Publishers still don’t get Advertising Exchanges. The general consensus among senior publisher executives is that Exchanges create sales channel conflict and force their CPM prices down. But here’s the rub for content providers: their sales team will never sell their available inventory at top dollar. The top-end sales opportunities are site takeovers and integrated campaigns.

So what happens to the rest of that inventory? Are sales teams going to waste their time trying to sell non-premium to agencies at discount rates when they should be trying to win big budget for top-tier sale opportunities. Publishers could automate this process – and increase their revenue opportunities.

ThinkEquity sees non premium display as a massive growth area. By working with exchanges, publishers can reap the rewards. ThinkEquity’s projections see global non premium display advertising growing from $4.1 billion [‘08] to $11.4 billion [‘13] in the next six years.

Publishers need to realise this opportunity. They need to use a yield optimisation technology. Or at the very least, they need to let exchanges like Wunderloop, Adjug, RightMedia or Google have access to their inventory. For publishers concerned about the price of their ad impressions, they can set a floor price on both the Adjug and Wunderloop platforms.

You can also layer your available impression with user data on Wunderloop Connect - and charge a premium accordingly.

The chart below makes it clear why publishers need to adopt an exchange strategy for their non-premium display inventory: