Posts for 'Altitude Digital'

Two video ad tech providers, Genesis Media and Altitude Digital, announced they have merged in a deal that is rooted in using data to optimize video publishers’ ad inventory. The new company combines Genesis Media’s technology to analyze publishers’ content, ads and audience with Altitude’s video supply side platform. The merged company will be called Genesis Media and be led by CEO Mark Yakanich, with Altitude’s Joe Grover becoming president and chief marketing officer.

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Mobile video is growing fast, but monetizing it fully is a work in progress. At the recent Video Ad Summit, participants on the “Capitalizing on Mobile as the First Screen” session included Justin Fadgen (VP, Business Development, Beachfront Media), Kevin Hein (U.S. Industry Lead, Technology and Telecom Vertical, Facebook), Manny Puentes (Chief Technology Officer, Altitude Digital) and Blake Sabatinelli (GM, Newsy) with Anna Bager (SVP, Mobile and Video, IAB), moderating.

Particular challenges for mobile video that the panelists raised included ad/video load times, a limited window to gain the viewer’s attention, standardized measurement, consistent user experiences and the growing role of data. The panelists also discussed the opportunities and challenges around distributed video models on social platforms and how much effort is required to optimize each, among other topics.

The conversation balanced perspectives from the advertiser, publisher, platform and technology perspectives really well. Mobile video has gained a lot of usage, but it’s clear that it’s still early days in fully monetizing it.

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Over the past 60 days Altitude Digital has added 35 new publishers to its Altitude ARENA programmatic video platform and has integrated 15 new demand-side platforms (DSPs). Altitude ARENA was launched as a self-service video platform this past April. Altitude’s CMO Joe Grover brought me up to speed on what’s behind the quick adoption.

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At the recent SHIFT // 2015 Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit, the data’s vital role in programmatic was a recurring them. In a dedicated morning session, “Data is the New King: Re-Aggregating Audiences in the Programmatic Era,” Matt Spiegel, SVP/GM, Marketing and Technology Solutions at MediaLink led an insightful discussion

Participating on the session were Bob Ivins (EVP, Cross Media Business Development, comScore),
Brian Leder (SVP, North America Media, Razorfish), Manny Puentes – CTO, Altitude Digital and Julian Zilberbrand (EVP, Audience Science, Viacom).

Among the many topics the group explored were how to validate 3rd-party data sets, how data drives ROIs, the impact data has on content creation, new staffing requirements and lots more.

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Video supply-side ad platform Altitude Digital has reduced the level of bot/non-human traffic (NHT) to under 1% of its video ad inventory. The milestone is the result of a 6-month initiative to improve quality, using fraud filtering and reporting technology in partnership with Integral Ad Science. The objective was to proactively filter bot/NHT inventory before it is seen by advertisers.

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Programmatic is one of the most important trends in the online video advertising industry, with eMarketer forecasting that in 2016 nearly $4 billion of online video advertising will be transacted programmatically. At last month’s Video Ad Summit, one of our sessions focused on programmatic video advertising from the advertiser/buy side and another from the content provider/sell side.

The advertiser/buy side session included Larry Allen (SVP, Business Development, Xaxis), Jim Caruso (VP, Product Strategy, Varick Media Management), Neeraj Kochhar (Managing Director, Buy-Side Platforms, Tremor Video), Troels Smit (Head of Demand Sales, LiveRail), with Gain Dunaway (Senior Editor, AdMonsters) moderating.

The content provider/sell side session included Doug Fleming (Director of Programmatic, Hulu), Manny Puentes (Chief Technology Officer, Altitude Digital), Sorosh Tavakoli (SVP, AdTech, Ooyala), Tim Trevathan (SVP, Publisher Solutions, Defy Media), with Ashley Swartz (CEO and Founder, Furious Corp.) moderating.

The session videos are included below. Taken together they provide a wealth of insights about where programmatic video advertising is today, the key opportunities and challenges for advertisers and content providers, what’s ahead, plus lots more.

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Video supply side ad platform Altitude Digital has raised $30 million from FastPay, a provider of liquidity and financial workflow solutions to the media industry. The new funds will be used for growing Altitude's ARENA platform and data infrastructure, expanding mobile capabilities and growing internationally. The new financing brings total capital raised to date to $45 million.

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Altitude Digital, a video supply side platform, has added two new VPs and anticipates more than doubling revenue to $50 million in 2014 as it has continued to expand its programmatic video advertising capabilities. Altitude has its roots in display, but has aggressively invested in programmatic video, now working with over 1,800 publishers.

The new hires include Ryan Abrahams as VP of New Revenue and Max Gideon, VP of Mobile. Abrahams was most recently Director of Publisher Development, East, for Nexage, a premium mobile ad exchange that was acquired last week by Millennial Media. Gideon was previously at Zynga, in business development and ad management positions.

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At the June 4th Online Video Ad Summit, audience targeting was a recurring theme. We had a dedicated session on the topic, led by Richard Glosser of Hilltop Digital, with panelists from Altitude Digital, Nielsen, Xaxis and Videology. Topics ranged included the role of Nielsen's Online Campaign Ratings, targeting across platforms, how programmatic fits in, the value of different types of data sets and more. (Duration is 39 minutes.)

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Anyone working in or around the video ad tech space knows how incredibly crowded and well-funded it is. So, when a couple of weeks ago I noticed that a company I was only mildly familiar with, Altitude Digital, announced it had raised $5 million, I was intrigued. While not a blockbuster-sized round, financings of this size signal that the investors, after having done their customary due diligence, see some "white space" still available to operate in.  To learn more, I recently spoke to Devin Yeager, Altitude's COO, and Joe Salvador, VP of Video Operations.

Denver-based Altitude started up about 4 years ago as a display ad rep firm, but 2 years ago began building its own technology. More recently, Altitude has expanded into video, creating a new division called Visualtising. As a whole, the company is now processing about 12 billion display and video ad impressions per month. Altitude currently has 20 employees and is looking to double in size this year. It was also #54 ranked on Inc. 5000 list last year. Expanding Visualtising is the main purpose of the new financing.

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