Kwame Acheampong is Managing Director and Partner at Httpool. Httpool is an ad network that specialises in the Central and Eastern European markets, offering buying opportunities in these markets to UK agencies and advertisers. Acheampong took time to speak to ExchangeWire this week about the Httpool offering, the display market in the CEE region and the growth of automated trading.

Can you give you an overview of the Httpool proposition?

KA: Httpool is an online advertising provider focusing on emerging markets, especially the Central and Eastern European region. We provide clients with localisation services together with all segments of online advertising in the region - including premium inventory network, performance network, contextual and behavioural network, and search engine marketing. Httpool has 10 years of experience and expertise across the region serving major agencies, global and local clients with digital strategies and planning.

How does the Httpool offering benefit UK advertisers and agencies?

KA: Httpool provides UK advertises and clients a one point access to all of CEE markets. With offices in the majority of these markets we have direct access to local inventory, publishers and specifics that differentiates our offering from other sales houses in the UK. Direct relationships with local content providers in the CEE markets enables us to provide a streamlined process and a quality service to agencies so that they can execute efficient online campaigns in this region.

What markets does Httpool currently cover in Eastern Europe?

KA: Httpool has direct access to all CEE markets and offices, including Austria, Czech republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Bosnia. We are currently expanding to the rest of the region with plans to open offices in Poland, Hungry, Turkey and the Baltics within the next 3-6 months. Httpool also services Asia via their Honk Kong and Indian offices.

How evolved is the display market in Eastern Europe? Are exchanges and automated platforms gathering much traction there?

KA: The display market is quite evolved, and in some markets represents even more than search in terms of budgets. Advertisers use many advanced rich media formats combining it with more content integration. On the other hand exchange platforms are getting lots of traction. Httpool offers a self serving platform in many of our markets, which enables local publishers to get several high eCPM products with one single tag. Advertises on the other hand can manage their own campaigns. However, there is a huge opportunity for growth for these platforms because the average ad spend around 3-4% is still low, but knowledge still has to improve.

How influential are ad networks in the Eastern European display markets? Do ad nets play an important role in aggregating inventory for local and international agencies?

KA: The importance of ad networks varies across the different Central and Eastern European countries but mostly they play a critical role in the CEE display market. The main reason is that ad networks are able to provide advertisers with various solutions, helping them to achieve their campaign objectives and get better reach in a fairly disparate marketplace.

What’s your view on real-time bidding? Has Httpool any plans to use RTB to trade ad inventory?

KA: At the moment real time bidding in the region is not the best solution. It works best where supply and demand of inventory are in balance. In CEE there is excess of supply which pushes CPM prices down using RTB. This causes some limitation in growth of markets. At the moment we are not planning to use it across our platform. Automatisation of buying and selling inventory will definitely grow as the number of buyers increases, and expertise of marketer becomes more widespread.

What current trends are you seeing in the Eastern European display market?

KA: The main trends are reflected in focusing increasingly on targeting solutions such as contextual and predictive behavioural and larger ad formats on top premium properties.