The ‘Online Advertising’ Category
Triggit announced today that is has raised $4.2 million in Series A financing led by Foundry Group and Spark Capital. Read the release.
Triggit CEO Zach Coelius discussed the new funding and his company's plans.
AdExchanger.com: Please share the details on your latest round of funding.
ZC: Santo Politi from Spark Capital and Seth Levine from Foundry Group approached us this spring about a potential investment and the round came together very quickly. We were impressed with their knowledge of the space and how similar their views about RTB were to ours. From there coming to terms was easy and we accepted an investment their firms. Also participating in the round through the conversion of their previous investments were Brett and Scott Crosby, the founders of Urchin; Asher Waldfogel, the founder of Peakstream and Tollbridge Technologies; Ben Narison, founder of Fashionmall.com; Joe Spieser and Alex Zhardanovsky, founders of Epic Advertising; Gilad Elbaz, the founder of Applied Sematics; Reid Hoffman, the founder of Linkedin; TriplePoint Capital; DG Incubation; Joi Ito; Charles Sprincin; and Eric Stein. Our plan is to use the proceeds of the round to continue building the Triggit team and to begin international expansion.
What was your central thesis to investors on why they should invest in Triggit?
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Trada, a PPC marketing campaign marketplace, announced this week that in the interest of servicing agencies who "were being asked by their clients to offer paid search…and it wasn’t an area that agencies necessarily cared about," the company has updated it's marketplace to make it easy for agencies to use. Read more on the Trada blog.
Niel Robertson of Trada discussed the update to the marketplace and momentum for the company.
AdExchanger.com: How is this new version of the Trada marketplace different than the old one in terms of serving advertising agencies?
NR: We already work with a number of agencies from small 2 person shops to top ten agencies. After spending nearly six months working with them, we came to appreciate that one of the primary functions they provide to their clients is simplifying the vast data collection, integration and explanation required to understand what is going on in a paid search campaign. This process across 3 ad networks (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) is incredibly cumbersome for the agency. Once they have downloaded the data, normalizing it and integrating it into a custom agency branded spreadsheet for the client is another arduous process. The first Trada agency feature set is focused on simplifying this data extraction and normalization process. For any date range, the agency can extract their customer’s data across all ad networks into one normalized spreadsheet which they can quickly repurpose into their standard agency format. In the near future we plan to add multi-client overviews and branded interfaces for those agencies that want to directly expose the Trada advertiser interface to their clients.
Any trends you can share about how agencies are using Trada? Are their particular verticals that make sense for agencies to use Trada?
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During last week's Internet Retailer Conference In Chicago, AdExchanger.com spoke to Mike Afergan, CTO and SVP of Advertising Decision Solutions (ADS) at Akamai about the company’s digital advertising products including its new “pixel free” solution as well as industry trends from Akamai’s point-of-view. Read the release on Pixel Free.
AdExchanger.com: What’s Akamai’s pitch at an e-Commerce conference like this?
MA: So, at a conference like this, Akamai's pitch is very simple. We do three things for your site: Bring people to your site, we help give them a great experience on your site, and we help them transact securely and scale. That's our “one floor elevator” pitch at a place like this.
Probably what's most relevant to [AdExchanger.com’s audience], is that first part, bringing people to the site. There are a couple things that we talk about there such as the advertising decisions: the predictive and descriptive of targeted advertising.
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Dilip Venkatachari is CEO and co-founder of Compass Labs, a real-time targeting technology company.
AdExchanger.com: Please share some background on you. And, where did the idea for Compass Labs come from?
Prior to co-founding Compass Labs, I led Google’s mobile monetization business and had responsibility for all of PayPal’s risk and fraud management, card and bank processing relationships, and regulatory compliance. Compass Labs is not my first start-up. I also co-founded and led two successful start-up companies – CashEdge and CommerceSoft – after stints at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs.
As a casual user of social networks, I noticed people beginning to use Facebook and Twitter to ask product questions of their friends and total strangers. It seemed that people were unable to find what they wanted by themselves, despite the wealth of information available online, and so were turning to others for help. Arjun Jayaram, who was at that time working on product search, Kittu Kolluri, a general partner at NEA, and Ajay Vashee, another NEA venture capitalist, joined me in brainstorming the potential of a solution. The scale and scope of this business opportunity gradually became clear – and then we set about forming the company and fleshing out the strategy and technology.
What problem is Compass Labs solving?
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Last Thursday amidst the Internet Week hoopla in New York City, ad technology and media company luminaries gathered at BMO Capital Markets 2nd Annual Advertising & Marketing Services Conference.
In the private company track, this writer had the pleasure of guiding discussion among participants John Mellor, VP, Strategy & Biz Dev at Adobe/Omniture, Epic Advertising CEO Don Mathis, AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley and Joe Zawadzki, CEO, MediaMath in a panel titled "Race for the Digital Marketing Hub 1.1," which explored the use of marketing technologies in today's media landscape.
The discussion lasted nearly hour as the panel covered everything from recent M&A to agency strategies. In light of the recent acquisition of Invite Media by Google, the panel offered a compelling thread as MediaMath's Zawadzki began and offered a parallel to the Urchin acquisition by Google which led to the free Google Analytics product. He argued:
"I think what happened with Omniture is the best analogy that I see. A lot of people said, 'What happens to the market after Google buys Urchin - $30 million acquisition, small pick-up, free price point analytics product. What's going to happen to poor Omniture?' with a $105 million market cap at the time. Omniture proceeded to grow due to amazing work by John [Mellor] and his team to [a market cap of] $1 billion over the course of 3.5 years and really opened up a segment. Google did a very good job of targeting the small and mid-size business and coming up with a very scalable entry point product. But, most people outgrew the [Google] product and moved to the more sophisticated solutions."
Adobe/Omniture's Mellor added:
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Terence Kawaja is Managing Director of GCA Savvian, an investment bank, which "acted as exclusive financial advisor to Invite Media, Inc. and assisted in the negotiations" between Google and Invite Media. Google acquired Invite Media last week.
AdExchanger.com: Why do you think Google bought Invite Media?
TK: I will let Google answer that but Invite had many excellent qualities from a world-class team (yes despite the fact they are recently out of college), a very user-friendly and leading technology and a great set of growing agency relationships.
Some commentators have suggested that the Invite Media deal may set a cap on the value of a demand-side platform (DSP), not dissimilar to what happened with Teracent in the creative optimization space. Do you agree?
I have heard the Teracent hypothesis but think that this situation is different in several respects. Firstly, the valuation of Invite (which has been understated in the press) worked since they had attained a strong market position very efficiently – they raised less than $5 million in capital. Second, the DSP process is probably more complicated and is less easily replicated. Third, several successful DSPs have created sticky agency relationships that go beyond the algorithm that contribute to longer-term value.
Can you disclose the actual sale price for Invite?
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Mediabrands' Cadreon CEO Brendan Moorcroft offered his reaction to the recent acquisition of Invite Media by Google which was announced last week:
"Google's purchase of Invite Media marks an exciting time for the digital technology and media marketplace. One of the leading technology powerhouses in the industry has now solidified their commitment to an open and dynamic ecosystem, completing their trifecta by adding a DSP in Invite Media to their existing ad server (Doubleclick) and Exchange (AdX) businesses. Both Google and Invite Media have been important partners to Cadreon and Mediabrands, and we look forward to continuing and furthering that partnership as a result of this acquisition. As we work to deepen our relationships with strategic partners across our ecosystem, we find it crucial to engage with companies that have a shared vision of the future, and are willing to invest substantial resources to achieve its goals. Google continues to show its commitment to that shared vision, which is something the whole industry should be excited about and equally prepared to support."
By John Ebbert
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Jed Simon is Founder & Partner and Patrick Yee is Partner of Fast Pay Partners.
AdExchanger.com: Please share background on yourselves. And, where did the idea come from for Fast Pay Partners?
Jed: The idea for Fast Pay Partners was based on seeing the need firsthand.
Patrick: Before Fast Pay, I co-founded of Shopflick, a venture-capital backed video-ecommerce marketplace which was sold to Sugar Publishing in 2009. Prior to Shopflick, I co-founded Rocket XL, a full service interactive marketing agency, so the frustrations of financing growth in the digital marketplace is one I know well. However, my career began with stints at Wasserstein Perella & Co. (now Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein) and Soros Fund Management, so thinking outside the box to deal with those challenges also comes naturally to me.
Jed: My trajectory was similar. Like Patrick, I started out in the traditional finance world, as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley & Co. I then spent 10 years at DreamWorks SKG, most recently VP International Marketing and Distribution for DreamWorks Pictures, based in London (and oversaw for new media, finance, and marketing for DreamWorks Records in Los Angeles prior to that). Post DreamWorks I started an international content licensing and distribution business, which had exposure into the performance marketing space, and its inherent the float/finance challenges were requisite apparent.
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This is the fourth and final day of the data-media series. If you'd like to begin at the start of the 4-day, reaction series, click here.
Click "read more" to read the participant's answer to the AdExchanger.com reaction question on the decoupling of data and media:
Andy Atherton, COO, Brand.net: “...it’s fine for data companies to sell media as long as they have appropriate legal authority to do so and all relevant parties are aware of potential for conflicts. Practically though, this is rarely the case today.” Read more.
Ari Buchalter, COO, MediaMath: “Regardless of the type of Data and who is selling it, the only thing that is “inappropriate” is being opaque about what you are selling.” Read more.
Zach Coelius, CEO, Triggit: “It is really just a business model question about what the advertiser prefers.” Read more.
Jeff Hirsch, CEO, AudienceScience: “Data companies will play in the media game. The questions that arise will be around data rights, and true optimization.” Read more.
Michael Katz, President, InterCLICK: "...its actually not important whether or not a data company sells media, what is important is whether or not buyers actually understand the value of the data that they are buying." Read more.
John Nardone, CEO, [x+1]: “The question that clients will need to answer as they look across the landscape of choices is, is the pairing effective.” Read more.
Andrew Pancer, COO, Media6Degrees: “Companies are trying to offer everything, but by doing so, they're failing to provide the basic services that a more specialized provider can offer.” Read more.
Alan Schanzer, CSO, Undertone Networks: “Companies that acquire and resell or rent data for targeting purposes should remain independent of the media channel.” Read more.
Philip Smolin, GM, Turn: “The question really comes down to what are the core competencies of any given vendor -- Do they understand data, media, and strategy all together, and can they assimilate the data in real-time and at scale to truly maximize its potential?” Read more.
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AdExchanger.com surveyed executives from the digital ad world regarding their opinion on the recent acquisition of Invite Media by Google which was announced yesterday.
What are your thoughts about Google's acquisition of Invite Media? Any concerns?
- Matt Spiegel, CEO, Omnicom Media Group
- Will Margiloff, co-CEO, Innovation Interactive
- Bill Demas, CEO, Turn
- Tim Ogilvie, CEO, AdBuyer.com
- Zach Coelius, CEO, Triggit
- Eran Shir, CTO, Dapper
- Chris Sukornyk, CEO, Chango
- Rob Leathern, CEO, XA.net
What does Google's acquisition of InviteMedia mean?
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Posted in Online Advertising | 3 Comments »
As previously noted, Google announced that it has acquired demand-side platform Invite Media for a rumored $40-81 million depending on who you talk to. In a post on the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog, VP of Product Neal Mohan said:
"The team at Invite Media has developed technology that enables advertisers and agencies to use “real time bidding” to buy display ad space, and to optimize display ad campaigns, across multiple advertising exchanges, all in a single interface."
Later in the post, Mohan addressed specific plans including the integration of Invite Media technology into DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) ad serving product. He added, "Invite Media’s platform will of course continue to be available to any agency or advertiser, whether they use DFA or not."
Mohan discussed with AdExchanger.com a few of the questions swirling in regards to today's acquisition of Invite Media.
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