CEO Bill Wise’s MediaBank announced today that it has acquired demand-side platform AdBuyer.com (Read AdExchanger.com Q&As from 2009 and 2010). According to the MediaBank press release:

“MediaBank will make the AdBuyer platform available to MediaBank partners via the MediaBank O|X and A|V media management systems, and will expand AdBuyer’s cross-channel capabilities across all major media—creating a single, unified command center spanning digital and traditional advertising.”

Read the release.

It appears that with AdBuyer.com, Wise is looking to update his M|Buy idivision of MediaBank which he said “uses technology, data, and services to help advertisers run local advertising more intelligently” in an interview with AdExchanger.com last August. Read the MediaBank DSP interview from August 2010.

AdBuyer.com was built originally as a search and display buying platform. Wise and MediaBank want to create its own cross-channel version of the DSP model. With MediaBank’s back office systems in place and helping to deliver cross-channel transaction information for agencies, in theory, this data could help power not only the targeting the capabilities of a DSP but also power a better understanding of attribution where the marketer/agency knows how each channel of spend affects each channel AND the final conversion.

This “attribution” holy grail is something many layers are chasing as they try to get their hands on all the buying and selling data ….. there’s different ways to do it. Google has its way, Adobe has its, AppNexus is building its plumbing, IBM is moving in this direction whether they know it or not. Bill Wise with his understanding of the space and Right Media experience and wants Mediabank to be there, too. Certainly, Donovan Data Systems will give this a “go” too.

Everyone is chasing but no one has truly achieved. Can it be achieved? Seems like its a ways off. Eventually, it seems reasonably possible. Big data, right this way!

By John Ebbert