Atlas Publisher is a publisher-side ad server. It works on behalf of the publisher to make an ad call when a publisher needs an ad on its own page. It’s about as different from a third party ad server (or advertiser ad server) as you can get. The third party (or advertiser) ad server works on behalf of the advertiser to select in real time the ad to be placed on the publishers site, and it measures and tracks clicks, conversions, and other “extended data”. Confusing the two is like confusing supply and demand, dog food and dog poop, or Australia and Austria.
But people continue to screw these up, and unless you want your dog to get sick or think that Sidney is famous for Wienerschnitzel, get this:
Publisher Ad Serving and Advertiser Ad Serving are different products.
Because I run the Atlas Advertiser Ad Server team at Microsoft, I have a personal interest on clarifying this confusion. Example culprit of perpetuating this confusion: the blog posted linked here.
Now I don’t want to pick on this guy Andrew. I could have just as easily pointed to other blogs, comments, or conversations around the same topic.
And the confusion is really unfortunate for Microsoft – and for digital marketers: when clients and prospects of Atlas Advertiser, Microsoft’s third-party (advertising) ad server, read blogs like the above and ask me ‘so you getting out of ad serving?’
Microsoft is partially to blame for this confusion. Our recent press release around Atlas Publisher (publisher ad serving) and a partnership with a company called OpenX did not do a great job of reinforcing this distinction. (Our poop stinks, too, but does not mean you should feed it to your dog or dine on it yourself…)
So, to speak explicitly about Atlas Advertiser: it currently has approximately 35% market share in the US (our swag estimates), is a stable 10 year old product, and is used by some of the largest global digital brands in the world. But most importantly, it is core to Microsoft’s advertising platform strategy, which is to utilize technology to make media buying and management more efficient and effective for marketers. This investment is evident in our core APIs to get data into and out of Atlas; in our Atlas Technology Partner Alliance program which allows media specialty applications (like Rich Media and Search) to integrate on the Atlas platform; our investment in Engagement Mapping which goes beyond the “last click” to track conversions and optimize media.
To be clear: Atlas Advertiser – the third party advertiser ad server – receives the investment and attention commensurate with a core strategic asset at Microsoft. (Atlas Publisher has a different and separate road ahead of it.)
So, please don’t confuse the two, you’ll get worms if you do. So there.
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Your (Andrew Frank’s) response to my blog post (Must Wash Hands Before Serving Ads on http://www.digitalCMO.com) shows balance, consideration, and keen interest in mapping the future of ad-serving (adveritser and publisher side) in a digital world that has changed markedly in the past few years. Thanks Andrew for listening to and understanding the key distinctions and bringing to light relevant questions and topics.
My post was mostly in reaction to the implied conclusion “MS must be getting out of adserving because of what we see on the publisher side.” So thanks for clearing that up. And for the record, Atlas ad
Once you cleared that up, the more important (I think) questions you raise come to light: how should advertisers consider the “objectivity” of ad serving (both advertiser and publisher) when those functions are owned by publishers (in the industry’s case, MSFT and Google. (We know that smaller players will not have the investment or scale to compete long term.) )
As the MSFT guy, I feel pretty good about MS’s track record of and current execution around building efficiency tools to enable professionals to do better work, to get promoted, to drive their biz. A bunch of MS Enterprise products speak to that. But rather than wax on that topic, I’d love to hear from digital marketers/agencies themselves on their experiences, their fears, their expectations of both MS and Google in the advertiser-side ad serving space. I’ll certainly invite folks on my blog, and perhaps invite them on yours – to chime in.
Thanks for responding to my post…and I’ll certainly invite folks to respond on my blog to chime as well to chime in on this important topic.
In a rare case of spontaneous balanced point-counterpoint contributions, I also received a comment from Amit Rahav, VP, Marketing at Eyeblaster, articulating the “neutrality first” viewpoint (complete with a highly engaging video): http://blogs.gartner.com/andrew_frank/2009/11/19/will-microsoft-exit-the-ad-server-business/#comments
Another distinction I think needs attention is the difference between the needs of smaller (a.k.a. “long tail”) advertisers and major (a.k.a. “agency”) media buyers. Clearly the same product can’t effectively address both.
I believe it’s the large buyers who will be the major contributors to the next wave of growth in online display, and they are more likely to demand clear evidence of independence and transparency in their buying tools.