The research also reveals a more involved, yet unsettled online advertising landscape in the U.S. American campaigns are typically longer (47 percent last three months or more, compared to 16 percent in the U.K.), and advertisers invest larger budgets into display, video and mobile campaigns than their U.K. counterparts. However, U.S. advertisers indicated uncertainty as to the most effective type of metric, with cost per conversion, conversion rates and a measured increase in brand awareness garnering equal weight in gauging campaign success. In the U.K., cost per conversion was cited as paramount, followed by new business signups and conversation rate. The research ultimately highlights the increasing challenge to publishers in delivering to their advertisers success criteria across a wide range of difference metrics in order to stay relevant.

The report also demonstrated the growing importance of optimization – for both brand and direct response campaigns – in order to ensure campaigns deliver to their advertiser’s objectives and the publisher continues to be on the advertiser’s plan. On average, brand campaigns are optimized 10 times in the U.S. while for direct response campaigns it is slightly higher at 11 times.

The result of this optimization is that across brand and direct response campaigns one in 10 websites on average are dropped from campaigns, equating to seven sites for brand campaigns and eight for direct response. This highlights the necessity of publishers to demonstrate performance to ensure they are not marginalized. In contrast, one in five websites received incremental spend, based on performance following optimization for brand campaigns, while for direct response this figure was around one in six.

“The research highlights the importance agencies still place on performance for online advertising campaigns, whether they are conceived as brand awareness or direct response campaigns,” said Jonathon Shaevitz, CEO at Maxifier. “It also makes clear that optimization is now becoming a very important element of every campaign.”

“An interesting finding was that there seemed to be a lot of confusion about the meaning of the word ‘optimization’,” continued Shaevitz. “This means it is important at the start of any campaign to ensure the publisher, agency and client clearly understand what is meant by optimization to ensure the right action is being taken and to avoid any disputes at the end of the campaign.”

The study also revealed the more mature online advertising landscape in the U.S. compared to the U.K. in terms of technologies for the buying and selling of online advertising. Demand Side Platforms are used more widely in the U.S. than in the U.K. (22 percent and 14 percent, respectively), as are exchanges (32 percent and 24 percent, respectively). However for both markets it is true to say they still navigating through the complexities associated with automation.

“The growing complexities and challenges around online advertising means publishers today need to be adopting the tools to help them manage their inventory, increase performance and put themselves in the best place to demonstrate ROI to retain and, in the long term, increase business,” concluded Shaevitz.

When it comes down to it, for online advertising, as in many walks of life, quantity does not necessarily equal quality and volume does not equal value.  The belief that 100% sell through delivers maximum revenues and that publishers should strive to achieve this does not hold true. Yes, publishers should be using as a start point a total understanding of what inventory they have available. However they then need to develop an overall strategy around this, based on their business needs. Not having this in place gives rise to channel conflict, impacts on brand value and, ultimately, drives down prices for your premium inventory, which has crucial implications for overall revenue.

The arguments in Peter Naylor’s excellent adexchanger article at the end of last year, which focuses on remnant, are equally applicable to the total inventory stack.  I advise everyone to read this article.  I also advise everyone to start placing a greater emphasis on their premium by realising this is where true value lies. While using technologies and programmatic buying to get a 10% increase in the value of your remnant inventory delivers a little uplift, shifting focus and trying to use tools and strategies to deliver this on your premium actually has a significant impact.

Read the full ClickZ article here.

However, I think things are changing. For example, people are now beginning to ask questions about RTB and realising that the buying element of the campaign needs all the other elements, such as planning and creative, to actually be successful.

Looking at this year’s Super Bowl, where for the first time the game is being streamed live and online advertising opportunities are now available, a lot of talk has been around online vs. TV advertising. However, I think next year, this will not be a consideration as the changing nature of how content is consumed means these traditional distinctions will disappear.

Finally, taking a leaf from the development of offline direct marketing, the rise of precision targeting via lifestyle data brought much debate around what was the most important element of a campaign. Ultimately, it became realised that truly effective campaigns need to have all the elements in place – failing to do this impacted on its success. The sooner this idea is embraced readily in the online advertising environment – the need to coordinate all the campaign elements as a whole and not approach the different parts in isolation of the others – the better it will be for everyone.

Read the full B2B Marketing article here.

Shao joins Maxifier from AudienceScience where, as Managing Director Asia Pacific, he was responsible for opening the company’s Tokyo office, its first in Asia, and building up a sales and account management team in order to drive business growth in the market. Under his guidance, AudienceScience began working with a number of the leading businesses in the Japan market.

Prior to AudienceScience, Shao worked at Right Media (owned by Yahoo! Inc.) where, as Director, Strategic Account Management, he launched the Right Media Exchange into Asia Pacific and managed teams in Asia and Europe to support the global adoption of its exchange platform. He has also worked at Overture Japan (Yahoo! Search Marketing) as Manager of Partner Professional Services and DoubleClick Japan as Manager of Sales Engineering.

“The Asian advertising market, though vast, lacks many of the necessary supply side tools and solutions to enable publishers and networks to maximize the value of their premium inventory,” said Jonathon Shaevitz, Maxifier CEO. “The market is ripe for a solution like adMAX, and Shao has the expertise needed to launch our business there. We are excited to have him on board, and look forward to Shao helping the company drive our international expansion.”

Along with Shao’s appointment, Maxifier made several key appointments in late 2011 to bolster its management team. With the additions of Anthony Katsur as Chief Operating Office, Denise Colella as Chief Revenue Officer and Roger Williams as Senior Vice President of Marketing, the company is primed for an unparalleled year of growth and innovation.

“The ability to maximize the value of its total inventory is instrumental to a publisher’s success if it wants to compete in today’s environment: many Asian companies are suffering from a lack of proper technology to do just that,” said Shao. “I’m pleased to join the team at Maxifier and look forward to launching the business in Asia, which is desperate for a solution such as ours.”

Read the full Publishing Executive article here