It may have been so in the past, but for today’s publishers, exchanges should not be seen simply as a platform for selling your non-guaranteed inventory. They are fast becoming a solution to enable you to further develop your business whilst helping to maximise your sell-through rates and increase your CPMs.
At the very least, publishers should consider bringing their existing off-exchange demand partners onto an exchange (whether they are networks or advertisers) to compete for their inventory alongside those on-exchange partners they are working with. This helps ensure they are getting the best yields possible across their entire non-guaranteed inventory.
The global nature of the web means many publishers have significant overseas audiences but little idea how to monetize them. Being global platforms, exchanges can provide a solution here, allowing publishers to unlock new revenue streams by selling their international inventory.
But why just stop there? Exchanges can help publishers expand their relevancy by allowing them to offer CPC and CPA pricing options, opening their inventory up to even greater demand as well as embracing the performance marketing models that today’s advertisers are demanding. Exchanges can also help drive additional revenues by allowing publishers to sell high value targeted audiences to advertisers across the entire exchange.
Finally, publishers can even take things a step further, using an exchange to develop their business into a network in their own right.
If you’re viewing an exchange as a means of selling unsold inventory, I encourage you to think beyond this, as you may be overlooking the wealth of opportunities they really offer: opportunities already being implemented by forward thinking publishers to develop their business and help drive additional revenues.
Damian Scragg is European Sales Director for Right Media (a Yahoo! company) where he is responsible for both developing and delivering on the strategy for recruiting new members onto the Right Media Exchange platform across Europe. Prior to Right Media, Damian spent three and a half years at leading cooperative database company Abacus as Senior Account Director. Managing a team whose key focus was to improve client ROI, whilst increasing Abacus revenues and selling in improved product and service offerings. Damian has over 10 years sales experience in the direct and online marketing industry.