Innovation in online advertising

Innovation in online advertising
网络广告的革新
Mad Men are watching you
广告狂人在看着你
How real-time bidding will affect media companies
实时竞价将如何影响传媒公司

May 5th 2011 | from the print edition

YOU are browsing for lampshades on a department store's website. You grow bored, and surf across to the website of your favourite daily newspaper. Mysteriously, the lampshades follow you: an advertisement for the same brand appears next to the article you are reading. Welcome to the world of real-time bidding, a cleverer and nosier way of selling advertising that is beginning to shake up the online media business.

你在一家百货公司网站上浏览灯罩信息，渐渐地你厌倦了，于是切换浏览心爱的日报网站。匪夷所思的是，灯罩如影随形：在你正在阅读的文章之后，便是一则同一品牌灯罩的广告。欢迎来到实时竞价的领域，这种广告方式愈发聪明和爱管闲事，并且开始改变网络传媒行业。

A decade ago online display advertisements, or "banners" as they were often known, were booming. Companies paid huge sums to appear on news websites. But, as the number of ads increased, people stopped noticing them. Now, for every 1,000 display ads that pop up, less than two are clicked on. Prices have slumped. Some media firms, notably News Corporation, have concluded that online ads will never bring in enough money to support a newspaper. Meanwhile search advertising, which reaches people when they seem to be interested in something, has grown from 1% of American online ad spending in 2000 to almost half, turning Google into a $172 billion company.

十年以前，网络陈列式广告，或者为人所知的"横幅"飞速发展。公司为在新闻网站显示而支付巨款。但是，随着广告数量攀升，人们不再关注它们。现在，1000个弹出式显示广告中，被点击的不到两个。价格降了下来。一些传媒公司――特别是新闻集团――得出结论：网络广告永远不能赚取足够的钱来支持一份报纸。与此同时，搜索式广告（这种广告只有在人们似乎对某种东西感兴趣时，才会出现）从2000年占美国网络广告花费的1%增加至近50%，得益于此，谷歌变成一家价值1720亿美元的公司。

Conventional display ads are simply wasteful, says Jakob Nielsen of GroupM, a large media buyer. Say a company wants to reach young men. It might buy ads on the sports section of a large portal such as Yahoo!. But it will also be paying for the women who visit that page. If it also buys ads on the sports section of another large portal, such as Microsoft's MSN.com, it will pay twice for the people who frequent both web pages.

大型媒介购买机构群邑(GroupM)公司的雅各布・尼尔森（Jakob Nielsen）说，传统陈列式广告简直是种浪费。比方说一家以小伙子为目标的公司，它或许会在如雅虎这样的门户网站的体育版块投放广告，但它也要为访问这个页面的女人们买单。如果它还在另一大型门户――比如微软的MSN.com的体育版块投放了广告，那么它将为经常同时访问这两个页面的人买两次单。

Real-time bidding helps solve these problems by allowing marketers to buy known audiences. Click to open a web page and an automated auction begins. Firms bid to serve an advertisement, taking into account where it will appear and what they know about the presumed viewer from digital traces he has inadvertently left around the web. The winner serves the advertisement, often customising it―so you may see more ads for convertible cars on a sunny day. The whole process generally takes some 150 milliseconds, or less than half the blink of an eye.

实时竞价通过允许商人为已知受众买单而解决了上述问题。点击打开一个网页，一次自动拍卖开始。公司们对在何处投放广告以及从假定受众上网时不经意留下的数字轨迹中了解的信息予以考虑，参与广告竞标。胜出者提供广告，经常是量身定做――所以在阳光灿烂的天气，你会看到更多关于敞篷车的广告。整个过程大概耗时150毫秒――不到眨一下眼所需时间的二分之一。

Many online ads―particularly the expensive ones that appear on home pages―are bought and sold much like old-media advertisements. A seller agrees on a price with a buyer, and then pays for lunch. But many publishers sell only one- to two-fifths of their online ads directly, says Jay Stevens of the Rubicon Project, a California firm that works with many of them. The rest are offloaded to digital middlemen. It is in this high-volume, low-cost market that real-time bidding is advancing. In the past year, says Mr Stevens, real-time bidding has risen from almost nowhere to capture 30-40% of spending.

许多网络广告，尤其是那种出现在主页的花费不菲的广告的买卖与传统媒体广告买卖十分相似。卖方与买方达成一致，于是成交。不过与许多出版公司打交道的位于加利福尼亚的Rubicon Project公司的杰・史蒂文斯（Jay Stevens ）说，这种直接方式只占到出版商卖出广告的1/5到2/5。剩余的都被数字中间商分流了。只有在大容量、低成本的市场中，实时竞价才体现出优势。史蒂文斯说，去年，实时竞价从几乎没有到占据30%-40%的开销。

Real-time bidding makes it easy to aim ads at susceptible eyeballs. Firms such as John Lewis (a British department store), Zappos (an online shoe-seller) and Lenovo (a computer-maker) know that you have visited their websites because they dropped digital markers onto your computer. They then outbid others to reach you again. This is called "retargeting".

实时竞价使得向那些易受影响的受众广告变得容易起来。像John Lewis（一家英国百货公司）、Zappos（一家网上卖鞋商）、联想（电脑制造商）此类的公司就知道你曾经访问过它们的网站――因为它们在你的电脑中植入了数字标记。然后通过竞标成功，它们再次走入你的视线。这被称作"访客找回"。

BSkyB, Britain's biggest pay-TV outfit, has used the technology to reach wealthier viewers who might be more interested in a new channel devoted to well-crafted American dramas. It has also taken aim at people who show an interest in 3-D television. And it has cut down on waste from trying to sell subscriptions to people who already have them. Matthew Turner, Sky's head of digital marketing, expects half the firm's online budget to go on real-time bidding within two or three years.

英国最大的付费电视机构天空广播公司（BSkyB）曾使用这种技术来接近富裕的观众――这些人或许对致力于奉献精心制作的美国戏剧的频道感兴趣。在瞄准对3D电视感兴趣的观众时，它如法炮制。通过将订阅卖给那些已经拥有的人，浪费支出得以削减。天空广播公司数字营销主管马修特纳（Matthew Turner）估计，在两到三年内，公司网上预算的一半将投入到实时竞价上来。

King Content v King Data
内容为王，还是数据为王

In the short term, what is good for advertisers is also good for ad sellers. Reducing waste raises prices. Laurent Cordier of Google says that retargeting can raise click-through rates five- or tenfold. Google now sells many ads on its Doubleclick ad exchange by means of real-time bidding, and is introducing the technology to YouTube, its video website. In 2010 display advertising actually gained market share in America, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Search fell slightly.

从短期看，对广告客户有利的，同样对广告卖方有利。浪费的减少推高了价格。谷歌公司的洛朗・科迪尔（Laurent Cordier）说，"访客找回"技术可以使点击率提高五到十倍。谷歌现在通过实时竞价在双击广告交易平台（Doubleclick ad exchange ）销售许多广告，并正准备将这一技术引入到其视频网站YouTube。据美国互动广告局（Interactive Advertising Bureau）报告，2010年陈列式广告市场份额有所增加，搜索式广告份额稍有下跌。

But the growth of real-time bidding may prove highly disruptive. An auction system allows everyone to discover the real value of online ads. It also provides a wealth of data to advertisers about the behaviour of their target audiences. These days some media firms can charge relatively high rates for online ads on the grounds that their websites are frequented by the young or the affluent. Increasingly, advertisers are learning how to reach the same people on other websites, for less money.

不过，实时竞价的增长可能被证明具有相当的破坏力。这种拍卖系统允许每个人发现网络广告的真实价值。它同样为广告客户提供相当多关于目标客户行为的数据。如今，一些传媒公司由于其网站经常被年轻人或大款们光顾，而收费相对较高。渐渐地，广告客户们了解到如何在其它站点上以更少的钱将广告传达到相同的受众。

As Mr Nielsen of GroupM puts it, the conversation between buyers and sellers of advertising is becoming unbalanced, with the former often armed with more data than the latter. Some media firms have responded by selling fewer ads through middlemen, in real time or otherwise. But that may mean ads go unsold. Media firms can also tilt the balance by discovering more about their customers than can be gleaned through auctions. The obvious way to do this is to force people to register for websites, or even to pay (which reveals their credit-card details and where they live). In short, content is no longer king online. Information about users is what really matters.

正如群邑(GroupM)公司的雅各布・尼尔森（Jakob Nielsen）指出的，由于广告买方比广告卖方掌握更多的数据，两者之间的平衡被打破了。一些传媒公司作出反应，减少通过中间商发布广告，而是采取实时或其它形式。不过，那或许意味着广告卖不动。媒体公司同样也可以发现客户更多的信息――而不只是通过拍卖进行收集，来使平衡发生倾斜。最明显的方式就是迫使用户注册网站或者支付（这将透露出用户的信用卡信息以及他们的住处）简言之，内容不再是网络之王。顾客的信息才是最要紧的。

Regulators may yet stymie the growth of real-time bidding. Targeted advertising is drawing anxious scrutiny from congressmen and journalists. A Wall Street Journal investigation into online tracking last year found that its own website dropped 60 digital markers onto a visiting computer. Before May 25th European governments must incorporate a privacy directive that is expected to make it easier for users to opt out of targeted ads. A confusing patchwork of laws may result.

管理机构迄今或许仍在阻止实时竞价的增长。目标式广告受到了国会议员们和记者们的用心审查。去年华尔街日报做出的一份关于网络跟踪的调查显示，它自己的网站在来访者的计算机中植入了60个数字标记。5月25日之前，欧洲各国政府必须将隐私法令具体化，这种隐私法令预计将使用户更容易地远离目标式广告。

But few expect radical change. So quickly has targeted advertising advanced that a ban would severely disrupt the internet economy. Web users are more likely to see little icons identifying targeted ads. If the past is any guide, people will learn to ignore them, too.

不过几乎没人期望出现根本性的改变。目标式广告如此迅猛地获得领先，对它的禁令将严重干扰互联网经济。网民们更愿意看到标识目标式广告的小图标。如果过去有什么借鉴的话，人们也会学着无视那些广告