Admeld and Strikead recently announced an integration partnership that will allow Strikead to buy European mobile display inventory via RTB. Here Marc Theermann, VP Mobile at AdMeld, discusses the partnership in detail, why mobile display is now ready to move into RTB and the cookie-less variables that all mobile RTB buyers will bid on.

Can you give some overview on your partnership with StrikeAd?

StrikeAd is at the forefront of mobile RTB, and we are glad they are one of our demand partners. We work with more than 80 buyers worldwide, and many of them are beginning to purchase mobile inventory in a substantive way. Admeld currently has mobile publishers that are generating more than $1 million in advertising revenue per month.

Are there any differences between mobile RTB and real-time bidding on online display?

Yes. Because it's more difficult to enrich impressions with data in mobile, our mobile bid request API contains additional data fields to enable buyers to compensate for that and make intelligent purchasing decisions. In addition, we are now able to accept and pass along our publishers' first party data with their permission.

Given there is no universal cookie in mobile, what variables are buyers considering when bidding on a mobile impression?

Mobile buyers are looking for slightly different variables than online buyers: targeting based on handsets, gender, age, content category, consumer rating of the content, and, of course, location. Our goal is to provide them with this value while meeting best industry standards for privacy.

There still is a lot of problems in mobile display, namely tracking and targeting. Is the mobile display space getting ahead of itself – especially when the current infrastructure is so poor?

I have been in mobile advertising for about 11 years, and it has certainly been a rocky road. However, with the introduction of smart phones, many of the fundamental challenges have been solved, or are fast on their way. This deal with StrikeAd indicates that much of the infrastructure that Admeld and others have built for online display over the past few years is applicable to the world of mobile. As these two worlds converge, I think we'll continue to see a multiplier effect in which innovations in online spur mobile and vice versa. Publishers that are embracing mobile display now are reaping rewards in terms of revenue, data, and experience that are putting them at an advantage over their peers.

What kind of volumes will be available through the mobile automated channel in Europe? Will it all be premium inventory? And what kind of formats will traders be able to display?

Volumes are growing steadily, and we believe that many of our publishers will include their mobile impressions in the auction by Q4. As with Admeld's online display business, our mobile focus is on premium publishers, and many of our clients are traditional print publishers with strong market recognition bringing their online business now to mobile. Trade-able media will be in the most common formats, so the majority of mobile impressions come from three sizes: 300x30, 320x50, 300x250.