InMobi's latest deal will help APAC publishers pivot to video: CEO

Besides marking the growing trend of advertising technology consolidation, InMobi's purchase of AerServ this week will boost the India-based mobile ad firm's programmatic and video business, which makes up 35% of InMobi's overall revenue.

The deal allows InMobi to create a mediation platform that can auction on programmatic for in-app mobile publishers. It further increases the scale of the InMobi Exchange due supply side and demand side contributions from AerServ, specifically the addition of 90 billion monthly ad sessions and 2,000 mobile apps.

Speaking exclusively to Campaign Asia-Pacific, Naveen Tewari, the founder & CEO of InMobi said that the deal would affect APAC by launching the region's first mediation platform with support in header bidding technology.

"While premium publishers in the West have fully pivoted to video, publishers in APAC are still in the process, and we'll help them accelerate this process," said Tewari. "Brand buyers in Asia-Pacific have been driving their focus towards doing mobile video right - this acquisition will support advertiser initiatives towards greater transparency and scale in programmatic video in APAC."

The latest report from Publicis Groupe’s Zenith, predicts that by 2019, programmatic will be used to trade two-thirds of global digital display advertising. The findings projected that the expenditure on programmatic ads would rise from $57.5 billion to $84.9 billion over the next two years.

With integrations on more than 75 data service providers, exchanges, and agencies worldwide, AerServ has the potential to grow InMobi's reach with large-scale advertisers.

Post acquisition, the companies claim that their mobile viewability and video completion exceed industry benchmarks, at 90 percent and 70 percent respectively.

As the advertising technology ecosystem continues to clutter, achieving scale will become harder, which means that companies devoid of limitless investment sources will suffer.

With publishers entering into exclusivity agreements for guaranteed minimums, upfronts, and fixed premium eCPMs, advertising technology companies without the cash flow to justify similar deals could miss out on growing their supply side.

This is one of the reasons ad technology consolidation is likely to accelerate in 2018 and the years that follow.