Commentary

Real-Time With AOL's Gallagher On The Millennial Media Purchase

Nearly a decade after acquiring one of the (then) biggest mobile ad networks on the market in Third Screen Media, AOL is at it again -- this time via its acquisition of Millennial Media.

Rumors from earlier this year proved to be true, as AOL on Thursday announced its acquisition of Millennial Media for roughly $240 million.

AOL, recently acquired by Verizon, is looking to get a leg up in the mobile advertising space by acquiring Millennial Media. That was the plan with Third Screen Media as well, but it never materialized. The hope is that things are different this time around.

Chad Gallagher, global director of mobile at AOL, told Real-Time Daily that AOL was interested in Millennial Media because Millennial’s tech fills a void in AOL’s already formidable ad tech stack.

Real-Time Daily spoke with Gallagher about the acquisition.

Real-Time Daily: What led you to Millennial Media?

Chad Gallagher: The last couple of years we’ve had an incredible focus on mobile, and what you’re now seeing is just an acceleration of that. When we looked at Millennial, we said: ‘Look, they have a global in-app SSP solution that is a nice compliment to what we already have here.’

They also have awesome mobile engineering talent. It felt right from the beginning and just accelerates everything we’re doing.

RTD: How does it compliment what you already have?

Gallagher: We launched an SSP about two year ago called MarketPlace. It’s very strong on the desktop and mobile Web side. Where Millennial really fits in nicely is their in-app SSP.

RTD: So what does Millennial Media bring to the data table that Verizon/AOL didn’t already bring?

Gallagher: They are aggressive with working with third-party publishers and [those publishers’] first-party data, and using that data to create rich targeting solutions for advertisers.

Regarding the overall data story, that's something we’ll be more vocal about in the coming weeks and months.

RTD: But, essentially, partnership will allow AOL to use first-party data from mobile app publishers that can be used to create audience segments?

Gallagher: There’s more to it than that -- and like I said, we’ll discuss more of the specific strategies in the coming months -- but that’s the general idea, yes.

If you think about one of the problems marketers have today with targeting -- you know, there’s tons of awesome targeting solutions at scale, like DMPs, etc; that ecosystem is built-out -- but in the in-app world, it’s still very nascent.

I talk to marketers all the time that are still having a hard time connecting the pipes to reach their audience at scale, in-app, which is where more and more consumers are going. That’s the opportunity: Give marketers an easier way to reach marketers at scale.

RTD: How long has this been on your radar?

Gallagher: For the last three years we’ve been aggressively building into mobile. This is not going to replace all of our technology. We’ve already got some great tech and will continue to build. I view this as an acceleration; we’re adding a bunch of engineers.

RTD: Can you give us a sense of how many engineers you are adding, or how big Millennial Media is?

I have a few top line numbers. Millennial Media access a billion global active unique users per month. Some 65,000 apps have access to their publisher suite of offerings. In terms of mobile data, over 100 million mobile profiles will be added to our growing data set.

On the engineering front, over 100 engineers specialized in mobile are joining our team.

RTD: Will Millennial Media continue to operate as its own company?

Gallagher: I don’t want to comment too much yet, since the deal hasn’t closed. Once it closes we can do a further look into the integration. 

RTD: Were AOL and Millennial Media partners prior to this?

Gallagher: From an RTB perspective, we bid into their SSP. So from that perspective, yes.

And that’s one of the reasons why we are excited. It’s not like we are starting fresh here. 

RTD: How do you ensure that you won’t favor Millennial Media inventory, since you offer both buy- and sell-side technology?

Gallagher: Our platforms are 100% built to optimize toward a marketer’s goals. Where that inventory sits doesn’t matter to the optimization platform.

Whether it’s inventory we own -- via our direct desktop SSP or, now, our in-app SSP -- from our perspective, it’s all about meeting client goals.

Frankly, we’ve been doing this for years. Nothing changes here. It’s even more direct access to inventory, and that’s a good thing for marketers. It decreases the tech tax, as marketers don’t need these individual platforms.

RTD: Is Millennial Media’s platform all RTB? 

Gallagher: Their in-app SSP is RTB. They do also have some more traditional static buys that are enabled, but RTB is the focus of their in-app solution.

RTD: Will you keep it that way?

Gallagher: Yes. We have no plans to disrupt that business. That’s why we are acquiring it.

1 comment about "Real-Time With AOL's Gallagher On The Millennial Media Purchase".
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  1. Henry Blaufox from Dragon360, September 4, 2015 at 11:43 a.m.

    Seems like a key goal here is more data crunching for targeting - Millennial, pluse the Verizon user profiles, along with whatever else AOL has can be presented to the buy and sell sides as a value add. Verizon's interest in mobile should be apparent - it's pretty much their primary business.

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