Rocket Fuel Aims for 2012 IPO to Boost Online Ad Sales
Rocket Fuel Inc., an online advertising company, may join what’s becoming a long parade of technology companies.
If market conditions allow, Rocket Fuel is aiming for an initial public offering in 2012 as the company expands its sales, said Chief Executive Officer George John. Rocket Fuel will have more than $40 million in revenue this year, up from about $16 million in 2010, he said. That’s more than Zillow Inc., the online real estate company, had before its IPO earlier this year, John said.
The company, which helps companies place ads on websites and mobile devices in real time, is benefiting from international growth and strong demand from current customers. More than 90 percent of its clients renewed spending on Rocket Fuel in the third quarter from the second quarter, he said. Those customers increased their spending by an average of 50 percent.
The company’s backers include Nokia Growth Partners and Northgate Capital. Before a potential public offering, the Redwood City, California-based company plans to raise capital in the first quarter to fund growth and acquisitions, he said.
Read More: Businessweek
Interclick + Yahoo! = Major Benefits for Advertisers and Publishers
Interclick acquisition closes; Yahoo’s Seth Dallaire outlines what that means and what’s ahead
On November 1, Yahoo! announced its intention to acquire interclick, a technology company that provides innovative audience-targeting solutions for data-driven advertising. Today I’m proud to announce that the acquisition has closed, and interclick is officially part of Yahoo!
This acquisition underscores our focus on enhancing the performance of our display business across Yahoo! and our partner sites. interclick brings new solutions and expertise that will benefit our advertisers and publishers in the following ways:
Audience-targeting technologies and campaign-reporting tools will help advertisers hit the right audiences for improved campaign performance, and help publishers earn more for their inventory.
Campaign-reporting tools will help Yahoo! provide richer and more detailed insights on campaign performance to our advertisers.
The interclick team is experienced in selling audiences across disparate sources of pooled inventory, which is key to succeeding in today’s large, complex digital marketplace.
Read More: RightMedia Blog
Google’s AdMeld Deal to Clear U.S. Antitrust
Google Inc. (GOOG)’s $400 million acquisition of AdMeld Inc. has been recommended for antitrust approval by U.S. Justice Department staff attorneys, two people familiar with the matter said.
The staff urged approval after a detailed analysis found that AdMeld’s competitors in online display advertising were strong enough to offer companies alternative ways to advertise, one of the people said. The recommendation still must be approved by senior department officials, said both of the people, who didn’t want to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak about the matter publicly.
The recommendation contrasts with the department’s reservations about Google’s purchase of ITA Software Inc. In that case, the department required oversight of Google’s actions before giving approval because government attorneys determined online travel agencies that used ITA’s software, which aggregates flight information, didn’t have many alternatives.
AdMeld offers technology services to Internet publishers that help them boost revenue by managing display ads from hundreds of sources, including ad networks. Customers of the New York-based company, founded in 2007, include News Corp. (NWSA)’s Fox News and the Weather Channel.
Read More: Bloomberg
Collective Introduces Ensemble
Full Integration of Tumri and Oggifinogi Products and Operations Gives Way to Comprehensive Audience Platform for Brand Marketers
NEW YORK, Nov 30, 2011 — Collective, a full service provider of media and technology solutions for display and video advertising today released Ensemble(TM), its new technology platform designed to service brand advertisers seeking a complete buy-side audience platform and services solution. The full integration of recently acquired Tumri and Oggifinogi products and operations into a single business unit allows advertisers to leverage rich media and dynamic creative optimization, powered by Collective’s AMP(R) audience data and media platform.
“The integration of Tumri and Oggifinogi into the Ensemble platform coupled with key leadership appointments makes it possible for Collective to help advertisers deliver rich, video-enabled and optimized creative to audiences at scale,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO, Collective. “We’re enabling brands to intelligently connect with consumers across the entire spectrum of online display advertising with a truly integrated technology suite versus reliance on multiple third party vendors.”
Collective’s new solution eliminates the need for multiple service providers, presenting advertisers with the opportunity to leverage dynamic creative, engaging ad formats and Collective’s industry leading audience data all from one place. Ensemble works across their entire media buy, including real-time bidding (RTB) on leading ad exchanges. Collective is also offering comprehensive creative and production services with Ensemble, ranging from full to self-serve options.
Read More: Collective
Adobe to Acquire Efficient Frontier
Acquisition Enhances Ad Optimization Capability for Social, Search and Display Campaigns
SAN JOSE, Calif.—-Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Efficient Frontier, a leader in multi-channel ad buying and optimization. Adobe solutions are central to how digital marketing and advertising is created, managed, executed, measured and optimized. Adobe currently captures approximately five trillion digital transactions per year for more than 5,000 customers, including many of the world’s largest advertisers, publishers and advertising agencies.
The acquisition of Efficient Frontier will add multi-channel ad campaign forecasting, execution and optimization capabilities to Adobe’s existing Digital Marketing Suite. Along with the Suite, Adobe’s digital marketing capabilities include an enterprise-class data management platform, a leading video ad management and monetization platform, and an enterprise content management system. Adobe will continue to build upon the foundation of its independent ad buying and optimization platform for search, social and display, enabling the company to offer a more complete suite of capabilities to digital marketers, advertisers and publishers for reporting and analytics, personalized experiences, multi-channel campaign management and media monetization.
“With the explosion in global Internet advertising, our customers need to know where, when and how to spend their digital marketing dollars to get the greatest return,” said Brad Rencher, senior vice president and general manager of Adobe’s Digital Marketing Business. “The addition of Efficient Frontier will give our Digital Marketing Suite customers a leading platform for turning ad spend into business impact.”
Read More: AdExchanger
When Is Audience Targeting Worth It?
ADOTAS – The field of audience targeting – also known as audience analytics – has long proven attractive and effective to online marketers. Honing campaigns to focus on specific audiences is not only logical, but it promises to provide a better way to generate return on ad dollars for the goals an advertiser is trying to achieve.
Because advertisers pay a premium for audience targeting, it’s important to examine the return on investment as it relates to all aspects of a campaign. As online marketers are beginning to understand, it’s rare that any one dimension of a media campaign is responsible for success. Furthermore, they’re finding out that each dimension delivers different results depending on a number of variables.
Whether you’re trying to determine the best creative, the highest performing website, the right audience demographic or all of the above, the ability to simultaneously analyze these variables is key to determining the optimal mix of online ad campaign attributes.
Taking a holistic look at the ways audience analytics combines with other online marketing factors is essential to knowing how, when and where to invest in audience targeting. This is no easy task. A brand may be looking at targeting 10 different audience segments across multiple ad networks, making it difficult to determine the right combinations of creative, placement, timing and other campaign considerations that work best.
Read More: Adotas
