Gustav Mellentin is CEO of Adform - a pan European ad server company. Here Mellentin discusses the launch of its DSP solution and how it will be offered as part of the current ad server stack to existing European clients.

For those unfamiliar with Adform, can you give a brief summary of your existing offering – and footprint in the European market?

We are a leading display advertising technology firm and our mission is “making display advertising simple, relevant, rewarding”. Our product strengths and strategic focus areas lie within our real time buying (RTB), rich media and dynamic creative optimisation offerings, as these areas will create the most value for our clients going forward.

Supporting this offering we have developed an end-to-end ad serving platform offering comprehensive media planning, campaign optimisation and reporting functionality. The platform supports various online channels, such as social media, search, mobile and video, enabling our clients to optimise display campaigns using data across all online channels.

On a historical note, Adform was established 10 years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark by three engineers from Denmark’s Technical University and today we have offices in 10 European countries including the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Eastern Europe and the Nordics. We work with leading media agencies and online advertisers and receive a great deal of praise for our unrivalled service, flexibility, data reporting and targeting capabilities. We serve more than 2,000 advertisers and 200 agencies across all our markets.

Can you give some overview on your new DSP offering? How will it help your existing clients?

Our clients are increasingly realising that their data can be used more effectively to improve campaign performance and RTB is a game changer in this respect.

Until now, optimisation on ad serving platforms has mainly been about matching the right campaign creative to a given user, whereas with RTB we can select the right person in real time; this is a profound change. RTB allows us to offer a significantly higher uplift in campaign performance, which helps our clients get more value for the ad dollar.

Most of the volume is currently within performance campaigns and it is evident not only is RTB very competitive in delivering outstanding campaign performance; it is also loved by clients. However, at the same time, we are seeing increasing demand for RTB as a component of branding activities, for example to enhance reach.

Regarding our DSP solution, we offer a number of different targeting features include retargeting, user profile targeting and contextual targeting. We have developed proprietary models but are of course open to integration with 3rd party data and platforms. Regarding inventory, we have integrated with a number of the leading international exchanges and SSPs, including DoubleClick Ad Exchange, Microsoft ad exchange and AppNexus, and, on top of this, we are developing partnerships with a number of large local publishers and SSPs in key geographies to enhance the available inventory through our platform.

How will it differentiate from existing solutions on the market? Does the fact you already have an ad server complement the new DSP solution?

Absolutely, we know that one of our key differentiators is the integration with our ad serving platform and the easy of application of data. From day one our clients are able to use the full data history and functionality of our platform for their RTB activities, including our targeting models, dynamic creative optimisation, rich media, video and path-to-conversion/attribution-modelling.

Have you developed your own bidder or are you using third party technology?

Yes, we have developed our own bidder. This is an important strategic decision given the vast amount of targeting data we are collecting and storing on behalf of our clients and, consequently, our unique position to create bidding models. Hence, metrics such as ad interaction time, visibility measures, site visits and product interest are automatically available to the bidding engine.

In order to make sure we have the most advanced bidding and targeting in place we have a team of PhDs developing sophisticated mathematical models and we work closely with Denmark’s Technical University. This relationship is extremely valuable and generates innovative ideas on how to stay ahead of the race within quantitative data modelling.

Why launch a DSP now into such a competitive marketplace? Is this a reaction to the arrival of US players or have there been requests from your existing clients and the market?

Sure it’s a quite competitive market, but this is a very natural adjunct to our classic offering and we have the right competencies to compete in this space. There are a number of US based DSPs offering their solutions to the European market, but very few European companies offering the same service. Our advantages include being remoteed in the European region and our ability to understand and quickly adapt to the local market needs.

At the same time, we are seeing our current clients requesting a technology that can deliver automated buying seamlessly into their existing media planning and ad serving workflow, so we are providing that out of the box. This means we are seeing a fast uptake on the RTB side of our platform, simply because it’s so easy for them to get started.

Will Adform develop its stack further by building out a Facebook buying platform or mobile/video DSP?

We are fully aware that we cannot develop best in class technologies across all channels. So for a number of channels we rely on partnerships with dedicated providers. Some examples of this are search bid management, Facebook and mobile DSPs.

Adform is pretty strong in the Scandinavian region. Are we seeing a move to automated ad buying from the buy side in this marketplace?

Definitely so, a number of our Nordic agency clients are fully committed to making 2012 the year where RTB goes mainstream. I would not be surprised to see RTB hit the 10-15% mark in the region during next year. The Nordics is not the biggest market, but it’s quite advanced when it comes to online advertising.