Today, you may have read that TubeMogul agreed to terms to transfer ownership of InPlay, the company’s longstanding analytics for publishers. TubeMogul, which started as a video measurement company for publishers, shifted its focus in the past year after launching the fastest growing real-time media buying platform for video advertising.

Although TubeMogul is divesting its publisher analytics, the real-time reporting tools more recently developed developed for TubeMogul’s video advertising platform will be unaffected, giving clients uninterrupted access to unrivaled audience, engagement and brand impact data by site and by ad. In fact, the company is even pushing live several updates as we write this.

Here is what our CEO, Brett Wilson, had to say: “TubeMogul InPlay was built to help publishers better understand their viewers to drive deeper engagement, and it has largely delivered on that promise. As we shift our focus from publishers to brand advertisers, this deal helps us align our capabilities with the needs of marketers, while ensuring they get the transparency and reporting they have come to expect.”

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Yahoo recently announced it would limit the availability of unsold ad inventory on the Right Media Exchange (RMX), which is one of TubeMogul’s partners and inventory sources. TubeMogul was not one of the companies restricted by this move and we are encouraged by both the new rules and conversations with clients. To get a better idea as to why, here is our CEO’s response to a recent journalist inquiry on the subject:

We are largely positive on this move. Many of our demand side platform clients already have their own RMX seats. In these cases we may actually benefit as the media liability shifts from TubeMogul to the client. Also, as a media buying platform, we may gain clients that are currently buying from ad networks. Given this move, the only people who will have access to Yahoo real-time bidded inventory is agencies who buy through DSPs. However, there could be some short-term pain for clients that don’t yet have a seat and the time frame for transition is small.

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The latest comScore numbers are out and TubeMogul ranked in the top ten in terms of video ads served, coming in right behind CBS Interactive and Microsoft. According to comScore, TubeMogul served over 345 million video ads and reached nearly two in ten video viewers in the U.S. Given that TubeMogul’s real-time media buying platform for brand advertising only launched in April, this is a rapid rise and a sign of confidence from the major trading desks signed globally, who made this possible.

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As a real-time media buying platform for video advertising that empowers clients to buy across a diverse set of inventory sources and devices, TubeMogul is in a unique position to look at market trends, including on price. Think of it as “Yahoo! Finance” for brand advertising online, with this as the sneak preview.

Taking a sample of 29.34 million pre-roll ad streams in the U.S., TubeMogul averaged daily clearing price per 1000 viewers (CPM). For comScore top 100 Video Metrix publishers, including top media companies and popular sites like YouTube, CPMs are steady and growing slightly. The average CPM in October was $10.08, up 5.1% from August’s average of $9.59 but down a few cents from September’s average ($10.12). Expanding the sample to all sites, CPMs varied little, but were consistently several dollars lower than comScore-ranked sites.

By category, the most pronounced trend occured in an index of comScore-ranked women’s sites (i.e. Elle, Glam, Oprah.com), which saw a significant spike, rising to $10.10 in October.

It should be noted that these are the prices from the real-time bidding exchanges, which do not reflect any overhead charged by TubeMogul or another third party (i.e. a data provider). How is TubeMogul able to publicly disclose pricing data this way? As noted, the company charges negotiated, transparent overhead to its platform users.

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Last week we sponsored a party with RadiumOne at 1Oak New York coinciding with the Ad:Tech convention in town. If it’s not apparent from the photos, fun was had by all. We had a blast meeting with everyone outside the office space. Look forward to similar events in the near future! Until then, here are more photos to hold you over.

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As a real-time media buying platform for video advertising, TubeMogul processes a lot of data on ad spots available for bidding in a given day across both pre-roll and display inventory. In all, these marketplaces are bigger than the New York Stock Exchange in terms of daily transactions.

While it is widely known that display volume is large due to a glut in inventory, a less known fact is that pre-roll video advertising is steadily catching up. Aggregating across the major exchanges and sell-side platforms, from Doubleclick (which includes YouTube pre-roll) to spotXchange and beyond (see a full list of inventory partners here), and controlling for inventory pushed live due to new company partnerships, TubeMogul analyzed average growth in daily volume of ad spots available in the U.S. (inset).

In the past five months, pre-roll volume grew by an average of 34.9% per month, far outpacing display advertising’s 7.8% monthly growth rate. In November, we are seeing an average of over 200 million auctions per day.

What is the quality of these impressions coming online? We know from previous research that close to one-third of this pre-roll volume (29.1% on average) comes from sites ranked in the top 100 in comScore Video Metrix. YouTube, despite its massive size, accounts for only one-fifth of that.

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Today, TubeMogul’s brand-focused video advertising platform launched new capabilities that let clients more easily target an audience using their own or verified third-party data across pre-roll and display. The suite features easy-to use audience segments that update in real-time from BlueKai and dozens of other sources, as well as tools to re-target based on a brand’s own data or campaign goals (i.e. completions). More here.

This launch should be welcome news to many brand marketers, who often believe in the promise of data-driven buying but are accustomed to drowning in options and not knowing precisely what worked (or where). As always, TubeMogul features built-in and third-party reporting on impact and the ability to shift spending by ad creative, placement and site accordingly. “Using audience data inherently involves a lot of experimenting and tweaking, and we typically see great lift in purchase intent and product recall following video exposure,” notes John Grudnowski, CEO of FRWD, in the release. “To have this all accessible with built-in reporting opens up more possibilities to make an impact across media inventory. It’s very interesting.”

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As privacy in digital advertising continues to rise as a concern among both regulators and the public, TubeMogul shares the desire for additional safeguards. In addition to participating in numerous trade associations and voluntary Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) guidelines, TubeMogul offers a global opt-out here.

The company took its privacy safeguards a step further today, implementing TRUSTe AdChoice icons on all video ads targeted using 3rd-party audience data on PlayTime, the company’s brand-focused video advertising platform. To opt out or learn more, a viewer can simply click the icon. TRUSTe, widely seen as the market leader, serves over 10 billion impressions per month and is the only provider recognized in the United States Federal Trade Commission 2010 privacy report. Here is an image of it in action:

Beyond opt-outs, TubeMogul believes that “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” to quote former U.S. Justice Louis Brandeis. In other words, transparency will lead us to a better solution. When brand advertisers — who care deeply about their customers’ perceptions — are in complete control, privacy problems are less likely to happen. To that end, PlayTime always puts marketers in complete control over where their ads are run, how they are targeted and much more, with additional tools to protect against fake pre-roll and placements that play without a viewer’s expressed intent.

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