ExchangeWire Joins Maxifier for Ad Technology Event in Japan

Following the launch of its Japan office in May, Maxifier, a global leader in inventory revenue optimisation technology, has announced details of its inaugural event in Tokyo: Chaos Clear. This event will unite the industry’s leading innovators to give Japanese businesses a comprehensive overview of today’s ad tech developments, latest technologies, and how they are relevant to the local market.

The half-day seminar will be hosted by Maxifier in Tokyo on 25th July, bringing together founders and leaders of businesses that have helped shape the global ad tech ecosystem, including, AppNexus, BrightTag, Evidon, MediaMath and PubMatic. Delivering the keynote speech will be Tom Bowman, VP Strategy & Operations Global Advertising Sales, BBC Worldwide, on how BBC Worldwide, the main commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation, has adopted new advertising technologies and platforms to deliver against the needs of its worldwide advertisers.

In addition to discussing the growing importance of optimisation to deliver advertising success and a series of short presentations, there will also be a dynamic panel discussion, chaired by Ciaran O’Kane, CEO/Founder of ExchangeWire, that will debate ad technologies, key developments and emerging trends in the US, and what Japanese businesses might expect to see in the near future around ad technology.

Describing the premise of the event, Denise Colella, Chief Revenue Officer at Maxifier, said: “Advertising technologies, especially from the US, have now been adopted by many countries around the world, helping drive the phenomenal growth and development of display advertising internationally. We are well aware that Japanese companies are very interested in understanding what’s happening in other markets, keeping up to date with new technologies, and gaining an insight into what developments will be coming to their market. This seminar will help give them this insight. The response to date indicates it is going to be a hugely successful event.”

Look out for more releases coming soon regarding ExchangeWire in Japan.

Improve Digital Completes European RTB Integration Move

In yet another sign that the European real time bidding market is developing quickly and RTB in Europe is emerging, Improve Digital has completed a wide-scale RTB integration with a number of key players.

Today, Improve Digital can announce that they have established partnerships with major RTB solution providers including AppNexus, Criteo, Mediamath and Adform to grow its Real Time Bidding ecosystem.

This move further completes Improve Digital’s RTB ecosystem, with the aim of strengthening the technology platform offer, which is now connected with all major RTB players - including AppNexus, Criteo, Mediamath, Adform, Adnetik, Sociomantic, Invite, Turn, Revenue Cloud, Mythings, Struq, YD, Next Performance, Ignition One and many more.

These companies have a reputation for developing innovative real time advertising solutions and these partnerships will bring benefits to clients on both sides of the fence. It will give agency clients and media buyers direct access to European premium inventory at scale and within high quality content environments, and it will benefit Improve Digital’s publishers by connecting them to all major demand side partners, agencies and media buyers. This is all under Improve Digitals Private Ad Exchange principle where publishers control the access to their environment and audience in the automated channel.

Joelle Frijters, CEO and Co-founder of Improve Digital, comments: “We are delighted to be joining ‘the circle of trust’ with our new partners. It is great to be working with so many companies who are market leaders in their field, and our partnerships create benefits for all of our clients, making programmatic selling and buying even more powerful and attractive in Europe.”

European Women Drive Majority of Engagement at Online Retail and Community Websites

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released an overview this week of internet usage in Europe, showing that 395.7 million Europeans went online in May 2012 for an average of 27.6 hours each. The data for May, which includes internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated into the European region and individual reporting on 18 markets, also highlights the site categories and web properties with the highest concentration of usage among women in Europe. Tumblr.com had the highest concentration of usage among women, who accounted for 69% of time spent on the popular social network. The report also showed that women generated the majority of time spent on multiple Retail subcategories, such as Fragrances/Cosmetics (71% share), Apparel (67%) and Department Stores (65%).

Women Have Highest Concentration of Usage on Tumblr, Otto and Groupon
In Europe, 191.5 million females age 15 and older went online in May 2012, representing 48.4% of the total internet audience and 46.9% of time spent online during the month. Among the top 100 web properties in Europe, Tumblr had the highest concentration of usage among women, who accounted for 69% of all time spent on the site. German retail site Otto Gruppe (68.8%) ranked second on this dimension, while leading daily deal site Groupon (61.7%) rounded out the top three. The total amount of time European women spent on Mail.ru websites was particularly high, but perhaps not surprising, as this group includes email services and Russia’s second largest social networking sites Odnoklassniki.

 European Internet Usage by Country

Below is a snapshot of European internet usage in the 18 reportable markets for which comScore provides individual reporting. The Russian internet audience continued to be the largest online market in Europe with 57.9 million users going online in May. The UK audience was the most engaged across Europe, with an average user spending 39.1 hours online, an increase of 5 percent over the past month. Turkey ranked first when it came to the average pages a user visited during the month at 3,674.

 StrikeAd Closes Funding Round With $500,000 Venture Capital Backing

StrikeAd, an international mobile DSP, announced this week that it has secured the second round of its Series A funding from three U.S. investors. The Company has also moved its headquarters to a new office in New York City, with London remaining the operational base for EMEA.

After receiving $3 million in the first round of its Series A funding from European venture capital firm DFJ Esprit, including follow-on from German ad tech entrepreneur and seed investor Thomas Falk of eValue, StrikeAd has secured an additional $500,000 to close the round. This funding has come from three West Coast investors: venture capital firms SoftTech VC and Siemer Ventures, as well as angel investor Gil Elbaz, co-founder of Applied Semantics. This additional capital will be used to fund StrikeAd’s expansion in the U.S. as the company continues to enhance its proprietary technology and positions itself to take advantage of a growing marketplace.

Alex Rahaman, StrikeAd CEO and Founder, comments: "Mobile usage is booming and browsing the internet on multiple mobile devices is the future. The problem today is that buying mobile advertising is far too difficult and murky. This investment from SoftTech VC, Siemer Ventures and Gil Elbaz will help us to capitalise on the huge market opportunity for mobile advertising technology that delivers far better transparency, information and returns in this new channel. At StrikeAd, that’s exactly what we aim to do."

Tim Finn, StrikeAd's Head of EMEA, adds: "The investment in StrikeAd is a clear indication of the worldwide growth that we are aiming to build upon, stemming from our successes here in the UK and Europe. Our roster of services has shown significant results and gained successful leads for many of our global clients. This expansion will see those services replicated worldwide whilst continually improving our local operations from our London base as a result of such investment."