Amazon announced it has launched a new “transparent” ad marketplace in Europe. It’s tempting publishers by giving them some benefits unavailable through other ad platforms, keying in on simplification and better data. Amazon’s cloud-based platform provides publishers “full visibility into who’s bidding on their impressions, who’s winning, and why.” Given the power rival Google holds over advertisers, including retailers, it’s interesting to watch Amazon make headway in the advertising arena.
Press release follows:
Amazon today announced the launch of Amazon Publishers Services’ (APS) Transparent Ad Marketplace in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain – offering digital content owners and app developers a cloud-based, server-side header bidding solution that helps increase their ad revenues, while improving user experience through faster page loads. Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM) enables greater competition for publishers’ advertising placements through an unbiased marketplace in which all bidders compete equally, the highest bid always wins, and publishers have auction-level visibility.
TAM limits all header bidding activity to a single client-side ad call – the auction and ad selection happen in the cloud. Publishers do a one-time TAM integration, after which they can quickly activate additional SSPs without touching any code or their ad server. This eliminates operational burden while creating more opportunities for SSPs to compete for their impressions.
“When we started offering header bidding several years ago, we quickly saw there were clear publisher, advertiser and customer benefits in moving ad calls to the cloud and giving publishers full visibility into who’s bidding on their impressions, who’s winning, and why,” said Matt Battles, Vice President, advertising technology, at Amazon. “We built Amazon Publisher Services and our Transparent Ad Marketplace around these core tenets of transparency, operational simplicity, and a better user experience – and this continues to be our focus as we expand to Europe.”
“Bauer Xcel Media has seen good revenue lift in the U.S. with TAM, while substantially reducing latency,” Charlie Brookes, Director of Revenue, Bauer UK Media. “We are looking forward to increasing demand for our UK properties, too.”
Amazon Publishers Services launched in the U.S. in December 2016, an evolution of the header bidding solution Amazon has offered for more than four years across web, mobile and video. Transparent Ad Marketplace provides publishers with:
– An unbiased marketplace: Publishers can activate multiple demand sources through TAM, including Amazon. All demand sources compete equally for every impression in a first-price auction, with the highest bid always winning.
– Auction transparency: Publishers and SSPs can access auction-level reporting to ensure they’re getting the highest available rate for their inventory. Publisher reporting includes metrics such as earnings, eCPM, bid rate, win rate and timeout rate, by SSP.
– Decreased Latency: Site visitors and app users will see content load faster because all header bidding activity is consolidated to a single ad call, compared to the 10 or more client-side calls that often happen today.
– A simple, one-time integration: Publishers do a one-time set up with Amazon Publisher Services. Once integrated, they can execute same-day activations for additional SSPs, with no ad operations or engineering work. Publishers can also deactivate SSPs instantly from the APS Portal.
– Unlimited demand: Publishers can continually enable new SSP demand using their existing Amazon integration, at no cost.
– Transparent Fee: Amazon Publishers Services does not charge publishers a revenue share or monthly fees. SSPs pay a nominal $0.01 CPM per impression served.
To learn more about Amazon Publisher Services and Transparent Ad Marketplace, visit https://aps.amazon.com/aps/uk.
SOURCE: Amazon Press Release
