AppNexus CEO uses Summit address to highlight Googles decreasing payouts to publishers

AppNexus CEO Brian OKelley at todays Summit

AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley used his opening address at the companys annual Summit in  London this morning to launch an attack on Google, telling delegates:

“Many of you work with Google and rely on them for monetisation and ad serving. They released their Q1 results last week, and if you dig through the numbers, there is something about them that is shocking.

“They command a large part of the advertising budget, they are getting a lot of money and youre probably thinking, I’m sure I’m getting my share. Well in In Q1 2016, 29 per cent of Google’s revenues went to their publishing partners. In Q1 2017, it was 19 per cent. This is not going to fund a free and open internet… This is a company that is doing exact what is best for itself.”

The gloves are definitely coming off between the two companies. Yesterday, AppNexus revealed that German publisher AxelDSpringer had signed a deal to “progressively adopt AppNexus’ enterprise technology products”, include its ad server, in preference to Google’s DFP ad server.

AppNexus has also formed a consortium with LiveRamp, MediMath and others to tackle Google and Facebooks dominance of digital advertising. We’ll have more on this later today.