MediaBank Buys AdBuyer, Bolsters Cross-Media Buying Tools
Company aims to centralize buying and management of media, online and off.
Company aims to centralize buying and management of media, online and off.
Ad operations software provider MediaBank has acquired online search and display ad platform AdBuyer for an undisclosed sum. The Chicago-based company plans to combine AdBuyer’s capabilities with its existing offline media management platforms, granting agencies the ability to plan, purchase, and track buys across multiple channels from a single point.
“What’s compelling for an agency is the concept of cross media buying and attribution. Most advertisers are less concerned with the type of media they’re buying than they are with reaching specific audiences and achieving specific goals,” MediaBank’s president of agency systems, John Bauschard, told ClickZ.
The company’s ultimate goal is to enable its agency clients – which include major media agencies Starcom MediaVest and Mediabrands – to easily manage their online media activity alongside traditional channels such as print and broadcast. The ability to plan, manage, and buy all media from a single interface should allow for easier data and strategy analysis, the company said.
“In the media world people tend to get very siloed and miss the focus of the big picture. This tends to be especially true in the digital world. Digital is growing faster, but there’s still more dollars in other media types,” Bauschard commented, suggesting the combination of data gathered from online and traditional campaigns can help advertisers better understand the ROI of both. “At the heart of this we’re all data guys.”
AdBuyer’s offering delivers real-time integration with ad exchanges such as those provided by Google and Yahoo, as well as the leading search ad vendors. As is common with demand-side platforms, it also plugs in external data from firms such as eXelate and BlueKai. MediaBank plans to integrate that technology with its existing media management platforms, which currently support a cross section of on- and offline media, as well as its M|Buy traditional media buying marketplace.
Tim Ogilvie, AdBuyer CEO turned MediaBank SVP of product, suggested the concepts applied to exchange-based online display ad buying could help inform the purchase of offline media. “In a fragmented market such as print, for example, advertisers are trying to figure out how they reach and engage the right audiences,” he said.
Ogilvie also implied that the existence of a cross-channel platform could help agencies overcome the inefficiencies of a fragmented media landscape, saving them money in the process.