IBC 2015. Hall 7, Stand 7G15. SpotXchange, the video inventory management platform for publishers, has announced its rebranding to SpotX.
Reflecting the changes in the market and its platform, the Denver-born, global company has shortened its name to highlight its evolution from an ad exchange to a holistic inventory management platform, developed specifically for the supply side. Its platform today incorporates an ad server, SSP, and programmatic infrastructure including both open and private marketplace capabilities to help publishers manage all aspects of their video ad inventory across desktop, mobile and connected devices.
Publishers are looking for an integrated, one-stop shop for their programmatic sales platform, according to Mike Shehan, founder and CEO, SpotX. “Their inventory is cross-channel,” Shehan explained. “It sits across different devices, sales tactics and formats.”
“They want a solution that houses both programmatic (private and open marketplace) and direct sold campaigns in a single platform to give them full yield visibility and optimisation options across screens and video inventory types.”
For the past few years the market has spoken about programmatic and direct sales models as competitors. With both now integrated into holistic platforms, publishers are starting to leverage the strengths of various programmatic selling styles alongside direct sales, rather than prioritising one over the other.
“Publishers used to prioritise direct sales then push whatever was left into programmatic marketplaces,” Shehan explained. “Now that direct sales and programmatic can be managed in a single platform, the us-versus-them mentality is fading.”
“To truly optimise yield, publishers are combining the best of different members of the blended family of programmatic trading. This gives them visibility into CPMs and yield across buying styles, including programmatic direct, private marketplaces, open marketplaces.”
“Publishers that continue to sell 90-plus percent of their inventory through traditional direct sales, then sell the remaining in programmatic marketplaces at sub-rate card pricing, are missing out on additional value. By using the added optionality, addressability and efficiencies of programmatic, publishers can potentially charge a pricing premium on a much larger chunk of inventory.”
SpotX has seen a massive increase in premium inventory sold through automated trading this year, primarily through increased use of private marketplaces, which now comprise over 40% of the impressions managed on its platform. Compared to 1H 2014, private marketplace use grew 112% in 1H 2015.
The programmatic video pioneer, which introduced RTB to video in 2010, continued its rapid growth trajectory in 2015, with three new offices opened, 28% global headcount growth in the first 6 months of the year and a 90% increase in revenue H1 2015 vs. H1 2014.
The company represents the needs of premium publishers such as The Atlantic, Vox Media, Meredith Local, NDN, E.W. Scripps, Gamut, Viewster, Newsy, Bonnier, TEN: The Enthusiast Network, LifeZette, TV Insider, Tetris, iWin, Mode, and Digital Trends, as well as a host of household names that are expanding the role programmatic plays in their sales strategy.
With web giants exerting increasing influence on publisher monetisation, concerns about being disintermediated from their audiences, advertisers and data are on the rise among publishers, and rightfully so. These concerns center around audiences being drawn away from publishers’ inventory, as several big players actively create data pools and build ecosystems that compete directly with publishers’ interests.
“Our platform allows the publisher ultimate control where the transaction happens, rather than relying on third-party platforms for their monetization,” Shehan said.
“We provide a flexible platform that gives publishers, broadcasters, and video content producers the control to maintain the relationship with their audiences and advertisers directly, and the ability to leverage first and third-party data to enhance their value proposition.”
