This presentation talks about the future of the mobile advertising ecosystem. How are the ad servers going to compete with SSPs and DSPs, the Role of the RTB and a critical view of today's mobile advertising ecosystem.

1. The Future of Mobile Advertising

2. About me
• Co-founder at ZestADZ;
• Hands on tech Entrepreneur with 3+ years in mobile
advertising; More than a decade of experience.
• Led ZestADZ for the past 1.5 years as the President/CEO until
recent acquisition by Komli Media;
• Follow me: http://twitter.com/azifali

3. THE ECOSYSTEM

4. Stake holders are growing
2011
2010 Online Ad Networks
2008 Open source Next Gen Pub side
pub platforms
Publishers and optimization
advertisers Affiliate Agencies
platforms
Ad Networks Resellers
Affiliate
Agencies networks Creative Solutions
Providers
Pub Aggregators Digital and
interactive & More
agencies
Traditional
agencies
Mobile Ad
Platforms

5. Mobile ecosystem – courtesy Admeld

6. eCPM’s are falling
• Pub aggregators are delivering little or no value
except that of integrating various networks but
collecting 10% margins
• Various other players in the ecosystem driving
down gross CPC / eCPMs
• Advertiser expectation low because mobile being a
new medium; Advertisers are still experimenting

7. Revenue split
Sales
Ad Agencies
Ad networks 15%
20%
Aggregators
10%
Publishers
55%

8. Mobile ad networks
• Dozens operational; more coming up thanks to
market validation with large exits.
• Technology that delivers results is the key entry
barrier
• Targeting is limited; Impression level transparency is
poor.

9. ..Ad Networks
• Yield optimization either at the impression level or
at the campaign level is extremely important.
Unfortunately – networks do very little yield
optimization now.
• Transparency of the data with other stakeholders is
non-existant;
• Some networks have been moving towards a
fragmented, single device model (iAd) which is not
exactly great for advertisers.

10. Some practices are unsustainable
• Advertiser side: Sell at costs that are next to
nothing; Example Rs 5-10 per download of an
Android /iPhone App; Growth is at the cost of the
publisher itself.
• Pub Side: 100% revenue share, which is OK for
now but not sustainable in the long run.
• In some cases, publishers will make hay while the
sun shines and then will switch to another network
where revenue is better;

11. Will there be a shakeout?
• Consolidation is happening with various
acquisitions
• Smaller Mobile Ad networks should
consolidate or fade out
• Very few are above the $50m revenue /
annual number

12. SSPs / Publisher Aggregators
• Mature SSPs are at an early stage, the established ones are
more just aggregators.
• Aggregators lack basic infrastructure to enable control of
traffic flowing to ad networks. The traffic flow is blind, based
on assumptions and is not automated to performance
• The Gross Margins are between 7-10%
• It requires them to do a business of $100+m to deliver
meaningful value to shareholders
• RTB is mainstream in online adv but yet to take off in mobile

13. Typical aggregator dashboard
Some aggregators go sell advertising!
Some Ad networks do Aggregator functions

14. Publisher + aggregator relationship
• Publishers use aggregators hoping to fill 100% of inventory;
• They do, at the cost of extremely low eCPMs; especially in markets
where there is excess volume available
• Low eCPMS are because the advertisers have realized that they get
access to the same inventory from aggregators who pass it on to any
network who can fill it.
• Lack of a bidding system / RTB provides a non-optimized solution
Ad Network Ad Network
#1 #2
Pub #2 Pub #3
Aggregator
Agency / Ad Network
Pub #1 Advertiser #3

15. THE FUTURE OF MOBILE
ADVERTISING - NETWORKS

16. Advertisers: Its all about performance
•Pure CPA / CPL models • Want brand
•Online networks promotion but at
backfilling ads to mobile performance rates
without without a great
experience on mobile
Top Brand
Affiliate
Advertisers
Markets
and Full
and
service
Networks
Agencies
Digital
Mobile Agencies /
Content smaller
brands
• Driven by user • CPC / CPL Campaigns
subscriptions; buy CPC primarily performance
but must meet CPA driven
goals

17. Key trends
• Significant separation in focus: DSPs to focus on advertiser
side; SSPs to focus on delivering value to publishers
• Business models will become more flexible;
• Ad networks will have to be significantly transparent in
order to accommodate SSPs and DSPs
• While the metrics of measurement will remain the same;
pricing will become dynamic due to the nature of Real Time
Bidding (RTB)

18. The future of mobile ad networks is threatened
• DSPs and SSPs tend to eat away Ad network
margins
• DSPs can bypass ad networks to Ad
exchanges and SSPs as targeting Can be
delivered with DSPs
• SSPs can provide value ad to deliver
analytics, engagement measurement.
• Large agencies are busy setting up their own
(mobile) DSPs

19. Why the ad network got there
• Networks are blind and non transparent
• Networks share no data; have almost no API
• Most aggregators today scrape data off ad networks
• Networks are not transparent about how the pricing is
decided
• Networks are trying to do a balancing act between
advertisers (who want lowest cost per user) vs publisher
(who want the highest eCPM)

20. Networks - what can be done?
• Will need to evolve to make every impression highly
transparent to generate better yields
• Will need to invest significantly in yield optimization,
targeting, re-targeting, behavioral targeting and
personalization
• Will need to open up to share data with other networks,
exchanges, SSPs and DSPs.
• Must figure out the right ways to track users in a platform
that is mostly deviod of cookies;

21. Ad Networks – Where they should be

22. Transparency increases the value of the impression
Courtesy: Pubmatic

23. All is not lost
• Agencies are still used to buying media in large
chunk from networks
• Small and Mid-sized agencies cannot setup their
own DSPs easily.
• Transparency will retain all kinds of agencies
• Yield optimzation is very important; This is the ad
networks core and they should try hard to improve
it

24. THE FUTURE OF MOBILE
ADVERTISING – AGGREGATORS /
SSPS AND DSPS

25. Aggregators will evolve to be SSPs
• Today’s optimizers / aggregators must evolve to be Supply
Side Platforms (SSP).
• Every large publisher will use SSPs instead of a single
network (for better yields of course) in the near future.
• SSPs will need to enable Real Time Bidding (RTB) and
provide value added services such as Engagement metrics,
deep analytics and the like.

26. Demand Side Platforms
• Supply Side Platforms are becoming common place in online
advertising and I expect them to become common in 2-3
years in mobile.
• WPP announced that they setup the first DSP for mobile;
traditional online players are also moving in to disrupt the
market
• Networks are completely un-prepared for DSPs

27. Role of the DSPs in Mobile
• Will drive simplification on the buy side.
• DSPs will enable mobile marketers to buy
media across various networks from a single
console enabling a quick check of the
performance across various networks.

28. ROLE OF RTB

29. Real Time Bidding
• Is a way in which advertisers bid for the most
effective impression at real-time.
• Is going to play a huge role in the future of
mobile advertising.
• All key stake holders must support RTB soon.

30. How RTB works
• RTB enables advertisers to buy media by
bidding at a per-impression level
• DSPs, SSPs and Ad Exchanges / Networks will
need to enable RTB, the benefits which are
very obvious:

31. How RTB Process Works
Slide courtesy: Pubmatic whitepaper

32. RTB with existing ad network tech

33. Closure Points
• The ecosystem is evolving faster than you
think; growth is fast paced and explosive
• Publishers can drive better yields with Ad
networks + SSPs
• Ad Networks and Aggregators must evolve;

34. A LITTLE BIT ABOUT US

35. About ZestADZ
• Leading Global mobile advertising network ; Acquired
by Komli in July 2011.
• Superb, Self service mobile ad market place with deep
targeting & analytics
• 200+ staff focused at mobile advertising starting
August in 12 global locations

36. ZestADZ USP
• Open platform: Full data transparency to external
networks and exchanges through API
• Real-time analytics with deep insight into data
• Superb self service system; Various tools that drive
performance mobile advertising.
• Great customer support; Massive global sales foot
print as a part of Komli.

37. ZestADZ Analytics
World class, real time analytics system that delivers key
data that could be used in significant performance
enhancements to the campaign

38. Real-time Advertiser Dashboard
Quickly compare data
Expand to view details

39. ZestADZ Advertiser View

40. Tools / API
• Local advertising: ZestADZ is one of the pioneers of local mobile
advertising.
• ZestADZ also has various tools that drive performance mobile advertising
• ZestADZ has the most open marketplace with full suite of API for
publishers (or SSPs) and advertisers (or DSPs)
•

41. Client Success

42. Contact
• Asif Ali
• asif@zestadz.com
• 98400 89876

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