Adchemy Gets Millions, Microsoft; AdKeeper CEO Kurnit On Google +1; Krux Digital Growing Sell-Side DMP

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Adchemy Says Intent Rules

In a Series E round which brings its total financing to $120 million, search ad technology firm Adchemy announced that Microsoft among others had dropped $61 million in the company along with a couple of venture firms. Adchemy sees intent targeting as the way to go in search – not keyword targeting and offers its IntentMap product to facilitate the intent-based bidding in pay-per-click search. Read more from TechCrunch. And, read the release. Adchemy also said it will begin offering its IntentMap product more broadly through Microsoft’s PPC search solution, AdCenter, which is used on Bing and Yahoo!.

The Keep Versus +1

AdKeeper CEO Scott Kurnit responded to a query from AdExchanger.com regarding his thoughts about Google +1 buttons in display ads which Google announced yesterday. Is “the Keep” under attack? Kurnit writes, “We like the affirmation from Google that ads should be more useful, whether that’s from endorsing, +1 style, or Keeping for personal use, AdKeeper style. Both endorsing and Keeping have significant value, but they are apples and oranges. Facebook learned from Beacon that endorsing and sharing ads is complicated. It’s one of the reasons we focus on the Keep first, and the endorsement second. Keeping is clean, simple and useful for the consumer. Endorsements; they’re another matter. What circle do they fall into? I want to save an ad to research a disease treatment. Do I need to endorse it to save it? Can I save it at all? Google’s attempt to catch up with Facebook by +1ing everything under the sun is admirable, but there’s a ton of complexity in front of them. And +1 is not as much a consumer benefit but a trick by Google to improve targeting for the next ad-serve. We’ll stick with Keeping.”

Funding Krux

More funds for the ecosystem as sell-side data management platform Krux Digital announced an $11 million round of financing led by Accel Partners and IDG Ventures. The company said in a release that the funds will be used to grow sales and engineering teams which means continuing to build out offices in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area as well as expand in Europe. Read the release.

Reaching The Ad Networks

comScore reported its pay-for-play ad network rankings for August in the U.S. Compared to July (PDF), the only significant change is the inclusion of AT&T’s ad network (AdWorks) which appears to have anted-up for the first time and ranks 4th reaching over 180 million U.S. uniques. Ecommerce publisher Amazon.com grew its “ad network” reach by 5 million to 75 million uniques in August. See it.

Paywall And Ads

The New York Times Company warned yesterday that its third-quarter ad sales (quarter ending Sept. 30) will drop a more-than-expected 8% and that digital will also fall victim to the slump to the tune of 2-3%. Read more from Reuters. According to David Kaplan of PaidContent, CEO Janet Robinson discussed a few NYT paywall results at a Goldman Sachs conference and said that 88% of subscribers are domestic and 12% are international. Read more. Can the paywall stop the ad sales bleeding?

Fragmentation Helps TV

The Wall Street Journal finds that even though TV audiences are decreasing slightly and TV ratings have plummeted from their glory days, advertisers are still will to pay even more to reach TV audience because, well, where else are you going to find that much audience in one place? Fragmentation is helping TV. Read more.

IP In The Media Plan

In her column on Click Z, Hollis Thomases laments the commoditization of digital media planning business which she says requires a highly-skilled team or individual even though some clients may not think so. Thomases writes, “What bothers me most and seems to be compromised in this age of new normal is the general lack of understanding that good online media planning requires true experience and intellectual property.” Read it.

Tech Jobs

A new study out of the University of Maryland says the world of “apps” popularized by Facebook has led to the creation of over 180,000 jobs in the U.S. and has generated “an estimated value of about $12.19 billion to as much as $15.71 billion to the U.S. economy,” writes the L.A. Times which summarizes the study. The internet tech and media sector remains a bright spot within the larger U.S. economy. Read more. And, download it (PDF).

Appending The Data

TRAFFIQ announced that its 400 buy side customers who use the TRAFFIQ platform will be able to append Nielsen’s @plan data product for display ad buying. TRAFFIQ’s Chris O’Hara tells DM News that this will provide demographic information and enable decisioning on whether buyers should advertise across particular placements. Read more.

Rating The Ad Placement

Ad verification company AdSafe Media released its new AdSafe Engagement Quality Ratings as it looks to layer on demand-side product offerings beyond “brand safety” metrics. In a press release, the company describes the ratings as informing “advertisers and DSPs in real-time of the probability of their ad being in view to a user, as well as the level of user engagement and the amount of time in view.” Read more. Given the increasing transparency for the Buy side and its impact on bidding, publisher insight into these metrics will also be important as they look to optimize yield. AdSafe claims to address publishers with this product, too.

But Wait. There’s More!