Ad verification is a pretty hot topic this side of the Atlantic at the minute. It is becoming an essential part of the post-campaign analysis, as agencies and advertisers ascertain where and how their ad budget is being spent. Looking to incorporate ad verification into its own auditing process, IASH is even looking to accredit several vendors for agencies and ad nets to use. Those that pass their guidelines and audit will be announced early in the new year. ExchangeWire recently spoke to Kirby Winfield, President and CRO at Mpire, one of the leading ad verification providers in the space. about brand safety, the IASH process and the future of the business here in Europe.

AdXpose signed a global deal with AdTech. Can you give more details on the new partnership?

KW: Essentially, AdTech’s entire sales and account management force worldwide will be selling AdXpose to their current customers and prospects. The plan is to integrate our verification and optimization reporting into the AdTech platform so that users can simply select AdXpose during their trafficking process, much as our clients can today within DoubleClick’s DFA. We have already mutually closed a major account together and look forward to expanding the new revenue line in partnership with AdTech.

Can you give an overview of how AdXpose is helping publishers, advertisers and ad networks in Europe?

KW: We help advertisers buy safely and confidently on networks, exchanges, and direct publishers using our proprietary brand safety alerting and blocking technology; and we help them optimize their CPM buys towards the impressions that convert to views and engagement, increasing ROI. AdXpose helps publishers and ad networks understand the safety and content profile of their publisher traffic, and the viewability of the traffic, so that they can optimize their margins and provide their agency clients a sub-account login to view whatever verification parameters they wish the agency to see.

What kind of traction is AdXpose getting in Europe? Is ad verification fast becoming a requirement for European ad campaigns?

KW: We have tremendous traction in Europe. Our first AdXpose client more than a year ago was actually a major electronics brand out of the UK, so technically our product launched over here before it launched in the States! Our partnership with James Sandoval and Invizua in London has been instrumental in bringing us to the point where a material portion of our revenue comes from clients in the UK and EU.

Can you give any case studies on how AdXpose has helped European clients eliminate wastage and improve campaign performance?

KW: We should have some specific materials on this front coming out in Q1 2011. Anecdotally, in one event, we helped increase a client’s conversions substantially at a lower cost by removing non-engaging impressions from the buy. In another, we helped a different client optimize their creative execution for specific sites within an ad network buy, creating 3x conversions.

What’s your view on IASH’s accreditation of “CV” providers in the UK? Will it help to standardise the process of ad verification?

KW: Our team has personally been involved with the IAB in the US since it was founded, is participating in the IAB’s efforts to standardize verification, and has the utmost respect for the safeguards such organizations put in place to ensure fairness, and standardization of terms and metrics – they truly do help increase advertiser confidence in the online channel. However, there are definitely big differences amongst the leading ad verification providers with regards to technology. So, while IASH standardization should help set the ground rules around terminology and process, it is crucial that agencies and network have the option to closely vet the technology of a number of providers to ensure it can support the promises made on the sales side.

How do you respond to accusations that ad verification is merely a feature – and is a blind spot that the likes of DoubleClick, MediaMind and clutch of ad tech giants will look to address in the coming months?

KW: Verification is a crucial service and is fast becoming table stakes for advertising online in this day and age. We see verification evolving into a $300M marketplace within 3 years. Moreover, we believe we have the premier technical solution for verification, and we have taken the pole position in creating mutually beneficial technology implementations and business relationships with the ad servers and “ad tech giants” you mention – it’s no longer a blind spot, and moreover, we are the ones providing the illumination.

That said, AdXpose occupies a different and larger category than the point solution providers for ad verification, based on our suite of analytics tools.

What’s the future for AdXpose? Is analytics an area AdXpose feels it can offer clients more insight and understanding?

KW: AdXpose is a SaaS ad analytics solution, with verification and optimization as its key feature sets. We call it “Omniture for ads”. Where we see our business growing and thriving long term is in the application of media efficiency valuation, indexing publishers based on ad placement, time spent with ads, and user engagement.