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AppNexus trumpets APS rollout, takes another broadsword at Google's DFP

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By Ronan Shields, Digital Editor

December 21, 2015 | 6 min read

AppNexus is underlining its growing rivalry with Google's DoubleClick in the online publisher sector - highlighting how it cut over 50 deals with high profile publishers including Axel Springer, Hearst and NASDAQ in the last six months alone.

The New York-based outfit unveiled its fully-fledged AppNexus Publisher Suite (APS) last month, proclaiming it as the industry's "only open and transparent full-stack alternative to Google’s publisher product suite" (DFP), and follows the announcement of a partnership with Microsoft that will see it sell the latter's inventory using programmatic media buying technologies.

Among the host of other publishers AppNexus has struck deals with in the last six months of the year are Foursquare and Groupon. Ryan Christensen, SVP & GM of the AppNexus Publisher Technology Group, also claimed that it had increased the amount of publishers using its offering by over 20 times since 2014.

He added: “We intend to make 2016 a historic inflection point – the year that AppNexus emerges as the leading monetisation engine for online publishers.

"In 2016, we’ll be having many more conversations with enterprise-level publishers as to why our open, full-stack alternative needs to be a consideration. This is historic because after 20 years, publishers will finally have a real choice when it comes to technology."

Christensen also took the opportunity to point out what he believes are the key points of differentiation between AppNexus' offering Google's - essentially claiming that the latter of the pair is conflicted when it comes to its publisher business.

"Another key difference between AppNexus and DFP is that our solution is 100 per cent independent and 100 per cent aligned with publisher interests. AppNexus doesn’t compete with publishers — we don’t compete for consumer attention and we don’t compete in the media sales business," he said.

"In 2016, we will continue to emphasise this key distinction between the AppNexus Publisher Suite and Google’s system.”

Additionally, Christensen claimed that APS technology was more modern than Google's offering, which he described as a "legacy business".

APS has been slowly rolled out over the course of 2014 and 2015 (both through a series of acquisitions and internal development). The ad tech outfit's assorted offering allows publishers to monetise their inventory via a range of means including direct deals where the media inventory is then allocated to a buyer using programmatic technology, or real-time auctions.

Included in this is APS' "open dynamic allocation tool" which lets programmatic media buyers compete with other media buyers that have bought directly from specific publisher inventory (typically programmatic media buys are about audience types, not specific placements), thus improving publishers' profits.

"AppNexus gives publishers the ability to see every buyer they work with in aggregate - providing a single, transparent auction that helps them optimise for maximum revenue," said Christensen. "Publishers can then allocate impressions with control and ensure pinpoint delivery on all guaranteed campaigns."

He further explained the difference of its offering compared to Google, claiming Google's DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) has a more closed offering, which means less buyers can bid on inventory during an auction.

"DFP has closed dynamic allocation, which compares DFP directly-sold campaigns to AdX, but it doesn’t allow other demand sources to compete directly for the inventory. AppNexus’ Open Dynamic Allocation means the end of the black box."

Other tools include a forecasting and analytics tool Yieldex (which lets publishers better assess how they can monetise) as well as buy-side tools offering publishers the capability for audience extension - i.e. selling 'their audiences' elsewhere on other web properties - through cookie matching.

Again, Christensen spoke how its analytics and forecasting tools out performed those of DFP. He added "At our New York Summit in November, Pandora presented the results of their head-to-head testing between AppNexus Yieldex versus Google’s DFP solution. AppNexus delivered accurate forecasts 95 per cent of the time, while DFP delivered accurate forecasts only 68 per cent of the time."

AppNexus is widely expected to make an initial public offering (IPO) next year, with the outfit also 15 per cent owned by WPP (headed up by vocal Google critic Sir Martin Sorrell). The growing rivalry with Google (and increasingly Facebook) is just one dynamic in industry positioning that AppNexus president Michael Rubenstein calls the "ad tech power game".

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