In what is likely to be the break-out year for the data market in Europe, third party data providers are now integrating with DSPs, SSPs and exchanges across Europe. Weborama, a leading ad server provider in the European market, is now looking to leverage its publisher relationships to provide display buyers with actionable third party data. Mathieu Roche, Directeur Général at Weborama and buy-side panelist at the upcoming Data Economy event, spoke with ExchangeWire this week about the offering in more detail, and the challenges of bringing a third party data solution to market in Europe.

For those who don’t know Weborama’s business, can you give readers an overview on your offering? Is Weborama more than just an ad server?

MR: Weborama was created in Paris in 1998 and operates in five European countries (France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and the UK). We’ve been listed on the Paris stock exchange for four years and generated revenues of €11M in 2009 (2010 figures will be released soon). Our original business was in the web analytics space. We moved on to the ad network business, then launched an agency adserving & tracking solution. Weborama also have a behavioural advertising platform, and most recently we acquired a rich media & video solution. All of these business lines have three things in common: they rely on advanced proprietary technologies, leverage our media relationships, and are enriched by data.

Can you give some insight on the European markets Weborama is currently working across? Has Weborama a significant footprint in other countries – other than France?

MR: In addition to France, we are very strong in Spain and Portugal where we have been active since 2005, and in the Netherlands where we acquired a company specializing in rich media and video solutions in Feb 2010. We also opened in the UK and Italy last year, and those two markets are a strong focus for us in 2011.

Weborama is now offering 3rd party data to the buy-side? Can you explain the Weborama data offering in more detail? How is Weborama currently selling to media buyers?

MR: Data has been at the core of our technology and media activities since the early 2000s, but it was not very “visible” from the outside, except for a few direct deals with publishers. Now, with the development of audience buying, there is a market for data. We’ve been ready for this kind of infrastructure for a long time because it creates great opportunity to generate value directly from our data assets. We’re integrating with all possible channels (DSPs, networks or SSPs) to distribute our profiles, and we are able to provide significant reach in our core markets – we have 30+ million unique profiles in France and 20+ million unique profiles in Spain for instance.

Our profiling methodology is based on advanced lexical, statistical & mathematical expertise: we collect all the words involved in a users’ navigation, analyze their relationships, and apply a set of algorithms to update profiles daily and on a grand scale. This methodology based on words allows us to build very specific target groups –we receive briefs that can be as refined as “people looking for a family car, interested in outdoor activities and worried about safety” for a SUV manufacturer for instance! Since we go down to the finest level of granularity (the words) to qualify a user’s behavior, the combinations of audience criteria are virtually endless.

How would a typical media buyer use Weborama data in an automated buy?

MR: We’re plugged in or talking to most DSP solutions operating in Europe today, so they are able to select weborama targets directly from their bidding interface.

There are some issues trading data in the European market – one of the biggest being valuation. How is Weborama pricing its data, and charging for its use?

MR: That’s a big question –today we charge mostly on a CPM basis just because it’s the simplest way. I strongly believe that ultimately data will be worth a share of the extra value it creates. So if, by targeting Weborama profiles, you improve your campaign performance by 20 or 50%, we should split the upside. But it will be a few months or year before the market is mature enough to move to this type of business model!

Privacy is also a big issue. How is Weborama addressing privacy concerns?

MR: Privacy is a major challenge for the development of a sustainable digital economy. Our CEO Alain Levy published a book in November 2010 called “Tracking Big Brother” (“Sur les traces de Big Brother” in French, soon to be released in English) in which he calls for a dialogue between all parties involved in the matter. We put a strong emphasis on the respect of user privacy in our own operating principles: we don’t use Personally Identifiable Information (PII), all our profiles are strictly anonymous and purely based on browser cookies –we don’t use Flash cookies. We also offer an opt-out cookie on our site and participate in the education of the market through a little “w” icon embedded in some of our proprietary ad formats. And we work with industry organizations such as IAB France to promote these best practices.

Why would a media buyer use Weborama’s data in its display campaigns? What differentiates Weborama from other data providers, like Exelate and Quantcast? Is it primarily ecommerce data. and based on buying intent?

MR: We believe that audience buying will not remain solely a performance channel for e-commerce players but will also provide great branding opportunities. Our profiles are much richer than just one contact on a shopbot or on a product page: we work on intenders but we also provide groups of users in affinity with a brand or an issue or a product. Weborama profiles are built during repeated contacts with users on several sites and qualified on the words that best describe users’ areas of interest during this timeframe. They can be used to satisfy performance goals (maximize conversions and improve CPAs) as well as drive brand awareness and favorability because we are able to bring together a brand and an audience in affinity with its values and products.

Is the data market scalable in Europe? Do you think fragmentation hamper its growth here?

MR: The European market is very language specific. Each market is a new project: we have French, Spanish and English profiles, and we are working on Italian, Dutch and German. It’s a great challenge to analyze and organize profiles in each language, capturing the subtlety of each of them, but also a great barrier to entry! Apart from that, I don’t see anything hampering the growth of the Data market in continental Europe so far. It's a hot area a the minute. It’s on every agency’s, network’s, DSP’s and publisher’s priority list for 2011, whether in France, Italy, Spain or the Netherlands, so growth is fine thank you!

From a sell-side perspective, how should a publisher trade in this space? What kind of data strategies should they employ?

MR: We believe that sell-side will become buy-side very soon, and that publishers will want to leverage 1st party data and/or buy 3rd party data to improve ad sales on their end as well. We have Data and Media relationships with over 250,000 publishers across Europe and we try to help them enter this space by working with them on the qualification and the monetization of their data assets.

We are seeing some traction for data providers in the UK and France at the minute. What other markets should we be looking at? Is it Germany? Or is the southern Europe region, where you are currently active, an area for growth?

MR: Our assets are particularly strong in France and Spain, and we are pleased to see that both markets have been very enthusiastic over data in the last few months. Obviously, the UK is still ahead, mostly because many US providers come there first and also because the English language is a universal currency. We’re confident French, Spanish and Dutch agencies will catch up very quickly.

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