The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of hundreds from across North America. The nominees are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.

The only pure-play attribution platform selected by Red Herring, C3 Metrics’ optimization engine and AVSR metric simplifies Full Funnel Attribution(R) using a proprietary ratio, making complex and robust real-time data collection easy and actionable for newly minted media buyers and media veterans. This full-funnel approach enables brands and agencies to understand and attribute value in the upper funnel, not just the last click/view once the heavy lifting of media is complete. C3 Metrics is also the first attribution platform to integrate viewable impressions as outlined by the IAB, ANA and 4A’s in the 3MS (Making Measurement Make Sense) initiative in 2011.

“This year was very rewarding,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and Chairman of Red Herring. “There are so many great companies producing truly innovative and amazing products and technologies. We had a very difficult time narrowing the field and selecting the Finalists from such a group of future stars. C3 Metrics shows great promise therefore deserves to be on the short list. Now we are faced with the difficult task of selecting the Top 100 winners.”

Finalists for the 2012 edition of the Red Herring 100 Americas award are selected based upon their technological innovation, management strength, market size, investor record, customer acquisition, and financial health. During the several months leading up to the announcement, hundreds of companies in the, security, Web 2.0, software, hardware, life sciences, cloud, mobile and other sectors completed their submissions to qualify for the award.

C3 Metrics will present the company’s winning strategies at the Red Herring Americas Forum in Santa Monica, California, May 21-23, 2012. The Top 100 winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony the evening of May 23 at the event.

About C3 Metrics C3 Metrics is an award-winning media analytics and optimization platform providing validated products to agencies, brands, publishers, networks and DSPs. Capturing every interaction in real-time including viewable impressions, C3′s predictive platform is in constant two-way communication with media partners, feeding the ecosystem with real-time data vs taking pictures of it. Rated #1 for ease of use, the C3 Metrics Optimization Engine and AVSR(TM) metric allows marketers to easily optimize media — taking big data and making complex advertising decisions simple. The result? Validated superior performance of each ad dollar. C3 clients enjoy significant gains: a two-year case study demonstrated a 75 percent revenue increase with only a 12 percent increase in ad spend. C3 has made more than $5 million for one client within 12 months of use. Headquartered in New York with offices in California, C3 Metrics is comprised of leading experts in the field of digital and television measurement from DoubleClick, eBay, PepsiCo, Yahoo! and Nielsen.

Join C3 Metrics’ CEO Mark Hughes as he attends the 4th Annual Digital Media Summit in New York. Hughes grew eBay’s Half.com from zero to 8 million online customers as its VP of Marketing in less than three years. Half.com was sold to eBay for over $300 million six months after launch.

Presented by LUMA Partners, the conference (held at the exclusive 10 on the Park at Time Warner Center venue at 60 Columbus Circle in New York) is known as ‘The CEO Conference for Digital Media’.  DMS is exclusive to CEOs of leading digital media companies and top executives from all the major media and tech strategics as well as financial investors. The entire experience changes when participation is restricted to CEOs. The interactive format and pithy content distinguish DMS from other industry and investor conferences. Admittance to DMS is by invitation only.

C3 Metrics’ optimization engine and AVSR metric simplifies Full Funnel Attribution(R) using a proprietary ratio, making complex and robust real-time data collection easy and actionable for newly minted media buyers and media veterans. This full-funnel approach enables brands and agencies to understand and attribute value in the upper funnel, not just the last click/view once the heavy lifting of media is complete. C3 Metrics is also the first attribution platform to integrate viewable impressions as outlined by the IAB, ANA and 4A’s in the 3MS (Making Measurement Make Sense) initiative in 2011.

The panel “What’s The Attribution, Kenneth?” will help attendees understand how to attribute data in real-time and make sense of real-time data flows within the universe of multiple media channels. Panelists will share insights into the types of data RTB executions produce including attribution and viewable impressions and how that data can help inform not just optimization but future strategies across media.

Joe Mandese, MediaPost’s editor-in-chief, will moderate the panel. Additional panelists will include consultant Marta Martinez, Eric Porres, chief marketing officer for Rocket Fuel, Inc, and Jeff Zwelling, CEO of Convertro.

Jeff Greenfield, who most recently spoke at Digital Hollywood, has a rich speaking background including conferences like the Conversion Conference and the Internet Marketing Conference. Greenfield’s extensive background in technology and marketing initiatives has served blue-chip clients including: GlaxoSmithKline, Kimberly-Clark, Sony BMG, Black & Decker, Forest Labs, Plum Creek and more.

To learn more about upcoming events where C3 Metrics will be speaking, please visit: http://c3metrics.com/events/

About C3 Metrics C3 Metrics is an award-winning media analytics and optimization platform providing validated products to agencies, brands, publishers, networks and DSPs. Capturing every interaction in real-time including viewable impressions, C3′s predictive platform is in constant two-way communication with media partners, feeding the ecosystem with real-time data vs taking pictures of it. Rated #1 for ease of use, the C3 Metrics Optimization Engine and AVSR(TM) metric allows marketers to easily optimize media — taking big data and making complex advertising decisions simple. The result? Validated superior performance of each ad dollar. C3 clients enjoy significant gains: a two-year case study demonstrated a 75 percent revenue increase with only a 12 percent increase in ad spend. C3 has made more than $5 million for one client within 12 months of use. Headquartered in New York with offices in California, C3 Metrics is comprised of leading experts in the field of digital and television measurement from DoubleClick, eBay, PepsiCo, Yahoo! and Nielsen.

I don’t think I need to make a case for politics being digital, so I won’t bore you with that. But politics is branding. And just like a brand, political campaigns and political issue initiatives need to know where their customers come from. In politics the customers are different. They’re called voters, donors, influencers, or volunteers. By identifying the media patterns of those “constituents” and ensuring that ads you run to support a campaign are relevant and visible, campaigns can act like the most successful brands.

Political Campaigns Are Brands
This ability to advertise to constituents like the most successful brands becomes eminently more urgent because of two trends. The first is the SuperPAC.  SuperPACs are the Super Bowl of political spending. They are the force to dominate the battle of the airwaves with big impact. But as any battle tested brand knows, eventually you need to reach constituents on a micro level, giving way to the second most important trend in a political race:  micro-donations. Here’s what I mean. Four years and three months ago, an election was determined by fund-raising, and the different approaches were apparent.

If you’ll remember, at the time, Obama and Hilary Rodham Clinton were in a tight race.  In January 2008, Clinton announced she raised $8.5 million and put in an additional $5 million of her own money for that month’s fundraise.

Obama nearly quadrupled Clinton in fundraising, clocking a raise of $32 million that month.  It was the final nail in the coffin for the Presidential nomination.   Clinton used old school strategy seeking big checks from few people.  Obama departed from the strategy right before Super Tuesday as the $32 million haul came predominantly from donations of $100 or less, with a staggering 90% of those donated on the web.

Micro Donations are Todays Super PAC
Fast-forward. Mitt Romney’s campaign, which has raised $86 million with only 9% of donations coming from $100 or less, is now appealing to smaller donors, which will have to carry the campaign through fall. Ted Moon, president of Washington DC-based interactive firm Pathfinder Interactive, says, “When the average voter plunks down their twenty dollars, things change.  They become actively vested in the campaign and start showing their support with stickers, yard signs, and today’s electronic yard sign:  Facebook.”

But a lot has changed in four years on the web.  Sites like Votizen didn’t exist, and ad technology was just coming into its own with display banner exchanges and real-time-bidding for Internet display banners, which were only an idea back then.

Micro Metrics Are Needed for Micro Donations
“Internet technology has gotten incredibly complex,” says Moon. “The biggest issue is attribution.  Campaigns spend precious ad dollars trying to rope in a donation of $20.  The difficulty is figuring out which ads on what sites and what geographies were the most efficient at raising those $20 donations which will soon amount to $50 million a month for the Presidential nominee.  So if you spend $10 or $30 million of ad dollars to get that $50 million, the difference could be $20 million a month either wasted or kept within the campaign to rope in even more donations.  It’s a huge difference.”

Now political marketers are confronted with the same shock that commercial marketers are now grappling with:  outdated online tracking systems mistakenly using what’s called last ad attribution.  It may take 27 banner ad exposures to get that $20 donation.  The last ad attribution problem with online ad tracking is that entire credit is erroneously given to the very last, 27^th ad, ignoring the value (and the cost) driven by other 26 ads.  Marketers have no idea what websites first prompted the $20 donation.  They only know what ad inaccurately stole credit by being the very last ad.

Perhaps it’s the only industry where you get rewarded for last place, but there’s a history to this flaw, which is estimated to bleed 30-45% from the $30 billion a year U.S. Internet ad industry.  These legacy ad tracking systems were built at the infancy of the Internet in the mid 1990’s.  In 2000, the NASDAQ crashed and tech investors ran for the hills, and everyone forgot about tracking infrastructure as thousands were laid off from Internet jobs.  But in 2004, the financial markets came back, and advertisers came back with it.  As money continued to pour online, YouTube exploded, blogs became the norm, browsers became multi-tabbed, and people began taking advantage of more research, reviews, and opinions before making a decision with their money.

Advertising Attribution is the Solution
In 2008 C3 Metrics began solving the problem by replacing current ad tracking systems so advertisers could finally determine what actually creates and accelerates demand. The longest running study on Attribution from C3 Metrics demonstrated $5 million in additional profit within 12 months.

“In a world of uncertain politics, one thing is certain,” said Moon. “The success of the Presidential race depends on how efficient the candidate is in spending ad dollars to corral $20 donations, which will amount to $50 million a month.  Without a change to the way Internet ad dollars are measured for fund raising, a campaign is dead.  From Super Tuesday on, it’s how 90% of donations will be raised.”

C3 Metrics isn’t a client of Forrester’s, so in accordance with their citation policy, we can’t get into the specifics.  However, we can say that we are thrilled with C3’s position and ranking in the Wave and honored to be recognized for our commitment to real-time data integration, stellar service and support and higher standards for viewable impressions.

C3 Metrics is the first attribution platform to integrate viewable impressions as outlined by the IAB, ANA and 4A’s in the 3MS (Making Measurement Make Sense) initiative in 2011.  As industry thought leaders, C3 Metrics addresses the crucial attribution + viewable impression topic through its content portals: viewableimpressions.com and viewableimpressions.org.

With intuitive reporting and a flexible user interface, C3 Metrics allows both the buy and sell side of the media ecosystem to use real-time data from its platform to react to funnel originations in a split second and intelligently accelerate the customer down the funnel.  This full-funnel approach enables brands and agencies to understand and attribute value in the upper funnel, not just the last click/view once the heavy lifting of media is complete.

C3 Metrics optimization engine and AVSR metric simplifies full-funnel attribution using a proprietary ratio, making complex and robust real-time data collection easy and actionable for newly minted media buyers and media veterans.  C3 Metrics’ attribution weights are transparent to all stakeholders, with the unique ability to change weights with an infinite number of if/then or A/B analyses in its Attribution Sandbox.

“We are honored that Forrester Research included C3 Metrics in its report,” said C3 Metrics CEO, Mark Hughes. “This backs up what we have been hearing from our customers, and we continue to be committed to providing brands and agencies with a simple, validated optimization engine coupled with a true, real-time platform capable of feeding the RTB ecosystem and solving some of the biggest problems facing the industry – last-click and wasted dollars when ads aren’t in view.”

1.  How is data being collected?
Namely, is the viewable impression measurement partner collecting data with flash cookies — or are they using device fingerprinting, which could get your company sued?  Flash cookies and device fingerprinting may be the landmine lawsuit you didn’t expect.  Talk with Google’s Ad Exchange, and you’ll discover that no vendor is allowed to use flash cookies on AdEx.  There’s a reason, and it’s called privacy violation.

2.  How is the viewable impression method trafficked? 
Meaning, is the viewable impression data collected with only a small panel, say approximately 30,000 people with toolbars on their computers in the U.S.?  Or is a pixel trafficked with every single banner ad run by the agency or advertiser — each and every banner?  If it’s a panel of 30,000 users, divide that into 245 million U.S. Internet users, and the odds of a viewable impression being captured by a panel are unreliably small for DSPs, networks, and advertisers.  You should expect and demand data for 100% of banners versus less than 4% of your banners served if you want an accurate picture of impressions in view.  Nielsen’s John Burbank said it best at the ARF: “A panel of virtually any size wouldn’t be able to provide accurate data, and it wouldn’t be able to provide fast data.” Panels work for gross metrics, but not for granular metrics.

3.  How do I grow a campaign using viewable impression data? 
At the end of the day, nobody wants a report card.  The only way the ecosystem grows from the viewable impression initiative is if there’s real-time feedback.  Meaning, a viewable impression measurement partner should be in constant two-way communication with a network or DSP — it should feed the ecosystem, not take pictures of it.  This feeds the ecosystem.  When a viewable impression vendor signals a network or DSP about the probability of a certain ad unit being in view with a certain publisher based on recent history, it provides the DSP with real-time inputs to either make a bid or not on the inventory in a split second.  Or, the vendor should be able to fire a pixel for every client banner that comes in view, building a pixel-fired pre-bid profile of every publisher/ad unit combination for the RTB.  If no pixel can be fired, no ecosystem can grow.  The word “actionable” is thrown around often, but true actionability is found with two-way communication between platforms in a split-second, RTB environment.

4.  How does the iFrame issue get solved?
Since more than 50% of Internet ads are served by iFrame, this is a substantial issue for any viewable impression vendor.  Essentially, it’s like asking, how do you breathe under water?  Not many people can do this.

If a company claims they can solve the iFrame challenge, ask how, and bring your privacy counsel along for that conversation.  Penetrating the actual iFrame requires notification from the publisher to the consumer that the publisher is taking some very private information from the consumer.  If that permission isn’t given, or notification isn’t made clear (requiring a change to the privacy policy of every publisher where the ad could run) there’s a significant privacy violation that could get you fired and your company and client sued.  The company with the biggest bank account likely gets the first lawsuit.  Smartframes are coming, but years away.  There may, however, be some privacy-compliant (even E.U.-compliant) ways arriving sooner than imagined.  The iFrame issue is an issue for all today, so request a schematic or a copy of their patent application from any company claiming to solve it.

Many more questions will be sorted out as the IAB and its partners come forward with their work.  The tough questions need to be asked early and often.

The controversy swirling around viewable impressions will change everything we know about the way advertising is measured and priced. Everything. This will be OK in the long run. For the short-term, the definition of viewable impressions, and the unwillingness of advertisers to pay for ads not viewed, is a game-changer of the highest magnitude.

A little background first. The data found in my company’s most recent report indicates that click-through rates on banner ads may be 179% higher than reported for marketers who are not taking viewable impression data into account. The report found that 68% of all display ads served are never ultimately seen by consumers according to the current IAB viewable impression standard.  Of the ads that are not seen, 12% never fully load.

Now, one of the whispers is that the definition of a viewable impression will change – it’s true, and it’s coming soon. The IAB, ANA, and 4A’s will redefine a display impression to be a display ad that fully loads in the consumer’s browser, and comes in view of the consumer’s screen for at least one second. This new industry standard will change the definition from a simple, outdated server request, which misses if the ad even loads let alone is seen. This will ultimately bring more ad dollars into the digital channel. It will change the way those ads are measured.

For the advertising ecosystem to thrive and grow, advertisers need to get value, and publishers, networks, and DSPs need to get value, too.  But when such an imbalance exists (a case when technology moved faster than measurement)–the ad ecosystem gets clogged.  Right now, it’s clogged.

Whispers. When talking privately to publishers, I hear whispers of the pendulum swinging too far, and fear of economic impact (revenue drop). Advertisers will want new pricing models based on research around viewable impressions.

The vision I foresee has no fear at all.  After all is said and done, the Keynesian dynamic of supply and demand is the great equalizer. Going forward, four things will happen:

1. CPMs for non-viewable impressions will drop to zero.  This essentially follows the same idea that if a TV ad never aired, the advertiser doesn’t pay.  It will immediately improve ROI for advertisers by approximately 68%.

2.  CPMs will rise for viewable impressions by at least 68%.  Likely a bit more, since there’s obviously transmission costs for ads not viewable but served.  With the offset, no revenue will be lost by publishers.

3. iframe delivery of ads will dissipate and eliminate fraud possibility with nested iframes and iframes in general.

4. After advertisers only pay for viewable impressions, effectiveness of display will increase even more than the percentage of ads previously unviewable.  For when DSPs and RTB algorithms optimize with viewable ads versus view-through cookies, which ignore the most important four letter word (view)…the ecosystem produces more ROI.  And ad dollars producing more ROI, beget larger budgets.

The whispers as I said, will become audible, and by the time conference season rolls around in the fall, it will be a roar. These are the four cornerstones of viewable impressions. No need to whisper about them. Let’s get the whispers into the conversation and fix this issue.

Of course not.  But January, 2013…well, the answer may be different.

Three components shape the answer: increasing ROI pressure on chief marketing officers; viewable impressions; and the chief financial officers bailiwick of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

1. ROI of ad dollars—increasing pressure from CFO to CMO.

At a high level, CMOs are shifting dollars out of traditional into digital–a reverse of past trends according to the Feb 2012 Duke University’s CMO Survey.  ROI is the reason, but ROI of the online display market is about to change (for the record, I’m a huge fan of display when measured and attributed properly).  For years, the definition of an impression from the industry was simply a “server request.”

A sever request simply means when a consumer logs on to any website, that website says to an ad server, “Hey, there’s a consumer here–send me a display ad really fast!”  Nine times out of ten, the ad makes its way to the page that consumer’s on.  But 12% of the time, the display ad never fully loads.  This happens for a number of reasons, but right now advertisers still pay for ads never reaching a consumer’s page.

Smart CMOs would be asking their agencies to request the fully loaded impression data and pay their ad bill from that versus server requests:  saving 12% of their display budget.

But don’t send the email just yet.  There’s more.

2. Viewable impressions, the impending standard from the IAB, ANA, and 4A’s

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), Association of National Advertisers (ANA), and American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) are taking this even further, and CMOs and CFOs alike will be happy.

What’s it all about?  Besides the above-referenced 12% gap from server requests to fully loaded impressions, there’s an even bigger gap.  The size of the Grand Canyon.

68% of all served display ads never get seen by consumers.  Yes, on average, 68% of all display ads aren’t even viewable according to the C3 Labs report.  Viewable means a fully loaded display ad, viewable in the screen of the consumer for at least one second (which is the IAB recommended standard).

Certain advertisers may see different numbers based on whether they’re buying premium or guaranteed inventory.  But bottom line, today all advertisers pay for display ads that aren’t even viewable.

Both CMOs and CFOs are discovering this, and hats off to the IAB, ANA, and 4A’s for having the foresight to create the new definition of what a display impression is: one that’s fully loaded, and in view for at least one second.

In 2013, several things will happen.  Advertisers are not likely to pay for an unviewed impression.  View-through cookies will not get credit when measuring online performance (done when accurately measuring online performance with an attribution modeling system).  Cost per impression (CPMs) for viewable impressions will justifiably rise 50-70%.  And finally, with viewable impressions, all advertisers will experience a greater ROI, and even more ad dollars will pour into digital as a result.

3. The CFOs bailiwick:  legal compliance with GAAP, specifically IASB 38: 68 pertaining to advertising expense.

CMOs aren’t likely familiar with the IASB (International Accounting Standards Board).  But they do know CFOs don’t have much leeway when it comes to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which falls under the IASB, and if a CMO violates GAAP, there’s a whole ‘lotta auditing happening.

It’s actually pretty simple, though.  Paragraph 68 of the IASB 38 deals with recognition of expense.  It says, “Expenditure on an intangible item shall be recognized as an expense when it is incurred.”

On the surface it makes all the sense in the world, and it’s what CMOs do today.  Now the quandary is:  can you/should you book an expense if you know impressions weren’t viewable?  In comparison, if TV ads were never delivered, a CMO shouldn’t pay for them.  That’s why Nielsen, in part, exists:  to check whether those ads actually ran.

For a CMO to not check and see if ads ran is fiscally irresponsible if technologies exist to do so.  And, if the CMO didn’t employ generally accepted methods, similar to Nielsen in the online world, and paid for ads which didn’t run–the company would be in violation of IASB 38:68.  Expenses not aligning with services or advertising.

So now you ask:  are you ready?  January 2013, the new industry standard will likely be in place.  If you wait until January and you don’t act on industry standard, will you be in violation of GAAP?  CFOs generally don’t like to be caught by surprise, and they don’t like violating GAAP.

The smart CMOs…they will be ready.  Now you can send that email.