AppNexus today announced the launch of multimedia “superauctions,” technology that will enables multiple media types to participate in a single unified auction in a bid to drive increased demand for each advertising placement, which they say will boost publisher revenues. Microsoft have been trialling the ‘superauctions’ to enable display and video media types to compete in parallel and claim they saw both superior performance and faster load times.
Superauctions, which AppNexus are also referring to as ‘multimedia auctions’, run one unified auction so that advertiser demand for different types of media (e.g. video and display) compete with one another, the advertiser willing to pay the most wins, and the winning creative is served. The company has also designed a new video format called ‘BannerStream is a new video format that will works with superauction technology to allow publishers to integrate video within display ad units.
Whilst BannerStream will be served into display units, AppNexus expect publishers to view it as being akin to outstream formats in the sense that they don’t require publishers to have existing video content on the page. BannerStream results in a better user experience versus in-banner video as publishers control how the video ad renders, making it more seamlessly integrated with the overall site design. It can be used on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices; on mobile it is rendered in-line to provide a more native look and feel.
“In-banner video has suffered from a negative reputation in the industry for years, and rightly so,” said Eric Hoffert, SVP Video Technology, AppNexus. “Intermediaries often arbitraged video content into units meant for banner advertisements, which not only caused latency and ad quality problems, but also left the publisher without the higher CPMs video creatives command. With multimedia superauctions, we created a publisher-friendly, revenue-driving replacement that has a native look and feel, rapid load times, and other user experience controls.”
“Since implementing multimedia superauctions on MSN inventory globally, we’ve seen revenue lift of as much as 60% in select markets,” said David Carkeek, Principal Program Manager Lead, Microsoft. “The performance, quality and user experience is better than any unified solution we have tested, and allows us to benefit from combined display and video demand to drive superior monetization.”
“While multimedia superauctions address many of the challenges associated with in-banner video formats today, the underlying auction technology has far-reaching potential,” continued Hoffert. “As the internet becomes more programmable and customizable to the end user, superauctions can encompass other advertising formats and types of content to allow formats such as native, display, and video to compete for the same slot. This will enable publishers and advertisers to experiment with different ways to acquire, engage, and monetize their audiences across the open internet and support more optimal outcomes.”
