ExchangeWire round up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space. In this week’s edition: Facebook Audience Network Sells Video Ads; Twitter Ads in External Feeds; SAP introduces media exchange; Dynamic Email Retargeting by Criteo; More Transparency for Publishers with Dutch ad server Ancora; and Google introduces Android Instant Apps. 

Facebook sell video ads for third parties

First retargeting on Instagram, now video ads delivered through the Audience Network to third-party websites and in apps: Facebook ramp up their video advertising on mobile – and desktop web.

Ads by Facebook on external websites are nothing new, but so far they were primarily aimed at developers who wanted to increase downloads. Now the network is targeting brand advertisers who want to spread their brand message, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Video ads can be bought on a cost-per-view basis, or activated through a programmatic auction system, and then implemented with so-called optimised CPM and individual view-goals per ad. However, ads need to be between 10 and 30 seconds long in order to fit the scheme; and advertisers can not determine where ads are shown.

The video ads run pre-roll, as well as a mid-roll and post-roll within a video player, on stationary or mobile-optimised sites, and within mobile apps. In addition to this 'native' way of displaying the video ads, they may also appear outside of video players – for example in Facebook’s Instant Articles.

It is not yet clear how much Facebook will be charging for the new video ad display through the Audience Network. In general, Facebook retain 30% of sales of display advertising for themselves.

The expansion of the video ads into Audience Network puts Facebook in direct competition with Google and other ad networks that specialise in the growing video advertising market. Facebook is likely to benefit from its core social media offerings as the amount of personal data on their users will inform their targeting capabilities.

Twitter ads in externally embedded Tweet feeds

Twitter news feeds can be read not only on Twitter, but also embedded on external websites. That is where the social network wants to display more advertising – and develop further monetisation opportunities.

To that end, Twitter have started a beta phase and are testing MoPub ads within Twitter Kit feeds, both for iOS and Android. While, previously, publishers, or developers, could import ads only into an embedded Twitter timeline, the ads now appear in the embedded feed itself.

Twitter wants to take care of the process of embedding the ad-compatible feeds: rendering of ads, performance and appearance will be automatically adjusted to individual user preferences, in order to match the look and colours set in Twitter Kit.

For publishers, Twitter’s new offer may be a potential source of additional revenue. But Twitter also have their own interests in mind: given the stagnating user growth on the network, the company is looking for other ways, outside its own platform, to reach new users – and to make money from advertising.

SAP want a piece of the programmatic pie

Martech specialist SAP branch into programmatic, joining an already packed ad tech market with a DSP and DMP offering, called SAP XM (Exchange Media), the German company have announced.

With XM, SAP want to connect advertisers directly with the providers of online platforms, effectively making it unnecessary to involve an agency in the transaction. Additionally – as is usual when justifying programmatic – SAP XM will be using RT data in order to make transactions more time-efficient and reduce the time between booking and delivery of the campaigns.

“With SAP XM, SAP will alter the way businesses run marketing in the digital era”, explains Wolfgang Faisst, co-founder and head of SAP XM. “SAP XM creates greater efficiency, transparency and control by connecting buyers (advertisers) and sellers (publishers) directly through an integrated suite of products.”

However, SAP media exchange, so far, only facilitates the placement of online ads on web properties such as sites or portals. Buying and selling of ad place space in newspapers and magazines is not available.

The new platform is already testing, with a number of major German companies such as Beiersdorf and Deutsche Post DHL. Among the ad tech partners of the new venture are PubMatic and Krux.

Criteo introduces dynamic email retargeting

With a new retargeting solution, Criteo want to boost the sales of their email advertisers. Criteo Dynamic Email allows clients to email personalised recommendations to audiences within and outside of their customer base to drive conversion – as opposed to anonymous mass emails that go straight into the spam folder.

In their press release Criteo argue that email marketing is incredibly effective – conversion rates are five-times higher than social media, and 1.5-times higher than non-personalised display advertising. In order to create personalised advertisement emails, the Criteo technology falls back on anonymous data and matches it with third-party, permission-based email addresses from their publisher network.

Consumers are targeted cross-device, based on their browsing behaviour and purchase history; i.e., new consumers, who are demonstrably interested in a brand and its products, are reached. To ensure user privacy, Criteo partner with UnsubCentral, a solution for email compliance and opt-out management.

"We believe that relevant, timely communications drive performance, engagement, and, ultimately, conversions for our clients", says Michael Steckler, executive VP and GM email, Criteo. "We've seen extraordinary success from Criteo Dynamic Retargeting on desktop and mobile display; and we expect to see similar results from recommendations on our Dynamic Email product."

Ancora Media Solutions offer publishers transparency

A new Amsterdam tech startup is promising publishers more transparency in the programmatic buying and selling process. Founders Herman Mantle and Martin van der Meij are industry veterans, formerly responsible for programmatic strategy at Telegraaf Media Group, one of the largest media and publishing groups in the Netherlands.

Ancora Media Solutions want to give publishers the ability to operate independently, and cut margins, by providing more transparency into the programmatic transaction. The Ancora platform is an ad server that connects publishers to demand sources worldwide, making the use of a SSP obsolete. Booking a direct campaign or a programmatic order are conducted within the same interface; direct and programmatic deals are possible, as well as 1st/2nd and fixed price PMP, with Ancora promising buyers that there will be no clearing fees or hidden margins.

Adformatie quotes van der Meij: “Advertisers and publishers are losing serious money because the process is automated, but perhaps not at all transparent. We discovered that advertisers easily pay 30% more than what the publisher receives, due to so-called ‘marketplace fees’, and other margins, which remain outside the field of vision of advertisers, media agencies and publishers."

Google make Android apps instant 

Fresh from the I/O event, Google introduce Android Instant Apps. According to the company, their advantage is that they make the installation process for apps obsolete, effectively allowing the user to use them without installing.

Say a user visits an online store to browse or buy products, and Instant App could provide more content, without requiring the user to install the full version of the app. After shutting down the app, it will disappear from the smartphone – and, thus, take none of the precious space on the device. According to Google’s Android Developers Blog, opening an Instant App is just as easy as accessing a web page.

No need to visit the Play Store: identified by a special URL, for an Instant-App-compatible application, the Play Store downloads the app in the background and makes it instantly accessible; essentially, not the entire app is downloaded, but only certain parts.

To enable the process, developers need to revise their existing apps and rebuild them in modules. Google have not yet released details of how apps should be built in order to qualify for Instant Apps; however, they need to be smaller than 4MB in order to facilitate fast downloads.

At this stage, Instant Apps are being tested with a small number of  developers and users. Google aim to have several engineers working on the project, and to make it accessible to all users, by the end of the year.