Reaction as Twitter integrates RTB with MoPub acquisition: ZenithOptimedia, Bite, Mediabrands, MEC, Vizeum, Amnet

Twitter has announced the acquisition of ad exchange MoPub in a move that will see it integrate real-time buying within its advertising platform, offering a whole new element to brands and advertisers. The Drum sought reaction from some UK media buying houses as to what they felt the acquisition would mean for the micro-blogging site's advertisers.

Justin Pearse, head of marketing, Bite

This is a massively important moment for Real Time Bidding (RTB) generally, and although it’s not a watershed moment, this deal is a positive light shining on RTB and programmatic trading in general. RTB is now a mainstream technique within the marketing industry, however it still has a low profile in the general press and there are still some concerns from advertisers RTB is only about low quality inventory, alongside slight concerns around ad misplacements. However, it can give incredible returns and it’s definitely not just for low-volume inventory. When Facebook launched its own RTB platform it was a big deal, and Twitter’s launch should go further in encouraging advertisers, because programmatic trading in general is where the online market it going and it does offer incredible returns to advertisers, not just in terms of reducing costs. You could argue that RTB delivers advertising that is more relevant, and more relevant advertising is a good thing. We will never get rid of advertising so we want it to be more relevant to us and RTB is one way of making that happen. The beauty of Twitter for advertisers is the amount of real-time information that it has on people, similarly Facebook. The sophistication of these tools and technologies nowadays gives every advertiser the possibility to deliver advertising and content that is aimed at consumers interests, making it more affective. You’ll find it had to find an advertiser who isn’t interested and excited about Twitter, the amount of data it holds and the new consumer behaviour it is engendering.

Andrew Pringle, head of performance media, Performics (Zenith Optimedia)

It is early days for Twitter’s acquisition of MoPub; the social media site has so far been reserved about how it plans to adopt the service into its existing offering. However, initially the benefits to Twitter, as well as advertisers looking to use the platform, appear to be twofold. On the one hand Twitter will be able to advance its existing tools and technology; Twitter’s current offering for advertisers is far less developed than Facebook's Power Editor platform. By incorporating MoPub technology they will be able to offer a more advanced and flexible advertising platform. Secondly, the MoPub network provides a wide range of demographic and location data, allowing advertisers to be very specific with their campaigns. At present, whilst Twitter's targeting options are improving, plugging into the wider MoPub base will instantly strengthen this, specifically with regards to location.Through increasing its available technology, Twitter’s self-serve platform will be far more targeted and it may also look to merge data pools to enhance spend on the platform, while perhaps also allowing advertisers to use MoPub directly. Facebook is yet to offer such a large data pool of users outside its own platform and Twitter will no doubt become far more attractive to advertisers over the coming months.

Jide Sobo, head of mobile, MEC

The mobile ad market is increasingly moving towards RTB, and this acquisition will give Twitter an entry to that market with their own native ads. Not only this but it’s also possible that Twitter could use its data to enable better targeting with MoPub publishers, increasing yields for those publishers and providing a new revenue stream for Twitter.The end goal of this is that there is an opportunity to develop an ad exchange for users within Twitter and utilise all the information within it to target users outside of Twitter with a scale that would not have been possible by implementing RTB internally.

Jonathan Palmer, head of social, Vizeum

Due to the large amount of adtech models out there it’s interesting to see the acquisition of MoPub by Twitter. The size of the acquisition in comparison to the world of Twitter would lead us to assume that this is simply about gaining the technology MoPub have that Twitter doesn’t at present, namely real-time bidding and demand side buying capabilities for Twitter advertising.There is a fine balance between advertising and user experience and at the moment Twitter seem to have it right. It will be interesting to see what, if any, difference this makes to the user experience on the platform. As long as Twitter sticks to its current quality advertising in relevant places model over a quantity model, it shouldn’t make that much of a difference from a user’s point of view.Real time planning and buying is a model that most brands are very interested in adapting to, so any media platform that helps us to further that goal is something that we will actively explore for our clients.

Ron Schott, head of Spring Creek, Mediabrands

Twitter's acquisition of MoPub shows their commitment to their push toward RTB. It will be interesting to see how they integrate MoPub into their offering, but we're definitely excited about RTB coming to Twitter as we believe in the scalability and benefits for our clients that RTB brings to social advertising. RTB is a huge part of what we do and we're excited at the possibility of extending its reach in social - a place where our clients' efforts are seeing a continued focus.Twitter has taken an incredibly thoughtful tack in regards to how they've developed their ad products and the addition of RTB to the mix shows their commitment not only to giving the end user what try think us interesting and hyper-relevant promoted content, but also to the brands who are spending more and more on their platform every day.

Steve Hobbs, managing director, Amnet UK

This is a significant and much needed move to consolidate mobile display buying. The market is enormously fragmented, which is a problem for buyers, sellers and even consumers as standards of creative, targeting and relevance are low. What this deal potentially provides is the addition of a layer of social data, from Twitter, to mobile inventory that increases the relevance of advertising to consumers (and therefore the value), as well as a scaled and centralised mobile sales proposition.