Marchex Brings Ad Platforms Together

Local ad seller Marchex has consolidated its performance-based ad offerings into a single unit, dubbed Adhere. The platform represents text-based cost-per-click ads on about 200 partner sites, along with the company’s own network of roughly 100,000 generic and local domains.

With the move, Marchex will shed two of its brand names: Industry Brains, the tech-focused vertical network it bought three years ago, and Enhance Interactive, its pay-per-click network.

Additionally, Marchex said it had signed or expanded ad distribution relationships with a number of sites, including IDG, Ziff Davis Enterprise, Banks.com, AmericanTowns.com, and HelloMetro.

The new identity is partly about simplifying the way Marchex presents its ad network offerings to ad buyers, and partly about better conveying the company’s focus on local marketing.

“The name does a better job of wrapping up what we do, where the focus is,” said Scott Greenberg, SVP advertising services for Marchex.

Greenberg added the move will also eliminate duplicate sales calls being made to individual marketer prospects.

The Adhere platform is geared toward national advertisers that want to place geo-targeted campaigns, as opposed to small local businesses, which are still reticent to spend on interactive advertising. Recent and current advertisers to place text-based performance ad campaigns have included Radisson, RotoRooter, Microsoft, and HSBC.

AdHere will also broker ads on Marchex’s network of 100,000 generic, vertical and regional domains, launched a year ago. According to Greenberg, the collective traffic of those sites has grown from approximately 20 million to 30 million or so. Audience visits are spread fairly evenly across the network, he added, though domains like Podiatrist.com with targeted URL names tend to beat out ultra-specific destinations such as IndianapolisVeterinarian.com.