The first ad server was created in 1995 with the goal of helping websites deliver ads online. Over the next twenty years, what was once a simple technology with limited capabilities would evolve into one of the most fundamental and advanced aspects of a media organization’s business.

Through that time, DoubleClick’s mission has remained the same: to help publishers maximize revenue and create sustainable businesses. It’s why we’ve been focused on providing our partners with deeper insights into their businesses with initiatives like the Insights Engine Project, and collaborating with the industry on products like Exchange Bidding.

When we first announced Exchange Bidding, we hoped that it would help publishers earn more money from their ad partners without sacrificing user experience across their properties. Exchange Bidding is now a significant revenue driver for hundreds of publishers who have grown their programmatic revenue by an average of double-digit percentage points.¹

Today, we’re excited to announce that Exchange Bidding is available with new features to all customers using DoubleClick for Publishers* globally.

Greater revenue, greater transparency

With Exchange Bidding, publishers can increase revenue by allowing multiple exchanges to compete with each other -- and with DoubleClick Ad Exchange -- in a unified auction. In addition to boosting CPM’s, Exchange Bidding provides publishers with a holistic view of each ad partner’s performance and a streamlined billing and payment process. Today we are rolling out new reporting capabilities to provide publishers with greater insights and transparency into each ad partner’s performance.

For example, Exchange Bidding customers can now generate reports across several new dimensions including demand channel, exchange partner, yield group or advertiser on a per-impression level. With these new insights, publishers can make smarter and faster decisions to ensure they’re getting the greatest value from every impression.

“Consolidated reporting through Exchange Bidding means that we can accurately track performance and trends for our demand partners in respect of our full ad stack. We're excited about Google's further developments in this area and look forward to utilising these new capabilities.”

- Alex Payne, VP Ad Platforms, VICE Media

Read how VICE Media boosted revenue across 500+ websites with Exchange Bidding. 

A growing network of global partners

As publisher adoption of Exchange Bidding has grown, so has our network of exchange partners. Publishers can now access real-time demand from more than 10 exchanges including new partners like Triplelift and Aerserv directly in DoubleClick.

Not only are publishers benefitting from Exchange Bidding, but our exchange partners are also seeing a positive impact on their business. RhythmOne, for example, has seen a 40% increase in programmatic revenue among their customers using Exchange Bidding. They’ve also benefited from access to higher quality inventory with cookie match rates exceeding 80%. Index Exchange also cites a 40% increase in total Exchange Bidding revenue attributed to mobile apps.

“Index Exchange’s partnership with Google provides new points of entry to publishers across the globe and allows us to rapidly grow our quality app supply. We’re excited more publishers now have access to these additional tools that will bolster revenue and drive demand for their business.”

- Alex Gardner, SVP Partner Development, Index Exchange

Paving the path for greater innovation

These results for our customers and exchange partners are just the beginning. To ensure publishers continue getting the greatest value for all their ad inventory, we’re expanding Exchange Bidding to more ad formats like video ads and transaction types such as programmatic deals. Both of these products are currently in closed alpha and will be released to beta in the upcoming months.

If you are interested in using Exchange Bidding on DoubleClick, please reach out to your account manager or sign up here.

*Exchange Bidding is currently available in closed beta to publishers using DoubleClick for Publishers Small Business

¹Google Internal Data, May 2017

Posted by Jonathan Bellack Director of Product Management, Publisher Platforms

In May, Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect. Google is committed to complying with the GDPR, and in preparation, we’ve been working with our customers and partners to inform them about changes we’re making to our policies across our various products.

Today we’re informing advertisers and publisher partners about changes to our ad policies. Google already requires publishers and advertisers using our advertising services to get consent from end users to use our services, as required under existing EU law. However, the GDPR will further refine these requirements.

To comply, we will be updating our EU consent policy when the GDPR takes effect and the revised policy will require that publishers take extra steps in obtaining consent from their users. Before May, we will launch a solution to support publishers that want to show non-personalized ads, and we are working with industry groups, including IAB Europe, to explore proposed consent solutions for publishers.

We’re aware that our customers and partners - European and international - have significant obligations under these new laws, as does Google. Publisher and advertiser partners can expect further updates as we approach the date when GDPR takes effect.

Posted by Carlo D’Asaro Biondo
President, EMEA Partnerships

In an industry moving increasingly towards automation and efficiency, traditional reservations (the one-to-one selling and management of direct media buys) represented $26B in global display and video spend in 2017.¹ While media buyers and sellers may still prefer to negotiate their premium reservations directly, new research from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) suggests that using Programmatic Guaranteed for the setup and management of direct media buys can save both parties significant time and add value. The report concluded that publishers and agencies/advertisers save 57% and 29% more time, respectively, when using Programmatic Guaranteed deals versus traditional reservations; while still maintaining the same level of control over their campaigns.²

BCG’s report, “A Guaranteed Opportunity in Programmatic Advertising”, investigates the end-to-end direct deal workflows of over 40 advertisers, agencies, and publishers across 12 countries running both Programmatic Guaranteed and traditional reservation deals. The primary objective of the research is to quantify the operational efficiency of each buying methodology. It also explores the performance lift advertisers can gain from Programmatic Guaranteed’s advanced features, like Audience List Guarantees, Custom Creatives, and Frequency Management.

Get the full report to find out how Programmatic Guaranteed can save you time, as well as to learn:

• The expected growth of programmatic reservations over the next 3 years
• The (8) areas where Programmatic Guaranteed improves operational workflows for buyers and sellers
• The (4) levers you can pull to make the most of your Programmatic Guaranteed deals

Download the report here.

Justin Bradbury Product Marketing Manager

Source:

¹ Magna Global, “Programmatic 2017,” September 2017.

² The Boston Consulting Group, “A Guaranteed Opportunity in Programmatic Advertising, February 2018. The Boston Consulting Group, “A Guaranteed Opportunity in Programmatic Advertising, February 2018.

The best ads tell stories that pull people in, capture their attention and make them want to believe in what they’re being told. Digital video has given advertisers the canvas to do just that on more screens than ever before. And they’re taking note–digital video spend grew 35% last year alone. ¹ But as powerful as video ads are, they have historically been limited to the confines of players and in-stream video content–missing important consumer moments throughout the day like reading the news, playing a game, or scrolling through a social app.

To help advertisers engage their audiences in more places, and to enable publishers to capture growing video budgets across their non-video content on sites and apps, we recently released four new programmatic out-stream video formats in a new beta on DoubleClick. We’re also working closely with the IAB Tech Lab Open Measurement Working Group to ensure that all of our new video formats are easily measurable across all platforms and devices.

In-article and in-feed formats put video ads front and center in publisher content

With out-stream ads on DoubleClick, publishers can serve video ads across their content feeds and within their articles programmatically. Both in-feed and in-article video ads seamlessly fit a user's scrolling behavior on both web and apps; and they are muted by default to ensure they don’t disrupt the user. Moreover, the ads only play when 50% or more of the ad is in view, ensuring higher viewability rates. If users choose to engage with an ad, they can tap to unmute the video.

On average, out-stream video ads are earning 8.9x higher CPMs compared to standard banner ad CPMs on DoubleClick Ad Exchange. ² And in certain regions, among the 100+ publishers who have already signed up for the beta, partners have seen substantially greater CPM lift as we’ve continued to fine tune and scale the new formats.

In-Article Video Demo

In-Feed Video Demo

Native video ads conform to perform

Native video ads are designed to fit the form and function of the surrounding page or app. Using standardized ad components like headline, description, logo, and video files, publishers can create custom ad experiences that are seamlessly integrated across their sites and apps.

Since launching their “Adapt” native video ad format with DoubleClick, Time Inc. has seen a 5x increase in video inventory available across their properties. Ashley Allen, Director of Ad Product Solutions at Time Inc. commented, “Adapt gives us the flexibility to meet the demands of our advertisers while responding to the behaviors of our audiences. DoubleClick’s native ad technology has enabled us to capture this opportunity as quickly as we’ve been able to.”

Native Video Demo

Rewarded video ads deliver value for users and engagement for game developers

Games are among the most popular types of apps, pulling in a high percentage of male and female users of all ages, 96% of whom engage with gaming apps every week.³ Game developers using DoubleClick Rewarded video ads are capitalizing on growing usage by creating non-intrusive, user-initiated ad experiences that offer users something of value (like an extra life in a game) in exchange for viewing a video ad.

In 2017, Nestlé ran a campaign in the UK with King, the gaming company behind Candy Crush, offering users an extra life or boost in their games in exchange for watching a video ad. The user-initiated placements generated a 99.5% view-through rate and a 3% click-through rate across Android devices.⁴ Performance like this underlines the fact that when users’ experiences and choices are respected, both the advertiser and the publisher benefit from increased engagement.

Rewarded Video Demo

Ensuring accountability across new video formats, devices and platforms

In addition to developing new video ad formats, we're also working to ensure that video viewability is easily measurable across all platforms and devices -- including mobile apps. To accomplish this, we’re integrating the Open Measurement SDK into both our Google Mobile Ads and Interactive Mobile Ads SDKs. Once implemented, mobile app publishers and game developers will be able to power any vendor’s measurement tools, which in turn will reduce development time and streamline deal negotiations with advertisers.

The initiative marks a significant step towards improving the measurability of in-app video ads and we're working closely with partners like King to test the Google Mobile Ads SDK integration in their gaming apps.

"For the industry at large, The Open Measurement SDK will create a universal standard for the collection of video viewability data and reduce reporting inconsistencies across the mobile app landscape. For King, the single-source solution will enable us to engage with advertisers regardless of their preferred measurement vendor. As a result, mobile in app video will become a more predictable advertising channel, which in turn will create more demand for our inventory."

--Brian Ames, President of Advertising at King

Out-stream video formats are poised to play an important role in the future of video advertising for publishers, because they create a meaningful opportunity to increase the demand for and value of their content and audiences. As advertisers continue to demand more premium video inventory, non-video publishers and game developers should take note, as they may be sitting on a treasure trove of video ad impressions. We look forward to sharing more of our work and innovations in these areas in the months ahead.

Posted by Benyah Shaparenko Product Manager, Google

¹ “Global Ad Spend Forecast”, Dentsu Aegis Network, Jan 2018 
² DoubleClick Ad Exchange Data, Sept-Dec 2017
³ ”Something for everyone,” Ipsos MORI mobile app research report, July 2017
⁴ “How Nestlé Achieved Brand Goals in Mobile App Environment”, Think with Google, May 2017

Advertising should be free of invalid activity – including unauthorized, misrepresented, and fake ad inventory – which diverts revenue from legitimate publishers and tricks marketers into wasting their money. Earlier this year we worked with the IAB Tech Lab to create the ads.txt standard, a simple solution to help stop bad actors from selling unauthorized inventory across the industry. Since then, we’ve shared our plans to integrate the standard into our advertiser and publisher advertising platforms.

As of November 8th, Google’s advertising platforms filter all unauthorized ad inventory identified by published ads.txt files:

• Marketers and agencies using DoubleClick Bid Manager and AdWords will not buy unauthorized impressions as identified by publishers’ ads.txt files.
• DoubleClick Ad Exchange and AdSense publishers that use ads.txt are protected against unauthorized inventory being sold in our auctions.

Preventing the sale of unauthorized inventory depends on having complete and accurate ads.txt information. So, to make sure our systems are filtering traffic as accurately as possible, we built an ads.txt crawler based on concepts used in our search index technology. It scans all active sites across our network daily, over 30m domains, for ads.txt files, to prevent unauthorized inventory from entering our systems.

The adoption of ads.txt has been growing quickly and the standard is reaching scale across publishers:

• Over 100,000 ads.txt files have been published
• 750 of the comScore 2,000 have ads.txt files
• Over 50% of inventory seen by DBM comes from domains with ads.txt files

We believe ads.txt is a significant step in cleaning up bad inventory and it's great to have the broad support of our partners like L’Oreal, Omnicom Media Group, and the Financial Times.

“Consumers place enormous value on the ability to trust brands, which is why transparency in advertising is a top priority at L’Oreal. We look forward to collaborating with Google on this initiative as we continue to encourage the industry to follow suit.”
- Marie Gulin-Merle, CMO L’Oreal USA

"Removing counterfeit inventory from the ecosystem is critical to maintaining trust in digital. The simple act of publishing an ads.txt file helps provide the transparency we need to quickly reduce counterfeit inventory from harming our clients."
- Steve Katelman, EVP Global Strategic Partnerships, Omnicom Media Group

“It's great to see adoption of ads.txt across the industry and we're happy to see Google put their support behind this initiative. By eliminating counterfeit inventory from the ecosystem, marketers' budgets will work that much harder and revenue will reach real working media to fund the independent, high-quality journalism which society depends upon."
- Anthony Hitchings, Digital Advertising Operations Director, Financial Times

It’s amazing to see how fast the industry is adopting ads.txt, but there is still more to be done. Supporting industry initiatives like ads.txt is critical to maintaining the health of the digital advertising ecosystem. That’s why we’ll continue to invest and innovate to make the ecosystem more valuable, transparent, and trusted for everyone.

Posted by Per Bjorke
Product Manager, Google Ad Traffic Quality