Convertro To Measure Cross-Channel; Microsoft's Van Der Kooi On The CIMO; Rave On, Right Media

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

Measuring Across

Following yesterday’s blog post, Convertro formally announced it’s entry into the cross-platform measurement race as it looks to leverage the company’s attribution skills. According to a press release, “Convertro provides a system to assess performance, and, for ad targeting purposes, incorporates demographic and psychographic elements such as country, gender, age, income, education and geography, including multiple user touch-points and engagements in the process leading up to sales.” Read more.

The CIMO

In preparation for Federated Media’s Signal SF conference, Microsoft’s Rik van der Kooi riffs on a few ad-related ideas on the Microsoft ad blog. Among them, he sees an emerging role alongside the CMO: “Lines between CIO and CMO are blurring. Today’s CMO needs to view technology as both a delivery tool and as an analytics/measurement tool. The CIO needs to think about building-out Big Data and actionable analytics capabilities to support marketing. Technology is the bridge between the two functions – hence a new title: Chief Information Marketing Officer (CIMO).” Read more thoughts.

Twitter Ads Are Here?

Digiday’s Jack Marshall profiles Adam Bain, sales chief for Twitter and former Fox Audience Network exec. Bain talks insomnia – and ads. He tells Marshall, “2012 will be Twitter’s banner year. The ad business will see growth, we’ll extend to completely new platforms, and open up to a whole new set of advertisers. That’s what I spend my time thinking about.” Read more.

Rave On, Right Media

Former Right Media Exchange CEO Mike Walrath is a little miffed that no one has asked him what he thinks about Yahoo! selling off technology assets such as his own former company. And so, he unloads in his Tumblr blog! Walrath starts, “Here’s the simple version of why it makes sense for Yahoo to sell these assets: – Yahoo needs to unload the complex tangle of advertising technology used to run its business in order to save money and focus the company’s resources on investments that are more core to future growth. – Yahoo has proven unable to be a leader and disruptor in the ad technology area. For example, Right Media has languished, APT has been a failure, Yahoo’s legacy ad systems are extremely outdated and expensive to maintain.” And then, he keeps unloading!

Ad Tech & ATDs

More anti-agency trading desk (ATD) talk from ad technology players who buy and sell media. Following Dentsu’s Ignition One CEO Will Margiloff’s piece in February, video ad network Videology CEO Scott Ferber – whose company is competitive to ATDs – writes on Advertising Age that agency trading desks have failed in display, yet, “The same drumbeat is being sounded by some shops to replicate the effort in digital video, an even steeper mountain to climb, considering video is faster-moving and more technologically complex than display. As tempting as it might be, agencies should pause and reflect for several reasons before becoming tech vendors.” Read more.

Online Offline

On MediaPost, Laurie Sullivan looks at how ad platforms are bringing together online and offline data. She adds that Proclivity Systems announced it will turn into Proclivity Media and launch “a private ad exchange called FLX that offers the integration of offline and online data. Sheldon Gilbert, Proclivity’s CEO, said the company is working with advertisers to buy media based on customer transactions in stores.” Read more.

Hot Hot Hot

Liquidity is coming in to ad tech from the public markets as marketing automation and email marketing firm ExactTarget priced its Initial Public Offering (IPO) last night at $19 per share, raising $161.5 million. Today will be the company’s first day of trading. According to Reuters, “ExactTarget’s revenue grew 55 percent in 2011 to $207.5 million. Its net loss, however, widened to $35.4 million from $12.1 million.” Read it. $160 million to spend on expansion. The market is open!

The List

And here it is. Your pay-for-play ad network list for February 2012 courtesy comScore. Get it (PDF). Compared to January (PDF), things look about the same.

Score More For Retargeting

Buysight – was Permuto – has raised another $8 million in funding to fuel its display ad retargeting offering. Retargeting basics are simple enough – yet, investors remain intrigued. Company CEO Armin Ebrahimi says in a press release, “Buysight’s growth reflects the effectiveness of our retargeting campaigns; our client base and revenue have increased more than 5x over the past 12 months.” Read more.

You’re Hired!