One of the veteran ad-tech companies on the scene aims to continue its expansion from its supply-side roots.
OpenX recently launched OpenAudience, a people-based ad exchange serving both publishers and marketers.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Joey Leichman, VP buyer development, OpenX, says the two-pronged approach is key.
“OpenX I think has doubled and tripled down recently on the buy side, on the demand side,” he says. “We’ve historically been a very publisher-focused company.
“We’ve also taken a major step forward in terms of collecting the needs of brands and agencies and spinning those up into what we’re delivering on the product side.
“I think OpenAudience is a great example of that. I think talking to brands and agencies about specific economic terms and getting things papered is another way that we’ve moved in that direction. I think that we’re going to continue to do that over the coming months.”
Founded 12 years ago, OpenX is trying to carve out a place for itself as the ad exchange for the open web.
Leichman says advertisers are spending too much money on “walled” platforms like Google and Facebook, considering the time consumers spend.
“Over 60% of advertising budgets today are funnelled towards the walled gardens – the Googles, the Facebooks,” he claims. “However, only 30-something percent of consumer time and attention lives within those same platforms.”
One way of freeing open-web publishers to get their share is to enable them to offer real user identities to ad buyers.
OpenX is amongst the tech companies touting “identity graph” capabilities to do that. But Leichman notes “haziness” amongst buyers in response, because a clutch of vendor is offering similar technology.
This video is from a Beet.TV series “Unlocking People-Based Marketing on the Open Web presented by OpenX.” Please find more videos from the series on this page.
