Google Case Study
DFP Premium and Google Ad Exchange
help Times Internet benefit fully from digital
business boom
Launched in 1999, Times Internet is the online arm of the Times of India Group. Over
the past ten years, Google has forged a strong partnership with Times Internet which
was to prove especially valuable in meeting the challenges the business faced.
About Times Internet
• www.timesgroup.com
• Headquartered in Gurgaon, India
• Largest digital media house in India
Goals
• Consolidate huge display, mobile, and video
inventory across different platforms
• Establish exact value of each ad impression
on different sections of all websites
• Build detailed audience data
• Support multiple demand channels and
encourage competition between them
Approach
• Move total ad serving to DFP in close
cooperation with Google
• Use DFP Audience extension to build rich
first-party audience data and create new
advertising opportunity
• Compete with other third-party ad networks
Results
• Goals achieved in 1.5 instead of 3 years
• CTR for ad sales up by more than 100%
• CPM up 10%
• AdX revenue up 500%
• Ad serving moved to DFP across all platforms
– web, mobile and applications
One of the most significant of these, according to Swapnil Shrivastav, VP Ad
Technology, was “managing yield for each impression on different sections
of the website and apps”. Times Internet also needed to consolidate ad serving
to one platform, get the maximum value for each ad impression and make various
demand channels – including direct sales, indirect/programmatic channels and selfservice – compete with each other.
Google suggested DoubleClick for Publishers Premium (DFP) and Ad Exchange as a
way to achieve the Group’s unique goals. Swapnil, a tech veteran of 14 years, agreed.
According to Swapnil, implementing DFP and Ad Exchange was “a simple two-to-threestep process, across all platforms, including web, mobile and applications”.
After DFP and Ad Exchange were put in place, Times Internet saw a 10% lift in
click-through rate (CTR) for ad sales in six months. But when DFP was combined
with the in-house-developed Columbia optimization engine, CTR jumped by a
further 100%! In other words, Times Internet now has the ability to compete with
leading online media platforms like Facebook, and indeed Google itself.
Ad Exchange has delivered a 10% increase in cost per impression (CPI).
To date, Ad Exchange has been used for display advertising but Times Internet now
wants to extend it to video and in-app advertising. Swapnil also says that continuing
to attract and upsell to premium brand advertisers “is a key focus area for us going
forward”. He plans to do this on Ad Exchange by exposing their rich audience
segments through preferred deals and private auctions.
Moreover, the complexity of ad delivery and optimization is now all managed within
DFP and the adstack around it, rather than being scattered across the various
platforms. As a result, managing ad units is now easier and less time-consuming, and
for the first time, the Group has a complete real-time picture of its inventory and yield.
Having a unified system from order to invoice has also been “a really big benefit of DFP”
and the customized adstack.
With Times Internet expanding at a rapid rate, it is counting on Google to help scale
up to meet the demands and growth rate of digital business.
© 2014 Google Inc. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google Inc.
All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
Google Case Study
Integration of Google DoubleClick for Publishers with the Internet Times AdCenter’s custom adstack
“DFP helps give us the ability to scale
up and keep up with the demands and
growth of the digital industry. Ad Exchange
enables us to pick the low-hanging
fruit of display advertising.”
— Swapnil Shrivastav,
VP Ad Technology, Times Internet
About DFP Premium
The DFP premium solution provides ad serving
and management for publishers with large sales
teams and complex sales operations who often
require an advanced feature set, greater levels
of customization, and enhanced partnership
and consulting services.
For more information:
http://www.google.co.in/doubleclick/publishers/
About DoubleClick Ad Exchange
The DoubleClick Ad Exchange is a real-time
marketplace to buy and sell display advertising
space. By establishing an open marketplace
where prices are set in a real-time auction, the
Ad Exchange enables display ads and ad space
to be allocated much more efficiently and
easily across the web.
For more information:
http://www.google.co.in/doubleclick/
publishers/#tab=featured
© 2014 Google Inc. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google Inc.
All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.