Earlier this week, AerServ, the mobile-first video mediation platform, announced the public launch and general availability of its free monetization platform for publishers and app developers.
“Mobile Video is expected to grow by 300% in the next 5 years to more than $40B. It is increasingly mission-critical for companies to fully monetize this medium, but the options are currently limited,” said Josh Speyer, AerServ ‘s CEO. “Other options don’t offer the kind of high touch customer service that we do. Our goal in launching AerServ is to empower app publishers and developers of all sizes with a mobile-first video technology platform and superior customer service.”
The news signifies the arrival of the largest independent mediation platform on the market to date and will benefit publishers of all sizes looking for mediation and ad serving solutions to help them monetize their mobile traffic. In addition to the news, AerServ is also guaranteeing a $6 CPM for mobile interstitial impressions to publishers who integrate by October 30, 2014.
In the platform’s beta test period, AerServ worked with over 50 publishers to design a system that delivers on their precise mobile-video mediation and monetization needs including: cross device delivery, multi-type integrations and waterfalling and yield optimization. During that time, the platform averaged 500MM monthly mobile video views, making it one of the only sources of mobile video inventory at scale (others are YouTube and Facebook).
Based on reports from more than 65 publishers using AerServ’s mediation platform, AerServ clients have saw, on average, a 30% increase in eCPM, allowing them to expand video advertising across in-app inventories.
Seeing themselves as an enabler of competition on behalf of App Developers using their platform, Speyer would love to see increased competition for App ad inventory - across all ad formats – as increased competition can only serve to increased pricing and ad quality.
“Together those competitors can only benefit the quality developers and spur them on to create ever-better content for their consumers,” said Speyer.
The competition in the marketplace reflects how more consumers are moving to mobile, with ad dollars following suit.
“Aerserv’s head-head competition in the mobile space is other mediation providers,” said Speyer. “And as these platforms compete the beneficiary of that competition is App Developers and ultimately consumers.”
According to Speyer, Aerserv is constantly working to monitor the traffic quality of their publishers, however, as click fraud is prevalent in the desktop space, the botnets and malware that are believed to be the source of fraudulent desktop traffic does not exist in the same way in the mobile space. A comfort that many publishers seek.
A further testament to the company’s strong market position, AerServ is guaranteeing $6 CPMs for publishers, a move that is rare among ad networks or exchanges. In addition, the high CPM guaranteed eclipses those from banners or other ad units, meaning that publishers will be able to generate more revenue from their mobile inventory.