ValueClick to Acquire Dotomi
Display Advertising Leaders Combine to Create a Branding and Performance Powerhouse
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– ValueClick (Nasdaq: VCLK) and Dotomi announced today that they have signed a definitive merger agreement whereby Dotomi will become a wholly owned subsidiary of ValueClick. Privately held Dotomi is the leading provider of data-driven, intelligent display media for major retailers.
Dotomi creates and delivers display advertising where the ad creatives and media placements are dynamically adapted in real time at the user and impression level. The Company works directly with clients to integrate anonymous data and then surrounds each client with technology enabled marketing services. Dotomi manages everything from brand strategy and dynamic creative development to message delivery and decisioning. This data-driven, end-to-end approach results in display advertising that improves consumer brand engagement and generates measurable sales lift both online and offline for its clients.
Through its unique set of capabilities, Dotomi has developed strategic, direct relationships with over 100 retail brands, including over forty brands from the Internet Retailer Top 100. Led by Chief Executive Officer John Giuliani, Dotomi is based in Chicago and has 160 employees.
“Dotomi’s end-to-end offering attracts large brands because of its ‘simple sophistication.’ John and his team have built a great business integrating the technical and consultative points in the display value chain,” said Jim Zarley, chief executive officer of ValueClick. “Together with ValueClick’s portfolio of products, we will be in a position to meet the needs of marketers with a single relationship that will create marketing and analytic consistency. Our combined scale and expertise should accelerate their adoption of digital media. Together we believe we will create a new powerhouse in branding and performance-based advertising.”
Read More: AdExchanger
Making Rich Media Scale
In my recent Ad Age piece on the disruptive nature of RTB technologies I took some shots at the rich media business. Specifically, I called it a “tech hairball”. Of all the points in the article, the rich media comments got the most feedback so I want a chance to explain exactly my criticism.
First, some brief background. The term “rich media” refers to display advertising creatives that utilize an ever-expanding collection of features like video, larger file size, social interactions, expansion beyond the banner slot, etc. Within the industry the term generally is associated with a set of vendors including PointRoll, MediaMind and DoubleClick (where I built and managed the rich media products). The fact that the whole business cannot be easily defined except in relation to the vendor offerings should raise eyebrows. Imagine if you couldn’t fully describe what a database was without reference to Oracle or Microsoft — that situation doesn’t exist in mature tech sectors, yet it is the case for the technology behind the most valuable digital ads running in display today.
At heart, the key issue that holds the rich media sector back is that the technical foundation of these ads remains immature and fragmented causing inefficiencies and complexities throughout the value chain. Rich media was invented by EyeBlaster and Unicast over ten years ago, yet virtually no standards have emerged to govern the delivery, reporting, or effectiveness of these creatives. In contrast, the in-stream video world has gone from inception to widespread adoption of the VAST and VPAID standards in less than five years. Mobile rich media is rapidly developing the ORMMA standard, potentially leaving us in a situation where it’s easier to develop cutting-edge mobile ads than browser display ads. Let’s examine the current state of rich media technology along the path of planning->creation->delivery->reporting->effectiveness and see how fragmentation continually limits the growth of the entire display business.
Read More: The AppNexus Impressionist
How To Monetize Your Content Online, Part II: Demand
In Part One of “How To Monetize Your Content Online,” I discussed the supply side of online publisher monetization, focusing on cultivating fans and working the “reader funnel” to drive audience engagement with four key steps:
1.Attract new audiences
2.Improve site recirculation
3.Move visitors upstream
4.Create loyal readers
But this is only half the battle. Quality content does not come cheap, and it is imperative for publishers to add new revenue streams as a multiplier to audience growth.
New Revenue Streams
While one half of the publisher puzzle is to increase audience engagement and move visitors into valuable pockets of your site, the other half is finding new ways to make money without subverting the user experience.
The last few years have seen advances in optimizing remnant display advertising but this approach really nibbles around the edge of the problem, with most of the revenue growth from these advances flowing to third-party intermediaries rather than to publishers directly. True revenue catalysts for publishers need to come from breaking the banner mold entirely and looking for more fertile ground.
Read More: BusinessInsider
Forecast Downgrades Global Ad Spend
With increasing jitters about the debt crises here and in Europe, and their impact on the world economy, another ad industry group has downgraded its prediction for global ad spending growth in 2011.
London-based WARC now says global spending will climb just 3.2% versus the more optimistic 4.6% it had predicted just a few months ago. If the new estimate proves correct, it would amount to less than half the average annual worldwide spending growth that occurred between 1981 and 2009 (6.8%), per the organization.
WARC did not provide a total dollar figure, but the revision follows similar downgrades from agencies that did offer dollar estimates as well as percentage downgrades.
Last month, Publicis Groupe’s ZenithOptimedia reduced its spending growth outlook by one-tenth of a point, to 4.1% or $471 billion. Also in July, WPP’s GroupM downgraded its forecast, knocking a full percentage point off its estimate — from 5.8% to 4.8% — to $506 billion.
Read More: MediaPost
How AudienceScience Gains Speed
How does AudienceScience collect and distribute the mounds of data across the Internet worldwide? It leverages IP services from Internap. Yes, a little geeky on the IT side, but as marketers and advertisers use more data to target ads in real time, knowing how companies speed information from one location to another will become more important.
AudienceScience has relied on Internap’s Performance IP network and colocation services in the U.S. since 2006, and recently expanded the partnership to support operations in Europe through its Frankfurt, Germany, data center.
Internap’s route-optimized IP service powers AudienceScience’s infrastructure to deliver audience targeting, data management and media transaction for real-time bidding and premium media buying and selling.
Amar Khan, vice president of IP services at Internap, said IP service runs on an overlay technology that leverages Internet technologies, or the backbone from other companies, to achieve a higher level of performance. A little out of the ordinary, but it works to provide better performance, he said. “We have patents around overcoming inefficiencies of the Internet such as reliability and performance.”
Read More: MediaPost
interclick Introduces Genome
First self-service audience recommendation and planning platform to set a new standard in audience planning
NEW YORK, July 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — interclick inc (NASDAQ: ICLK) announces the beta release of the first self-service audience recommendation platform, Genome. Leveraging the largest set of third party data in the industry, Genome provides advertisers with exclusive insights into audience behaviors by recommending which data points drive value and quantify the impact on marketing outcomes.
“Through Genome, marketers, agencies and trading desks can finally get a comprehensive understanding of which data to implement to drive better results,” said Michael Katz, founder and CEO of interclick. “This platform is a game-changer in audience planning, eliminating dependencies on inefficient index based tools and taking the guess work out of online segmentation strategy.”
From data visualization to functionality to security, Genome is a groundbreaking tool, that helps advertisers better valuate online audiences for maximum campaign performance. The platform can be easily integrated into DMP’s and existing technology stacks, allowing agencies to fine-tune their media allocation across Trading Desks and branded media buys.
“Data has never been more widely available than it is today. The challenge has become about determining which data to apply to execute successful campaigns,” said Katz. “Current index-based planning tools lack accuracy, and Genome strives to fill that gap by steering advertisers towards optimal audience targeting strategies to build brand value, increase sales and improve ROI.”
Read More: PR Newswire
Trading Desks are in for the long haul, not the sale
I cant decide where to start on this post, there has been so much going on in the hectic world of ad exchanges in the last few weeks. Top of the bill was an excitable debate between an Audience on Demand employee and a disgruntled DSP. The key issues raised around conflict of interest included agencies being forced to put spend through their trading desks, lack of impartiality etc etc.
Interwoven with this debate was the fact that so many companies are approaching us at the moment, DSPs, Data targeting companies etc all with interesting premises I suppose but all with one thing in common, they all need to make as much money as possible, as fast as possible. Lets talk about conflict of interest..I use the DSP marketplace including Triggit which was involved in the above debate. How many shall we say there are, that are currently aiming for Trading Desk revenues – 4? 5?. Everyone is coming to town, everyone wants a piece of the action, but when they get into town they realise that a couple of those 4/5 have been busy for a few months / years and pretty much wrapped up the business. Its not to say thatagency groups will not test and learn, we do in the US and there is definatley room for more than one or two but for some, the market’s not big enough. What happens then? They need to fight for revenues, they need to say why they are better than each other and especially better than Invite to try and find the big ticket, except I am not sure there is a big ticket at the moment. So then they resort to the last option which is to try and undermine the credibility of a trading desk to try and open up some cracks of opportunity.
Read More: MBertozzi
