Mediaplex, Ariba to Integrate Applications

E-business marketing and technology company Mediaplex Inc. said it will integrate its real-time online media buying solution with the Ariba Inc. business-to-business e-commerce solution.

The integrated application will provide businesses with an automated system for placing, tracking, changing and managing online advertising and expenses by leveraging the approval workflow and Internet order routing capabilities of the Ariba ORMS application and Ariba Network platform.

The companies said the integrated Mediaplex-Ariba solution will enhance the effectiveness of advertising campaigns through more timely management of online placements and change orders.

The Mediaplex-Ariba integrated solution will utilize Mediaplex’s new technology, adXML, to enable advertisers and Web publishers to transmit and acknowledge advertising insertion and change orders in real time.

Financial arrangements between the companies were not disclosed.

adXML employs Extensible Markup Language, a computer language that allows companies’ proprietary computer systems to communicate better with each other than through HTML, the main computing language for the Web, or the older EDI (Electronic Data Exchange) standard.

“We see two major benefits to advertisers here,” said Ken Kucera, Mediaplex vice president of strategic business development. “First, the ability to more efficiently and accurately issue insertion orders online for an Internet advertising campaign and, perhaps more importantly, to transmit change orders in real time.

“If a company runs out of inventory on an advertised product, it can take up to two or three days for every Web site in the campaign to respond to the faxed change orders. This can result in lost business as well as lost credibility with online customers.”

Mediaplex and Ariba said they are working together to make adXML an open standard, and are sponsoring an adXML.org Web site to provide more information.