The Leadership Letter

Real correspondence from the people running real companies — and what it reveals about leadership.

Use Your Hot Product to Lock Customers Into Your Platform

When you have a product everyone wants, the real question isn't how to sell it — it's what else you can pull through the door with it.

We are very excited that you guys have integrated AdX Mobile directly into the Octagon SDK, so that we can sell it as a stand-alone solution (without XFP). Quite frankly I think it will fly off the shelves, and we are starting to look for some early Beta partners for you now. Having said that, I am concerned about 3 things: a) Many of our target publishers are using third party ad servers or mediation platforms. I think we should have a clear testing and integration plan, so that we can certify these partners. I would start with Mocean, Admarvel, and Nexage. b.) We should figure out first level support for the publishers that will utilize this solution. c.) While I know I might be in the minority, I would like to stress that I think that it is too early to give AdX to non-XFP partners. Most of them will give the tag/SDK to third party ad servers, and yield management companies. These companies will claim 'AdX integration' and use this lever to sell their own solutions. This is an amazing time to 'lock in' impressions by offering XFP to publishers with full AdX dynamic allocation. AdX can serve as a tool to pull publishers onto XFP. By allowing third parties to integrate with AdX mobile web/app we are giving away this advantage. Dynamic allocation allows AdX to see all XFP impressions. We lose this advantage behind other ad servers. Ad Servers are sticky and hard to replace. The next 12 months are a very good time to switch publishers over. That opportunity will pass. Do we really want to miss it?

This edition is for members.

The daily letter is free. The archive — every prior edition, fully searchable — is for members. Sign in to start your free week.

Court Exhibit
United States v. Google LLC (Ad Tech)
1:23-cv-00108 (VAED), Trial Ex. PTX0114 — DOJ public archive
September 10, 2012
Public domain
View the primary source →