The mobile display space is experiencing a lot of activity: increased number of M&A deals; the emergence of new platforms; and increased competition in the market. Only yesterday Apple beefed up its mobile sales team in Europe, as it seeks to leverage the Quattro acquisition to grab more market share here.

There’s also been a big move towards more transparent and open buys. Agencies and advertisers are now looking for this when they are buying mobile ad impressions. Adfonic are looking to meet this demand head-on by launching its new open ad marketplace for premium mobile ad inventory. Paul Childs, Adfonic CMO, took time to speak to ExchangeWire this week to discuss the new offering from Adfonic and what effect the recent spate of acquisitions will have on the mobile display market.

Can you explain how the new platform works?

PC: We've just released the industry's first open and transparent mobile ad marketplace for Premium publishers including mobile sites and applications (iPhone, Android, JAVA and WebOS supported). We are aiming this offering at established brands, digital plays and popular apps across multi-platforms, giving advertisers the choice of buying Performance or Premium via a single integrated platform and user experience. This builds on Adfonic's state -of-the-art mobile advertising platform and demonstrates our strength and agility to deliver innovative solutions to the market quickly.

What are the key differences of this new version?

PC: The key differences are: offering a Premium Network that complements our Blind Network; and giving advertisers a truly open and transparent marketplace to buy high quality mobile media. For Premium buys we know advertisers demand full control over where they buy media coupled with real time reporting and analytics that enables them to track how their campaigns are performing across all mobile sites and apps.

Was the new launch motivated by a move by publisher and advertiser in the mobile ad market towards more transparent and open platforms?

PC: In other forms of digital advertising, like online, there’s an implicit expectation that total transparency is already built into platforms and advertisers navigate their way around choosing the best publishers that closely fit their media buying requirements. Other types of digital advertising follow the established world of offline advertising, where a media buyer would never purchase any time or ad space unless they knew exactly where their ad was going to be shown.

Brands and advertising agencies are now starting to ask for this level of transparency to match how they work online and offline.

What are the benefits to the publisher?

PC: For publishers the key benefits are: the ability to set minimum floor price for CPC and / or CPM; global reach; brand safety, as only approved agencies will get access to the Premium Network; the ability to set up a private network within the platform; and finally we offer publishers a white label option.

What are the benefits for the advertiser?

PC: For advertisers the key benefits are: media buying profile behind every publisher; the choice of sites and apps to advertise on; the option to track the performance of campaigns at publisher level using real time reporting and analytics; the ability to divert spend to sites and apps that are delivering results thereby optimising advertiser budgets; providing better accountability to advertisers; and we will work with larger ad units (e.g. 300 x 250)

Can you explain a little more about the targeting functionality of the new Adfonic platform?

PC: Adfonic offers advertisers a comprehsenive range of targeting options for reaching specific audiences, including geography, mobile operators / WiFi, mobile devices, mobile platforms (iPhone, Android), mobile browsers (excluding Opera Mini), demographics, day parting, tags and language

What differentiates this from the multitude of ad networks, yield optimisers and indeed mobile ad exchanges on the European market?

PC: What differentiates Adfonic from other players in this space is three key areas: our comprehensive set of self service tools and features; giving advertisers and publishers more control over campaigns and inventory; and our shift towards openness and transparency starting with our Premium Network.

Publishers can set a floor price and can choose the buyers they want to trade with. Is the control offered to publishers a key feature of the new Adfonic platform?

PC: The Adfonic platform gives both advertisers and publishers the control they are demanding. The demands of premium publishers are different to those of performance publishers and we have give premium publishers a flexible solution via our self-service platform.

Do you think the $750 million takeover of Admob represents a seminal moment for the development and growth of the mobile display market?

PC: I think we have reached a tipping point in the evolution of the mobile advertising industry. This is highlighted by the following three key milestones.

First, the recent wave of mobile advertising acquisitions including Google (Admob), Apple (Quattro Wireless), Amobee (RingRing Media) and Opera Software (AdMarvel).

Secondly, a rapid shift towards performance based marketing models and demand for better quality publisher inventory.

And finally, brands and traditional media buying agencies are now starting to look at mobile as an additional channel to market. 2010 will be the year when innovative brands action their mobile strategies and start to implement monetization strategies.

The acquisition of Admob provided the market with the first valuation of a successful mobile advertising business (subsequently followed by three further acquisitions). Now investors will start to look seriously at players in the space.