By Allan Maurer
RESEARCH TRIANGLE, NC – Brian Handly, general manager of publishing tools with Microsoft Advertising, says that while PCs still dominate the digital ad world, future campaigns are likely to play out across a mix of on demand video, mobile, and display formats.
Handly led Raleigh-based Accipiter, which sold ad serving technologies to Web publishers. He followed it as senior VP of sales for its publisher solutions when it was acquired by Atlas Solutions, a unit of aQuantive Inc., then a public company, for $30 million in late 2006.
AQuanative, also the parent of Avenue A, Razorfish, and DRIVEpm, was in turn acquired by Microsoft for $6 billion in May 2007. All are now part of Microsoft Advertising.
At that time, following Google’s acquisition of online ad agency Doubleclick, MS noted that online advertising was a $40 billion market growing 20 percent a year.
“Microsoft Advertising combines the agency end, the Atlas publishing and technology side, and the media network,” Handly says.
Consolidation ongoing
That sequence of acquisitions is representative of the consolidation going on in the digital media advertising world now, he says.
“All the major players are making acquisitions now and I think that trend will continue,” he says. A lot of players are filling a niche in the overall, end to end solution major players want to create, he notes.
Handly is among 40 other top Internet-focused company thought-leaders who will speak or appear on panels at TechJournal South’s Internet Summit November in Chapel Hill, NC. (For more information on the Summit, see: www.internetsummitevent.com).
Handly says that despite downturn in the economy, “From the angle we have into publishers that use our tools, the number of online impressions is going up. In the last 18 months, we’ve seen a 300 percent increase in transaction volume.”
He notes that transaction volume and revenue do not always track together, but adds, “Revenue is up significantly also.”
Trends include platform convergence
Are advertisers picky about where their campaigns appear? “Absolutely,” says Handly. “It’s extremely important to advertisers to understand where their inventory is delivered.”
Some of that depends on what type of advertising a company does, he says. “If a central focus is to increase brand awareness, it’s very important to understand what content that advertising in connected to and what audience is seeing it.”
On the other hand, if the advertiser is more concerned about performance, a consumer taking action, clicking on the ad, filling out a form, buying, then the advertiser tends not to be as concerned about content and more about getting results.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have to make sure it doesn’t appear with inappropriate content, he adds. “But the bigger focus is on click through rate on this site and with this audience vs. some others.”
He also points out that MS Advertising’s publishing tools offer technology to help advertisers find their audience and direct ads to deliver better results such as higher dollar returns per impression.
Handly says he sees PCs continuing to dominate the digital marketing space, but the fastest growth is in the mobile and video sectors. “They’re still small markets now, but with huge potential.”
Advertisers moving to rich media
He also sees advertisers moving away from traditional display ads to richer content, such as video and Flash. “I think that will continue,” he says.
Another trend he believes the industry will see is advertisers looking at digital display, mobile, video, and traditional media as a package.
He also expects continuing innovations from venture-backed start ups. “This industry is ten plus years old. It has come a long way. But in many cases, we’re still talking about the same things we were in 1999. Mobile, for instance.
“This market still has a long way to go to hit the maturity of traditional media. There is a lot of opportunity for growth and innovation.”
On the Web: www.atlassolutions.com/
Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org
© 2008, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.
