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Index Quarterly Report
Q1 2014
US PROGRAMMATIC AD TRADING
MARKETPLACE ANALYSIS
2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2
SUMMARY
The US programmatic advertising market continues to
show signs of strong growth posting a 75% increase
in RTB ad spending alone in 2013 according to eMarketer
estimates
1
.
Up to now, direct response strategies, fuelled by
retargeting eciencies, have dominated programmatic
spending in the US. We speculate that marketer oerings
more suited to brand communications will show a rise in
programmatic spend through 2014, as initial tests prove
successful and the creative application of rst party data
to media selection evolves.
A strong year-over-year rise was observered in the share
of marketer owned DSP seats, suggesting that big brands
are rmly committing to the channel. We expect to see
more marketers embrance an in-house, self-service
approach to programmatic over the course of 2014, while
better cross-platform unication and wider availability of
rich media supportable inventory will encourage further
investment in programmaticly managed branding spend.
This report will unveil US RTB spending trends with a
focus on the period spanning Q4 2013 through Q1 2014
using auction data harnessed from the RTB activity that
transacts through Casale Medias Index Exchange.
Index sees and reports on every major source of
programmatic demand in the US.
Highlights
The top ten spending brands in the US claimed
18.2% of the entire market in Q1, led by AT&T.
Retail ended 2013 in the top spot - maintaining more
than double the market share of the second largest
sector throughout all four quarters of 2013.
Three sectors (Retail, Financial and Telecom)
accounted for more than half of all spending in Q1.
The market share held by Local brands more than
doubled year-over-year.
Spending by CPG brands during the second half
of 2013 and into the rst quarter of 2014 reached a
historical high, with several CPG marketers making
their debut in the top 25 at some point over the
period.
1 http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Advertisers-Continue-Rapid-
Adoption-of-Programmatic-Buying/1010414
Bid density was down 12% overall in Q1 2014
compared with the Q4 annual peak, but up
signicantly (30%) relative to Q1 the previous year
signalling healthy growth in marketer adoption over
the course of 2013.
CPMs dipped only slightly (10%) in Q1 2014
compared to the Q4 2013 peak.
Financial sector spending surged during the Q1 tax
season posting more growth than any other sector
over the period.
Travel CPMs led the market through both Q4 2013
and Q1 2014 driven by the winter holiday season.
The top three demand side platforms (DSPs)
accounted for nearly half (47.5%) of the market.
Programmatic spend originating from trading seats
owned directly by the brand marketer jumped from
3% in Q4 2012 to 11% in Q4 2013.
65% of all platform impressions were tied to cookies,
down 18% from Q1 2013.
WHATS INSIDE?
3 BRAND SPENDING
3 LEADING SECTORS
4 BIDDING BEHAVIOR
6 DSP ACTIVITY
7 COOKIES, PLATFORMS & BROWSERS
10 METHODOLOGY
11 ABOUT INDEX
2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 3
BRAND SPENDING
Global/National brands still represent the majority of
programmatic spending in the US accounting for more
than 68% of the market in Q1 2014, down from 74% in Q1
the year before. The market share held by Local brands
more than doubled over the same period growing from
2% in Q1 2013 to 4.7% in Q1 2014.
MARKET SHARE BY BRAND TIER
Q1 2014 US
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Q1 witnessed an expected seasonal surge in spending
from Financial Services brand, H&R Block. The brand
registered virtually no trading activity in the fourth
quarter, but in Q1 it ranked as the seventh highest
spender overall.
Retail spending was predictably strong during Q4 with
retailer, Target, claiming the top spot for market share.
Auto and Telecom brands were well represented over the
course of both quarters.
Spending by CPG brands during the second half of 2013
and into the rst quarter of 2014 was historically strong,
with several CPG marketers making their debut in the
top 25 for market share at some point over the period
including Unilever (a top 10 spender in Q4), Nestle, Mars,
Mondelez and Johnson & Johnson. This is a stark contrast
to the rst half of 2013 during which CPG brands were
absent from the top 25 spenders list.
The top 100 spending brands accounted for 56.7% of Q1
market share, down from 64% the year before. Still, only
25 brands were responsible for more than one quarter
(30.6%) of all spending in Q1 - suggesting that there
remains ample room for growth.
TOP SPENDING BRANDS RANKED BY MARKET SHARE
Q4 2013-Q1 2014 US

Q4 2013 Q1 2014
RANK BRAND INDEX BRAND INDEX
1 Target 93 AT&T 100
2 Ford 55 Target 73
3 Motorola 52 Verizon 52
4 AT&T 49 Ford 47
5 Chrysler 49 Toyota 43
6 Verizon 48 Comcast 38
7 GM 47 H&R Block 34
8 L.L. Bean 43 Staples 32
9 Unilever 42 Sprint Nextel 29
10 Toyota 37 Chrysler 28

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LEADING SECTORS
Retail remained the top spender throughout 2013 and
into the rst quarter of 2014, although its spending index
fell by 25 points in Q1 relative to the Q4 Retail boom.
The Financial sector posted the largest quarter over
quarter growth, ranking second for market share in Q1,
just behind Retail. This jump can be attributed to elevated
seasonal spending by tax services brands.
TOP 5 SPENDING FINANCIAL BRANDS
Q1 2014 US
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2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 4
FINANCIAL MARKET SHARE BY SUB-CATEGORY
Q1 2014 US
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The top three sectors (Retail, Financial and Telecom)
together accounted for more than half of all Q1 spending.
TOP SPENDING SECTORS RANKED BY MARKET SHARE
Q4 2013-Q1 2014 US

Q4 2013 Q1 2014
RANK SECTOR INDEX SECTOR INDEX
1 Retail 100 Retail 75
2 Auto 39 Financial 38
3 Telecom 38 Telecom 34
4 Financial 31 Auto 33
5 Food & Drink 23 Travel 22
6 Travel 19 Food & Drink 16
7 Business 12 Business 12
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8 Health 11 Health 12
9 Media 8 Entertainment 9
10 Entertainment 6 Media 7

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BIDDING BEHAVIOR
Market CPMs
Travel CPMs led the market through both Q4 and Q1,
reecting strong seasonal demand for impressions tied to
in-market consumers.
CLEAR PRICE COMPARISON AMONG TOP SECTORS
Q4 2013 - Q1 2014 US
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The top ten bidding sectors accounted for 95.1% of total
market share in Q1 2014. Of the top spending marketer
brands, Travel and Food & Drink brands indexed highest
for average clear price, while the Telecom and Travel
sectors both showed the most competitive bidding
behavior, ranking highest for average winning bid price
(WBP).
The lowered WBP indices that presented across all top
sectors with the exception of Financial during Q1 reect
the relative strength of Q4 and how increased spending
by dominant sectors like Retail during the period incited
other sectors to raise their bidding approach to compete
for inventory during that high density period of the
market.
2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 5
TOP SPENDING SECTORS BY AVERAGE WINNING BID PRICE
Q4 2013-Q1 2014 US

Q4 2013 Q1 2014
RANK SECTOR INDEX SECTOR INDEX
1 Telecom 100 Travel 76
2 Travel 85 Telecom 72
3 Business 80 Business 67
4 Food & Drink 77 Retail 63
5 Auto 77 Food & Drink 58
6 Retail 67 Auto 57
7 Health 57 Media 56
8 Financial 55 Financial 56
9 Entertainment 47 Health 52
10 Media 46 Entertainment 46

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Of the top 100 spending brands, Travel and Retail
brands indexed highest for average clear price (CP),
while the Travel and Telecom sectors both showed the
most competitive bidding behavior, ranking highest for
average winning bid price (WBP).
Winning bid price correlates well with a buyers desire
to acquire a specic impression. Index powered open
exchanges operate under a second price auction model
that incentivizes advertisers to bid what they feel an
impression is worth to them based on the data attached
to that user at that moment in time.
The dierence between WBP (the price bid to win) and
the price an impression actually clears at (CP) the price
actually paid can be signicant, making clear price a
better indicator of demand. The more bid density tied to
an impression, the higher clear prices are likely to be.
TOP SECTORS: WBP VS. CP
Q1 2014 US
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Over the Q1 period, Telecom posted the highest average
bid price, but ranked below average for bid volume.
Travel exhibited very similar behavior, although it was
slightly less pronounced.
High volume, low price bidding behavior is often
indicative of a broader buying strategy, while a lower
volume, higher bid price approach correlates well to
advertisers with highly targeted acquisition goals, willing
to bid aggressively to win impressions with greater short
term conversion potential.
2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 6
Context and pricing
The table below ranks the top ve website content
categories in order of average clear price (CP). Shopping
content cleared at rates signicantly higher than all other
categories over the quarter followed by Auto, Tech and
Travel impressions - all indexing within a few points of
each other.
The high CPMs garnered for Travel content correlated
well with the seasonal surge in market share and bidding
activity observed from Travel advertisers over the period,
which suggests that context played a role in impression
selection.
TOP 5 WEBSITE CONTENT CATEGORIES RANKED BY CP
Q1 2014 US
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DSP ACTIVITY
Over the rst quarter of 2014, the top three demand side
platforms (DSPs) accounted for nearly half (47.5%) of the
market compared with just over 50% of share held by the
top three the year before.
The stability observed in year over year distribution of
share suggests that the market is moving towards a state
of maturity. This nding also supports research from
AdExchangers Q1 State of Programmatic Media Online
Survey that found more than 40% of marketers used only
one general DSP to manage all programmatic buying.
1
1 http://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/why-
programmatic-in-house-is-gaining-favor-with-marketers/
TOP SECTORS: BID VOLUME VS. BID PRICE
Q1 2014 US
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Bid density
Bid density (the number of bids per impression) rose
steadily over the rst quarter of 2014, experiencing two
pronounced dips towards the end of the period, which
correlated with widely publicized negative news events.
Bid density was down 12% overall in Q1 2014 compared
with the Q4 annual peak, but up signicantly (30%)
relative to Q1 the previous year, signalling strong growth
in marketer adoption over the course of 2013.
BID DENSITY (BIDS PER IMPRESSION) BY DAY
Q1 2014 US
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2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 7
This nding suggests that over the last year as marketers
have proven the programmatic concept and become
more familiar with the channel and its potential, those
equipped to do so are increasingly opting to take
programmatic spending in house, bringing it closer to
existing stores of rich customer data.
COOKIES, PLATFORMS &
BROWSERS
In Q1 2014, 65% of all platform impressions were tied to
cookies; this gure is down 18% from Q1 the year before.
Impressions with cookies matched to third party (3P) data
sources stimulated the highest market CPMs over the
period, followed closely by cookied impressions without
3P data. Impressions with cookies garnered almost twice
the average winning bid price (WBP) for impressions with
no cookies.
SHARE OF PLATFORM IMPRESSIONS BY COOKIE STATE
Q1 2014 US
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It is clear that advertisers continue to assign premium
valuations to impressions tied to users with cookies and
rich data sets over those without cookies.
TOP DSPs BY MARKET SHARE
Q1 2014 US
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The number of top DSP seats owned directly by brand
marketers more than tripled year-over-year, jumping
from 3% in Q4 2012 to 11% in Q4 2013 and representing
the largest growth among DSP seat categories over the
period.
SHARE OF TOP DSP SEATS BY OWNER TYPE
Q4 2012 - Q4 2013 US
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2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 8
SHARE OF IMPRESSIONS BY OS AND COOKIE STATE
Q1 2014 US
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Mobile

vs. desktop
The majority (70%) of impressions from desktop platforms
were cookie enabled, while roughly one third of mobile
impressions were tied to cookies.
COOKIE ACCESSIBILITY: DESKTOP VS. MOBILE
Q1 2014 US
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Impressions tied to the Windows OS contributed half
of all impressions without cookies - the largest share
among sources. The second largest source of impressions
without cookies was Mobile devices, which claimed 27%.
WBP AND CP INDEX BY COOKIE STATE
Q1 2014 US
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Operating system
The lions share (71%) of all impressions cleared through
Index during Q1 2014 originated from Windows users,
followed by those tied to a Mac OS.
SHARE OF PLATFORM IMPRESSIONS BY OS
Q1 2014 US
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Windows was the largest contributor of desktop
impressions with cookies, while Android devices led
cookied impressions in mobile environments.

All data is based on IAB standard display impressions; does not include
mobile optimized or mobile app inventory.
2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 9
MOBILE IMPRESSIONS WITH COOKIES BY DEVICE
Q1 2014 US
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Browsers
Among the top sources of impressions, Chrome indexed
highest for impressions with cookies, while Safari indexed
highest for impressions without cookies.
IMPRESSIONS WITHOUT COOKIES BY BROWSER
Q1 2014 US
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TOP CONTRIBUTORS OF IMPRESSIONS WITHOUT COOKIES
Q1 2014 US
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Mobile impressions
The share of mobile originating impressions was
evenly split between iPad, iPhone and Android devices,
each contributing roughly one third of the total. This
distribution virtually mirrors what was observed in Q1 the
year before.
DISTRIBUTION OF MOBILE IMPRESSIONS
Q1 2014 US
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Three quarters (75%) of mobile impressions with cookies
came from devices running the Android OS.
2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 10
Taxonomy
ADVERTISER SECTORS
Index organizes incoming demand into 64 dierent
advertiser sectors through a proprietary human-driven
bid registration process. In an eort to simplify this report,
some categories were consolidated into a single
group (as shown below) leaving 17 sectors in total.
METHODOLOGY
Auction data is generated through the impressions
traded each quarter across marketplaces powered by
Index. Data is based on the US market. During the auction
process, all attributes of won impressions are recorded,
including the number of bids generated, price points,
information about the campaign and the advertiser, ad
formats and ad sizes.
Report ndings are based on a statistically representative
sampling of total transactional activity.
The Index Quarterly report uses indices to present all
data. Indices are calculated relative to the highest ranking
value over the reporting period.
Denitions
Market share: Share of total market spend.
CPM: Cost per thousand impressions.
WBP: Winning bid price (CPM) of impressions bought.
CP: Clear price (CPM) of impressions bought (after the
second price auction).
Auto
Auto/Dealers
Auto/Manufacturers (motorcycles,
RVs, etc.)
Auto/Parts & Service
Auto/Rentals
Business
Business/B2B
Business/Energy & Utilities
Business/Legal
Business/Services (i.e. local/SMBs)
Careers & Employment
Dating
Education
Entertainment
Entertainment/Gambling
Entertainment/Gaming
Entertainment/Lottery & Sweep-
stakes
Entertainment/Performances &
Events
Entertainment/Sports

Financial
Financial/Banks
Financial/Credit Card
Financial/Insurance/Auto
Financial/Insurance/Health
Financial/Insurance/Home
Financial/Insurance/Life
Financial/Insurance/Travel
Financial/Investing
Financial/Services (scores, tax, etc.)
Food & Drink
Food & Drink/Alcohol
Food & Drink/Bars & Restaurants
Government
Health
Health/Diet & Fitness
Health/Medical
Health/Pharma
Health/Services
Media
Media/Movies
Media/Music
Media/Network TV
Media/News & Magazines
Media/Web apps
Non-prot
Non-prot/Charities
Non-prot/Political
Real Estate
Retail
Retail/Apparel & Footwear
Retail/Cleaning supplies
Retail/Consumer Electronics
Retail/Group Buys & Deals
Retail/House & Home
Retail/Luxury
Retail/Personal Care & Cosmetics
Retail/Pet care
Retail/Shopping centers
Retail/Sporting goods
Retail/Stores
Telecom
Telecom/Bundled service
Telecom/Cable
Telecom/ISP
Telecom/Mobile
Telecom/Phone
Tobacco
Travel
Travel/Air
Travel/Attractions
Travel/Casinos
Travel/Cruises
Travel/Destinations
Travel/Ground
Travel/Lodging
Travel/Resorts
2014 CASALE MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 11
BRAND TIERS
Global/national: Brands with a global or national
presence (e.g. Coca-Cola).
Regional: Brands with a regional presence (e.g. University
of Michigan).
Local: Brands with a local presence (e.g. ABC Air
Conditioning).
Virtual: Brands with no oine presence (e.g. Living
Social).
International: Brands outside the global/national
category with a presence in one or more international
markets.
BRANDS
For the purposes of this report, brands are reported at
the parent holding company level, i.e. multiple product
lines belonging to a single entity, e.g. Old Spice, Crest,
Pampers, etc. would be counted as one brand (Procter &
Gamble).
ABOUT INDEX
Index (www.indexexchange.com) is a transparent and
fully customizable exchange technology that enables
sell side media rms to monetize ad inventories
programmatically and in real time. A division of online
media technology veteran, Casale Media, Index equips
enterprise sellers with custom architected solutions,
fully transparent sell side management technology, and
access to programmatic demand that is organized and
certied by humans into a clear and robust taxonomy.
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