AppNexus Introduces Comprehensive Inventory Quality (IQ) Standard

LONDON, June 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- AppNexus, the world's leading independent ad tech company, today introduced IQ, a suite of major policies, products and features that form the industry's most transparent and reliable marketplace for online inventory. Included in IQ are strict domain transparency standards, comprehensive Pre-bid Policy Enforcement, and AppNexus Spend Protection, a financial guarantee to advertisers. IQ establishes a new gold standard in digital advertising and brings maximal visibility and accountability to an industry that has long wrestled with the twin challenges of quality and verification. Alpha testing of IQ produced discernibly higher RPMs (revenue per 1000 impressions) and performance, indicating strong value and measurable results for both digital publishers and advertisers.

"Like all markets that join buyers and sellers, the online ad exchange functions best where there is maximum trust and transparency," said Brian O'Kelley, CEO of AppNexus. "Opaque markets are inefficient for all participants. IQ ensures that all inventory available on the AppNexus platform is of the highest quality and visibility. It's very simple: advertisers should be able to see what they are buying and know what they paid for. It's a principle that benefits buyers and sellers alike, as alpha results have clearly shown."

Under IQ, AppNexus has introduced tools and programs to enforce more strictly AppNexus's established guidelines that require impressions sold on its platform to lead to known, quality content, similar to its existing standards that require all ads to meet strict creative and topical criteria. In IQ's alpha phase, publishers have experienced lifts in RPMs ranging between 29 percent and 47 percent, while nearly two-thirds of advertisers have seen increases in response rates.

IQ represents a sweeping overhaul of AppNexus's approach to online advertising inventory on its platform. It creates meaningful enforcement of standards that regulate the marketplace and protect the interests of all parties by implementing:

• Pre-Bid Policy Enforcement, a combination of manual and automated systems that choke off the supply of invalid or unverifiable inventory;
• Domain Transparency, a strict policy that disallows domain masking and ensures that advertisers enjoy full insight into the inventory that they are buying;
• AppNexus Spend Protection (previously announced as "Certified Supply" in its alpha phase), a program that extends a money-back guarantee when third-party verification partners do not certify inventory purchased on the AppNexus platform.

"Most of our sell-side customers have eagerly embraced IQ," explained O'Kelley. "They want to monetize their inventory, and they know that the market will reward them for transparency. On the flip side, advertisers are willing to pay for quality and performance, as long as they can verify it."

"There will always be an important place for third-party verification services," continued O'Kelley. "We're making a categorical commitment to our buy-side partners, and we're empowering them to trust and verify our delivery on that commitment."

ABOUT APPNEXUS
AppNexus is a technology company that provides trading solutions and powers marketplaces for Internet advertising. Its open, unified, and powerful programmatic platform empowers customers to more effectively buy and sell media, allowing them to innovate, differentiate, and transform their businesses. As the world's leading independent ad tech company, AppNexus is led by the pioneers of the web's original ad exchanges. Headquartered in New York City with 23 global offices, AppNexus employs more than 900 of the brightest minds in advertising and technology who believe that advertising powers the Internet. For more information, follow us at @AppNexus or visit us at www.AppNexus.com.

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SOURCE AppNexus

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