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Microsoft looks to boost mobile ad exchange with broader availability of inventory

Microsoft is making in-app ad inventory more broadly available as it looks to help advertisers achieve scale in the mobile space.

This week, the company announced that all Windows Phone 7 in-app ad inventory is now available globally via the Microsoft Advertising Exchange for Mobile, making this inventory available on AppNexus for the first time. This could provide advertisers with greater flexibility in buying mobile ads at scale.

?This announcement marks the first time AppNexus? online demand partners will have access to mobile inventory via the Microsoft Advertising Exchange,? said Jamie Wells, director of global trade marketing at Microsoft Mobile Advertising, Redmond, CA. ?Making all of Windows Phone 7 in-app inventory available on a real-time bidding (RTB) basis will help advertisers, ad networks and DSPs achieve scale and results more efficiently.?

Mobile space
The opening up of additional AppNexus? demand partners should help accelerate the growth of the Microsoft Advertising Exhange.

?Both the supply and demand associated with Windows Phone 7 mobile in-app inventory continues to surge on the Microsoft Advertising Exchange,? Mr. Walton said. ?In terms of supply, hundreds of millions of Windows Phone 7 in-app ad impressions are being served monthly and we are still experiencing double digit growth."

The broader availability of Windows Phone 7 in-app ad inventory will provide benefits to marketers such as the ability to use real-time ad bidding to increase media buying efficiency and maximize ROI, per Mr. Wells.

In addition, marketers can take advantage of larger banner size ads with click-to-Web and click-to-call support and enhanced targeting using age, gender, location and app category information.

?The combined benefits of enhanced targeting and media buying efficiency via real-time bidding provide scale benefits to both large and small advertisers,? Mr. Wells said.

?Also, advertisers will have the distinct advantage of extending their targeted audience reach across online and mobile devices using the same user interface on the Microsoft Advertising Exchange,? he said.

Where the audience is
Microsoft launched the Microsoft Advertising Exchange for Mobile last fall, enabling the deployment of display ads for applications based on the Windows Phone 7 operating system. According to the company, it was the first real-time bidded ad exchange for mobile devices.

Ad networks can bid on mobile ad inventory at the moment when an impression is served.

Smartphones for the Windows Phone 7 operating system started becoming available last year. Microsoft recently launched a new version of its Windows Phone 7 operating system that will power new Nokia handsets coming out later this year.

The company has not been as forthcoming about how many smartphones it has sold. Research company Gartner estimated that approximately 1.6 million of the smartphones were shipped in the first quarter, leaving Microsoft with a 3.6 share of the market.

In March, Microsoft released figures showing that the number of applications designed for the mobile operating system had grown significantly for a total of 11,500. It also said that Windows Phone 7 users download 12 apps per month and that 1,100 of the apps are ad supported.

In-app advertising is one of the ways to reach an audience via mobile.

For in-app advertising to make sense for marketers, however, there has to be enough people using an app.

?Microsoft is giving advertisers another audience to reach that is not on the iPhone,? said Neil Strother, Kirkland, WA-based mobile practice director at ABI Research. ?The Microsoft audience could be slightly different but attractive to certain brands.

?The real questions for advertisers is are those eyeballs they want to reach and is there enough of them,? he said.

While the audience for Microsoft smartphones might not be there right now, its recent deal with Nokia to jointly create mobile products and services could change this.

?A smart marketer has to recognize that the Microsoft audience could building in the not too distant future,? Mr. Strother said.

The interest in in-app ad inventory is being driven by the overall growth in smarpthones. ?As more people get smartphones, use them on a regular basis and download apps and use them with some frequency, that builds audiences,? he said.

?Where there are more apps out there, there is more potential for inventory because that is a place where advertisers want to meet consumers.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode, Mobile Marketer