Tech Talk: Unruly, MediaMath, Trade Desk, Facebook and more

The Trade Desk to go public

Demand-side platform player The Trade Desk plans to raise US$86.3 million in its initial public offering

The company filed its S-1 document with the US Securities Exchange Commission on Monday (August 22), outlining its plans to go public on the NASDAQ.

The filings showed that in 2015, the company generated US$113.8 million in revenue, up 155.5 percent year-on-year. For the first six months of 2016, The Trade Desk generated US$77.6 million in revenue and adjusted EBITDA of US$20.1 million.

It had approximately 389 clients at the end of 2015, the majority of which were advertising agencies based in the US. As of June, the company had 387 employees, 296 of those based in the US.

Unruly gets vertical in Asia

Video ad tech company Unruly has launched a new vertical video ad format for the APAC market.

The new format comes as mobile is increasingly the device of choice for consumers watching video online. According to a new survey conducted by Unruly, South-East Asians are 12 percent more likely to watch video on their mobile than the global average.

The new outstream video unit - which can be bought programmatically or via Unruly’s sales team - can be distributed across the Open Web. It is compatible with both iOS and Android devices, displays ads the same way viewers consume videos on their mobile devices.

Vertical ad features

• The format inserts advertisers’ vertical video content into contextually relevant articles, maximizing attention;
• The format only begins to play when the video is in-view, and can be shared or scrolled past at any time, giving users ultimate control;
• The format loads after the editorial content and only plays sound when the viewer has actively activated sound using in-board controls;
• The mobile web format guarantees video views are viewable, as defined by the Media Ratings Council (MRC).

MediaMath goes Factual for hyperlocal capabilities

MediaMath has announced hyperlocal-targeting capabilities aimed at enabling marketers to deliver high-performing mobile advertising to users based on their real-time location. This solution is in partnership with location data provider Factual and leverages its Geopulse Proximity data service, which is integrated into MediaMath’s TerminalOne Marketing Operating System

MediaMath claims to be the first partner to fully embed Factual’s Geopulse Proximity Designer within its platform. The union will allow clients to design, build, and activate hyperlocal-targeting strategies directly within TerminalOne, for a seamless, end-to-end workflow.

Rahul Vasudev, managing director, Asia Pacific at MediaMath:

MediaMath has always worked towards the vision of becoming a Marketing OS for our clients. This means enabling our clients to seamlessly run their display, video, mobile and social media buys through our platform. Today, mobile is the fastest growing channel for us in APAC, and so we have been releasing a slew of new mobile-specific tools, that enable our clients to invest ever-increasing budgets on this channel.

Facebook adds more to slideshow

Facebook has rolled out new features to slideshow, its lightweight video ad format made from a series of still images. following the ad format’s launch last October. The new features are touted to make it even easier for advertisers to tell brand stories in emerging and high-growth countries and by small businesses that do not have the resources to create videos.

New features include:

• Add text and music: Advertisers can select text fonts, templates and colors to create a rich visual experience. They can also choose from audio tracks that reflect a range of different themes and will soon be able to upload their own audio tracks.
• Create a slideshow on mobile: Advertisers can now create slideshows on the go with their Android mobile device.
• Use assets from our stock image library: Slideshow is now fully integrated with Facebook's stock image database and the Pages Photo Library feature, so advertisers can choose from thousands of stock photos, reuse photos from their Pages Photo Library or upload new photos.
• Bring video to people on every connection speed: Advertisers can now easily turn videos into slideshows by uploading them into the slideshow tool, which will automatically select 10 image stills to use for building a slideshow. This can be combined with 2G targeting to simply and effectively deliver video creative to users on low bandwidth connections.

Sizmek and Fuisz to push shoppable video ads

Sizmek has announced a partnership with interactive video solutions provider, Fuisz Video, to enable brand marketers and agencies using Sizmek to serve object level interactive videos that propel consumer engagement through a full-service offering that extends the capabilities of interactive video ads.

Brand marketers can now scale and distribute shoppable, click-responsive video ad experiences that encourage consumers to dive in deeper and interact directly with specific objects, characters and scenes within a video.

Fuisz' authoring capabilities allow advertisers to convert pre-existing “flat” video assets into click-responsive video. Viewers are then able to intuitively select items and engage with specific elements of the creative to access product information, add merchandise to their wish list or shopping cart, or find the nearest location to buy.

Jaime Singson, director of product marketing for Sizmek:

The idea of shoppable video is certainly not new, however scaling the production and distribution of click-responsive experiences has always been the challenge. Fuisz’ object tracking and shoppable video capabilities provide our clients with the ability to drive conversion by making it simple for users to discover and take action.