FAQ

For additional information about Rapt Information Services, please email raptIS@rapt.com.

What is Rapt Information Services?
Why is Rapt undertaking this initiative?
When will it officially launch?
Who will use the service? Why?
Why is the wide availability of this kind of information good for sellers?
Why is the wide availability of this kind of information good for buyers?
What markets will be served by Rapt Information Services?
How does a company or individual take advantage of this service?
What kind of data and information will Rapt be using?
Why should I participate as a data contributor? What advantages do I receive?
How will Rapt protect the sensitive detail in the data received from data contributors?
How do I find out more about the data contribution process or become a data contributor?

What is Rapt Information Services?

Rapt’s newest digital media initiative, announced in collaboration with Publicis Groupe Media on February 8, 2008
Rapt Information Services is a suite of analytic tools and data products designed to fill a critical gap in existing third-party research resources, exposing supply, demand, and value dynamics for the digital media industry. The service will provide a dollars-and-cents view of historical market metrics, market forecasts, and performance indices. All of these will be made available on a subscription basis to meet the needs of a broad range of market constituents.
Output examples include historic and forecast trend analysis of CPM indices, revenue, and inventory supply, in aggregate and by content category, industry segment, pricing type, and product type.

Why is Rapt undertaking this initiative?

The industry is in need of a broader understanding of the economic forces at play in the market and a set of standard measures, metrics, and benchmarks to use understanding the value of media assets. Rapt is regularly approached by media publishers, agencies, and the analyst community looking for just these types of insights.
In the face of growing market demand, Rapt has dedicated significant R&D resources to devising the tools and techniques necessary to safely share these types of insights. The data products and services afforded by Rapt Information Services will enable buyers and sellers to more effectively respond to an increasingly data-driven basis of competition in digital media.

When will it officially launch?

Rapt Information Services outputs are available to select clients as part of a beta program that will be running through Q2 2008. The official launch is planned for H2 2008.

Who will use the service? Why?

Media sellers will receive meaningful market baselines against which to measure the value of their ad inventory and a set of leading indicators of market demand to guide product and pricing strategy. For example, a publisher will be able to use Rapt Information Services to analyze historic and expected demand for video advertising and proactively align their pricing and inventory strategies to better serve the market.
Buyers of media will gain real-world metrics across the digital advertising spectrum to drive more informed purchase decisions and media planning strategies. For example, in negotiating prices on behalf of a pharmaceutical company for placement on a premium online health site, planners can use Rapt Information Services to better understand the external market value for relevant inventories and content types.
Media analysts and industry-watchers will benefit from an unprecedented level of visibility, leveraging Rapt’s proprietary forecasts and media performance indices to better understand economic forces at play in the market. Rapt Information Services will complement existing traffic-centric data sources with a dollars-and-cents, yield-oriented view of the actual advertising inventory being bought and sold.
Existing and future customers of Rapt’s technology and services will benefit from a better informed solution set. Rapt Information Services data will feed back into Rapt applications, providing market signals and industry-wide context to support business decision-making.

Why is the wide availability of this kind of information good for sellers?

Rapt Information Services will provide the market with a clearer picture of market activity, countering the potentially damaging “incompleteness” of the transparency afforded by remnant channels, exchanges, and marketplaces, which typically only expose value and volume dynamics for lower-value secondary markets.
Rapt Information Services will establish a universal language for media asset valuation, providing a common starting point and framework for buyers and sellers, eliminating some measure of the back-and-forth during negotiations, and thus streamlining the media sales transaction process.
Rapt Information services will provide clear signals of past and future market willingness-to-pay and segment/category/product demand dynamics. This critical intelligence can inform price, discount, inventory, and product strategies.
Specific applications of Rapt Information Services could include: informing discount decisions; informing pricing for new product introductions and audience targeting; guiding investments in content development, sales focus, or traffic acquisition; and determining the what, how, and why for the release of inventory into secondary channels such as ad networks and marketplaces.

Why is the wide availability of this kind of information good for buyers?

Market baselines will provide points of reference that will give greater confidence in the price premiums demanded by some sellers. Further, improved transparency and invaluable market context will lead some more reluctant buyers to have greater confidence in digital media asset value, and thus make larger investments.
Rapt Information Services will establish a universal language for media asset valuation, providing a common starting point and framework for buyers and sellers, eliminating some measure of the back-and-forth during negotiations, and thus streamlining the media sales transaction process.
Market visibility and context will provide the opportunity to complement and extend the experience of media planners, providing the type of data and intelligence to ‘create’ pricing expertise across the organization.

What markets will be served by Rapt Information Services?

Digital media segments: At launch, Rapt Information Services will focus on the display advertising market, inclusive of brand advertisers and direct marketers; direct, marketplace, and ad network sales models; and CPM-based, fixed-fee, and performance-based pricing models. Other media verticals will follow.
Geographic segments: At launch, Rapt Information Services will focus on the US advertising market. Other markets will follow.

How does a company or individual take advantage of this service?

Users will be able access Rapt Information Services on a subscription basis via a proprietary web-based analytics platform. Details on the subscription process will be shared prior to launch.
Check www.rapt.com/infoservices regularly, as Rapt will be providing frequent updates, sharing news on our progress, highlighting new contributors and collaborators, and soliciting feedback from the broader media community.
Please email RaptIS@rapt.com for more information, or contact your Rapt Client Partner who can schedule a meeting with members of the Rapt Information Services team.

What kind of data and information will Rapt be using?

Rapt Information Services will rely on a combination of data sources. Primarily, data will be made available to Rapt by a mix of contributors, large and small, from both the publisher and agency communities. The first publicly announced charter contributor is Publicis Groupe Media. More will be announced in the coming weeks.
Rapt Information Services will also draw upon Rapt’s considerable domain expertise, primary research, market analysis, market observations, panel surveys, and proprietary approaches to inferential modeling.

Why should I participate as a data contributor? What advantages do I receive?

An initiative such as Rapt Information Services gets better as its source data becomes more complete.
Select companies, including Publicis Groupe Media and others, are joining as charter contributors. In taking a leading role in the initiative’s development, they are providing an invaluable service in shaping the manner in which market opacity is reduced and market liquidity is increased.
These charter contributors will become members of an Advisory Council chaired by a Rapt executive, affording them unique visibility and influence over some of the program’s design criteria.
Further, these charter contributors will have early access to the beta versions of Rapt Information Services outputs during late stage, pre-launch testing phases.

How will Rapt protect the sensitive detail in the data received from data contributors?

This data will be delivered to Rapt in aggregate form, with appropriate measures taken to cleanse it of any sensitive or proprietary elements, e.g., site, agency, advertiser, user, transaction detail.
Rapt will never actually see the more granular, highly sensitive records, as the data will be transformed into a cleansed, “safe” format before it is fed into the Information Services data stores.
In turn, Rapt will marry these disparate datasets, aligning them with its own standard data structures and purpose-built taxonomy of product/content types, industry categorizations, and advertising spend segments.

How do I find out more about the data contribution process or become a data contributor?

Please email RaptIS@rapt.com for more information, or contact your Rapt Client Partner who can schedule a meeting with members of the Rapt Information Services team.

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	Solutions Search Solutions Price Director Inventory Manager Business Advisor Services Technical Architecture Related Documents Press Release Rapt And Publicis Groupe Media Collaborate On New Analytics Service For Digital Media FAQ Rapt Information Services FAQ FAQ For additional information about Rapt Information Services, please email raptIS@rapt.com. What is Rapt Information Services? Why is Rapt undertaking this initiative? When will it officially launch? Who will use the service? Why? Why is the wide availability of this kind of information good for sellers? Why is the wide availability of this kind of information good for buyers? What markets will be served by Rapt Information Services? How does a company or individual take advantage of this service? What kind of data and information will Rapt be using? Why should I participate as a data contributor? What advantages do I receive? How will Rapt protect the sensitive detail in the data received from data contributors? How do I find out more about the data contribution process or become a data contributor? What is Rapt Information Services? Rapt’s newest digital media initiative, announced in collaboration with Publicis Groupe Media on February 8, 2008 Rapt Information Services is a suite of analytic tools and data products designed to fill a critical gap in existing third-party research resources, exposing supply, demand, and value dynamics for the digital media industry. The service will provide a dollars-and-cents view of historical market metrics, market forecasts, and performance indices. All of these will be made available on a subscription basis to meet the needs of a broad range of market constituents. Output examples include historic and forecast trend analysis of CPM indices, revenue, and inventory supply, in aggregate and by content category, industry segment, pricing type, and product type. Why is Rapt undertaking this initiative? The industry is in need of a broader understanding of the economic forces at play in the market and a set of standard measures, metrics, and benchmarks to use understanding the value of media assets. Rapt is regularly approached by media publishers, agencies, and the analyst community looking for just these types of insights. In the face of growing market demand, Rapt has dedicated significant R&D resources to devising the tools and techniques necessary to safely share these types of insights. The data products and services afforded by Rapt Information Services will enable buyers and sellers to more effectively respond to an increasingly data-driven basis of competition in digital media. When will it officially launch? Rapt Information Services outputs are available to select clients as part of a beta program that will be running through Q2 2008. The official launch is planned for H2 2008. Who will use the service? Why? Media sellers will receive meaningful market baselines against which to measure the value of their ad inventory and a set of leading indicators of market demand to guide product and pricing strategy. For example, a publisher will be able to use Rapt Information Services to analyze historic and expected demand for video advertising and proactively align their pricing and inventory strategies to better serve the market. Buyers of media will gain real-world metrics across the digital advertising spectrum to drive more informed purchase decisions and media planning strategies. For example, in negotiating prices on behalf of a pharmaceutical company for placement on a premium online health site, planners can use Rapt Information Services to better understand the external market value for relevant inventories and content types. Media analysts and industry-watchers will benefit from an unprecedented level of visibility, leveraging Rapt’s proprietary forecasts and media performance indices to better understand economic forces at play in the market. Rapt Information Services will complement existing traffic-centric data sources with a dollars-and-cents, yield-oriented view of the actual advertising inventory being bought and sold. Existing and future customers of Rapt’s technology and services will benefit from a better informed solution set. Rapt Information Services data will feed back into Rapt applications, providing market signals and industry-wide context to support business decision-making. Why is the wide availability of this kind of information good for sellers? Rapt Information Services will provide the market with a clearer picture of market activity, countering the potentially damaging “incompleteness” of the transparency afforded by remnant channels, exchanges, and marketplaces, which typically only expose value and volume dynamics for lower-value secondary markets. Rapt Information Services will establish a universal language for media asset valuation, providing a common starting point and framework for buyers and sellers, eliminating some measure of the back-and-forth during negotiations, and thus streamlining the media sales transaction process. Rapt Information services will provide clear signals of past and future market willingness-to-pay and segment/category/product demand dynamics. This critical intelligence can inform price, discount, inventory, and product strategies. Specific applications of Rapt Information Services could include: informing discount decisions; informing pricing for new product introductions and audience targeting; guiding investments in content development, sales focus, or traffic acquisition; and determining the what, how, and why for the release of inventory into secondary channels such as ad networks and marketplaces. Why is the wide availability of this kind of information good for buyers? Market baselines will provide points of reference that will give greater confidence in the price premiums demanded by some sellers. Further, improved transparency and invaluable market context will lead some more reluctant buyers to have greater confidence in digital media asset value, and thus make larger investments. Rapt Information Services will establish a universal language for media asset valuation, providing a common starting point and framework for buyers and sellers, eliminating some measure of the back-and-forth during negotiations, and thus streamlining the media sales transaction process. Market visibility and context will provide the opportunity to complement and extend the experience of media planners, providing the type of data and intelligence to ‘create’ pricing expertise across the organization. What markets will be served by Rapt Information Services? Digital media segments: At launch, Rapt Information Services will focus on the display advertising market, inclusive of brand advertisers and direct marketers; direct, marketplace, and ad network sales models; and CPM-based, fixed-fee, and performance-based pricing models. Other media verticals will follow. Geographic segments: At launch, Rapt Information Services will focus on the US advertising market. Other markets will follow. How does a company or individual take advantage of this service? Users will be able access Rapt Information Services on a subscription basis via a proprietary web-based analytics platform. Details on the subscription process will be shared prior to launch. Check www.rapt.com/infoservices regularly, as Rapt will be providing frequent updates, sharing news on our progress, highlighting new contributors and collaborators, and soliciting feedback from the broader media community. Please email RaptIS@rapt.com for more information, or contact your Rapt Client Partner who can schedule a meeting with members of the Rapt Information Services team. What kind of data and information will Rapt be using? Rapt Information Services will rely on a combination of data sources. Primarily, data will be made available to Rapt by a mix of contributors, large and small, from both the publisher and agency communities. The first publicly announced charter contributor is Publicis Groupe Media. More will be announced in the coming weeks. Rapt Information Services will also draw upon Rapt’s considerable domain expertise, primary research, market analysis, market observations, panel surveys, and proprietary approaches to inferential modeling. Why should I participate as a data contributor? What advantages do I receive? An initiative such as Rapt Information Services gets better as its source data becomes more complete. Select companies, including Publicis Groupe Media and others, are joining as charter contributors. In taking a leading role in the initiative’s development, they are providing an invaluable service in shaping the manner in which market opacity is reduced and market liquidity is increased. These charter contributors will become members of an Advisory Council chaired by a Rapt executive, affording them unique visibility and influence over some of the program’s design criteria. Further, these charter contributors will have early access to the beta versions of Rapt Information Services outputs during late stage, pre-launch testing phases. How will Rapt protect the sensitive detail in the data received from data contributors? This data will be delivered to Rapt in aggregate form, with appropriate measures taken to cleanse it of any sensitive or proprietary elements, e.g., site, agency, advertiser, user, transaction detail. Rapt will never actually see the more granular, highly sensitive records, as the data will be transformed into a cleansed, “safe” format before it is fed into the Information Services data stores. In turn, Rapt will marry these disparate datasets, aligning them with its own standard data structures and purpose-built taxonomy of product/content types, industry categorizations, and advertising spend segments. How do I find out more about the data contribution process or become a data contributor? Please email RaptIS@rapt.com for more information, or contact your Rapt Client Partner who can schedule a meeting with members of the Rapt Information Services team.