Komli, Ozone Media In Ad Placement Battle On Facebook?

When Ozone Media announced its partnership with Facebook to offer ad inventory to its advertisers in India, many thought the move could see Komli Media lose its near monopoly in the market, since it also offers ad inventory on Facebook.

The tie-up allows Ozone to offer ad spots including promotions for Facebook Pages, advertisements centred around Facebook 'likes' and other image-based and text-based ads on Facebook. In addition, it will also offer inventory across Facebook while the social media giant can access Ozone's existing and new clients.

Interestingly, this move by Facebook comes after it introduced some significant changes by introducing 'Timeline', which allows brands to connect with their customers. They have made pages and added a few new features which allow brands to be far more engaging.

But will that tie-up between Ozone Media and Facebook steal Komli's thunder and hinder its growth, at least to some extent?

Speaking exclusively to Techcircle.in, Gulshan Verma, Komli Media's vice-president and country head for ad network in India and the Middle East, pointed out, "Komli still remains the exclusive partner for Facebook in India and the only reseller who can sell premium placements in India."

These premium placements include the ability to place media in the news feed, on mobile or on the new reach generator which guarantees a specified reach for a certain brand's fan base.

True, there would be some marketplace ads (Here Komli might just need to compete with Ozone) which are available on a cost-per-click basis on certain inside pages of Facebook with limited functionality and social context. But these are available to anyone – marketers, agencies and networks – who buy these spots through an auction.

"But Komli holds the exclusive licence in India with a platform that allows us to optimise the buying and creative placement of these ads at a much larger scale than most other networks," Verma clarified.

Moreover, Komli has dedicated resources who work closely with its advertisers and platform partners to ensure that its advertisers get the best impact possible from Facebook, depending on their social media objectives.

"Komli has a contractual agreement with Facebook in India to exclusively offer premium inventory which are impactful and richer than marketplace ads and therefore, provides advertisers with proven high engagement opportunity with Facebook users. This is completely unaffected by the inventory that Ozone and all other social media agencies have access to," affirmed Verma.

From time to time, Facebook does make available some inventory on Google Ad Exchange, which only large-volume bidders on the exchange have access to. "However, this is different from the premium placements on Facebook and in no way competes with it. Only Komli has exclusive access to that," signed off Verma.