Established in 2013, Adnimation is one of the industry’s leading monetization firms. The company’s proprietary SaaS platform manages the programmatic ad sales process for hundreds of publishers in the US and worldwide, intelligently selling their advertising space and maximizing their ad revenue. Adnimation is a Google Certified Publishing Partner (GCPP).
Maor Davidovich co-founded Adnimation after serving in a number of senior roles in the digital publishing and monetization fields, including VP Digital of the Jerusalem Post Group and VP of the ZAP Group, one of Israel’s leading e-commerce sites. He now serves as CEO of Adnimation.
Interview by Pamela Martinez
Can you tell us a little about Adnimation and what sets it apart from other ad tech companies?
Adnimation is unique in many ways. First, we believe that having the best technology is critical, but it is only one part of the equation. In addition to sophisticated technology, there needs to be a professional touch – actual people, monetization experts, who monitor and optimize the ads on a daily basis. That’s what Adnimation brings to the table – the industry’s most advanced technology, such as our proprietary hybrid header bidding, combined with a hands-on approach.
Second, we are one of the only companies in the industry that are fully transparent with their partnering publishers. Currently, the industry standard is to only show publishers their net revenue, which means that publishers don’t know how much they actually make or how much of a revenue share their monetization partner is actually taking. We go against this trend and show our publishers their gross revenue. That way, they can see for themselves how much they are making and have all the tools needed to make the best possible decisions for their business.
Lastly, we are 100% committed to the publisher. Most of our competitors offer solutions to publishers and advertisers, which we view as a conflict of interest. After all, if you’re trying to get the best deal for the publisher and the best deal for the advertiser, someone gets the short end of the stick. That’s why we only cater to publishers to ensure that they get the best possible deal.
You mentioned that you developed a proprietary hybrid header bidding solution. Can you explain a little more about that?
One of the things that we are most proud of is our hybrid header bidding solution.
Currently, there are two methods of header bidding – client-side and server-to-server – each with its own advantages and disadvantages. What we did was combine these two methods into one, merging the advantages of both methods while discarding the disadvantages. The results were tremendous.
We performed an in-depth study for a year, analyzing more than 100 partners for whom we implemented hybrid header bidding, and found that our solution outperforms the standard header bidding by more than 18%.
So, if a publisher was making $100,000 a year with standard header bidding, it could be making $118,000 with our hybrid header bidding. That’s a significant increase.
Pivoting to the world of CTV and OTT monetization, we understand that Adnimation has a proprietary solution to integrate Google’s video demand with CTV apps?
Thanks to the strong relationship we have with Google, we were the first company in the world to launch Google’s CTV and OTT monetization product, which enables us to grant our partnering publishers access to Google’s video demand for CTV and OTT.
To this end, we developed a proprietary CTV Fusion tool that offers publishers easy integration of Google’s video demand with their CTV apps.
The tool includes a custom wrapper that allows CTV publishers to access all of the functionality of Google’s PAL SDK, which is needed to access Google’s demand, without having to deal with the complicated implementation process.
The wrapper also integrates with existing ad servers and SSAIs, enabling publishers to access Google’s demand alongside their current ad networks. This creates more competition and allows CTV publishers to fully maximize their ad revenue.
Does your relationship with Google manifest in any other ways that benefit your publishers?
Yes, we are a Google Certified Publishing Partner (GCPP), which is Google’s highest level of publishing partners. There are only a select number of GCPPs in the world, and Adnimation is proud to be one of them.
The GCPP status represents a stamp of approval by Google, indicating to our publishers that we were thoroughly vetted by Google and have a proven track record of success. Being a GCPP also means that we are privy to new Google technology before everyone else.
What future developments can we expect from the monetization industry as a whole and Adnimation in particular?
Above all, we should expect the unexpected. The ad tech industry is so dynamic that it’s impossible to predict what will be in five years or even one year. What we do know is that the technology is constantly evolving, and it’s incumbent on us to always be ready, to never be complacent, and to always be researching and developing new technologies.
We have an entire team dedicated to this very thing, and we look forward to progressing and developing new technologies that will help our publishers continue to grow.
Is there anything else you would like our audience to know about Adnimation?
One important thing that we haven’t yet discussed is customer support, which is an aspect often overlooked in the industry. We pride ourselves in having a leading customer support team that fully understands the magnitude and responsibility of their role.
We have hundreds of partnering publishers, the majority of whom are in the US but many around the world as well, and we’ve heard so many stories from our publishers that switched to Adnimation from other companies, complaining that it would take days or even weeks to receive an answer.
These are people livelihoods, and we have an obligation to provide the best possible service. That means being available to our publishers via phone, email, Skype, Telegram, and any other medium that you can think of.
It also means being available after hours, and never leaving an issue to the next day.
