PRESS RELEASE
Market-Driven Move Creates a Holistic Technology Platform to Engage, Target and Measure Audiences Across Digital Channels
NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – Sep 22, 2011) – Datran Media and CONTEXTWEB today announced that they have merged to create PulsePoint, a new digital media technology company committed to helping marketers and publishers gain greater audience transparency and deeper engagement across digital channels at unprecedented scale.
PulsePoint’s holistic technology platform marries each company’s unique solutions and services for audience and contextual targeting, content distribution and real-time bidding. The integration of analytic media technology solutions enables predictable audience engagement at scale across display, social, mobile, video and email. It also provides the cross-channel insights marketers need to fuel better future performance.
PulsePoint is the first integrated digital media technology platform to deliver:
- Data Management: Leveraging verified audience data, PulsePoint provides the only real-time measurement and mapping solution to enable transparent audience reach at scale.
- Media Mix Optimization: Intelligence gained from user interactions in one digital channel can be employed to inform, predict and drive performance across other digital channels.
- Content Distribution: The analytics that power PulsePoint’s content distribution technology make it possible to optimize content creation and distribution across specific segments, devices and operating systems.
- Contextual Exchange and RTB Technology: PulsePoint delivers highly relevant ad placements for marketers and provides publishers with the ability to create private exchanges.
- Crowd Sourcing: PulsePoint’s proprietary crowd-sourcing technology enables marketers to capture and source top-of-mind content from consumers for their sites.
As partners for over a year, CONTEXTWEB and Datran Media have proven the combined value that PulsePoint is set to deliver by measuring the results of nearly two thousand advertising campaigns. Marketers and publishers have realized strong performance across key buying and selling success metrics, including reach, engagement, conversions, ROI and effective CPMs.
Patrick Vogt, former chairman and CEO of Datran Media, and Timothy Murray, former CEO of CONTEXTWEB, will lead PulsePoint serving as executive chairman and CEO, respectively. Mr. Vogt’s responsibilities as executive chairman will focus on product and technology evolution and innovation. Mr. Murray’s responsibilities as CEO will focus on day-to-day management of the new entity.
“This is a merger born out of a very successful partnership and fueled by demands to better address today’s fragmented digital marketplace,” said Vogt. “We’ve architected technology to leverage data and make it actionable to inform business strategies and drive results. PulsePoint will be the first media tech company with an integrated approach to meet the changing needs of advertisers, brands and publishers with precision technology across all digital media.”
“The creation of PulsePoint allows us to unlock the trapped value within both CONTEXTWEB and Datran Media. The merger provides the scale we need to continue to increase our investment in our team and game-changing technology to deliver what leading-edge marketers and publishers need to be successful,” said Murray.
“Scale is the great challenge,” stated Stefan Tornquist, the New York City-based vice president of research for eConsultancy. “The lack of audience insight and inability to scale across digital channels has hurt both media buyers and sellers alike. If the company delivers on this value quickly, it will be well positioned to win business as it outpaces trends and competitors. Online marketing is effective at targeting ever smaller, more relevant audiences, but it isn’t able to easily provide the reach that mass marketers need. Solutions that successfully combine audience insight with scale are a necessary step for digital to truly compete for brand dollars and will be well positioned for media buyers and sellers.”
Increasing client value is the key driver of this merger. The combination of intelligence and scale that PulsePoint will deliver to clients across the globe is powerful and game changing.
The company will be headquartered in New York with offices across the country. PulsePoint will also operate in the UK and serve the international market.
Investors in the new company include leading venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), DFJ Gotham Ventures, DFJ New England, Investor Growth Capital, Updata Partners and VantagePoint Capital Partners.
PulsePoint plans to unveil its new brand and celebrate with clients and partners during New York City’s Advertising Week, October 3-7.
About Datran Media:
Datran Media is an award-winning technology and marketing company that leading brands, agencies and publishers depend on to discover, reach and retain their ideal audiences across all digital media channels. Datran Media’s top-ranked solutions for digital audience measurement, advertising, CRM, commerce and monetization have allowed thousands of companies to execute unparalleled advertising and communications campaigns across social, mobile, the Web and email.
About CONTEXTWEB:
CONTEXTWEB is a leading integrated digital media services company that delivers consistent, measurable online ad performance on hundreds of millions of real-time impressions every day. CONTEXTWEB layers online and offline audience data with highly relevant content to deliver unique audiences at scale. Its patented, page-level contextual technology delivers brand-safe environments and ranks among the top 20 ad-supported properties, according to comScore. CONTEXTWEB counts among its clients Fortune 500 companies in pharmaceuticals, automotive and consumer goods, among others.
