AOL's Platform A Integrates Tacoda Across Network
Tacoda's platform will replace Advertising.com's existing behavioral targeting technology.
Platform A will soon apply behavioral targeting technology developed by Tacoda, which AOL acquired last September, across its network.
Platform A describes the move as “a step forward” in its full-steam-ahead product integration plans. It comes on the heels of AOL’s recent dismissal of a number of Tacoda executives.
The use of Tacoda technology is expected to begin in June across the whole Platform A network. It means advertisers will have a single tracking, reporting and delivery system for running behavioral campaigns. That network includes ad inventory on every site owned and run by AOL, including its news, sports, money and finance, movie listings and MapQuest sites, along with thousands of third party sites in the Advertising.com network.
Platform A said Tacoda’s behavioral targeting technology “complements” the current advertising solutions in use. These include branded content integration, editorial sponsorships and the new “spot marketplace,” where advertisers bid, on a CPM basis on unsold inventory across AOL’s and Advertising.com’s network.
Platform A President Lynda Clarizio, who recently replaced ex-Tacoda chief Curt Viebranz as head of the ad unit, said players in the online ad industry are now insisting on scale and precision with consumer targeting options. She said the use of Tacoda’s BT technology will help Platform A satisfy that demand.
“We’ll replace all of Advertising.com’s existing behavioral technology with Tacoda’s behavioral product,” said Clarizio. For re-targeting campaigns, Platform A will continue using Advertising.com Advertiser Leadback technology and migrate Tacoda Encore clients to the Advertiser Leadback platform, she explained.
Clarizio said the integration gives Tacoda the full benefit of reaching all of Platform A’s 180 million unique visitors, representing 91 percent of the U.S. Internet audience.
She said she considers Tacoda to be the industry’s best behavioral targeting technology, but plans do not call for totally ignoring BT data from other sources. “We’ll combine information from both the Tacoda and Advertising.com behavioral providers so that we’ll have a larger pool of available behaviors,” said Clarizio.
Media buyers purchasing behavioral targeting characteristics as part of an overall ad buy on behalf of their clients will be able to choose from “all of the targeting factors currently supported by Tacoda,” she added.
The integration of Tacoda behavioral targeting follows Platform A’s integration, in March, of Quigo’s Feedpoint search marketing solution with Advertising.com’s OutSearch product. The company said the combination created “a comprehensive suite of advanced search engine marketing services.”
