd party data is limited.
As far as to the second part of the question we can’t say yet if it will have a big impact. Legislation is not yet fully developed and as an industry we are taking precautionary measures like providing consumers with an opt-out.
There has been a trend in the UK for the majority of automated buying to be focused on DR? Is the Dutch market following a similar trend? Or is there much more brand budget going through the automated channel?
Somehow a large group of Dutch advertisers also confuse automated trading with DR. In our perception a trading desk is not the Holy Grail for post click conversion in display advertising. We drive optimum effectiveness for display ads by integrating data to target ads with a higher chance of conversion. As standard display is a form of push marketing, advertisers should be aware of its limitations in terms of CPA. In other words, there is no such thing as “magical” converting display clicks. Advertisers should however consider leveraging their brand budget to automated traders like Adnetik. In doing so, they can set their own price, determine their own network, and layer in optimization technology to achieve their campaign KPI’s. Via our proprietary Click Optimization technology advertisers are able to target ads with the highest click & conversation rate. Additionally, our AIM Index™ technology allows them to optimize on branding aspects like maximum number of ads, position of the ad, contextual relevancy, among other parameters.
How is Adnetik addressing this problem? Is AIM giving you a competitive advantage in the market?
Our AIM (Audience Investment Management) technology is providing us with a competitive edge because it uses proprietary and 3rd party data to inform custom audience segmentation for use in a real-time environment where prices are set dynamically. And since Adnetik is an independent, 100% automated trading desk that provides full transparency, we do not have any obligations with publishers to buy at fixed rates like some of our competitors. When advertisers use AIM, they can be certain the data is used to increase the effectiveness of the campaigns while maintaining brand standards.
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