Author Archives: Alexis R. Shellhammer

Now on Mobile – The DoubleClick Ad Exchange Deals Interface

DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) launched the first Preferred Deal in 2012 and the first Private Auction in 2013 to help publishers and advertisers create greater opportunities with programmatic buying. Since the beginning of this year we’ve seen the number of Preferred Deals double, the number of Preferred Deals impressions grow by 2.5X, and Private Auction impressions explode from nothing to millions per day. As these programmatic deal types become more important for our partners, they started asking for the ability to negotiate deals on the go. So today, we’re excited to launch a Mobile version of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange Deals interface.

Negotiate on the go
The new DoubleClick Ad Exchange Deals interface for mobile allows buyers and sellers to check the status of a Preferred Deal or Private Auction on any device. When you sign into the Deals interface on your phone or tablet, the mobile site will load automatically. From there, buyers and sellers can view, edit, accept, or stop existing deals.
If at any time you need to access other features, you can switch to the classic version of the Deals UI by clicking on the Desktop link at the bottom of the screen.

We built this mobile interface to help DoubleClick Ad Exchange partners continue their deal negotiations while away from their desks and it’s available now for all users. To access it, just visit www.google.com/adxbuyer/uploader from your mobile browser and visit our Help Center for buyers or Help Center for sellers to learn more.


Posted by Michael Smith, Product Manager 
Built by Brandon Krieger, Software Engineering Intern

Continuing to invest in a clean, open exchange

Recently there has been a great deal of discussion about applications that inject or overlay ads on sites without the express approval of users and those sites, and then monetize the inventory as their own. We believe that this kind of activity is bad for end users and damages the integrity of the advertising industry. In order for the programmatic marketplace to achieve its full potential and help as many marketers and publishers as we think it can, there needs to be trust between advertisers, publishers, and users.

We’ve invested, since the beginning, in strong policies and a system of checks and filters to ensure that the inventory on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange is the highest quality in the industry. Here’s a quick summary of what we do to stop invalid injected inventory from entering our exchange.

We don’t support spammy applications. Period.
Both the Google Platforms program policies and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) Seller Program Guidelines strictly prohibit the use of systems, including toolbars, that overlay ad space on a given site without express permission of the site owner. In addition, we have numerous processes and technologies in place to review publishers’ inventory as well as advertisers’ ads to maintain a high standard of quality for how advertising is transacted on our platforms. 

In light of the increased concerns on this subject, many publishers have asked us for guidance on what to ask the exchanges or networks they work with. Here are three suggested questions any publisher partner should be able to answer in regards to protecting against injected inventory:
  • Does your platform work with or supply advertising for clients who inject display ads in browsers?
  • Do your program policies prohibit the use of systems to inject display ads in browsers, without first having obtained user consent or consent from the site affected?
  • Please provide me a report of all the inventory partners on your platform serving my domain?

We do, and will always, support our publisher partners. 
Finally, I’d like to thank the millions of publishers who use the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, large and small, that day in and day out, provide amazing value both to their users and their advertisers. We welcome a broader discussion with our partners and with the industry about how to collectively solve this issue and others. Together, we can all ask the tough questions, hold each other accountable, and ultimately create the web we all want, where publishers, users and advertisers all thrive.


Posted by Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management

Announcing DoubleClick Studio Layouts: Build rich media ads in minutes and get your ads live in hours.


Today, we’re thrilled to announce the launch of DoubleClick Studio Layouts, a rich media production tool that makes it easier to build and publish rich media and HTML5 ads.

Rich media formats are becoming a mainstay for brand advertisers, who are expected to increase their rich media spend by ~150% over the next four years.* Rich media’s continued growth is due in large part to it’s ability to help brands bring their stories to life online. (Check out our recent iMedia article for examples of great digital storytelling.) But although rich media ads are recognized as a critical vehicle for digital advertising, the tools to produce these ads are still too complex and time-consuming. The insurgence of mobile advertising and HTML5 has only made the process even more complicated. In fact, ad production can consume up to 80% of a creative agency’s time, leaving only 20% for the strategic, innovative thinking.

We want to invert that statistic.

With today’s launch, you no longer have to toil through the hand-coding of a long tear sheet, or undergo multiple creative revisions for a simple ad. Studio Layouts provides a pre-built rich media ad shell, so you can simply select a layout, upload your existing assets and publish. You can even build HTML5 ads using the same basic assets. Because the structure of the ad is already created for you, there are fewer places for the creative to break, meaning your ads can get through QA with few to zero revisions. With Studio Layouts, you can build rich media and HTML5 ads much faster, reach more people with your existing assets and upgrade your basic image ads to rich media. Let’s see how these benefits came to life with Samsung Turkey for their recent Galaxy S4 campaign. (Full case study here.)

Efficiency: Build rich media and HTML5 ads faster
Samsung Turkey launched a rich media campaign in 90% less time than they could have before Layouts. They built a three-video GDN lightbox ad in 15 minutes and completed quality assurance in three hours with no revisions. Not only was the turn-around time greatly reduced, but the campaign was also successful in driving consumer engagement. In one month, 20 million impressions were served to 2.4 million unique users, with an engagement rate of 2.73%. More than 60,000 viewers watched the videos through to the end, and the cost per engagement was low, at less than 10 cents US.


Samsung’s GDN lightbox unit begins as a 300x250, and expands when a user hovers over the ad for two seconds. The expanded state can accommodate three YouTube videos.

Reach: Get more mileage out of existing assets
Samsung was able to take their YouTube videos and quickly turn them into a rich media ad, syndicating their existing content across the internet. They could also take those same assets, plug them into an HTML5 layout and reach people on mobile and tablet devices as well, without having to code a thing.

Performance: Upgrade standard flash and image ads to rich media
Finally, by using rich media to distribute their videos, Samsung gained access to rich media metrics, such as interaction and video completion rates. “The campaign data showed that we were reaching the right customer at the right place and at the right time,” says Seda Gumustas, digital marketing manager for Samsung Turkey. This data gives advertisers the ability to understand how users are engaging with their brands and gauge success of their campaigns in ways not possible before.

What’s Launching today?
Today, we’re launching Studio Layouts to the public, and we’ll continue to roll out new Layouts formats and features over the next six months. In the coming weeks, we’ll be launching Layouts for the IAB Rising Star formats Cascade, Billboard, and Sidekick, as well as an HTML5 GDN Lightbox format.

If you are already a DoubleClick Studio user, you’ll notice the new Layouts tab in the top green navigation bar of the UI. There you’ll find the Layouts Gallery with descriptions for how to begin using the tool.


To learn more about Studio Layouts, visit our landing page on the Rich Media Gallery.

Posted by Tal Snir, Product Manager, DoubleClick Rich Media and Video
*eMarketer, “US Ad Spending: Mid-2013 Forecast and Comparative Estimates”, July 31, 2013

AdX – Delivering for our Partners

By all measures, this year has been an incredible one for DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) and its partners. From NYC to London to Tokyo (and everywhere in between), more buyers and sellers are using AdX than ever before, and they’re doing it across a broader range of use cases – including direct programmatic deals, tag-based ad network optimization, and of course, RTB.

From Q1 to Q2, AdX saw a 33% increase in RTB spend in the US and a 24% increase globally. But it’s not just about quantity: as marketers continue to embrace the programmatic opportunity, publishers such as Gannett, British Telecom, and The Weather Company are using the platform to identify and capture this spend. 

Part of what’s driving this shift for publishers is the availability of more powerful tools to specify the exact terms of each transaction and understand how buyers are buying. In the past, doing this required some publishers to stitch together many technologies at once. Although we’ve been working on unifying Admeld and AdX for more than a year, in March we unveiled a key milestone on that road with a major series of updates. In addition to its advanced programmatic tools like Preferred Deals and Private Auctions, AdX now includes the best features of Admeld such as ad network optimization and increased transparency and control. The response has been amazing: To date more than 50% of Admeld publishers by volume have migrated their inventory onto AdX. Hundreds of publishers – including CBSi, Jagex, and Stardoll – have already made the switch, and everyone else is scheduled to transition shortly. 

Though the legacy of Admeld continues to inspire our design decisions, we believe strongly that consolidating our efforts behind a single platform is more effective for our clients and more conducive to providing them with the best possible service. For that reason, we’ve notified all our clients in recent weeks that we’ll be sunsetting the Admeld platform and brand on September 30, before the holiday ad spend begins to ramp up.

We've done a lot of preparation to make the migration process as smooth as possible for you. Your account manager should already be in touch with you about what the migration will mean for you.


Posted by Scott Spencer, Director, Product Management