Back in April to an enthusiastic ad:tech crowd, Boston-based Nexage launched a real time bidding platform for the mobile ad industry – the Nexage RTB Exchange. This morning the company released initial results showing just how effective that platform is, taken from early trials with DataXu, Fiksu (formerly Fluent Mobile) and Tapad.
Mobile ad performance as measured by click through rates (CTRs) in these two week tials have been on average 34% higher on the Nexage RTB Exchange than non-real-time bidding inventory. As with bidding on search keywords on Google AdWords, real-time bidding in the mobile ad space enables advertisers to be competitive on price alongside effectively targeting the consumers most apt to be interested in the ad. More effective mobile ad placements are beneficial to both advertisers and publishers, ultimately leading to an increase in the value of and overall demand for mobile ads.
“We’re very pleased with the results,” shared Are Traasdahl, Founder & President at Tapad, about the two week trial. “At the end of the day, performance is the ultimate driver – it’s what we care about, and what we’re passionate about delivering to our clients. With Nexage RTB Exchange, we’re getting quality, high-performing inventory on a reliable platform.”
The digital ad ecosystem has several layers, with advertisers and their agencies very rarely working directly with publishers to place ads. Instead, ad exchanges work as platforms that connect both buyers and sellers. A more recent delineation: Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) and Sell Side Platforms (SSPs). DSPs like DataXu work on behalf of advertisers and their agents, and SSPs like Nexage work on behalf of publishers. One beneficial element of real-time to DSPs and SSPs is the elimination of requirement negotiations (DSPs on the behalf of advertisers, SSPs on behalf of publishers). This is similar to the stock market, for example, where buyers and sellers bid in real-time on the stock of public companies. Can you imagine if one-off negotiations around terms occurred every time a stock was bought and sold? Real time eliminates these time and cost inefficiencies in a similar way.
“We are very happy with the early results from Nexage RTB Exchange,” said Ernie Cormier, CEO & President at Nexage. “A 34% CTR lift during the trial is very encouraging. It unequivocally demonstrates that we’re increasing the value of mobile advertising across the ecosystem – from advertisers who achieve better performance, to publishers who see an increase in the value of their inventory, to our demand-side partners whose services we enable.”
Cormier recently contributed a guest post as part of a series on BostInnovation about ad tech, where he speaks to how quickly the mobile ad industry is developing and Nexage’s roots: “How to Build Well-Grounded Technology in a Meteoric Market.”
Congrats to the Nexage team on these results! We look forward to following the company as they launch more formally later this year.
