The Doubleclick Ad Exchange: growing the display advertising pie for everyone.

What is key for us is not so much the response, logical, even awaited and welcomed but the problem diagnosis they make. In other words, it is not that important to look at what they did, but to why they did it (or, at least, how they explain it). These are not their words, but their statements (remember Popper?):

1. Google is successful in search advertising

2. There is also, out there (out of Google) a world of display advertising

3. But, that world is chaotic and unorganized, difficult to use so that, potential advertisers are pushed out

4. For publishers 80% ad-space is unsold

5. So that, Google can offer a better solution

It is very clear. Because no one else did coordinate a rational system for selling ad-space with standards (well, IAB has standards and they are widely known and used, but this is about selling standards and not merely format standards), we -Google- are going to do it.

Why this move is even wellcome? Because media know Google arguments are right, and it is a failure of media not to work together in the channel and compete in the content (again talking about it) Remember Gerd Leonard? Why this innovation did not come from publishers themselves?

Media revenue is much more based in brand ads (or, what we call “display”, although it is possible to sell performance paid ads through a self-service). They argue that this is due to the promotion of virtual goods through the platform, the advertising of TV shows online, and, mainly the great usability of buying ad space there. In fact the main reason probably is that mainstream advertising, or, in other words, massive indiscriminated “branding” advertising did not reach Facebook yet.

No matter the reason, what is necessary to reconsider is:

First: why they may get 36% of revenues from self-service while an average media site is, probably at a level  of more or less 10%.Why do not media sell mor ad-space performance-based to SMEs. This is about getting more people to bid.

An then, secondly, taking into account that, yes, there are experiences of selling display through self-service, whether it is the time for media brands to have their own performance paid advertising selling platform. In fact, again, we are talking about adopting the best practise, like we did yesterday.

At this moment, media are mainly implementing either Google or Microsoft for selling our ad-space. Interestingly, Facebook is not doing it. Facebook is using neither Microsoft nor Google to sell advertising. Does this fact have something to see with the successful self-service performance in the Facebook Revenue Mix?