• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, June 12, 2013

A couple of months ago, RTM Daily ran a Q&A with Martin van der Meij of De Telegraff, a Dutch daily morning newspaper. In the same vein, today's Q&A is with News Limited, one of Australia's largest media companies with assets in subscription television, Web sites, magazines, and newspapers. The News Corporation company also happens to be involved with real-time bidding (RTB).

Jason Barnes, head of commercial development at News Limited, spoke with RTM Daily to let us know why News Limited went the programmatic route, challenges they've encountered in terms of ad sales teams mixing with ad sales tech, and where he sees RTB going in the future for everyone involved.

RTM Daily: Can you give us a brief history of RTB at the company, including when you decided to trade inventory this way?

Jason Barnes: News Limited launched our private marketplace (PMP) with Rubicon Project in May 2012. Ad networks had never had access to our domestic inventory so making it available in an exchange environment was a major step for us, and parts of the business were very hesitant. The learnings through that stage were invaluable and set us up to be one of the most progressive publishers in this space in Australia.

RTM Daily: Why did you decide to go the programmatic route?

Barnes: A number of factors; (i) agencies were calling for us to participate and as key clients of ours we listened to them (ii) we anticipated a shift in spend to this channel and wanted to capture incremental revenue and market share, and (iii) we had heard positive stories about RTB producing yield increases for publishers and return on investment (ROI) increases for advertisers and wanted to test this firsthand. We started off dipping our toes in the water and found the experience to be positive, so we waded in waist deep, and now we are preparing to take the plunge!

RTM Daily: What does your tech stack look like, how has it improved over the years, and where does it still need improvement?

Barnes: We are continuing to evaluate, test and implement ad technology as our customers’ needs develop and our internal capabilities mature. We use DoubleClick as our primary ad server and AdX is a demand source for our international inventory, Rubicon Project is our supply-side platform (SSP), Adap.TV our video SSP and demand-side platform (DSP), and Krux provides data management platform (DMP) services. We are currently evaluating mobile solutions.

RTM Daily: Looking outside your role as publisher, what does RTB mean for all involved, including consumers and ad sales teams?

Barnes: RTB provides tangible benefits for most participants in the digital advertising world, and I believe this will drive its continued growth. Agencies get to access inventory more efficiently, marketers experience improved campaign performance and consumers see more relevant advertising.

RTM Daily: What are some bumps in the road you've experienced? Any that made you think twice about being involved with this type of tech?

Barnes: News Limited has always had full control of all our Australian inventory and it could only be accessed by speaking to one of our sales people. Having inventory in an exchange can disassociate sales from some of the campaigns being served, so we have worked very hard to educate the sales team on RTB and keep them informed on all our activity. The tech itself has never been a problem, but more how it interacts with different parts of our business and our clients.

RTM Daily: How did you overcome these issues (or how is the company in the process of overcoming)?

Barnes: Rubicon Project allows us to have a tremendous amount of control over our inventory. Buyers need permission to access our PMP which enables us to regulate who buys our inventory and develop relationships with them to ensure our product is meeting their needs. We can also apply block lists and pull reports which assist the direct sales team in tracking their client activity.

RTM Daily: Where do you see RTB taking not just your company, but the industry as a whole down the road?

Barnes: RTB will bring great efficiency to how News trades our remnant inventory by eliminating legacy internal processes and driving yield increases for our impressions. We are about to introduce audience targeting into our exchange, and I expect this will lead to a surge in revenue as good quality first party data has not been readily available in Australia. RTB will also allow us to compete more effectively with Google, Facebook and traditional ad networks that are, and have been, dominating this space.

RTM Daily: Thank you for your time!