ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space, including Facebook's mega-growth on mobile, Yahoo's big move when it comes to mobile, plus AOL committing further inventory to programmatic.

Facebook posts rip-roaring results thanks to mobile

The world’s largest social network this week posted revenues of $2.91bn for the second quarter, representing a staggering 61% year-on-year increase, with its stock hitting an all-time high in the immediate aftermath of the announcement.

Facebook, which quite infamously suffered a bloody nose in the immediate aftermath of its stock floatation in May 2012, after investors pilloried the social network for its perceived inability to mobilise its fast-growing mobile audience.

However, the recent earnings report, and subsequent reaction from investors have showed that times have changed, with the performance easily beating analyst expectations, with revenue from advertising increasing 67% from the same quarter last year to hit $2.68bn (Facebook has also been experimenting with paid-for products as of late).

Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 62% of total ad revenues, up from 41% the year-ago period, with mobile DAUs (daily active users) hitting 654 million on average in June 2014, an increase of 39% year-over-year.

This shows how Facebook’s app install ad units are proving a hit with advertisers and investors, alike, with Facebook’s stock price rising to above $75 in the early hours after trading.

The news came the same week as a report from Fiksu, revealed that app marketing costs have hit a fiver-year high with the company reporting that that its Cost Per Loyal User Index breached the $2 threshold, coming in at $2.23, an increase of 25% since May, and a 49% year-over-year increase.

Yahoo buys Flurry in ‘mobile arms race’

Mobile analytics firm Yahoo was snapped up by Yahoo for a much-debated figure with estimates over the price rage ranging from a (firesale-esque) $300, anywhere up to $1bn, as the Silicon Valley giants continue their race for the single customer view.

The huge range in speculation over the valuation of the deal brings a range of questions. Firstly, what motivated Flurry’s decision to sell, whenever the previously been touted exit strategy for the company was an initial public offering, with many suggesting the company would be valued at the $700m - $800m mark?

Looking at the transaction from Yahoo’s perspective, it’s clear the purchase was intended to build bolster its mobile presence, with ExchangeWire columnist dubbing the move the latest in “a Silicon Valley arms race”.

In his opinion the Silicon Valley giants are vying to gain a ‘single customer view’ across screens as consumer media consumption segues from desktop, to mobile-first, and on into the ‘mobility era’, and this move a brings to Yahoo’s table a huge mobile data set, and publisher network through the sheer numbers of mobile app publishers that have downloaded the Flurry SDK.

AOL commits to programmatic in the UK

Building on its earlier promise to provide media buyers with better quality inventory, AOL this week announced it was putting 100% of its reserved inventory from all its owned and operated sites into AOL’s proprietary Demand Side Platform (DSP).

This move will allow the automation of the sale of reserved inventory, a process that is currently done manually, to help will free up a vast amount of time that is lost in the standard IO process, and save time for agencies and advertisers, according to AOL.

Earlier this year, ExchangeWire spoke with Noel Penzer, AOL, UK, managing director, and he explained his intention to offer programmatic advertisers access to better quality inventory via programmatic channels.

So with this latest announcement, advertisers can now buy all reserved inventory on AOL UK’s owned and operated sites including AOL, The Huffington Post, Engadget, TechCrunch, Parentdish and MyDaily, in an automated way on a self-serve basis.

Formats available include: Four of AOL’s existing premium formats including the award-winning multi-screen Project Devil/IAB Portrait, Billboard and Monster MPU will be available exclusively through AOL’s DSP, with more set to come.

Advertisers can also scale their brand message beyond AOL’s owned and operated sites, utilising a wide range of premium formats through AOL’s network of premium third party publishers.

“Making all of our inventory and premium formats available through our DSP is a major milestone for AOL UK and the industry as a whole. It re-affirms our investment in and commitment to automation and our belief that programmatic will be the main driver of digital advertising budgets going forward,” said Penzer.

“We believe all of our inventory can be bought in an automated fashion, giving agencies and advertisers more time to spend on bigger creative integrations, sponsorships and tailored solutions.”

Tremor Video signs ExchangeWire contributor Sue Hunt
Ad tech firm Tremor Video has appointed ExchangeWire contributor Sue Hunt as Head of Programmatic for Europe, as it seeks to develop partnerships between itself and agency trading desks throughout the region.

Hunt, a former Yahoo, Google and AOL executive, most recently served at Improve Digital, and earlier ran DoubleClick’s rich media business after it was acquired by Google, having previously held the role of EMEA director for Yahoo’s Right Media ad exchange.

Hunt will also help Tremor Video’s direct sales team to develop solutions that enable marketers to efficiently expand the reach of their campaigns through programmatic buying.

Hunt has contributed ExchangeWire pieces for a number of years, and earlier this year, she explained her outlook for the programmatic sector in 2014-15.

“Looking into 2015, much as the report doesn’t forecast further significant growth we do expect 50% of [the industry's total digital display ad] spend, if not higher, to come from programmatic – driven by continued uptake of technology and significant growth in mobile,” she said.

Writing more recently, she also noted how the innovation in the ad tech space also needed to be tempered by stability and scale to reflect a need, rather than unnecessarily creating one.

Glow raises $7.5m, gains assist from ad tech veteran Hernandez

UK-based Glow Digital Media has raised $7min series A funding with the social ad platform winning financial backing from two of Europe’s leading venture capital firms Notion Capital and White Star Capital.

The investment deal, also sees ex-Google and Facebook executive Christian Hernandez (now managing partner at White Star Capital) join Glow’s advisory board, to help further its expansion.

The new funding will be used for further international expansion and continued product development of the Glow Platform, which is both a Facebook preferred marketing developer (DMP), plus one of eleven Twitter Marketing Platform Partners with access to their recently launched Mobile App Promotion tools.

Damian Routley, co-founder and CEO of Glow, said: “The last 12 months have been an amazing journey for us, we helped customers integrate deeply with the Glow Platform, expanded across the globe, adding operations in New York and Singapore, and built a team of experts that helped drive year on year sales growth of 500%.”

“Our commitment to support Glow comes after a lengthy process of evaluating the leading and emerging players in the social ad tech space,” added Hernandez.