The real-time bidding business used to be thought of as a marketplace for remnant inventory. That perception is changing and here’s a useful stat to illustrate the transition: in August, TubeMogul saw 10 billion real-time biddable in-stream impressions from marketplaces and 40% of those impressions came from tier-one sites, says Brett Wilson, CEO and co-founder of video ad-buying platform TubeMogul.
He spoke with Michael Learmonth, Digital Editor at Ad Age during a session at the recent Beet.TV Leadership Summit on Digital Video Advertising in an RTB World. During their session they delved into issues of inventory, analytics and the future of real-time buying.
TubeMogul launched more than five years ago with a focus on providing analytics to publishers. The company has since evolved into a media-buying platform that relies on analytics, insight and data, in part because of the opportunities in real-time and programmatic buying. But when asked if the future lies in real-time, Wilson says the future of media is in software. “The power of software is it can make our lives simpler and enable us to spend more time on the campaigns rather than on the planning and putting them together. So we can call it media buying software or demand-side platforms…I think we’ll buy most media the way we buy Google AdWords,” he says in this video session.
He adds that pre-rolls will remain a popular format. Pre-rolls today comprise about 60% of TubeMogul’s revenue, and the format will remain strong as more TV ad money moves to online video, Wilson predicts. That’s because pre-rolls precede video programming that viewers choose to watch, which is why their completion rates are around 80%, he adds.
Looking to the near-term, Wilson says he expects some consolidation in the demand-side platform business. Today, there are platforms that focus on direct response buyers and there are also those that target brand buyers. The consolidation will likely occur along those twin lines, he says. But don’t expect TubeMogul to go public anytime soon. “More so than focusing on a liquidity event, we are trying to simplify brand advertising and make it as simple and measureable and accountable as direct response,” he says.
The event took place at the Manhattan offices of GroupM and was sponsored by TubeMogul.
Daisy Whitney
