Digital and mobile display companies in online advertising face significant challenges reconciling billing. The process of collecting usage statistics from disparate ad servers can be convoluted and prone to error.

1. Three Steps to Accelerating Your Billing
Reconciliation Process in Online Advertising
Presenters: Richard Adams, Senior Account Executive, Connotate
Moderator: Gina Cerami, Vice President of Marketing, Connotate
Date: July 18, 2013

2. Presenters
2
Richard Adams
Senior Account Executive
Gina Cerami
Vice President of Marketing

3. About Connotate
• Headquartered in New Brunswick, NJ, with offices in Irvine,
CA and London, UK
• Developed by world-class scientists at Rutgers University
and the University of Southern California
• Portfolio of patents for applying machine intelligence to Web
data extraction and monitoring
• Strong financial backing: .406 Ventures, Castile, Prism
Ventures
• Current Connotate formed through acquisition of Fetch
Technologies in 2012

4. Marquee Clients
4

5. 5
What Connotate Does in Other Industries:
Transform Web Data into High-Value Assets
• Online ad stats reporting
• Competitive intelligence
• News aggregation
• Background check
• Price optimization
• Investment research
• Market research
• Regulatory updates
• Sales intelligence
• Business risk assessment
• Data directories
• Aggregate construction bids
• Supply chain monitoring
• Brand monitoring
• Voice of the Customer
• Social media monitoring
Some of Our Many Use Cases:

6. Where Connotate “Fits”
• Connotate is an expert in automating Web data
monitoring and extraction
• Our solution is the “automation engine” for some of the world’s leading
innovators in related industries
• News and publishing – the Associated Press, Thomson Reuters
• Finance – Nasdaq, Lipper, Dow Jones, Alacra
• Online retail – Shopzilla
• Connotate provides enabling technology for SSPs,
DSPs, Ad Networks and Agencies
• We are not a competitor or an Ad Network
• Our customers in Online Advertising are primarily Supply Side
Platform (SSP) providers and other organizations aggregating
reporting from 3rd party ad servers
6

7. Topics for Today’s Discussion
• The challenge – billing reconciliation
• Our value proposition
• How Connotate does this
7

8. 8
The Challenge

9. The Billing Reconciliation Challenge
• Hundreds of ad networks and ad exchanges
• To reconcile billing, SSPs collect usage statistics from many disparate
ad servers
• Each server is password-protected and each account is looking for
usage statistics with unique parameters (date ranges, campaign
names, etc.)
• No standard APIs
• There is no uniform way of programmatically accessing these different
networks, making automation difficult
• APIs, where available, offer an automated approach but each new API
presents a potentially different integration point, and each new data
source becomes a new point of failure
9

10. How Do You Reconcile Billing Today?
• Manual processes
• Most organizations use a manual process – logging into ad servers,
compiling reports, downloading data and then integrating it into the
reconciliation workflow
• Manual processes are error-prone and do not scale
• Humans are not suited to highly repetitive tasks and could be more
efficiently engaged in revenue-generating activity
• Scripts and Web scrapers
• Semi-automated – but the cost of engineering is high
• Accuracy is still a problem when scripts break
• It takes longer then necessary to add a new network
• Maintenance is extremely costly over time
10

11. 11
Manual Process for Billing Reconciliation
Invoice
(if data is accurate)
Clean up
inaccurate
data
OR
Log in
to portal
Execute
report
settings
Download
data to
desktop
Integrate
into workflowNavigate
options and
choose report
parameters

12. Accuracy is Important
“Organizations over estimate the quality of their data and the
cost of data errors”
12

13. Polling Question: How Do You Collect Usage
Statistics Today?
How are you currently collecting ad usage data?
We are collecting ad usage data using only manual processes
We are using in-house scripts and scrapers to automate this process
We are using BOTH manual and automated approaches
It’s not a problem for us; we only have a handful of ad servers

14. 14
The Connotate Value Proposition

15. The Connotate Value Proposition
15

16. What Connotate Does for SSPs
Connotate accelerates revenue collection:
• Automating the precise extraction of usage statistics
• Reducing the time required to
reconcile billing by 400%
How long does it take you to
reconcile billing????
16
400% improvement

17. Polling Question: How Long Does It Take to
Gather the Data Required to Reconcile Billing?
30 days or more (month)
15-29 days (2-4 weeks)
10-14 (over a week)
6 days or less

18. 18
The Connotate Workflow

19. The Connotate Workflow
19

20. Step 1. Data Inputs and Configuration
20
Connotate uses logins and passwords you provide as input to access the portal.

21. Step 2. Data Retrieval
21
Connotate’s precise navigation supports collecting data for a specific date range.

22. Connotate is Accurate
22
Connotate extracts the data you specify.

23. Step 3. Data Delivery
23
Connotate delivers clean, precise data in the format you require.

24. Scope and Expansion of Ad Network
Coverage
• Connotate’s current library supports automated access to
over 150 ad servers
• Each network/ad server login can be customized for your
needs and quickly re-purposed into a private library
• If you require access to an ad servers/ network that is not
in our library, we can add in a new network quickly
• Initial deployment time depends on the complexity of the
site but it is relatively short
24

25. Case Study
• Connotate gathers real-time data from over 100 ad
networks for this client – all sites are password-protected
• The SSP can now update an entire week’s worth of
statistics in 6 minutes
• Connotate was deployed as Data as a Service, freeing up
valuable IT resources
• Client enjoys 200% ROI based on the resource time no
longer required
25

26. Polling Question: The Value of Automated
Web Data Collection
Are you convinced that an automated Web data extraction
process can help accelerate your billing reconciliation
processes?
Yes – we are doing this now
Yes – we are planning to automate in the near future
No – not at this time
I need more information before deciding

27. 27
Scope Your Project: 5 Steps

28. Scoping Your Project: Steps to Success
1. Decide which networks/ad servers will be most
valuable for an automated data collection effort
2. Make a list of those sites with the access URL
and login credentials
3. Contact Connotate
4. We’ll provide a customized cost estimate
5. Sign a contract and enjoy hassle-free
ad statistics collection!
28

29. Here’s What Success Looks Like…
Up to 400%
improvement
in billing
reconciliation
time
Eliminate
error-prone
processes
Collect 7 days
of statistics in
6 minutes
Drastically
reduce IT
maintenance
headaches
29
…Connotate’s experts can help you achieve success

30. Q & A
Connotate will email a link to this presentation as well as a
copy of the slides to you within 2 business days.
If you have an immediate need and would like us to contact
you about a forthcoming project, please email us at
info@connotate.com or call (+1) 732-296-8844.
For more information, visit
www.connotate.com or www.connotate.co.uk
30