Archive for the ‘Pricing’ Category
Display Pricing – Pubmatic Report the Start of Something? Jury is Out but Signs Point Up
Increased revenue and higher prices. That’s the promise, right? As marketers are given the tools to find greater value in display advertising, more dollars should be allocated that way. Greater spend should drive higher prices. In theory, anyway.
When I evangelize biddable media with publishers I talk about the promise of higher prices. I stress that I actually want to pay more, because it means that the inventory is working for me. Once I see something that works, I want to buy as much of it as I can. I encourage publishers to push their unsold inventory onto an advertising exchange so that I can use the advanced tools available to identify, bid and pay what it’s really worth.
This is an important point, and one I still don’t think most publishers appreciate. As a buyer, I absolutely want to see cpm prices increase in a dynamic marketplace – because it means that there is value in the impressions, that buyers are finding that value, and that the determination of the price is fair and open. What I don’t want to see is cpm prices that are dictated by fiat with little or no transparency as to the value of the inventory being sold and no clue if anybody else is finding value there. Implicit in this are two assumptions. First, that the campaign or campaigns I am running can afford the inventory (I don’t like to be outbid), and second, that the inventory for sale actually is valuable, or at least that some of the inventory is more valuable than the prices it was being sold at through direct or less dynamic channels. I’ll leave those discussions for another day.
Therefore, a sign that display really is converging with search would be increases in non-premium display eCPM’s. This is critical for the long-term success of the channel. Without higher eCPM’s in non-premium display, many publishers will simply refuse to sell impressions through the indirect channels that are most able to provide search-like functionality for display marketers.
On Friday, Pubmatic issued a Pricing Brief showing that CPM prices for inventory passing through the Pubmatic platform have been increasing every month since January. Eureka! It’s starting.
Or is it? Let’s look at the several data points we do have.
- Pubmatic Pricing Brief – reports a 35% price increase since January 2009 with increases every month starting in February culminating in a 15% price increase from May to June 2009.
