Since its launch eighteen months ago, Adjug has facilitated ad trading between advertisers and publishers through its exchange marketplace. Transparency and fairness are key elements of the platform: Adjug allows publishers the ability to set a floor price for its ad inventory, and ensures banner ad campaigns run on the appropriate sites. Satish Jayakumar, Adjug COO and co-founder, outlines how the company’s aim is to bring a level of accountability to the ad exchanges:

When we started out, we looked at the market and saw that agencies were spending a ton of money with blind ad networks. We also kept hearing about incidents of ads appearing on inappropriate sites. In the UK and Europe, there is a huge brand safety issue among CMO’s and agencies. Initiatives like IASH have since brought the credible players together. We set out to build a platform that guaranteed trust, safety and transparency for advertisers and brands. But how do you achieve that? You can start by cutting out the chain buy. We set out to create a real-time exchange between publishers who have remnant inventory and advertisers looking to buy that inventory. We don’t allow brokers to intermediate the sale of ad impressions between a publisher and advertiser. On our platform agencies leverage brand-safe exchange inventory - and publishers better understand what happens in an exchange to that inventory.

The company now offers advertisers the platform to buy remnant inventory across two thousand premium sites. The performance of campaigns can be optimised by leveraging data from both third party sources and Adjug publishers. Jayakumar believes Adjug has a lot more unique selling points than competitors like RightMedia and Google. He foresees Google’s new exchange grabbing more market share and becoming the dominant player in the UK, but argues Adjug will still provide better services to advertisers in terms of re-targeting and optimisation capability:

Adjug is offering a lot more features that benefit advertisers. We allow users to cherry pick the data they are using. We are using companies like Media6, allowing them to leverage our exchange. We then offer this data to advertisers as a high value add-on for campaigns. Adjug combines standard behavioural targeting, where you can pick and choose your data mix. We offer data from data specialists. We offer reach: users can buy inventory across many different sites. We can breakdown the efficiency of a media buy to ensure advertisers are hitting their target CPA. And it’s important that campaigns meet these targets - because if they don’t agencies and brands will not use our platform.

Increasingly, data has become an integral part of the media buy – with agencies and brands viewing data as a vital means to improve the performance of display campaigns. The Adjug COO believes “data 2.0” companies like Media6 will add real value to the exchange media buy. He likens these companies to the “shovel-makers” of the exchange gold rush. Media6 - which maps the social graph and provides brands with scalable customized audiences - is already working with the Adjug exchange as a high-end targeting service for advertisers. Jayakumar views data, and the companies who can extract value from it for advertisers, as important drivers in the ad display market:

Data is becoming more essential than ever. When we launched eighteen months ago, people weren’t overly concerned with data in display (there isn’t much when you buy blind). What’s interesting now is that they’re demanding campaign data. That is a clear indication of how far the industry has come. Agencies are assimilating the data. They are taking it in and advising their clients based on analysis of it. Data companies like Media6 and Criteo are offering advertisers yet more options to target audiences. They leverage media buying on the exchanges, and improve the performance of display campaigns. I believe you will see closer relationships develop between these data companies and advertisers.

The Adjug COO admits that the downturn has affected online advertising - but his company continues to grow market share. Adjug is performing strongly in Germany, and has plans to roll out its service into other European markets. Adjug has added a number of key hires to its German operation, and is working hard with local agencies to maximise the performance of ad campaigns on its exchange platform.

Markets not as dependent on the finance industry have been less affected by the recession. We're very bullish about AdJug Germany and it is going strong, In fact our German growth is currently outstripping our UK growth. We find German agencies to be more technologically demanding. Being fundamentally a technology company, we at AdJug love this.

The Adjug platform success has mirrored the growth of the exchange marketplace – and its move into Europe suggests that the model is being adopted by more advertisers and publishers. The company continues to improve and tweak its offering. Their platform allows buyers and sellers to connect directly, helping to increase revenue for publishers and improve return-on-investment for advertisers.