It was interesting to hear the perspective of publishers on ad exchanges at a recent AOP event in London. The event, which was focused on how to better monetise international web traffic, was attended by some of the largest publishers in the UK

The exchange debate has so far been dominated by how much the buy-side will benefit from the open trading platforms – so it was fascinating to hear the views from those on the supply-side.

In the panel discussion following the presentations there was debate on the value of exchanges.

Louise Wong, Head of Network Advertising at Sky Digital Media, had the following view on the exchange marketplace:

In my mind, exchanges can be used in two ways: one is to monetise the long tail or remnant inventory; the other way is to partner up with publishers, have a seat on an exchange and actually build your own mini network.

During a discussion on whether WSJ.com would ever put their international inventory on an ad exchange, BBC’s Tom Bowman questioned if the ad trading platforms had the right metric to help advertisers engage their audience:

Using the current technology, I don’t think exchanges have the right metric. Your metric is actually engagement, not ad impression. And on that basis I wouldn’t like our inventory to be traded on the basis of ad impressions... Advertisers are looking for engagement in the right environment – and with targeted audiences. On the current basis, I don’t think exchanges would be the answer for monetising our inventory.

Cameron Hullet, a consultant at Acceleration, made the point that media buyers and publishers were unaware of the complexities that can be managed within an exchange environment:

You can control dwell times. A buyer can put in place a remarketing campaign specifically related to dwell times. It is possible to get down to that granularity. People often underestimate the complexity you can build into an ad exchange.

Hullet also believes that Google’s new exchange will be a game changer in terms of how ad exchanges are presently perceived:

Google is really going after the market, but on the smaller buyer side. They’re not starting off at the agency level but with the small player who can buy on their own. At the moment you’ve got over-supply, but the buyers are starting to come fast. The new Google exchange will change the buying side, and as a result the number of buyers will increase rapidly.

It might have been just small area of discussion for attendees, but it does appear that the exchanges are now on the radar of the bigger publishers. It will be interesting to see how things move along once Google launch their new exchange in August. And will it be long before an ad trading strategy is developed by the top tier web sites?

In the meantime, yield optimisers like Admeld, Rubicon Project and Improve Digital might be in a better position to monetise international traffic of UK and European publishers, as many of them already have relationships with international ad networks and can plug into multiple exchanges.

FarneyMedia will be posting interviews iwith publishers in the coming weeks. The subject of the interviews will concentrate on their future and exisiting relationships with ad exchanges.