Michel Juvillier is CEO of Improve Digital, France. The platform is now the biggest supply side platform in the market: it works with 15 of the top 20 Comscore publishers; and is now optimizing two billion ad impressions per month.

Can you give an overview of the size of the French exchange marketplace? And the role Improve Digital plays in the market?

MJ: At this moment there is no ad exchange or demand platform in France with significant volumes. Some global players have not yet started in France or if they did, are at a beginning stage. There have been some announcements by the likes of the Doubleclick Adx and Weborama - which declared, during an IAB conference in January, its intention to become an ad exchange - but I have not seen any real traction in the market.

In France, Improve Digital gives publishers the ability to optimize revenues and eCPM’s from ad networks and exchanges - while protecting their premium business and ad quality policy. We have 2 billion monthly impressions in France and believe that this is a significant sign that publishers are opting for an agnostic publisher focussed yield optimiser, such as Improve Digital, instead of working directly with an exchange.

How evolved is the exchange eco-system in France?

MJ: There is more and more demand from publishers for our platform and this trend shows that publishers are ready to work with multiple partners in the form of ad networks. They see our technology as a way to prepare for the future, where publishers monetise their ad space both directly through various sales partners, such as ad networks and Demand Side Platforms.

Existing ad networks still have significant growth opportunity, mainly because of AOL’s decision to close the French office, but there are also new players entering the eco-system, particularly the DSPs. I estimate that the French market is perhaps 18 months behind the UK, but some media agencies are developing their own DSPs to buy automatically unsold impressions from publishers. In France Matiro, founded by two formers top managers of Havas Media (Yann Leroux and Erwan Lepage), are offering advertisers the opportunity to buy unsold impressions directly from their platform. A new question will arise: how will the ad networks evolve in to meet the challenges?

Are publishers now seeing the benefit of using platforms like Improve Digital?

MJ: From December 2009, we began trials with some key publishers like Le Monde, Allocine. Nouvel Observateur. At the moment in France, we work with more than 15 publishers that represent over 2 billion French impressions and we have never lost one customer. Actually we are connecting new French publishers every week. From a publisher’s perspective, the first advantage of our system is increased revenues and eCPMs. From an operational perspective we simplify working with multiple ad networks and reduce operational issues. On a strategic level, our product helps publishers gain control over revenues, ad quality and cannibalisation of premium sales.

What are the significant differences of the French display market compared to the likes of Germany and the UK?

MJ: I don’t know the other markets in-side-out, but from what I heard, the German market is very much dominated by sales houses. In France this is not so much the case and many publishers have their own sales teams. Just like in other markets, the standard IAB ad formats are becoming more of a commodity, with pricing models lowering and moving more towards performance based pricing. Standardization kills the prices, but not necessarily the margins. With our platform, the costs of trading ad space is significantly lower, realising higher margins and making the online media in general more competitive to television, radio and print.

On the other hand this is the exact reason why more and more big publishers develop special ad format or disposals, brand content areas, etc. “Opération Spéciales” or in English, “Special Products’ are the latest trend for the ad development strategy of publishers.

As a “first mover” in the French market, how would Improve Digital sell the benefits using its automated channel to monetise non-premium inventory to publishers?

MJ: When we entered the French market, ad network optimisation was a new phenomenon. Most publishers had never heard of. But if a technology is proven to work, the word spreads quickly and today we have 15 of the top 20 Comscore French publishers as clients. Using the platform is a way for publishers to prepare for the future, as I described before. Media agencies, advertisers will try to find some “Google Adwords" like business model for display. This new attitude is motivated by the “infinite inventory” that characterizes the display market at the moment. We started as a true ad network optimiser, but we are evolving towards a sell-side platform that enables publishers to optimise yield and revenues from all of their ad space, not just unsold.

Are you making any French inventory available through RTB? If not, when are you likely to allow real-time bidding on the platform?

MJ: If the publisher wants to connect to RTB, it’s a matter of opting in. Right now, we offer French inventory through RTB and have multiple global RTB partners live. Technically we are ready to connect French ad networks. As I mentioned previously, the exchange eco system is not as developed in France, and some French ad networks are technically not ready to buy through RTB.

Is the buy-side and sell-side ready for real-time bidding in France?

MJ: I hope that it will be the case with the arrival of new exchange trading specialists like Matiro and others players from the media agencies world. Improve Digital can be considered the first and the largest sell-side platform on the French market.

How do you see the display market changing over the coming months?


MJ: Like a lot of people in the French display market, I think that we are seeing the end of CPM as the key model on display. The IAB ad format will be bought on a performance based model. The fee business model will manage the premium offer. Publishers will have to find some technological solutions to adapt their performance offering for the demand side, advertisers and media agencies.

Will we see France following a similar path to the UK?

MJ: As a lot of international advertisers manage more and more of their marketing budget on a European level, I expect the whole European market to follow a similar path with most ad networks becoming DSPs and most publishers organising themselves through sell-side platforms.

Are we likely to see significant volumes through exchanges and SSPs over the coming months?
With our monthly 2 billion of French impressions, we are already seeing a significant volume, but this is just the beginning. First, because managing unsold impressions has become more and more complex on an operational level; and secondly because of the search to find new monetization opportunity. For this first year in France, Improve Digital has the objective to double every quarter the number of impressions it optimizes.