NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwired – Jun 12, 2013) – LiveRail, the leading video monetization platform for publishers, today announced the availability of its latest suite of sell-side video ad management and optimization tools. The announcement was made today by LiveRail Co-Founder and CEO Mark Trefgarne at the LiveRail Video Publisher Forum in NYC.

LiveRail’s new release is transforming the way publishers manage, deliver, optimize, analyze and report video content and advertising across multiple screens. Additionally, LiveRail has partnered with many of the world’s largest RTB video buyers to pioneer and ensure cross-compatibility between their buy-side platforms and LiveRail’s new publisher toolset.

This latest version of LiveRail’s video publisher suite has been developed with features created in direct response to the needs of publishers, including Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings™, which will express audience measurement in the language of TV, enabling comparisons between a publisher’s audience and content to TV viewership.

“In a programmatic world, deploying the right technology is an essential component to publisher success,” said Mark Trefgarne, CEO, LiveRail. “As advertisers and agencies deploy ever more sophisticated tools for buying and measuring video advertising, publishers are increasingly turning to LiveRail to provide the technology they need to engage safely and profitably with these programmatic buyers. Our platform is far and away the most advanced and most sophisticated monetization toolset available for video publishers, and we’re excited to be extending that lead further with this latest release.”

“We are extremely pleased with publishers’ reaction to the new features we’re announcing today,” said Punit Sarin, VP of Product, LiveRail. “We believe that publishers deserve technology every bit as sophisticated as the tools available to advertisers, and our investment in core technology has propelled LiveRail to become the programmatic platform of choice for premium video publishers. They are choosing LiveRail because it can create quantifiable value, more control and increasingly effective ways for them to monetize their video ad inventory.”

Marquee features available within LiveRail’s latest suite of tools include:
1. Checkpoint: A unique advertising quarantine toolset that allows premium publishers to avoid direct sales channel conflict as well as verify and block ads from undesired advertisers.

2. Inspector: A real-time view into the vital information about the ad currently being shown in the browser. Operations teams use Inspector to view the ad type, origin, runtime information, price, and trackers as they happen. An ad may also be reported directly to LiveRail if not working as expected.

3. Mobile Updates: The Android and iOS in-app development tools now support all the core LiveRail platform features, including RTB. In addition, a new in-app SDK is available for FreeWheel users allowing calls to the LiveRail Platform to further improve monetization.

4. OCR: LiveRail announces two new features that integrate Nielsen OCR metrics directly into the platform. The first feature is in-flight campaign reporting which allows publishers to retrieve Nielsen metrics on a nightly basis. Secondly, a new OCR Planner will allow publishers to run a series of diagnostics on their inventory to understand audience composition as measured by Nielsen. This diagnostic information can be used as both a sales tool and to more effectively target Nielsen enabled campaigns to the best matching inventory.

The post LiveRail Previews New Suite of Cross-Platform Sell-Side Tools at Video Publisher Forum appeared first on LiveRail.

EMERYVILLE, Calif., June 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Today, TubeMogul and LiveRail announced the dates and locations for their 2013 Programmatic Branding Roadshow + Breakfast.

Throughout June and July, the companies and their leadership teams will be visiting various cities across the world. Confirmed attendees are influencers in video advertising, including executives from brands, media agencies and publishers.

Each stop on the tour will start with breakfast and include informative presentations, round-table discussions, panels and speaker sessions. Beyond the set agenda, there will be ample room for open discussions and opportunities to get questions answered, live. Speakers include Brett Wilson, TubeMogul Co-Founder & CEO, Keith Eadie, TubeMogul VP Marketing, Jason Lopatecki, TubeMogul CSO, Mark Trefgarne, LiveRail Co-Founder & CEO, Brian Kane, LiveRail COO and Erwin Castellanos, LiveRail CRO.

Those interested in joining TubeMogul and LiveRail on the road can reserve a seat today. Space is limited. The dates and locations for Programmatic Branding Roadshow + Breakfast are as follows:

• Atlanta: Thursday, June 13
• Dallas: Friday, June 14
• Boston: Tuesday, June 18
• New York: Wednesday, June 19
• Toronto: Thursday, June 20
• Dusseldorf: Monday, June 24
• Hamburg: Tuesday, June 25
• Los Angeles: Tuesday, June 25
• Paris: Wednesday, June 26
• Seattle: Wednesday, June 26
• London: Thursday, June 27
• San Francisco: Thursday, June 27
• Chicago: Tuesday, July 9
• Minneapolis: Wednesday, July 10
• Detroit: Thursday, July 11

Please visit the website for more information or contact programmatic_roadshow@tubemogul.com with any questions.

The post TubeMogul and LiveRail Announce Dates for Global Roadshow appeared first on LiveRail.

In a landscape that changes dramatically every single day, publishers are facing more questions and complexity than ever before. How do I monetize mobile audiences? How will programmatic impact my direct sales efforts? How can I optimize OCR delivery? Featuring more than twenty speakers from companies such as Viacom, Aol, CBS, Nielsen and Roku, the Publisher Forum will provide a sell-side centric environment where the world’s top publishers can explore best practices and learn first-hand from industry counterparts.

The event is being held at the Dream Hotel Downtown, and will kick-off at 12.30pm, and break for cocktails in the PHD Lounge at 5pm. Featured sessions of the Video Publisher Forum include:

• View from the Buy-Side: This session explores how the demand side really thinks, what drives media purchase behavior, and how can publishers secure increased spend.

• Anatomy of a Programmatic Direct Deal: This session will explore the real world considerations of driving a successful Video Private Exchange forward by means of a direct deal, using a recent success story as an example.

• The Publisher Perspective: Programmatic Video vs. Guaranteed: This session brings together some of the most forward-thinking publishers in the video advertising space to discuss their programmatic sales strategies.

• Publisher Perspective of Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings: Join Andrew Feigenson, SVP Ad Platforms at Nielsen, to discuss the impact of OCR on publishers. Find out first hand how the product works, why buyers are adopting it and how publishers are adjusting to its impact.

• Multi-platform Revenue Stream: Key executives from some of the industry’s most forward-thinking publishers and IP-Video distribution platforms offer lessons from the field and provide insight into the most successful strategies for capitalizing on the trend toward multi-platform video consumption.

I hope you’ll join us for what should be an incredible and very memorable event! Space is limited so request your invite today!

The post Sneak Peek: Video Publisher Forum appeared first on LiveRail.

The post Focused on the needs of Video Publishers appeared first on LiveRail.

As the Web video ad industry grows, so do the number of questions about the legitimacy of some of the available ad inventory out there. Such questions as: Where are my ads running? And how do I know if anyone can actually see them?

To head off such queries before doubt solidifies, a group of companies in the video ad sector formed a consortium aimed at establishing a common standard for measuring Web video viewability, dubbed OpenVV (Open Video View). The idea is get all the players on the same page when it comes to criteria for defining whether a video ad can actually be seen. And hopefully, the result is that brands get more comfortable—and dollars flow to the medium.

The group includes such frenemies as TubeMogul (which built the tech), BrightRoll, Innovid, SpotXchange and LiveRail (and notably doesn’t include YouTube, Hulu, AOL, Yahoo or the rest of the NewFront crew). That’s because DSPs like TubeMogul, SSPs like LiveRail or ad networks/exchanges like BrightRoll run ads all over the Internet, and thus face the most questions about ad viewability.

“It’s definitely coming up a lot,” said TubeMogul CEO Brett Wilson. “It’s not as bad as display, but I think when it comes to video that lives in the wild, more clients are wondering.”

The hope is to assuage clients with a common definition of video viewability. But that’s not quite what OpenVV is just yet. Rather, it’s just pieces of open source code, and any publisher is welcome to test and improve upon it. “I think this is the first open source tool in ad tech,” said TubeMogul’s chief strategy officer, Jason Lopatecki.

Per Lopatecki, the code will let publishers identify the portion of a video ad that is in view and measure the amount of time it’s viewed. The code requires no changes to a publisher’s site and doesn’t screw up any other ad serving tools or viewability tracking employed by the publisher, he said.

The thinking behind an open source code is that a standard developed and set by the industry as a whole has a much better shot at general acceptance than one dictated by an individual company. “We don’t think there’s a sustaining competitive advantage in maintaining viewability,” said Lopatecki.

“If we solve it for ourselves it was meaningless,” added Wilson. “It needs to be an industry approach.”

To that end, the consortium developed—in conjunction with ANA, the 4A’s and the IAB—Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) principles, which are being submitted to the 3MS leadership and the Media Rating Council (MRC). The system has been successfully tested across hundreds of millions of video ad impressions and thousands of publisher sites, and all parties plan to share each others’ data as things move forward.

Next up: getting more video purveyors on board. Google’s been invited, as have others. “We’ve just spent the last few months of putting all the pieces together,” said Wilson.

The post Group of Web Video Companies Band Together to Ensure Ads are Viewable appeared first on LiveRail.

Third-party ad calls and RTB
The 2.0 SDKs employ the same powerful RTB engine as the LiveRail Flash and HTML5 integrations. Publishers can now rely on equivalent delivery behavior across all LiveRail integrations.

Improved compatibility, stability, and resource handling
The new releases offer increased multi-threading, for reduced impact on the host app, as well as enhanced support for the latest mobile OS technologies, including Apple’s new Advertising ID.

Developer-friendly API
The LiveRail iOS and Android SDKs are subclasses of native UIView and View classes, so they are a cinch for developers to integrate. The ad experienced is designed for maximum flexibility, so publishers can easily customize it to match any app design.

New Examples app
The included Examples apps offer a wider variety of sample placements, as well as improved OS compatibility.

To download the new releases and get the full documentation, please visit the LiveRail Support Portal:

iOS Support
Android Support

The post Mobile SDK Announcement appeared first on LiveRail.

Last year, almost fifty million concerned citizens searched the Internet for “Hurricane Sandy”, seeking news about loved ones, information on the damage, advice on how to keep safe and ways to help the relief effort. Collectively these anonymous Internet searchers were described as an online audience, a group of people who cared about the storm, its progress and its impact.

While Google helped connect this audience with a handful of major news outlets via its search results, these people were also those most likely to volunteer their time to the relief effort and donate money to charities. Reaching them as a group proved invaluable for non-profit organizations as they sought the financial support needed to help rebuild communities impacted by the storm.

That, in a nutshell, is what audience-based advertising enables. It allows for large, anonymous groups of users to be shown content and advertising that is most relevant to their interests and when they’re most interested. And it’s a technology that so-called privacy advocates are trying to kill.

Since Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va) first introduced the Do Not Track Online Act, the advertising industry has rolled out an ad choices self-regulatory program that gives consumers the choice to opt-out of targeted ads.

The program, managed by the Digital Advertising Alliance, which includes the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the 4A’s, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), has participation from more than 90 percent of the interactive ad business. The program was even recognized by the FTC as a good example of public and private partnership.

In a recent AdWeek article about the reintroduction of the Do Not Track Online Act, Dan Jaffe, evp at the ANA said, “We think we’ve made extraordinary progress. More than 5 million people have come to our opt-out site, but only 1 million opt-out. When people understand their choices, the vast majority are accepting of targeted advertising. Getting non-targeted advertising is like getting spam.”

What stood out to me most is that consumers typically don’t opt-out when they have a better understanding of their choices.

To be quite frank, I’m as strongly pro-privacy as anybody I know. I abhor the idea of my pharmacist sharing my personal medical history with an insurance company, or a car manufacturer recording where I’m driving or how fast I drive. But these genuine intrusions on privacy have absolutely nothing to do with how online advertising functions. Online advertising companies aren’t trying to “track” you, or steal your private data – they simply create large, anonymous buckets of audiences with similar interests. Consider the alternative as Jaffe points out, what we’ll end with is basically spam. Regardless of what side of this debate you’re on, I’m confident that’s not the outcome you want.

The reality is that words like “privacy” and “tracking” are emotive terms. Everybody is “pro-privacy”, the same way we’re all technically “pro-life” as opposed to “pro-death.” But it’s a term that has been hijacked by a particular interest group with a specific agenda.

If something “protects privacy” or “prevents tracking” how could anyone be opposed? The privacy witch-hunt has developed a mob mentality, where fear mongering and emotive terminology are trumping genuine, informed debates.

The fact remains that online advertising is the lifeblood of the Internet. It’s what enables Google to deliver instant results and provide access to the world’s largest information source, it enables Facebook to help you connect with your friends and family, and Twitter to give up-to-the-second news on the world around you. All for free. But this foundation of the “free Internet” economy is under a very real and credible threat.

When advertising is more relevant, it’s less intrusive to consumers, more valuable to advertisers, and more profitable for publishers.

A world in which all browsers block third-party cookies (the technology upon which audience targeting is built) is not a privacy nirvana. It’s a world with a less vibrant, less open, less valuable Internet. Rather than being shown a handful of interesting, relevant ads, users will find their favorite sites flooded with even more, low value ads as publishers seek to recapture the revenue lost from advertisers who can no longer reach their relevant audiences. Users will see more publishers erect pay-walls, blocking free content and forcing users to pay for access. And worst of all, it won’t actually provide any meaningful protection of consumer’s privacy in the process.

No one is arguing that a consumer’s privacy isn’t important. Consumers deserve protection now more than ever in a world where information flows so freely and openly. But as we work towards putting safeguards in place, let’s be sure we do so in a way that actually addresses the right issues.

The bottom line is that we are in very real danger of making far-reaching, important decisions about the way the Internet works based on fear and ignorance. If we fail to make smart, educated decisions about the use of audience data, we could put the very future of the Internet in jeopardy.

The post Why We Need to Rebrand Do Not Track… appeared first on LiveRail.

Last year, almost fifty million concerned citizens searched the Internet for “Hurricane Sandy”, seeking news about loved ones, information on the damage, advice on how to keep safe and ways to help the relief effort. Collectively these anonymous Internet searchers were described as an online audience, a group of people who cared about the storm, its progress and its impact.

While Google helped connect this audience with a handful of major news outlets via its search results, these people were also those most likely to volunteer their time to the relief effort and donate money to charities. Reaching them as a group proved invaluable for non-profit organizations as they sought the financial support needed to help rebuild communities impacted by the storm.

That, in a nutshell, is what audience-based advertising enables. It allows for large, anonymous groups of users to be shown content and advertising that is most relevant to their interests and when they’re most interested. And it’s a technology that so-called privacy advocates are trying to kill.

Since Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va) first introduced the Do Not Track Online Act, the advertising industry has rolled out an ad choices self-regulatory program that gives consumers the choice to opt-out of targeted ads.

The program, managed by the Digital Advertising Alliance, which includes the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the 4A’s, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), has participation from more than 90 percent of the interactive ad business. The program was even recognized by the FTC as a good example of public and private partnership.

In a recent AdWeek article about the reintroduction of the Do Not Track Online Act, Dan Jaffe, evp at the ANA said, “We think we’ve made extraordinary progress. More than 5 million people have come to our opt-out site, but only 1 million opt-out. When people understand their choices, the vast majority are accepting of targeted advertising. Getting non-targeted advertising is like getting spam.”

What stood out to me most is that consumers typically don’t opt-out when they have a better understanding of their choices.

To be quite frank, I’m as strongly pro-privacy as anybody I know. I abhor the idea of my pharmacist sharing my personal medical history with an insurance company, or a car manufacturer recording where I’m driving or how fast I drive. But these genuine intrusions on privacy have absolutely nothing to do with how online advertising functions. Online advertising companies aren’t trying to “track” you, or steal your private data – they simply create large, anonymous buckets of audiences with similar interests. Consider the alternative as Jaffe points out, what we’ll end with is basically spam. Regardless of what side of this debate you’re on, I’m confident that’s not the outcome you want.

The reality is that words like “privacy” and “tracking” are emotive terms. Everybody is “pro-privacy”, the same way we’re all technically “pro-life” as opposed to “pro-death.” But it’s a term that has been hijacked by a particular interest group with a specific agenda.

If something “protects privacy” or “prevents tracking” how could anyone be opposed? The privacy witch-hunt has developed a mob mentality, where fear mongering and emotive terminology are trumping genuine, informed debates.

The fact remains that online advertising is the lifeblood of the Internet. It’s what enables Google to deliver instant results and provide access to the world’s largest information source, it enables Facebook to help you connect with your friends and family, and Twitter to give up-to-the-second news on the world around you. All for free. But this foundation of the “free Internet” economy is under a very real and credible threat.

When advertising is more relevant, it’s less intrusive to consumers, more valuable to advertisers, and more profitable for publishers.

A world in which all browsers block third-party cookies (the technology upon which audience targeting is built) is not a privacy nirvana. It’s a world with a less vibrant, less open, less valuable Internet. Rather than being shown a handful of interesting, relevant ads, users will find their favorite sites flooded with even more, low value ads as publishers seek to recapture the revenue lost from advertisers who can no longer reach their relevant audiences. Users will see more publishers erect pay-walls, blocking free content and forcing users to pay for access. And worst of all, it won’t actually provide any meaningful protection of consumer’s privacy in the process.

No one is arguing that a consumer’s privacy isn’t important. Consumers deserve protection now more than ever in a world where information flows so freely and openly. But as we work towards putting safeguards in place, let’s be sure we do so in a way that actually addresses the right issues.

The bottom line is that we are in very real danger of making far-reaching, important decisions about the way the Internet works based on fear and ignorance. If we fail to make smart, educated decisions about the use of audience data, we could put the very future of the Internet in jeopardy.

The post Why We Need to Rebrand Do Not Track as Do Not Be Alarmed appeared first on LiveRail.

Can you talk about the genesis of your VPX strategy – what drove the decision?

“We took our key learnings from applying real-time buying to some of our display inventory and applied those controls to our approach to VPX. CBS Interactive is the world’s largest digital publisher of premium content with a wealth of inventory spanning key lifestyle categories including entertainment, tech news, gaming, and more, all of which are original and of the highest quality. We’re able to both enhance the user experience as well as monetize this inventory appropriately. We use VPX to complement direct sales and as a method to leverage non-guaranteed inventory. We’ve been able to build a greater offering and avoid the risk of cannibalizing our inventory.”

How do you view programmatic and direct-sales co-existing?

“It depends on the publisher. In our view, we see them as complementary, both channels can propagate and grow in alignment and do not have to drive channel conflict with one another. We’ve taken great care in deciding which of our properties are offered through VPX, and in how we package and segment that inventory to differentiate the value proposition of buying direct or through our VPX channel. We’ve created a world where they can co-exist and the programmatic channel is just a supplementary method for delivery and execution.”

How important are controls (i.e. pricing floors, advertiser block lists, etc.) to a successful VPX?

“Within the VPX solution, it’s the differentiation between where we are now and where we were two or three years ago. There weren’t enough controls in place a few years ago and that’s why we were very careful in regards to our approach to any type of PX platform or non-guaranteed channel.”
“In order for VPX to be successful, there must be a breadth of controls available that address each publisher’s particular inventory and preferences, all while offering a simple user-experience for the advertiser. With the controls available now, whether it’s price floors, enabling transparency, or blocks, there’s more comfort and stability in the process. Because of these controls we as a platform are more open to try out new opportunities than we were in the past.”

What are some learnings that you found in opening up a private exchange?

“We have gained a lot of insight and transparency by opening up a private exchange. We have a better idea of how this video inventory is being leveraged down to specific categories and have been able to gain valuable insights into what VPX buyers goals are and how our inventory is meeting those goals. It’s a lot more collaborative- from lead generation to market research, understanding the real time aspects and how valuable the inventory is. By putting your inventory on a private exchange, you’re monetizing more effectively but you’re also able to gain insights and discuss more openly what the buyers goals are and you really get a sense of how your inventory is being used and whether it’s met their goals and needs.”

To read the complete interview and learn more about David’s perspective on private exchange for video, download our 2013  white paper .

The post The Sell-Side Perspective with CBS Interactive appeared first on LiveRail.

Digiday Dialog with LiveRail: Why RTB is Coming to Video from Digiday on Vimeo.

The post Digiday Dialog: Why RTB is Coming to Video appeared first on LiveRail.