Ad tech company AppNexus has just added to its already towering stature as a marketplace for video advertisers, announcing partnerships with six industry-leading demand-side platforms (DSPs).
The new partnerships with Adform, engage:BDR, MediaMath, The Trade Desk, Tremor Video, and TubeMogul suggests that AppNexus is looking to leverage a shift in the video advertising market.
Earlier in the year, Facebook took the decision to “sunset” its video ad platform LiveRail after it proved not as lucrative as hoped.
This was accompanied by Google’s decision to close open access to YouTube inventory, part of its increasingly walled-garden strategy, which led TubeMogul CEO, Brett Wilson, to brand the company “anti-competitive”.
What’s resulted is an “urgent time” for the video ad-buying market, according to Eric Hoffert, SVP of video technology at AppNexus, which is aligning its recent expansion into video to lap up a number of customers who have been left in the lurch.
Seismic shift
AppNexus states that its latest batch of partnerships accelerate plans to create the industry’s largest “exchange-driven video marketplace”.
It also comes on the heels of a number of new technologies launched by the group, such as its “anti-latency” solution, designed to speed up the loading time of videos.
By working these leading video bidders into the picture, along with its existing sources, AppNexus is looking to increase competition in the market and offer more choice to advertisers’ video campaigns, while cutting costs across the board.
AppNexus has certainly gained some distance ahead of competitors in the ad tech space, standing by a jack of all trades philosophy. Last year, it pitched itself against closest competitors in terms of breadth of specialisms, and it would appear it’s still winning the contest.