Dapper Pushes Dynamic Retargeted Ads
Ad network takes retargeting a step further by offering it in conjunction with dynamic ad creative.
Ad network takes retargeting a step further by offering it in conjunction with dynamic ad creative.
Ad network and technology firm Dapper has begun offering dynamic retargeting services for advertisers. The approach takes behavioral data about users from an advertiser’s Web site to construct and serve relevant ads elsewhere on the Dapper ad network.
Ads can include flight information derived from searches on a travel Web site; inventory for a local car dealer; or weather-appropriate clothing based on a user’s location and current weather conditions.
The announcement comes only days after ValueClick announced a similar capability, and just weeks after Yahoo did so. Others with comparable offerings include Teracent, Tumri, Adroit and ad management providers like DoubleClick and Mediaplex.
The ad-serving element is an extension of Dapper’s MashupAds solution, introduced last November, now called Dapper Ads. That system allows ads to be pieced together on the fly based on data Dapper has scraped from the advertiser’s Web site or feeds the advertiser has provided. “[Advertisers] don’t need to do all that, we do the work, we make the stuff easy to do,” said Paul Knegten, head of marketing at Dapper.
Behavioral targeting was added to Dapper’s ad platform through partnerships with networks such as Yahoo, BlueKai, and Audience Science. “It took a few months of building media and relationships to get where we are today,” said Knegten.
Vikas Jha, CEO and founder of rival firm Teracent, said each company has its strengths, and Dapper’s is automatically creating a feed by scraping a company’s Web site or product catalog. Teracent gathers data directly from the company through a database or API, which requires an extra level of technical detail but doesn’t typically require the involvement of a client’s IT department, according to Jha. He said this method has fewer errors.
Through its Dapper Ads solution, Dapper has demonstrated it can serve any number of dynamic ads based on a user’s location, history, an advertiser’s inventory, or other criteria. “Since we can create a limitless number of ads from one creative, audiences could see the exact same ad on another site or a different offer from the same marketer — down to the exact product the visitor was looking at on the marketer’s Web site,” Knegten said.