Now, all ads served by LiveIntent technology may contain the AdChoices logo. Clicking on the logo will bring users to the LiveIntent AdChoices page that explains why that ad was served to them and how they can opt-out of future ads from LiveIntent. There, users will also be able to read about LiveIntent’s privacy policy as well as visit the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance to see their opt-out choices from other participating companies.

“At LiveIntent, we’re committed to being fully transparent and notifying users of their choices,” said Matt Keiser, CEO, LiveIntent. “Consumers have the right to know they are being targeted for ads and making them aware of this trackingwill strengthen advertiser-consumer trust in the long term.”

LiveIntent for Publishers (LFP) enables publishers to insert LiveTags into their newsletter templates to serve direct sold and LiveIntent exchange campaigns into emails newsletters, to monetize and maximize the yield of their newsletter inventory. LiveIntent for Advertisers (LFA) give marketers the ability to target and deliver ads to relevant audiences, on email open while optimizing results.

“We strive to be fully transparent to our readers and all consumers,” said Brian Riback, E-Marketing Strategist for The New York Daily News. “As our readership grows, we want to continue to protect consumer privacy and remain completely supportive to our readers, whether we reach them on the desktop, tablet or mobile.”

“Maintaining a rock-solid relationship with our customers is paramount as we look to keep the highest standards of choice in how they consume ads every day,” said Paul Rostkowski, President of Varick Media Management (VMM).  “Having LiveIntent be AdChoices-compliant gives us the assurance and confidence in their process of delivering our ads to the people who want to see them.”

About LiveIntent
LiveIntent is the only company with a real-time display ad platform for email. LiveIntent works with advertisers, publishers and agencies to provide ad optimization, DSP / trading desk and exchanges capabilities. The company is venture-backed by Shasta Ventures, Battery Ventures, First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures and Grape Arbor VC. LiveIntent was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in NYC. For more information and a demonstration of the company’s technology in your own inbox, visit www.liveintent.com.

DALLAS – Creation of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) is an important step for the $26 billion U.S. online advertising industry, according to Parks Associates’ new report Trends in Behavioral and Contextual-based Advertising.

The international research firm reports 17% of U.S. broadband households are willing to provide personal information for relevant online ads and 10% with a mobile phone service are willing to submit for relevant mobile ads. Parks Associates analysts say to foster continued consumer interest in targeted advertising, the market needs self-regulatory programs that provide transparency and give consumers a choice to opt-out of targeted online advertising.

“While current data show online consumers are amenable to advanced advertising practices, privacy concerns, if not properly addressed, could negatively impact future growth in this market,” said Heather Way, Research Analyst, Parks Associates. “Our research shows formation of organizations such as the DAA is the right approach for online publishers, ad networks, and industry trade organizations to show their commitment to full transparency and consumer empowerment.”

Young broadband users are willing to provide personal information to receive customized Internet ads. Over 50% of adults 18-34 and approximately 40% of adults 25-54 are positive or indifferent to advanced advertising practices. These targeting tactics stoke privacy concerns by delivering ads to specific consumers based on individual online behavior, but these concerns are less intense when consumers are given opt-out management tools.

“The keys to assuaging consumer privacy fears are in providing education, transparency, and control,” Way said.

For information on Trends in Behavioral and Contextual-based Advertising, visit http://www.parksassociates.com or contact 972-490-1113, sales@parksassociates.com.

About Parks Associates

Parks Associates is an internationally recognized market research and consulting company specializing in emerging consumer technology products and services. Founded in 1986, Parks Associates creates research capital for companies ranging from Fortune 500 to small start-ups through market reports, primary studies, consumer research, custom research, workshops, executive conferences, and annual service subscriptions.

Each year, Parks Associates hosts executive thought leadership conferences CONNECTIONS™, with support from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, CONNECTIONS™ Europe, and Smart Energy Summit.

The conversations taking place about behavioral targeting is occurring between the wrong parties. As DNT stands today, the dialogue is happening between consumers and monetization platforms, which are providing a universal opt-out feature at the browser level. Rather, this conversation should be between consumers and publishers.

Publishers need the ability to monetize their content either through subscriptions or ad-supported content, while users need to know how their information is being used. Therefore, what’s needed is a more balanced approach that acknowledges the benefits of subsidized content and illustrates trade-offs in a non-advertising world. What is not being discussed is how DNT in its current form is a mechanism for shutting down this process that otherwise funds content that provides value to both consumers and publishers.

Much has been made of the similarities between DNT and the Do-Not-Call list introduced by lawmakers in the 1990s to address the rising concern of telemarketers. This comparison is misplaced and points people in the wrong direction. Since phone bills have always been paid by the consumer, there is no value for them to take telemarketing calls. So Do-Not-Call was created to give the ultimate choice to the paying consumer. Sounds fair to me. But let’s be clear that there is no parallel to DNT where consumers are getting free content. Would consumers have agreed to get telemarketing calls if their phone service was free? Maybe. Does it make sense to offer free phone service if there is no value to the provider? That’s the question we need to address with DNT. Otherwise, DNT should be named the “Do Not Pay – let someone else pay for me” feature.

What is needed is not less or more regulation, but a revision to the current DNT proposals that preserves the interests of both consumers and publishers by giving them control over DNT. So what would that revision look like? Here’s an example:

- Users would have the ability to select DNT settings in their browser.
- This preference would be recognized by the publisher site the user navigates to.
- The Publisher site presents the user with a message that acknowledges their DNT setting and asks if the Publisher can override that setting to give them a better site experience, more free content, etc.
- Users choose! (Their DNT preference is applicable for this publisher site only.)

This model would open the lines of communication between consumers and publishers on the application of DNT while preserving the benefits of monetization for publishers and the service (aka free content) provided to consumers. It is also vitally important that DNT not erase cookies as this would still be counterproductive in the disruption of the monetization process for ad-supported content (e-commerce would be severely impacted). What it should ensure is that the state of the cookie be intact while DNT is present.

We would be supportive of a revision of DNT to include the above consumer-publisher dialogue. However, we also want to make clear that the principles being adopted by the DAA and NAI, where consumers get global and local opt-out capabilities and transparency through the about ads icon offers another viable implementation of this same goal. This self-regulatory approach (we have heard industry estimates of over a trillion ads being served with this icon enabled) is already receiving wide adoption and aims to deliver on the goals of transparency and simplicity for the consumer.

DNT promises to alter the way advertising is served and needs to be transparent in its impact on both consumers and publishers. Let’s be clear and upfront on what exactly DNT is designed to do. We can start by bringing the right parties together to have a fruitful and productive conversation about the pros and cons of sponsored or free content.

-Creates new standard for the advertising industry in which all interested parties can participate

NEW YORK – Tremor Video, the largest independent online video technology company, is developing a first of its kind in-stream privacy compliance solution for behaviorally targeted video advertising. The implementation marks the first time the ad choices consumer notification icon has been applied to in-stream video within the player. This is the launching point of an industry-wide leadership initiative for digital video advertising privacy.

The icon will be incorporated into all of Tremor Video’s targeted video ads as part of its commitment to the online advertising industry’s self-regulatory privacy program, which is being managed by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). The video solution will be available in September to all Tremor Video advertisers, as well as publishers that use the company’s proprietary Acudeo® video ad monetization platform. Tremor Video will share the learnings from this endeavor to inform the future efforts of the DAA and Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) for video privacy programs.

Tremor Video currently employs the Advertising Option Icon and “Ad Choices” text in some of its interest-based in-banner advertisements, designed to provide consumers a better understanding and greater control over customized ads that they receive. The company expects the icon will appear in 100 percent of the behaviorally targeted video in-banner campaigns it serves by the third quarter of 2011. The DAA has developed standards for digital display advertising, which Tremor Video has translated into in-banner video, but no such standard exists for streaming video.

“We take privacy very seriously, and we want consumers to feel comfortable with the ads they see,” said Jason Krebs, Tremor Video’s SVP and Chief Media Officer. “Tremor Video is proud to be at the forefront of protecting consumer privacy and leading the way toward video advertising transparency. The ultimate goal is to give consumers relevant advertising that becomes part of the information and entertainment experience. We are also happy to take the first step for the industry that benefits all parties.”

Tremor Video is the industry leader in targeted video advertising, and its technology platforms help advertisers match their ads to the most relevant consumers.

As reported in Ad Age, Tremor Video is the first company to offer the Advertising Option Icon within in-stream video ads. It is the latest in Tremor Video’s list of firsts, as the company is:

- The first and only to offer in-stream brand protection, determining brand-safe environments for all in-stream content within Tremor Video’s network.
- The first and only to offer a cost-per engagement (CPE) in-stream video pricing model for pre-roll, meaning advertisers only pay when consumers engage with an ad.
- The first and only to offer premium site placement controls that let advertisers approve a site list and only run the ads within that list.

Much of the industry self-regulation effort thus far has focused on display advertising, and the complicated nature of video advertising has prevented the implementation of an industry-wide in-stream standard. Interactive creative elements and the time span of pre-roll video ads raise questions of when a notification icon should appear within the ad and for how long.

“Standard banners are static images with little interactivity, as opposed to video, which offers a wealth of consumer engagement opportunities,” said Ragu Kamakshisundaram, Director of Product Management at Tremor Video. “Rather than wait for a standard, we’re building our self-regulation solution to ensure our ads are in line with privacy compliance.”

For the benefit of consumers and the entire video advertising industry, use and behavior of the icon will align with the initiatives currently endorsed by the DAA and in use for display ad units. The icon will appear within the video player on top of ad units and will link to a page where consumers can learn more about targeted online advertising, including how to opt-out of receiving interest-based advertising from Tremor Video. In addition to hosting its own opt-out functionality, Tremor Video also participates in the DAA’s consumer choice opt-out page.

About Tremor Video

Founded in 2005, Tremor Video (formerly Tremor Media) (www.tremorvideo.com) provides in-stream video advertising solutions to Fortune 1000 brand advertisers and top tier publishers and is widely regarded as the leading video company online. Leveraging its innovative video ad formats and publisher technology, Tremor Video delivers the mass reach and campaign results advertisers should expect from digital video. Tremor Video is the only video ad platform that can provide 100% brand safety by scanning and categorizing every single video stream before an ad is ever served. Powered by award-winning SE2 technology, Tremor Video’s video algorithm also gets smarter at finding and engaging viewers with every ad served, enabling the company to welcome and encourage pay-per-engagement pricing. Tremor Video is a privately held company headquartered in NYC with 10 national and international offices.

- Company “Walking the Talk” by Leveraging the “Ad Choices” Icon to Demonstrate Increased Efficacy through Transparency in Behavioral Campaign

NEW YORK – Evidon, the leading provider of compliance services for management of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA), announced the launch of a major advertising campaign in support of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising.

Evidon has launched the “Doing it Now” ad campaign in cooperation with its major agency, brand, publisher, network and technology partners. The goal of the campaign is to demonstrate how many businesses are proactively championing consumer privacy and supporting the DAA’s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising, and, in turn, to spur further adoption of the Program.

Each ad creative in the campaign features a different partner who is empowering consumers and demonstrating compliance with the Program through Evidon. The campaign, which will run for two months, marks the first time that an OBA compliance service provider is deploying the Ad Choices icon (and the Evidon ad notice experience that flows from it) across its own ad campaign.

Merely seven months after the launch of the DAA and the Industry Self-regulatory program, more than 80 brands and 20 networks and technology partners already work with Evidon and its partners to power their company’s compliance programs.

“As an Evidon Design Partner from the beginning, we’re especially excited to be part of this campaign,” said Grace Liau, Senior Vice President at VivaKi. “At VivaKi, we understand quite clearly how the enabling of transparency through this program can move privacy and compliance from a burden to an asset for brands, each of whom is looking for an interactive conversation with their consumers online.”

Evidon’s Assurance Platform – Evidon InForm – simplifies and speeds compliance with OBA principles for brands, agencies, publishers, networks and technology providers. Evidon InForm enables simple and scalable implementation of the Advertising Option Icon into display ads and Web sites, and gives consumers access to and control over how information is collected and used – while providing the option of opting out altogether.

“It is so important that as an industry we stop waiting on the sidelines, and start activating the approved DAA program. This campaign underscores that message and is a call to action for us all – the time to act is now.” said David Cohen, Global Digital Officer for UM. “We’re fully behind the DAA program, and we’re very pleased to be part of this campaign.”

Evidon is the first company designated by the DAA as an approved provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for OBA. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option icon on behalf of companies that are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform—Evidon InForm– is operating at scale, and has already delivered the Advertising Option Icon and corresponding notice with over 20 billion advertising impressions for leading brands.

“We’re definitely walking the talk by utilizing OBA in a campaign about enabling transparency in OBA,” said Scott Meyer, Founder and CEO of Evidon. “Studies show very clearly that consumers prefer the full transparency that our solutions enable. It’s not just about linking to a privacy policy. It’s about notice and choice – where did the data come from and what can I do to access my profile online. This is what the DAA program calls for and it’s what we are providing for our partners in hundreds of millions of impressions every day.”

Evidon is the leading technology company enabling online advertising transparency, in no small part through its leadership role in the Open Data Partnership (ODP). An alliance of online behavioral advertising companies, the ODP gives consumers access to and control over the information those companies have collected about their interests directly from an ad impression or publisher site that uses Evidon’s platform.

About Evidon Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its online behavioral advertising self-regulatory program, Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in OBA with confidence and generate better results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

NEW YORK – Undertone, which delivers quality display, high impact and video solutions for advertisers, announced that it has partnered with Evidon to ensure full compliance of its Digital Advertising Suite with the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising. As a result of the agreement, Undertone now offers Evidon’s industry standard InForm assurance platform and analytics tools exclusively to all its agency and brand marketer clients, further demonstrating the company’s commitment to ensuring consumer privacy across all the campaigns it executes.

The discussion of consumer privacy in digital advertising has reached a fever pitch. While authorities and industry representatives continue to debate the most effective solutions for privacy regulation, Undertone has long been committed to the practice of responsible targeting in the digital ad and video campaigns it delivers for clients. Its partnership with Evidon and achievement of full compliance with the DAA program provide advertisers and brand marketers with the additional assurance that their campaigns are addressing audiences in a transparent manner.

“Evidon believes in giving consumers clear, comprehensive information about the advertisements they view and control over how their information will be used,” said Scott Meyer, founder and CEO of Evidon. “When industry leaders like Undertone adopt our technology, the results are amplified as they touch agencies, brand marketers and publishers.”

Evidon is the first company designated by the Digital Advertising Alliance as an Approved Provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (Principles). This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) Icon on behalf of companies who are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering the Advertising Option Icon and corresponding notice in more than five billion monthly advertising impressions across the Internet for leading brands.

“We’ve always operated with the belief that privacy is of the utmost importance, and adding Evidon’s technology to our Digital Advertising Suite is a natural way to ensure this for our clients,” said Teri Santos, general counsel and head of the privacy committee at Undertone.

Click to learn more about Undertone’s privacy policy for advertisers, marketers and consumers.

About Undertone

Undertone delivers quality display and video experiences for advertisers, publishers and the global audiences they serve. Undertone’s Digital Advertising Suite™ is a unified platform that supports targeting, optimization and reporting across multiple formats. Armed with the insights to turn data into better decisions, Undertone helps marketers around the world create value from their online investments. For more information, go to www.undertone.com.

About Evidon

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its online behavioral advertising self-regulatory program, Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in OBA with confidence and generate results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

NEW YORK, NY – DoubleVerify, the pioneer and worldwide leader in online media verification and compliance, introduced a new version of its Privacy Manager as part of its OBA Compliance solution. The Privacy Manager allows consumers to set preferences for behaviorally targeted ads and lets DoubleVerify customers customize a user’s experience to match their sites’ look and feel. When consumers are served behaviorally targeted ads from DoubleVerify’s OBA Compliance solution, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Advertising Option Icon appears. Once users click on the Icon, the Privacy Manager launches and empowers them to either opt-out of behavioral targeting or set preferences for what information can be used for targeting. The Privacy Manager includes hundreds of companies and provides additional information on their privacy practices, in addition to an opt-out where available.

Consumers also encounter the Privacy Manager when visiting a website that uses DoubleVerify’s OBA Compliance solution. The Privacy Manager can either be linked to the DAA’s Icon on a site or through a publisher’s privacy policy. DoubleVerify’s Privacy Manager allows websites to control the appearance of the user-facing experience to match their brand and site appearance.

“The Privacy Manager feature in our OBA product exemplifies how we support of the DAA’s Self-Regulatory program. We’re making it very simple for companies across the board — advertisers, intermediaries and publishers — to adhere to industry privacy standards for behavioral advertising so we can prove to government agencies that the online advertising industry can self regulate,” said Oren Netzer, CEO of DoubleVerify. “Because of its ease of implementation, DoubleVerify’s OBA solution helps advertisers and publishers comply with the DAA’s standards with a click of a button. It is our responsibility to provide this service to consumers and imperative that the online advertising industry increases the transparency and accountability around its practices.”

DoubleVerify’s OBA compliance solution is a one-tag technology which, for customers of verification, uses the same ad tag it uses for its suite of verification solutions, enabling advertisers and publishers to comply with industry standards simply by checking a box on the system’s interface. The solution includes the placement of the Icon, the management of the disclosure information, the link to the user privacy manager and opt-out mechanism, as well as detailed evidence and reporting on compliance.

Since being certified by the DAA to provide OBA compliance services, DoubleVerify has placed it on more than 5 billion impressions per month across numerous ad campaigns. The company is offering its OBA solution at no charge until June 2011 to speed the adoption of the DAA’s Self-Regulatory program before potential regulatory legislation from the government is passed.

Meanwhile, individual industry organizations are beginning to enforce compliance with the self-regulatory program. The DMA’s deadline for compliance was January 31, 2011. The Better Business Bureau’s March 31, 2011 deadline is fast approaching and the Interactive Advertising Bureau set a date of August 29, 2011 as part of its recent Code of Conduct initiative for members. Because of DoubleVerify’s wide reach and hassle-free implementation, its OBA Compliance solution is the fastest and easiest method of compliance with the self-regulatory program.

For more information on DoubleVerify’s OBA Compliance solution, visit: http://www.doubleverify.com/solutions/regulatory-compliance/

About DoubleVerify
DoubleVerify (www.doubleverify.com) is the worldwide leader in online advertising verification and the top choice of marketers, agencies, ad networks and publishers looking to ensure brand safety, campaign transparency and regulatory compliance. DoubleVerify verifies over 35 billion advertising impressions per month for hundreds of leading Fortune 500 marketers. DoubleVerify is headquartered in New York City, with engineering offices in Tel Aviv, Israel. Investors in DoubleVerify include Blumberg Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, First Round Capital and Genacast Ventures.

NEW YORK – As yet further indication of its commitment to privacy, enterprise-class DSP MediaMath has chosen Evidon as its preferred provider of compliance services for management of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA). The agreement brings Evidon’s Assurance Platform – Evidon InForm – to MediaMath’s TerminalOne® to simplify and speed compliance with OBA principles.

Evidon InForm enables simple and scalable implementation of the Advertising Option Icon into display ads and Web sites, and gives consumers access to and control over how information is collected and used – while providing the option of opting out altogether.

“MediaMath has and continues to far exceed the industry standards for self-regulation and this partnership is deeper indication of our unwavering commitment to protecting consumer privacy,” said Tom Craig, MediaMath’s chief privacy officer. “Evidon’s platform gives our clients an additional crucial element in the privacy value chain – compliance with the industry’s latest privacy guidelines – and because our clients take privacy seriously, we take it seriously too.”

Evidon is the first company designated by the DAA as an approved provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for OBA. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option icon on behalf of companies that are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering the Advertising Option Icon and corresponding notice in more than five billion monthly advertising impressions for leading brands.

“MediaMath’s decision to work with Evidon reinforces its understanding of the importance of transparency and trust,” said Scott Meyer, founder and CEO of Evidon. “DSPs are one of the fastest growing segments of the interactive media industry and having these companies advocate for industry self-regulation is a major coup for advancing the cause and preserving industry growth.”

Evidon is the leading technology company enabling online advertising transparency, in no small part through its leadership role in the Open Data Partnership (ODP). An alliance of online behavioral advertising companies, the ODP gives consumers access to and control over the information those companies have collected about their interests directly from an ad impression or publisher site that uses Evidon’s platform.

About Evidon

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its online behavioral advertising self-regulatory program, Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in OBA with confidence and generate results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

About MediaMath

Headquartered in New York City with offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC in the US, and in both Canada and the UK serving EMEA, MediaMath was founded in 2007 by a seasoned team of entrepreneurs, marketers, technologists and quants. The company’s industry-leading TerminalOne® platform is the first and only enterprise-class DSP – providing an unmatched combination of supply, data, analytics, workflow automation and optimization to return focus to marketing strategy rather than media execution. MediaMath drives breakthrough results for dozens of agencies representing the world’s leading brands – including units within all 7 global agency holding companies – on thousands of worldwide campaigns. For more information visit http://www.mediamath.com/.

NEW YORK – ad pepper media, the international online advertising network, announced the launch of its “Semantic Behavioral & Retargeting Platform.” The fully managed solution offers advertisers an exciting new approach in utilizing behavioral/retargeting data linked with ad pepper media’s proprietary, award-winning Sense EngineTM semantic targeting technology.

“Semantic Behavioral & Retargeting technology combines the best of both targeting methods and is uniquely placed to determine what combination of content and audience targeting yield the greatest impact per campaign, irrespective of the campaign objective, whether it’s branding or conversions,” said Jonathan Slavin, President, North America of ad pepper media. “Our distinct analysis allows advertisers to effectively reach the right users, in the right environments, at the right times with greater cost efficiency.”

The Semantic Behavioral & Retargeting (SBR) platform uniquely combines behavioral/retargeting capabilities with ad pepper media’s proprietary page-level semantic analysis, resulting in a unique and customized mix of technologies. This means a more granular understanding of audience combined with user media consumption (such as online surfing habits) leads to more actionable data, provides a deep understanding of the content environment at page-level and a more thorough level of optimization. In terms of media effectiveness, advertisers now have a more comprehensive view of the content and audience segments that worked both during and post campaign, reducing waste and missed opportunities in current and future marketing efforts.

“There are purists on each side of the coin: those who believe environment prevails over audience and those who think the reverse,” said Ulrich Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of ad pepper media International N.V. “SBR mediates this argument by finding the right balance between the two which ultimately delivers the best results for advertisers.”

The SBR platform leverages ad pepper media’s Sense Engine semantic targeting technology, which categorizes web-based content into one of 3,800 semantic categories. In combining semantic analysis with behavioral data or retargeting capabilities, the platform is able to leverage best practices from all formats to ensure ad placements are monetized efficiently. Brands using the platform are already successfully achieving a greater level of selectivity for each campaign – from content targeting to audience.

About ad pepper media
ad pepper media is one of the leading independent international online advertising marketers, ad networks, and digital marketing technology solution provider. With 16 branches throughout the U.S. and Europe, ad pepper media manages campaigns for thousands of national and international advertising clients in more than 50 countries worldwide. ad pepper media successfully sets itself apart with investment in the development of an extensive range of efficient proprietary marketing solutions such as the SiteScreen and iSense Networks, as well as in the areas of lead generation, affiliate marketing and ad serving. For more information on the company, group companies and solutions, please visit http://www.adpepper.com/, http://www.sitescreen.com, and http://www.isense.net.

NEW YORK – ClickZ, Incisive Media’s resource for digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion and research, offered comments on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) proposal to establish a do-not-track mechanism. FTC’s proposal would give consumers more control over the advertising they see, but it would come at a cost.

ClickZ made that assessment in comments, based on reader input, to the FTC. While a do-not-track mechanism is intended to protect consumers from receiving behaviorally targeted advertising, ClickZ alerted federal regulators to other effects, including unintended consequences, the measure could have.

“ClickZ recognizes that the commission’s do-not-track proposal is the most significant regulatory initiative affecting the online ad industry ever to be introduced during its short life,” said Kate Kaye, ClickZ senior editor.

“For this reason, ClickZ’s editorial staff wanted to ensure our readers – comprised of the top digital marketing professionals in the U.S. – shared their thoughts about the implications of do-not-track on this burgeoning sector of the economy,” said Zachary Rodgers, ClickZ’s managing editor, news.

Other findings:

- A do-not-track mechanism, if adopted en masse, could reduce consumer access to free content, and could erode the quality and relevance of ads they see online.
- Do-not-track could hurt small and niche publishers. Website owners will likely resort to site demographic data and market research to target their ads. This requirement will tend to favor large publishers with research budgets and direct sales forces.
- Do-not-track could hurt innovation. The online ad sector is a fiercely competitive ecosystem where some of the world’s brightest technologists, working for well-funded startups, are building products that will define the future of marketing. The risk, should many consumers opt out, is that this innovation would simply migrate elsewhere.
- Do-not-track should not be an all-or-nothing proposition. Any mechanism should allow users to specify not only topics of interest, but also what data types can be collected, who may leverage that data, and how they are permitted to use it. The downside of this is greater user confusion than a simple on/off switch would create.
- Do-not-track, if implemented, should include ad tracking on mobile devices. The future of interactive content and services is mobile and any ad tracking rules should extend to handheld devices.
- Consumer participation may be minimal. It may be that consumers, given the choice will choose not to opt out of ad tracking for the above reasons, and because historically they have not done so.

ClickZ’s full response can be found at: http://www.clickz.com/digital_assets/2621/ClickZ-Privacy-Report-Feedback.pdf

About ClickZ

Incisive Media’s ClickZ is a unique resource for digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion and research. Other Incisive Media resources include SES, a leading global conference and training series focused on search engine marketing, and Search Engine Watch, which provides news and information about search, analysis of the search engine industry and tools for improving search marketing effectiveness.

Incisive Media is a leading global provider of specialized business news and information, in print, in person and online. The company’s principal markets include financial services, legal services, commercial real estate, marketing services and risk management. Incisive Media’s market-leading brands include Accountancy Age, Computing, Investment Week, Legal Week, Post, Risk, and SES Conferences and Expo. For more information, visit www.incisivemedia.com.

NEW YORK – As confusion reigns and misinformation pervades the airwaves, one of the more complicated issues of our day seems all too close to slipping from the grasp of the interactive media industry’s control. In the past 30 days, as Do Not Track (DNT) proposals have reached a crescendo, the stakes for both the industry and the consumer have followed suit.

Many DNT proposals strike at the core of how web content is delivered, optimized, and funded. These would have a highly disruptive impact on medium to small web publishers and the marketers who depend on them. While many influential parties are supportive of DNT, they all define the concept differently. Does DNT address the consumer need? And how are the DNT debates shaping industry views, let alone consumer views of the self-regulatory program?

These and other questions were posed by Evidon’s founders in comments to the U.S. Federal Commission on the FTC’s preliminary report on a proposed framework for consumer privacy, and to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which solicited comments to its blog from Evidon to address the industry directly.

Evidon’s FTC Comments are available here: http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/privacyreportframework/00391.html

Evidon’s IAB Comments are available here: http://www.iab.net/iablog/2011/02/self-regulation-solves-the-do-.html

“The fact is that consumers have enjoyed multiple, free, Do Not Track mechanisms at their fingertips for years,” said Colin O’Malley, Co-Founder & VP of Business Development and Policy for Evidon and member of the IAB’s Networks & Exchanges Committee and Public Policy Council. “It seems that pretty much everyone following the online privacy issue, and even offline consumer data-related privacy issues, believes that the commercial market has a role to play and is looking to leaders on privacy to make clear what he best practices are now.

“The FTC has made it clear that providing consumers with clear notice and simplified choice are key components of their proposed data privacy framework,” said Scott Meyer, Founder and CEO of Evidon in his comments to the FTC. “Evidon’s Assurance Platform is a proven, effective means for meeting these goals. Information presented through the platform enables consumers to make informed and meaningful decisions about data collection and use. Relying on a Do Not Track mechanism will limit consumer transparency, control and innovation in empowering consumer privacy in a vibrant online advertising market.”

The Evidon platform that has been operating at scale since last summer is comprised of three components:

- A transparency component that notifies a consumer viewing an ad that the advertisement was delivered using online behavioral data and identifies the data providers involved in its delivery;
- A choice component that provides consumers choice, namely, an easy method for consumers to opt-out of the collection or use of behavioral information on a company-by-company basis; and
- A reporting tool that provides the advertising agency, advertiser, or network insight into consumers’ interaction with the platform and evidence of compliance with self- regulatory principles.

“We’re in the midst of a golden age of innovation in privacy technologies,” said O’Malley in his IAB.net commentary. “Consumers that are so inclined have a growing array of tools to manage their privacy online.”

Indeed, consumer-empowering tools range from the aggressive and technical (NoScript, Adblock Plus), to the simple and ad industry friendly (NAI/AboutAds.info opt-out page, Facebook privacy settings), with many options in between (Ghostery, which Evidon operates; TrackerBlock, etc.) Each of these tools approaches the policy, technology, and larger political conversation differently, which represents even deeper consumer choice. Privacy requires the active management of trade-offs in every case, as the quid-pro-quo of consumer relationships with media companies increasingly tilts toward the consumer.

Brands Buying Into the Program

“Many of our clients are choosing to present consumers with the icon, including notice and choice tools, on advertising campaigns and web pages that don’t even have an OBA component,” said Meyer. “Brands understand that consumers have more choices – more power – online than they do offline, and that the expression of transparency through the Advertising Option Icon is just part of the conversation that is available with them online. All along, we’ve felt that the industry’s self compliance efforts should be regarded as a carrot, not a stick – that this will improve brands’ relationships with consumers, and vice-versa. Now that we’re approaching 15 billion impressions served, the proof is as clear as the choice that consumers are making.”

About Evidon

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its online behavioral advertising self-regulatory program, Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in OBA with confidence and generate Evidon results. For more information, please visit: www.evidon.com.

Palo Alto, CA – PubMatic, which provides online publishers — including the majority of the comScore Top 10 — with the technology and services to significantly increase revenue and better manage their advertising inventory, today announced that a study contained in a new white paper, Audience Selling for Publishers reveals that when consumers are presented with a more comprehensive explanation of advertising-based data tracking, they are less concerned about targeted advertising using their anonymous data.  The white paper, which is one of a two-part series, helps publishers better sell audience-based advertising.

After observing that other studies with user opinions about anonymous data being used for online advertising were incomplete at best and misleading at worst, PubMatic commissioned an independent online research firm, Knowledge Networks, to conduct a survey of 500 U.S. Internet users.  The users were asked their opinions about audience-based online advertising in three key stages:  before understanding how anonymous data is collected, after understanding how anonymous data is collected, and after understanding the benefits for that anonymous data collection.  The study was conducted in early 2011 and included a representative, random sample of individuals that categorized themselves as “Internet users.”

Among the study findings in the white paper, Audience Selling for Publishers:

Unless you tell them, users don’t understand that the 3rd party data used for interest-based advertising is anonymous. For example, when the survey participants were asked if they knew that some of their online behavior might be tracked about them for the purpose of advertising, 71% acknowledged they knew. But when asked if they knew the online data collected about them for the purpose of advertising was anonymous, only 40% understood it was anonymous.

Users are far more accepting of interest-based advertising when they understand that 3rd party data is anonymous. The more users understand the benefits associated with audience-based advertising, the more they are supportive of it. When asked without an understanding that only anonymous data is used for audience-based advertising, 64% disapproved. However, when asked after understanding that only anonymous data is used for interest-based advertising, 40% of those who had disapproved changed their mind and approved.

When the survey participants understood that the data collection was anonymous  they understood the benefits included more relevant advertising AND that it helped subsidize free content, 53% changed their minds and approved.

According to the PubMatic / Knowledge Networks study, when U.S. Internet users understand the value trade-offs for anonymous browsing behavior tracking – specifically more relevant advertising and access to free content – they are much more supportive of it.

“The Internet user, the online publisher audience, is the center of our data-driven advertising ecosystem  and their privacy is paramount.  Whether it is through self-regulation or legislation, when given a choice about anonymous tracking, Internet users deserve to have all the facts about how it works and the benefits they derive from it before making a decision,” says PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel. “Once they are appropriately armed with this information, they should have the means at their disposal to easily implement a ‘do-not-track’ option if they prefer to, or not to.”

The full study within Audience Selling for Publishers can be downloaded at http://www.PubMatic.com/AudienceSelling.

PubMatic: (http://www.pubmatic.com) PubMatic’s Sell Side Platform provides premium publishers one platform with the technology and services needed to earn the most ad revenue possible while protecting their brands online. Some of the world’s most respected publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, MSNBC, TV Guide, and the majority of the comScore Top 10.

PubMatic is privately held, backed by funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures, and has seven offices around the world in the US, Europe, and Asia.

BURLINGTON, Mass. – Burst Media, (www.BurstMedia.com), a leading seller of targeted Internet audiences to brand and performance advertisers, released the results of a consumer sentiment survey on Internet privacy and dynamic ads – ads tailored for the individual viewer based on a profile or past web surfing behavior. Administered in late November to more than 1,600 U.S. adults aged 18 years or older, the online survey found the majority (78.2%) of respondents recall seeing online ads that appeared to be tailored to them based on a previous visit to the advertiser website. One-third (34.2%) of respondents who recall seeing a dynamic ad say they dislike them while one-quarter (27.7%) say they like them, and 38.1% had no opinion.

Among respondents who dislike dynamic ads, the reason most often cited for their negative feelings is that the ads are “annoying and distracting” (54.9%). Other reasons cited include: ads usually feature a product the user is not interested in (38.2%), ads infringe on privacy (33.4%) and ads follow the user around the web (27.5%). The study also found considerable differences between age segments and perceptions of dynamic ads: one-third (35.2%) of respondents aged 18-34 years “like” dynamic ads compared to one-quarter (25.1%) of respondents aged 35-54 years and 16.7% of respondents 55 or older.

For the most part, dynamic ads have little impact on a consumer’s opinion about the specific company and/or product being advertised. Overall, only 17.4% of respondents say they have a better impression of the company or product as a result of seeing a dynamic ad after a previous visit to the advertiser’s website, and 10.9% have a worse opinion. Interestingly, men are significantly more likely than women (23.2% vs. 11.6%) to have a better impression of a company or product after seeing an ad tailored to them based on a previous visit to the advertiser’s website.

Surprisingly, more than one-quarter (28.4%) of respondents say they would not mind if a website tracked and stored non-personally identifiable information (non-PII) if it meant they would see advertising more relevant to their interests. Nearly one-half (47.9%) of respondents say they object. Men are much more likely than women to approve of a website using non-PII for targeting purposes: 37.3% vs. 19.8%.

“With ubiquitous media coverage and government attention towards Internet privacy and security, consumers are more aware than ever that what they do online may be tracked in one form or another,” said David Stein, Chief Technology Officer at Burst Media. “Online advertisers can respond by ensuring their messages are relevant to their target audience. When a consumer sees an advertising message at the right place, at the right time and in the most relevant context, brands are best positioned to instill trust and action. Equally, web publishers must commit to consumer privacy and make certain a fully-fleshed out privacy policy is current and relevant to the needs of the audience.”

About Burst Media

An online media and technology company founded in 1995, Burst Media (www.BurstMedia.com) is a leading seller of vertically targeted audiences found in the long tail of the Internet. By working together with web publishers and advertisers, the company leverages the value of rich long tail content to enable brands to reach loyal, highly segmented audiences in a brand-safe and quality-assured environment. Through its media divisions Burst Network, Burst Direct and Giant Realm, the company represents one of the broadest and deepest offerings of interest-based websites. Burst also markets its ad management platform, adConductor™, which empowers content websites, online ad networks and web portals to manage the complete process of ad sales and service. Burst Media is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, with offices throughout the United States and in London. For more information, visit www.BurstMedia.com or call 781.272.5544.

NEW YORK – The Better Advertising Project, Inc. (Better Advertising) announced an unprecedented partnership toward launching a program that extends consumer notice and choice deep beyond the browser to companies collecting anonymous behavioral information online. The Open Data Partnership (ODP) will provide consumers with full transparency into this data and enable them to edit their information or opt out completely from any participating company’s cookie. Consumers will be able to gain access to and edit their information directly from an ad impression or publisher site that uses Better Advertising’s Assurance Platform – already in wide use by leading advertisers, agencies, networks and publishers – rather than needing to visit each company’s site individually.

The announcement was first covered in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704377004575650802136721966.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Companies initially participating in the partnership include: 33Across, Bizo, BlueKai, Demdex, eXelate, Lotame, SafeCount and Turn. None of these companies sells, distributes, or otherwise traffics in personally identifiable information (PII), and no PII will be accessible as part of the program. In accordance with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (the Principles) announced by the Digital Advertising Alliance in July, 2009, participating companies have agreed to integrate their information into the Better Advertising notice experience, enabling Better Advertising to provide a single, easy-to-use portal for consumers across all participating companies.

“Better Advertising’s Open Data Partnership is exactly the kind of initiative that will enable us to remain self-regulated as an industry,” said Mike Zaneis, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). “The more transparency we can provide consumers that enables them to retain control over their own data, the more trusted our ecosystem becomes – to the benefit of everyone.”

“As the world’s largest auction marketplace for audience data and pioneer of consumer transparency tools such as the BlueKai Registry, we are staunch supporters of preserving consumer privacy and happy to participate in the Open Data Partnership,” said Omar Tawakol, BlueKai CEO. “Ensuring consumer choice and visibility continues to be a core tenet of our business and we fully support Better Advertising’s initiative to give web users the ability to update their privacy preferences in one place.”

Open Data Partnership companies will provide Better Advertising with access to information on what they collect and maintain about how each unique consumer browser is identified within their systems. This will include whether or not an active targeting or opt-out cookie is present on that particular web browser, and what information – if any – has been collected. Better Advertising will make this data available to consumers through its industry-leading Assurance Platform, which is the first and currently only platform endorsed by the Digital Advertising Alliance as a standard method for providing evidence of compliance with the Principles. Better Advertising, however, will not collect, hold or use any of this data.

“What we at Lotame and other companies in our space do with regard to data collection is so misunderstood, and is far more benign than some reports would have consumers think,” said Andy Monfried, Lotame CEO. “We’re happy to do all we can as a company to engender the kind of transparency that the Open Data Partnership provides toward enabling consumers not only to better understand, but also to have complete control of their online data. And we fully support both Better Advertising and the Principles.”

“Since introducing the first Data Exchange, we’ve always provided consumers with clear choice and control,” said Meir Zohar, the CEO and founder of eXelate. “We’ve been at the vanguard of this segment and built a sustainable business with dozens of trusted partners, all without compromising user privacy in any way. So, we regard our participation in the Open Data Partnership as a natural step and we’re proud to be a part of it.”

Better Advertising is the first Approved Provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (Principles) of the Digital Advertising Alliance. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) icon on behalf of companies who are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, delivering notice with billions of advertising impressions across the internet for leading brands.

“We’re proud to be working with Better Advertising and the other companies in the Open Data Partnership program. This program follows our privacy centric-approach with all of our clients and is a natural extension of our own initiative, www.donottarget.com,” said Randy Nicolau, CEO of Demdex. “The audience data market is complicated enough for those of us participating in it. I think it’s all too easy for people in our business to lose sight of what’s at stake for consumers who obviously deserve a simplified process controlling their data.”

“Better Advertising’s Open Data Partnership effort is a tremendous step in the right direction for the industry,” said Stuart P. Ingis, Counsel to the DAA and a Partner at Venable, LLP in Washington, who led the crafting of the Self-Regulatory Principles. “To consumers, meaningful self-regulation will require this kind of transparency, which complements the education program that the industry has undertaken.”

“As a leading data-driven advertising platform, Turn takes privacy protection very seriously and is committed to keeping consumers in complete control of their personal data,” said Xuhui Shao, Chief Technology Officer at Turn. “Better Advertising’s initiative encourages all players in the ecosystem to provide the highest level of transparency, adhere to stringent self regulation to address consumer anxiety and foster trust in digital advertising channels.”

“Joining the Open Data Partnership supports the tenets that Bizo was built on: transparency, targeting and helping publishers and marketers thrive online,” said Russell Glass CEO of Bizo. “In the B2B world, marketers need to know that the companies they work with are serious about online privacy and transparency. Initiatives like this are the best way to ensure the sustainability of our industry for the long run.”

“We salute our Open Data Partners for collaborating with us to empower the consumer and adhering to best practices in the online behavioral advertising ecosystem,” said Scott Meyer, CEO and founder of Better Advertising. “We look forward to working cooperatively with these and other companies to deliver on the promise of the Open Data Partnership as well as on full industry implementation of the Self-Regulatory Principles.”

About Better Advertising

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its interest-based advertising self-regulatory program, Better Advertising enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into, and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in IBA with confidence and generate better advertising results. For more information, please visit: www.betteradvertising.com.

Notes on the DAA and the Industry Self-Regulatory Program

Launched by the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations: the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), with support from the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), and he Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising responds to the Federal Trade Commission’s call for more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices that would foster transparency, knowledge and choice for consumers. The Program promotes the use of the “Advertising Option Icon” and accompanying language, to be displayed where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The Advertising Option Icon indicates a company’s use of online behavioral advertising and adherence to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, guiding the Program. More information about the DAA and its member associations is available at: http://www.aboutads.info/

NEW YORK – The Better Advertising Project, Inc. (Better Advertising) and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) announced that they will conduct a free webinar for the industry and interested parties on the ongoing self-regulatory efforts being spearheaded by the DAA.

Any companies who are members of the ANA, 4A’s, AAF, DMA and IAB need to implement the Advertising Option Icon quickly to be compliant with the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising that launched in October. The webinar, hosted by Better Advertising, the only company designated as an approved provider of compliance services by the DAA, will better acquaint companies in the digital ecosystem with what they need to do to align with the program.

In the wake of the recent FTC report and comments by Commissioner John Leibowitz that our industry needs to accelerate its adoption of self-regulatory guidelines, it is clear that complying with the program has never been more urgent.

Title:          Online Behavioral Advertising Self-Regulation: What Your Company Needs to Know
When:         Thursday, December 16, 2010, 1:30-2:30 PM ET
Where:        The Webinar will be available only for registered participants. Go to: http://selfreg.eventbrite.com to register.
Presenting:        Stu Ingis, Partner, Venable and Counsel to DAA; Scott Meyer and Colin O’Malley, Better Advertising

To help your company get up to speed on compliance, and hear how consumers are reacting to the program so far, please join this free webinar. Stu Ingis will discuss program requirements for advertisers, agencies, networks and publishers. Scott Meyer and Colin O’Malley will review the results of Better Advertising’s recent research which shows the power of a robust ad notice experience. This research, conducted in partnership with Dynamic Logic, demonstrates that a strong majority of consumers not only want details on the companies that are behind the ads they see, but actually feel better about brands that give them a high degree of control over those ads. The Better Advertising team will also introduce its new Open Data Partnership program that was featured in the Wall Street Journal last week.

This is a free webinar presented by the Digital Advertising Alliance and Better Advertising.

About Better Advertising

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its interest-based advertising self-regulatory program, Better Advertising enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into, and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in IBA with confidence and generate better advertising results. For more information, please visit: www.betteradvertising.com.

Notes on the DAA and the Industry Self-Regulatory Program

Launched by the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations: the American Association of Advertising Agencies(4A’s), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), with support from the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), and he Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising responds to the Federal Trade Commission’s call for more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices that would foster transparency, knowledge and choice for consumers. The Program promotes the use of the “Advertising Option Icon” and accompanying language, to be displayed where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The Advertising Option Icon indicates a company’s use of online behavioral advertising and adherence to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, guiding the Program. More information about the DAA and its member associations is available at: http://www.aboutads.info/

NEW YORK – The Better Advertising Project, Inc. (Better Advertising) announced that Warburg Pincus has led a $9.5 million investment in the company. Every member of Better Advertising’s management team also participated in the investment round. The company will utilize its investment capital as it continues to scale its assurance platform and develop other programs for consumers, advertisers, publishers, and solutions providers.

Better Advertising is the first and currently only company designated as an Approved Provider of compliance services for the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (the Principles) of the Digital Advertising Alliance. This includes the ability to deliver the Advertising Option (or Forward I) Icon on behalf of companies who are participating in the self-regulatory program. The company’s Assurance Platform is operating at scale, already delivering notice with multiple billions of advertising impressions every month across the internet for leading brands.

“The team at Better Advertising has done a fantastic job of developing and launching their transparency-enabling technology platform and making the DAA initiative work for its design partners and advertisers,” said Mark Colodny, Managing Director at Warburg Pincus. “The heavy lifting they’ve done to provide meaningful transparency and the triangle of benefit for consumers, advertisers, and publishers has been impressive. We’re in full support of not just the business and the management team, but the initiative itself.”

Better Advertising was incubated inside of Warburg Pincus in 2009 while CEO Scott Meyer was an Entrepreneur in Residence at the firm. Better Advertising launched in July 2009 and is working closely with leading agencies, networks, data providers, and publishers on behalf of their brand clients. The company also works directly with dozens of global brands who are already using Better Advertising’s Assurance Platform as a standard method to provide evidence of compliance with the Principles.

“We’re honored to be at the forefront of this issue and to be working with so many committed and visionary industry leaders to make the DAA initiative a reality for consumers, advertisers, and publishers and other ad businesses,” said Scott Meyer, CEO and founder of Better Advertising. “We’re grateful to our partners at Warburg Pincus for their ongoing guidance and financial support. This funding will enable us to work with even more companies in delivering on the promise of full industry implementation of the Self-Regulatory Principles and meaningful transparency in interactive media.”

This story was first covered in the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D: http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20101121/better-advertising-project-raises-millions-for-its-web-privacy-seal-of-approval/

About Warburg Pincus

Warburg Pincus is a leading global private equity firm. The firm has more than $30 billion in assets under management. Its active portfolio of more than 110 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector and geography. Warburg Pincus is a growth investor and an experienced partner to management teams seeking to build durable companies with sustainable value. Founded in 1966, Warburg Pincus has raised 13 private equity funds which have invested more than $35 billion in over 600 companies in more than 30 countries. The firm has offices in Beijing, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, São Paulo and Shanghai. For more information, please visit www.warburgpincus.com.

About Better Advertising

Selected by the Digital Advertising Alliance to power its interest-based advertising self-regulatory program, Better Advertising enables a more trusted environment for everyone in the online ecosystem. It gives businesses an easy, standard way of providing evidence of compliance with industry guidelines, and consumers more transparency into, and control over how their information is used online. By empowering consumers and earning their trust, businesses build their brands, participate in IBA with confidence and generate better advertising results. For more information, please visit: www.betteradvertising.com.

RESTON, VA (November 4, 2010) – Resonate Networks, the Attitudinal Targeting™ company, today announced 81 percent of their client campaigns defeated their opponents in Tuesday’s historical ‘earthquake’ election. 43 winning candidates leveraged Resonate’s unique, research-based targeting and audience delivery solution, and there is the potential for another seven winning campaigns currently too close to call.

Political and advocacy strategists have embraced Resonate’s Attitudinal Targeting offering because of its unique ability to deliver audiences based on their values, beliefs and attitudes – the most consistent and enduring reasons voters support a candidate or issue. With Resonate’s proprietary methodology and patent-pending technology, advertisers can define rich audience profiles from a combination of over a thousand traditional and attitudinal attributes including basic demographics and geographic, as well as their research-based voting behavior, issue positions, etc.

One of the most significant differentiators Resonate offers political campaigns is the ability to reach not only Republican, Democrat and Independent voters, but also swing voters – one of the most difficult segments to identify and reach online. Resonate is able to do this by conducting its own extensive ongoing research, part of which includes asking and capturing voters’ actual past voting behavior and patterns. Resonate is the only advertising company who knows if voters have voted for multiple parties, how often and during which elections. In addition Resonate knows the issues that are most important to a voter when determining which candidate to vote for. Other online advertising companies make assumptions based on purchased voter data and cookies but this approach isn’t as efficient or effective as Resonate’s more precise, research-based targeting.

“It is more important than ever for politicians to gain a deeper understanding of the electorate and what is at the heart of Americans’ decisions – whether to vote for a candidate or support an issue,” said Bryan Gernert, CEO, Resonate. “The next two years will require politicians to truly listen to the American public and govern accordingly. This includes the need to reach the electorate with education and awareness campaigns to ensure their accomplishments and messages are heard and understood.”

Resonate’s client campaigns spanned the country and included candidates and ballot initiatives leveraging display and video ads. This is Resonate’s first election cycle since the company launched in May of 2009.

Precision targeting and understanding the importance of message specific advertising based on voter issues priorities, actual voting behavior and other significant decision drivers, as well as voter values and beliefs, will help politicians and advocacy organizations reach, engage and mobilize the electorate more effectively, especially over the next two years.

About Resonate Networks
Resonate is the first online ad technology company offering advertisers an entirely new approach to targeted audience delivery. Resonate’s  Attitudinal Targeting™ is based on values, beliefs and attitudes, and enables advertisers to define rich audience profiles from a combination of more than one thousand attitudinal and traditional attributes including demographic and behavior data. The result: ad campaigns that deepen convictions and change minds in a way that traditional online advertising can’t. For more information please visit www.resonatenetworks.com.

NEW YORK, NY – Magnetic (www.magnetic.is), the leader in search re-targeting, announced a joint marketing solution with Tumri to help find potential high intent customers who are generally searching for products that retailers sell. Tumri, the leading provider of dynamic creative optimization solutions for display advertisers and agencies, conducted a deep technical integration with Magnetic, making it easy for marketers to conduct site re-targeting in-tandem with search re-targeting. The solution can serve product-specific ads based on what customers viewed on retailers’ sites, and what they are looking for on search engines and comparison shopping sites. Marketers now have the opportunity to serve pinpoint accurate ads to people actively searching for products that retailers offer before that customer visits a competitor’s site.

Magnetic has been driving the emergence of search re-targeting, bringing the power of search to all display media where advertisers would enjoy enormous benefits such as cost-effectiveness and better ROI. Magnetic leverages search data as a key indicator of intent to re-target customers in purchase mode wherever they are on the Internet. The Magnetic marketplace helps advertisers and publishers apply search data to significantly lift campaign performance. Magnetic extracts maximum value out of search data by making it easy to identify customer intent based on keywords and categories.

“Magnetic and Tumri are moving advertising to a new level by enabling the most powerful form of targeting at a massive scale. What’s been missing with basic targeted ads is that while marketers know the audience profile, they don’t know what specific item single users are interested in. Customizing this interaction with dynamic ads to single customers, in a wider and cost-effective fashion, will lead to better conversions,” said Josh Shatkin-Margolis, CEO of Magnetic. “By finding the people previously on a retailer’s site and the people looking for products on search engines, Magnetic and Tumri can help marketers increase the likelihood of conversions and improve ROI.”

Tumri is the leader in dynamic marketing. Its dynamic marketing solutions power campaigns for leading display advertisers. By working with Tumri and Magnetic, marketers can deliver specific messages to customers with the added benefit of scale that reaches a wider range of customers that have expressed intent through web search.

“Considering the vast catalog of products that retailers offer, along with the challenge of making each ad highly specific to the user, our offering with Magnetic gives retailers a competitive advantage in reaching the widest possible range of customers most likely to convert, and then serving each of them product-specific ads for items they are interested in,” said Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of Tumri. “This joint offering allows us to make a compelling case for mass marketing needs from the largest retailers by expanding their reach beyond customers who have already visited their site.”

A recent study by comScore and ValueClick showed that re-targeted ads increase trademark search behavior by 1,046%. Additionally, other research has shown that re-targeting offers significant cost savings in CPMs by 20% or greater than un-targeted media buys. Furthermore, re-targeting can perform 100% better on a click-through basis. However, traditional re-targeting can only reach consumers who already visited a marketer’s site. Magnetic delivers display ads with the ROI of search marketing by widening the number of likely customers, reaching people who searched for keyword terms that are important to the marketer.

Magnetic works with best-in-class partners to deliver the most effective solution for all marketers. Its platform is integrated with top-class DSPs, ad networks, and video ad networks to apply search data targeting for various forms of display media. It has also teamed with ad agencies to enable search re-targeting on a wide scale through a quick and easy insertion order. With Tumri, Magnetic continues to push search re-targeting forward by making it easy for large retailers to find customers most likely to purchase.

About Magnetic
Magnetic™ makes search re-targeting easy. The Magnetic data marketplace empowers advertisers and publishers to use search data as the key indicator of intent and re-target campaigns to the most relevant audience online. With more than 300 million search profiles, Magnetic significantly lifts the value of media and improves campaign performance. Magnetic’s advanced technology provides the largest payment to search data providers. It is the search data partner of choice for more than 100 leading agencies, ad networks and DSPs. Magnetic is headquartered in New York, funded by investors including Charles River Ventures, Ron Conway, NYC Investment Fund, Roger Ehrenberg of IA Capital, Founder Collective and NYC Seed. For more information visit: www.magnetic.is.

About Tumri
Tumri is the leading provider of dynamic creative optimization solutions for display advertisers and agencies. Tumri’s Self-Service Dynamic Creative Platform and solutions improve overall marketing performance by making display advertising more efficient, more intelligent and more relevant to consumers. Tumri’s platform reduces creative production costs, improves efficiency, increases effectiveness and delivers unparalleled consumer insights through its proprietary real-time analytics. Tumri’s patent-pending technology also offers fully integrated and automated testing, personalization and optimization on every campaign. Tumri was named an AlwaysOn OnMedia 100 winner in 2009 and 2010, an American Business Awards winner, a winner of two Internet Advertising Competition awards, two Summit International Awards and named a “One to Watch” company at Dealmaker Media’s Momentum Growth Conference. Tumri is funded by Accel Partners, Shasta Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Time Warner. To learn more about Tumri visit www.tumri.com.

Under the agreement which takes effect immediately, LucidMedia is deploying Milabra’s visual recognition and targeting capabilities to enable brand advertisers and agencies using the LucidMedia platform to benefit from enhanced targeting, brand safety and compliance when planning and executing campaigns that involve images and other visual media. Milabra’s patent-pending visual intelligence platform can determine image content, image quality, page layout and design elements in real-time. This visual optimization process empowers brand advertisers and agencies to optimize their buys by recognizing contextually relevant display advertising opportunities while protecting themselves from inappropriate or irrelevant content.

“Adding Milabra’s visual intelligence data and brand safety technology to our platform is another important step in LucidMedia’s ongoing mission to provide the online advertising industry’s most comprehensive and transparent targeting capabilities for advertisers and agencies,” said Ajay Sravanapudi, Founder and CEO of LucidMedia Networks, Inc. “This important new offering combines effectively with our recently announced preemptive brand safety capabilities as well as the breadth of targeting data and proprietary technology we offer.”

“We are excited to work with LucidMedia to enable its advertisers to move beyond text and semantic content categorization into visual verification and optimization by understanding the visual context environment of their ads on a page,” said Sam Cox, CEO of Milabra. “Our visual recognition capabilities fit in ideally with LucidMedia’s digital media platform and DSP to provide advertisers and agencies a comprehensive base of visual data and brand-safe media that now extends into images and visual elements.”

About Milabra

Milabra (www.milabra.com) builds the value of online display media by bridging the visual divide between advertiser and publisher content with visual intelligence, thereby increasing editorial control available to online display advertisers. Milabra’s neural network-based visual intelligence engine understands the pages visual content environment before an ad is served, making safer, better controlled media environments for brand advertisers online. Milabra’s suite of advertiser relevant visual classifications deliver media via real time supply source platforms and providing agencies, advertisers and partners with better editorial control of their visual environment. Founded in 2008, Milabra is a privately-held company based in New York City.

LucidMedia

LucidMedia (www.lucidmedia.com) is the most comprehensive and transparent digital advertising management platform for targeting and optimizing display campaigns. The LucidMedia demand-side platform (DSP) with ClickSense® page-level contextual analysis and intelligent real-time bidding (RTB) is available as both self-service and managed service to interactive agencies and brand advertisers. LucidMedia’s platform employs an easy-to-use interface to deliver proprietary optimization, consolidated buying across the Internet’s largest repositories, unique insight into real-time inventory availability, preemptive brand safety, universal frequency capping, and reach into 95% of the online population. Founded in 1999, LucidMedia processes more than one billion impressions daily for hundreds of major brand advertisers.

NEW YORK, NY AND BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – Netmining, a leading provider of audience targeting solutions, announced the expansion of its Netmining Audience Network  into Europe, enabling European companies to leverage Netmining’s industry-leading audience targeting network to more effectively reach their customers online.  The announcement marks the first wave of expansion into the European market by the Netmining Audience Network, with further growth forthcoming in the UK and Germany. Since its launch eight months ago, more than 100 U.S. marketers have utilized the Netmining Audience Network for high performing remarketing and customized audience targeting campaigns.

Leading Netmining’s European expansion efforts is Sales Director Tom Van Halteren, a 10-year veteran in the online media space with a proven track record of building and expanding relationships with leading marketers across Europe.

“Our Audience Network has enjoyed tremendous success in the United States, and we’re confident that Tom’s leadership will help fuel similar growth in Europe,” said Toon Vanparys, CEO of Netmining. “Tom is a seasoned online advertising professional with experience in building relationships and blazing new trails in the digital space. We’re excited to welcome him to our growing team.”

Van Halteren has worked for some of the largest online portals in the Netherlands, forging strong relationships with leading advertisers and online publishers across Europe. Prior to joining Netmining, he served as a business consultant to several large online portals, with a focus on increasing sales and establishing strategic partnerships to cultivate their businesses.

“Netmining’s innovative audience profiling technology is unmatched in the industry, and now we’re giving European companies the same tools and ability to successfully reach their online audiences that American companies have experienced over the last eight months,” said Van Halteren. “I’m thrilled to be joining the Netmining team at a time when the entire advertising industry is shifting towards better audience targeting through sophisticated technologies and data mining, and I’m eager to provide value to a company that is at the forefront of this trend.”

The expansion of the Netmining Audience Network to Europe marks a return to the company’s origins. Netmining was founded in Brussels more than a decade ago and quickly emerged as the top provider of on-site optimization and lead-generation technology for marketers such as Audi, BMW, Danone and Philips. In October 2009, Netmining built its Audience Network in the United States, powered by the same sophisticated profiling and optimization technology that propelled the company’s success in Europe.

About Netmining
Netmining is a global provider of audience targeting solutions that are proven to increase conversion rates across websites, online advertising, email programs and offline sales channels. With a real-time audience profiling engine that understands each individual’s interests and buying propensity, Netmining enables companies to deliver highly relevant and personalized interactions across the entire customer lifecycle.

Netmining solutions are used by marketers, system integrators and agencies across Europe, Asia and North America. More information can be found at http://www.netmining.com/ or on Twitter @Netmining .

Netmining is a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Network Advertising Initiative (NAI).

LucidMedia will add to its DSP’s patented contextual targeting technologies for advertisers and agencies with the following core data and components from all three providers:

AlmondNet’s Keyword and Segment-Based data: Powered by proprietary and patented Post-Search technology, AlmondNet aggregates and categorizes keyword and segment-based data on 100+ million users from thousands of data-providing sites to enable scalable delivery of targeted online advertisements by data-using ad networks, ad exchanges, demand-side platforms and their marketers.

The world’s largest supply of in-market data from BlueKai: LucidMedia advertisers will have access to the BlueKai Exchange, the largest source of high performance intent data on more than 160 million unique in-market travel, retail, finance and auto shoppers across the Internet. With fair market-driven pricing at its core, the BlueKai Exchange offers more than 30,000 data attributes across in-market, demo, geo, psycho and occupational categories, access to numerous “branded” data providers and proprietary analytics reports designed to further increase performance and scale for direct response and branding campaigns.

eXelate’s pool of deep targeting data which spans the entire purchasing funnel from awareness creation to conversion. eXelate data includes registration-based demographic, detailed consumer interest and in-market purchase intent data on over 150M U.S. unique users in lucrative verticals including Business-to-Business, Auto, Travel, Finance and Shopping. Derived from premium data sources, both transparent and aggregated, eXelate data integration into the LucidMedia platform will enable flexible “usage-based” pricing with no “pay-per-pixel” commitment risk.

“LucidMedia’s advertisers will now have access to our high-performing pre-packaged and custom keyword-driven segments of targeting data, allowing them to more accurately target their specific audiences in real-time as well as receive feedback on ad performance,” said Michael Benedek, president of AlmondNet’s Online Data Division.

“BlueKai provides access to the largest source of intent data at unmatched scale,” said Omar Tawakol, BlueKai CEO. “With exclusive access to some of the highest quality data in the industry, we focus on enabling advertisers to achieve superior return-on-investment by targeting consumers in virtually any segment, from broad awareness campaigns to highly granular in-market categories. We look forward to working even more deeply with LucidMedia to bring BlueKai’s industry-leading technology to bear and creating the most streamlined and efficient data buying process in the market.”

“eXelate’s integration into the Lucid Media platform will enable seamless, cost effective access to a broad pool of targeting data that will deliver bottom line ROI enhancement for advertisers,” said Meir Zohar, eXelate CEO. “Whether a demo-focused branding campaign or a conversion driven direct-response effort, eXelate data can support the demands of Lucid Media’s growing client base.”

“These partnerships with three recognized data pioneers support our strategy of providing advertisers with the most effective DSP offerings available,” said Ajay Sravanapudi, LucidMedia Founder and CEO. “As we continue to expand the LucidMedia DSP, we believe that offering our growing base of direct advertisers and agencies a singular access point to resources from these three market leaders will be invaluable, especially when integrated with our own deep base of patented contextualization and targeting technologies.”

About AlmondNet:

Founded in 1998, AlmondNet (www.almondnet.com) is a leading aggregator and distributor of data and a licensor of intellectual property and enabling technology for the delivery of targeted ads. AlmondNet’s data and proprietary technology enable the delivery of ads to computer users based on their observed online behavior wherever they may be found, in a privacy sensitive manner. AlmondNet is a board member of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI).

About BlueKai:

BlueKai (www.bluekai.com) is at the center of the digital data economy and the largest data auction marketplace for all audience data. With quality and fair market pricing at its core, BlueKai attracts and aggregates intent data from top tier providers to reveal valuable in-market shoppers across key verticals. As a result, the BlueKai Exchange is the largest source of high performance intent data revealing over 160M unique consumers who are ready to buy. The BlueKai Exchange offers over 30,000 data attributes across in-market, demo, geo, psycho and occupational categories to increase performance and scale for direct response and branding campaigns.

BlueKai created the first online data marketplace designed with consumer transparency and control in mind. The BlueKai Registry enables consumers to see what marketers know about them, edit their online preferences and gain rewards in charitable donations. The privately held company is based in Bellevue, WA, and is a recipient of the AlwaysOn 2009 OnMedia 100 award as a Technology Innovator in Advertising.

About eXelate:

The eXelate eXchange is the world’s first open marketplace for behavioral targeting data and the leader in data management solutions for publishers. Through participation on the eXchange and access to proprietary data management tools such as eXelate’s teXi, data buyers build an instant behavioral targeting function and optimize their campaign delivery, while data sellers gain direct control over their audience data distribution and build a new privacy–friendly income stream. The eXchange includes over 40 top ad network, agency and demand-side platform buyers and dozens of leading publishers, who deliver targeting data on 150M U.S. unique users in lucrative verticals including Business-to-Business, Auto, Travel, Finance, Shopping and registration-based Demographics. For more information please visit www.exelate.com.

About LucidMedia

LucidMedia Networks, Inc. (www.lucidmedia.com) is a demand-side online display advertising management and targeting platform that delivers optimized, direct response and brand advertising campaigns to interactive agencies. LucidMedia DSP™ with ClickSense® page-level analysis and intelligent real-time bidding (RTB) is available as both a self-service and managed service to interactive agencies and their brand advertisers. The LucidMedia DSP employs an easy-to-use and secure agency interface to deliver proprietary campaign optimization, consolidated buying across the Internet’s largest repositories, unique insight into real-time inventory availability, universal frequency capping, and reach into 95% of the online population. Founded in 1999, LucidMedia processes 25 billion ad impressions every month for hundreds of major brand advertisers.

SEATTLE – BlueKai, the world’s largest data auction marketplace for all audience data and online marketing’s largest source of user intent data, today announced the launch of a white-label version of the BlueKai Registry. Developed for publishers and marketers, the registry provides an out-of-the-box solution for supporting transparent consumer data collection.

Since its launch in September 2009, BlueKai has uniquely enabled consumers to see the anonymous targeting data that has been collected about their shopping preferences by BlueKai data providers.  Via an online tool available at http://www.bluekai.com/registry, consumers have the ability to edit their online preferences or opt out completely.  The white-label consumer registry functions the same way; enabling any site visitors to see what data is being collected by a particular site or opt out.  This is a complimentary tool for all BlueKai customers to encourage wider industry adoption of transparent data collection practices that promote consumer awareness, control and trust.  BlueKai plans to roll out a similar tool for all publisher sites and marketers in the near future.

“At BlueKai, we have recognized from the beginning that many consumers care about their privacy.  Two years ago, we created the BlueKai Registry, which provides consumers transparency and control over what marketers know about them.  Recent developments in Washington including proposed legislation make it incumbent on all site publishers and marketers to be more diligent with their audiences about their data collection practices,” says Omar Tawakol BlueKai’s CEO. “Our white-label registry makes it easy for any website to adapt the industry standard we have established with BlueKai’s consumer-friendly registry.”

“The NAI encourages continued, pro-consumer privacy innovation from our members,” says Charles Curran, Executive Director of the Network Advertising Initiative.  “It is an increasingly important focus for advertising providers and Web sites to offer improved visibility and control to consumers over the information used to provide them more relevant advertising.   We encourage BlueKai and others to share technology like this for industry-wide adoption. ”

“TRUSTe’s clients enjoy the benefits of a strong consumer privacy program and recognized trademark.  Data collection and disclosure has become an increasingly important topic to address as part of our clients’ web strategies,” says Fran Maier, President and Executive Chair of TRUSTe.  “The white-label consumer registry from BlueKai is a clear solution to an obvious demand in the market.”

This white-label registry marks another consumer-focused innovation that BlueKai has developed to further its consumer disclosure initiative on an industry level.  In November 2009, the NAI announced the release of a consumer opt out protector, also developed by BlueKai.

At the center of the digital data economy, BlueKai (www.bluekai.com) created the world’s largest data auction marketplace for all audience data.  BlueKai aggregates valuable shopping and research activities across the Internet to build the largest source of intent data on over 160M shoppers across 7 key verticals including auto, travel, finance and retail.  BlueKai now sees 200 million unique consumers each month and manages over 750 million data events per day.  In strategic partnerships with top data aggregators, the BlueKai Exchange collectively offers over 30,000 data attributes across in-market, demographic, geographic, lifestyle, and B2B categories to increase performance and scale for direct response and branding campaigns.

BlueKai is designed with consumer transparency and control in mind. The BlueKai Registry enables consumers to see what marketers know about them, edit their online preferences and gain rewards in charitable donations. The privately-held company is based in Bellevue, WA and is a recipient of the AlwaysOn 2009 OnMedia 100 award as a Technology Innovator in Advertising.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – A new study of 90 organizations actively engaged in online marketing concludes that in spite of an acknowledged return on investment, hundreds of millions of dollars are being held back from online behavioral advertising (OBA) over concerns that a lack of consumer trust in the practice could damage brand reputation.

The study, Economic Impact of Privacy on Online Behavioral Advertising, conducted independently by the Ponemon Institute, found that although 70 percent of companies agreed that behaviorally targeted advertising substantially increases marketing and sales performance, and in spite of an overall favorable return, most companies surveyed have limited their online advertising budgets over privacy concerns. In fact, extrapolated results suggest that budgets would be as much as four times higher if not for these concerns.

Among the study’s noteworthy results:

98 percent of companies surveyed said they have restricted OBA because of privacy concerns;
63 percent of companies surveyed rated OBA as their most effective form of marketing; and,
Overall, companies surveyed reported under-spending on OBA budgets by 75 percent due to privacy concerns.
For the 90 companies benchmarked, the total amount not spent on OBA was $604.9 million.
“These numbers are disconcerting both in terms of the percentages and the potential economic impact,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute. “These data clearly indicate that, in spite of a belief that behavioral advertising is their most effective marketing channel, companies are holding back hundreds of millions of dollars from online marketing simply because of a lack of confidence that privacy concerns can be overcome”

As a result of the findings, the study concludes that companies are clearly concerned with the protection of consumer privacy and are sensitive to consumer unease with online behavioral advertising. The study recommends that advertisers, regulators, and privacy advocates work together to better address privacy concerns through improved disclosure models, consumer education, effective consent mechanisms and deployment of enabling technologies.

“If you can diminish the privacy concerns, money will flow into online behavioral advertising,” said Michael S. Zaneis, vice president for public policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau in an article that appeared in the New York Times Bits section. “It would be a lift for the entire industry.” That article appears here: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/privacy-concerns-limit-online-ads-study-says/?src=busln

Methodology

The Study, Economic Impact of Privacy on Online Behavioral Advertising, surveyed senior marketing executives from 90 organizations, representing 14 industries and with average annual revenue of $3.14 billion, operating in the United States. For a free copy of the study, please visit: www.ponemon.org.

About Ponemon Institute

The Ponemon Institute© is dedicated to advancing responsible information and privacy management practices in business and government. To achieve this objective, the Institute conducts independent research, educates leaders from the private and public sectors and verifies the privacy and data protection practices of organizations in a variety of industries.

NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of “Data Usage & Control Primer: Best Practices & Definitions,” a guide that explains in plain terms what data can be collected online and how that data should be collected, as well as providing a lexicon of commonly used terms and recommending a set of business-to-business best practices to foster transparency and cohesion throughout the interactive advertising industry.

Developed in conjunction with leaders from branded publisher sites, ad networks and data companies, the Primer:

- Outlines the mechanics of online behavioral advertising and data collection and identifies the parties currently participating in the industry
- Sets out a point of view of the advertising-selling community regarding the use, control and valuation of data
- Proposes business-to-business (B2B) best practices for data usage and control
- Assembles a comprehensive lexicon of interactive advertising data definitions

“This document is an invaluable resource for all areas of the ecosystem and it’s the first time any organization has tackled the task of defining the data landscape,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “Data is what makes interactive advertising work for everyone—marketers, agencies, publishers and most importantly, consumers.”

“‘The Data Usage & Control Primer’ is a collective effort to answer a need in our industry,” said Patrick Dolan, EVP, CAO, and IAB leader on the IAB Data Usage & Control Task Force. “It addresses and helps resolve the contractual and competitive challenges that surround data usage and collection within the interactive advertising industry.”

The Primer is the latest addition to the IAB’s efforts to increase transparency, improve data security and ensure that interactive channels remain open and viable places to do business for the myriad of parties involved in interactive advertising. In July 2009 the IAB joined the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations in the release of “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising” the industry’s most comprehensive self-regulatory guidelines on privacy in regards to the collection and use of consumer data. While the Privacy Principles address consumer privacy, the Primer was created with a specific focus on the B2B aspects of the use of data in digital advertising and marketing.

“Data Usage & Control Primer: Principles & Definitions” can be found on the IAB website at: http://iab.net/data_primer

About the IAB’s Data Usage and Control Taskforce:

The Data Taskforce was created to define the data landscape as it exists today and to suggest a set of recommended B2B best practices to guide the collection and use of data by all parties in the marketplace, consistent with the laws and regulations and the self-regulatory standards that apply.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

NEW YORK – Tremor Media (www.tremormedia.com), the leading video monetization and advertising company, announced it has raised $40 million in funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund with participation from DFJ and Triangle Peak Partners. Existing investors including Canaan Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and SAP Ventures also participated significantly in this financing. The capital will allow Tremor Media to accelerate its lead in the online video advertising space and continue its rapid growth trajectory. It will primarily be used to invest in R&D to bolster Acudeo®, its leading technology platform, with new solutions for both advertisers and publishers, and to drive expansion into other media channels where digital video advertising will grow significantly.

Tremor Media, which has the leading video advertising network with the largest audience reach, has more than doubled the size of its network from 2009 to 2010*. The company became profitable in 2009, demonstrating revenue gains that exceeded more than twice the rate of growth of the overall online video market.

“Tremor Media is at the epicenter of video advertising. We have created the preferred technology and media platform for video advertisers, publishers and consumers and we are continuing to build long-term solutions that will meet the demand of the rapidly evolving digital video landscape,” said Jason Glickman, CEO, Tremor Media. “The next 12-18 months are critical for online video’s growth as massive advertising budgets shift to online video and consumption of online video rises. This infusion of capital will allow us to accelerate our lead in the marketplace and fuel our continued innovation. It is a validation of our company’s success and indicative of the enormous opportunity for the digital video space.”

“The online video industry is exploding and represents a major growth sector for the advertising industry. We’ve been evaluating this sector for quite some time and Tremor Media has clearly emerged as the category leader. The company has established its position through a combination of unsurpassed reach, audience targeting and ad management technology innovation that gives its blue chip advertisers tremendous buying efficiency and performance,” said Randy Glein, Managing Director of DFJ Growth Fund. “Tremor Media understands the needs of publishers and advertisers, delivering high impact media solutions that benefit the entire value chain. The company has demonstrated phenomenal growth and financial performance and has done an outstanding job anticipating the trends that are driving video advertising forward.”

In recent months Tremor Media has announced several new products and partnerships that further differentiate it in the online video marketplace. These advances include real-time audience targeting, several engagement-driven in-stream ad formats including the proprietary vChoice unit, and the first of its kind strategic partnership with DoubleVerify for third party ad verification. Read more at www.tremormedia.com.

*ComScore Video Metrix, comScore Releases February 2010 U.S. Online Video Rankings. February 2010.

About Tremor Media

Tremor Media (www.tremormedia.com), the leading online video monetization and advertising company, provides brand advertisers with in-stream and in-banner video advertising solutions on top-tier publisher sites with a combined 189.9 million uniques, reaching 90.6% of internet users. Tremor Media’s innovative video ad formats, advanced targeting, and industry-leading measurement tools enable advertisers to deliver efficient, scalable, and engaging video campaigns with measurable impact.

In addition, Tremor Media’s Acudeo® technology provides publishers with a full suite of products and services to monetize streaming video and maximize ROI. Acudeo delivers the industry’s most flexible and easy-to-use ad policy management tools and provides access to the industry’s leading revenue sources including turnkey integrations with all major video ad networks, ad serving, and video analytic technologies. With Tremor Media’s Acudeo technology, publishers can achieve maximum revenue while retaining total control and flexibility over their advertising inventory.

About Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund

Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund invests in revenue-stage technology companies that are expanding rapidly in large markets and are well-positioned to be category leaders. Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a leading venture capital firm with global presence through the DFJ Global Network of funds. DFJ’s mission is to identify, serve and provide capital for extraordinary entrepreneurs anywhere who are determined to change the world. The DFJ Network has grown to encompass over 150 venture capital professionals in more than 30 cities around the world, more than 600 portfolio companies funded, and over $6 billion of capital under management. The DFJ Network has produced such notable, industry changing companies as Athenahealth (ATHN), Baidu (BIDU), Skype (acquired by eBay), Focus Media (FMCN), DivX (DIVX), Mobile 365 (acquired by Sybase), Massive (acquired by Microsoft), EnerNOC (ENOC), FeedBurner (acquired by Google), Four11 (acquired by Yahoo), xFire (acquired by Viacom/MTV Networks), Mozy (acquired by EMC), Myfamily.com (acquired by Spectrum Equity Investors), Overture (acquired by Yahoo), Parametric (PMTC), TicketsNow (acquired by TicketMaster), and buy.at (acquired by AOL).

NEW YORK – Advancing the self-regulatory efforts of the digital advertising and marketing industry, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) released the CLEAR  Ad Notice Technical Specifications, a set of common technical standards enabling enhanced notice in online ads. These technical specifications will allow advertisers and ad networks to begin offering a clickable icon in or near online ads that directs users to additional information about online behavioral advertising and choices about such ads.

The icon-based approach to enhanced consumer notice was outlined in the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, which were released in July 2009 by a coalition of associations—American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Council for Better Business Bureaus (BBB).

“Transparency and notice are critical to creating a safe and enjoyable consumer experience,” said Mike Zaneis, Vice President, Public Policy of the IAB. “These specifications will allow third-party ad servers to seamlessly integrate the icon so that consumers have access to more information when they are being served an ad based on their interests and behaviors.”

The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications detail how third-party media companies, such as advertising networks, can provide enhanced notice to consumers through an industry-standard set of metadata tags that are delivered along with behaviorally targeted advertisements.

Those metadata tags include information on which organization(s) served the ad, where to find their advertising policies and how to opt-out of such targeting in the future.

“The metadata infrastructure proposed in this specification provides a sound technical foundation for informative notice about behavioral advertising, while giving publishers, advertisers and ad networks the flexibility to adopt innovative approaches to consumer disclosure,” said Charles Curran, Executive Director of the NAI. “We look forward to working with the IAB and other leading industry associations to support implementation of enhanced notice to consumers.”

The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications were developed to:

Meet the third-party requirements set forth in July 2009 as part of the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising released in July 2009 by the cross-industry Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising Working Group
Provide enough flexibility for future expansion as the online advertising industry matures
Be open such that publishers, browser developers, tool developers or any other party can easily take advantage of the information presented to the user and find new ways to communicate this information.
The CLEAR Ad Notice Technical Specifications can be found at: www.iab.net/clear.

It is important to note that these technical specifications are intended for third-party media companies. There are separate requirements set forth in the Self-Regulatory Principles concerning first-party notice on publishers’ own websites, such as an independent link in the footer of a web page (e.g. “About Our Ads”). Publishers should refer to the Principles document for specific first-party guidance.

To view that document, please go to www.iab.net/behavioral-advertisingprinciples.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About the NAI:

The NAI (Network Advertising Initiative) is a coalition of more than 40 leading online marketing companies committed to building consumer awareness and reinforcing responsible business and data management practices and standards, and which includes all ten of the largest online advertising networks in the United States. Its initiatives are piloted by a cooperative of the most significant online advertising companies including Akamai, AOL Advertising, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, AlmondNet, AudienceScience, BlueKai, Media6degrees, SpecificMEDIA and 24/7 Real Media. As increasingly sophisticated online advertising technologies evolve, the NAI works to enhance consumer confidence through effective self-regulatory practices and user choice. To learn more, visit www.networkadvertising.org.

COLUMBIA, Md. & NEW YORK – Merkle (www.merkleinc.com), the nation’s largest and fastest-growing independent customer relationship marketing agency, and [x+1] (www.xplusone.com), the online targeting platform leader, announced today a strategic partnership that will allow marketers to bring the performance of integrated customer-centric campaigns to a new level.

In the initial phase of the partnership, [x+1]’s powerful audience targeting platform will be integrated with Merkle’s proprietary data, technology and analytics capabilities to enable Digital Media Optimization™, which will allow marketers to effectively capture, utilize and integrate insights from online display advertising. As it progresses in scope and functionality, the combined offering will enable a new level of marketing effectiveness by integrating functions across the enterprise, while delivering increased customer lifetime value and profitability.

The combined strength of Merkle and [x+1] will allow marketers to transform what was often incomplete and unusable data into a powerful business intelligence tool for optimizing online channels like any other direct response media. Together, the two companies will provide marketers with a truly integrated, analytics-based multichannel approach to customer acquisition.

“We’re extremely pleased to join with Merkle to help major organizations experience true performance marketing,” said Stephano Kim, President and COO of [x+1]. “Together, we will allow marketers to identify and target high-quality prospects and profitable customers. This high-precision audience segmenting process will make their multi-channel campaigns more efficient and effective than ever.”

“Marketers need data-driven insights across all of their programs that will allow them to optimize their marketing spend,” said Craig Dempster, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Merkle. “Under the first step of our partnership with [x+1], marketers will have a solution that ratchets up display advertising’s effectiveness by identifying the most profitable, likely-to-buy customers. Merkle’s data, technology and analytical strengths, combined with [x+1]’s leading audience targeting capabilities, will guarantee the delivery of highly personalized, optimized messaging at a price that will ensure optimal cost per acquisition (CPA) rates.”

About Merkle Inc.

Merkle is the nation’s largest and fastest growing independent customer relationship marketing agency. For more than 20 years, Fortune 1000 companies and leading nonprofit organizations have partnered with Merkle to maximize the value of their customer portfolios. By combining a complete range of marketing, technical, analytical and creative disciplines, Merkle works with clients to design, execute and evaluate Integrated Customer Marketing™ programs. With more than 1,000 employees, the privately held corporation is headquartered near Baltimore in Columbia, Maryland with additional offices in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Little Rock, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and Hagerstown, Md. For more information, contact Merkle at 1-877-9-Merkle or visit www.merkleinc.com.

About [x+1]

[x+1], the digital audience targeting platform leader, maximizes the return on marketing investment (ROI) of websites and digital media using its patented targeting technology. Providing the first end-to-end digital solution for advertisers and agencies, it optimizes engagement rates and lift conversion in both media and on websites. Its predictive marketing solutions enable automated, real-time decision making and personalization so the right advertisement and content is delivered to the right person at the right time. Top companies in financial services, telecommunications, online services and travel have significantly increased the performance of their digital marketing using the services of [x+1]. The company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, please visit www.xplusone.com. Follow us on Twitter @xplusone.

NEW YORK – WPP [NASDAQ: WPPGY] and Google [NASDAQ: GOOG] have announced that their jointly funded award program, which supports research into how online media influences consumer behavior, attitudes and decision making, has recognized 11 projects for its second round of grants.

In 2009, WPP and Google had agreed to dedicate up to $4.6 million over three years to fund the Google and WPP Marketing Research Awards Program. The program’s goal is to help some of the finest minds from academia to collaborate with the marketing community and client partners of both WPP and Google on outstanding research designs. For a full listing of first round studies and to learn more about program, visit http://research.google.com/university/marketingresearchawards/FAQ.html.

The program is overseen by Professor John Quelch, senior associate dean of Harvard Business School and a non-executive director of WPP; Dr. Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist; and Professor Glen Urban, former dean of the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This committee made final decisions on the second-round proposals to be funded and will guide the project implementation process for the winning submissions.

The researchers and affiliated academic institutions participating in this second round of supported projects are:

Michael Smith and Rahul Telang, Carnegie Mellon: Channels and Conflict: Efficient Marketing Strategies for Internet Digital Distribution Channels.

Chrysanthos Dellarocas, Boston University and William Rand, University of Maryland: Media, Aggregators and the Link Economy: An Analytical and Empirical Examination of the Future of Content.

Anita Elberse, Harvard University and Kenneth Wilbur, Duke University: What Is the Right Mix Between Offline and Online Advertising? A Study of the Entertainment Industry.

Arun Sundararajan, NYU and Gal Oestreicher-Singer, Tel Aviv University: The Breadth of Contagion of the Oprah Effect: Measuring the Impact of Offline Media Events on Online Sales.

Yakov Bart, Miklos Sarvary, Andrew Stephen, INSEAD: Consumer Responses to Mobile Location-Based Advertising.

V Kumar, Vikram Bhaskaran and Rohan Mirchandani, Georgia State University: Measuring the Total Value of a Customer through Own Purchases and Word of Mouth Referrals: A Field Study in India.

Alan Montgomery and Kinshuk Jerath, Carnegie Mellon: Predicting Purchase Conversion from Keyword Search Using Associative Networks.

Shawndra Hill, University of Pennsylvania and Anand Venkataraman, 33Across: Collective Inference for Social Network-Based Online Advertising.

Anindya Ghose, NYU: Modeling the Dynamics of Consumer Behavior in Mobile Advertising and Mobile Social Networks.

Jane Raymond, Bangor University: The Importance of Relevance: Cognitive Science Research on Distraction by Advertisement on the Internet.

Koen Pauwels, Dartmouth, Oliver Rutz, Yale, Shuba Srinivasan, Boston University and Randolph Bucklin, UCLA: Are Audience-Based Online Metrics Leading Indicators of Brand Performance?

An event to highlight the new round projects is being planned for November. Please go to http://research.google.com/university/marketingresearchawards/ for more information.

About Google Inc.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit http://www.google.com.

About WPP

WPP is the world’s largest communications services group. Through its operating companies, the Group provides a comprehensive range of advertising and marketing services including advertising; media investment management; consumer insight; public relations and public affairs; branding and identity; healthcare communications; direct, digital, promotion and relationship marketing and specialist communications. The company employs over 138,000 people (including associates) in 2,400 offices in 107 countries. For more information, visit www.wpp.com.

SALT LAKE CITY – Omniture Summit 2010

Omniture, an Adobe company (NASDAQ:ADBE) and a leading provider of online business optimization software, announced several new solutions to help advertisers and publishers easily segment and target critical audiences with display advertising. This set of solutions will allow advertisers to acquire high-value visitors, remarket to previous visitors based on past behavior and dynamically serve targeted ad content.

“Expanding our measurement and optimization capabilities into display advertising is a natural next step for the Online Marketing Suite,” said Josh James, senior vice president and general manager, Omniture Business Unit. “Omniture will continue to add new capabilities to the suite and enter new areas of online marketing to help our customers personalize every aspect of their digital initiatives.”

Display Targeting Solutions for Advertisers

Remarketing Through Display Ads

Omniture SiteCatalyst customers will be able to increase ad efficiency and drive return on ad spend (ROAS) using secure data syndication to automate the sharing of their aggregated and anonymous data with ad networks. Omniture is partnering with leading ad networks and services to provide a solution that will help customers easily find and remarket to past visitors. The partnerships Omniture is developing include: 24/7 Real Media, FOX Audience Network, Tribal Fusion, Traffic Marketplace, and Collective – The Audience Engine. The company is also teaming with digital advertising technology company the Rubicon Project. This solution will be gradually introduced over the coming months.

“With more advertising dollars moving online and resources being spent on display advertising, we are excited to partner with Omniture to enable their customers with more intelligent marketing optimization,” said Raj Chauhan, vice president of global demand, the Rubicon Project. “Through the integration, by leveraging the audience reach of the premium publishers on our REVV™ platform and the rich visitor profile data within Omniture SiteCatalyst, joint clients will be able to serve users with relevant messaging. This optimization strategy will directly result in increased ROI for display campaigns through targeted brand awareness and increased customer retention.”

Dynamic Ad Targeting & Optimization Using Omniture Test&Target

This solution will allow customers to dynamically generate display ads that personalize messaging and offers for increased conversion on the advertiser’s Web site. Marketers will be able to use anonymous visitor attributes to generate an infinite variety of ads and test creative content to present visitors with the most engaging creative assets. The solution will also leverage built in ad-sequencing and frequency capping capabilities that will increase campaign efficiency for advertisers.

“As a media agency we see tremendous value in enabling advertisers to easily create relevant and engaging display ads to mirror the targeted and optimized visitor experience on their own Web sites,” said Stuart Watson, vice president of emerging media and technology, Camelot Communications. “With Omniture’s offering for dynamic ad targeting and optimization, advertisers will gain unprecedented control to continually fine-tune their display ad campaigns, increasing engagement and conversion.”

Expanded Genesis Partnerships with Leading Ad Servers for Enhanced Display Ad Reporting

Omniture is expanding Genesis partnerships with leading ad servers. The full set of partnerships include: Eyeblaster, DoubleClick for Advertisers, Microsoft Atlas, APT from Yahoo!, PointRoll, Mediaplex, Adform, EyeWonder and D. A. Consortium. These partner integrations offer advertisers increased insight into their ROAS by tying on-site conversion metrics from SiteCatalyst – such as revenue generated, leads generated, or products sold – directly to standard ad server metrics – such as impressions, clicks, interaction rates or view-throughs – obtained through a display ad server.

“Eyeblaster is committed to utilizing intelligent technology and data to deliver better results for advertisers,” said Gal Trifon, CEO and co-founder at Eyeblaster. “Through Genesis, our integration with SiteCatalyst offers advertisers visibility into campaign performance by audience segments and improves their display targeting strategies with deeper intelligence for use in future campaigns.”

Display Targeting Solutions for Publishers

This solution lets publishers segment their ad inventory using SiteCatalyst data to increase the relevance of display ads served to specific audiences through 24/7 Real Media’s Open AdStream platform. Omniture is enabling publishers to sell targeted ad inventory and increase ad revenue by easily segmenting and targeting display ad inventory based on SiteCatalyst behavioral metrics (such as content accessed, videos watched, articles read, etc.), demographic or geographic information. This solution also provides publishers with valuable insights about their display advertising business, informing them of which content is effectively driving advertising revenue, which visitors are the most valuable, and how well they are monetizing their site.

“24/7 Real Media, through its Global Web Alliance, provides industry leading technology and targeting through Open AdStream,” said Nicolle Pangis, vice president, product management – global media and technology, 24/7 Real Media. “Further enhancing our existing integration with Omniture, we are pleased to be a key partner in Omniture’s expansion into display targeting optimization solutions which will help marketers leverage their existing data to better reach the right audiences through the Web Alliance.”

About Omniture, an Adobe company

Omniture, a business unit of Adobe Systems Incorporated, is a leading provider of online business optimization software for managing and enhancing online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives. Hosted and delivered via on-demand subscription service and on-premise solution, Omniture software enables customers to capture, store and analyze information generated by their Web sites and other sources, providing business insights into the performance and efficiency of marketing and sales initiatives and other business processes. For more information, visit www.omniture.com.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

© 2010 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Omniture, the Omniture logo, Omniture Online Marketing Suite, Omniture SiteCatalyst, Omniture Test&Target and Omniture Genesis are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

“IT buyer’s actual search behavior reveals important details about the findings from our first Google/TechTarget Research Project,” said Marilou Barsam, Senior Vice President of client consulting and corporate marketing, TechTarget. “Specifically, CIOs have a tendency to view more pages of search results, use keyword queries around “solution” more in early stage research, and demonstrate more willingness to provide their telephone numbers than IT buyers with Director or Administrator roles,” Barsam continued.

Another significant finding in search behavior patterns was a greater frequency of brand and issue/opportunity search phases during the early awareness stage, and a greater use of solution and comparison/review phrases during the later consideration stage than in our 2008 study.

Additional highlights from the study include click-maps that demonstrate the actions taken by IT buyers, including showing that more than 80% of users skim the entire search results page for titles, topics and specific content types of interest before taking any action on the SERP.

This report, along with in-depth analysis of responses segmented by title, role and international region, will be the focus of a joint Google/TechTarget Roadshow event to be held at the Google offices in New York, NY on February 11, 2010. Visit http://www.techtarget.com/googletechtargetroadshow to apply for attendance today.

About TechTarget

TechTarget, a leading online technology media company, gives technology providers ROI-focused marketing programs to generate leads, shorten sales cycles, and grow revenues. With its network of more than 60 technology-specific websites and more than 7.5 million registered members, TechTarget is a primary Web destination for technology professionals researching products to purchase. The company is also a leading provider of independent, peer and vendor content, a leading distributor of white papers, and a leading producer of webcasts, podcasts, videos and virtual trade shows for the technology market. Its websites are complemented by numerous invitation-only events. TechTarget provides proven lead generation and branding programs to top advertisers including Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, SAP and Symantec.

2010 International CES: “Advertising Analytics and Social Media, Search, Video Search and HyperTargeting”

WHAT:

A full 86 percent of companies plan to spend more money in social media in 2010, according to this report, released in November by Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia. For entities on both sides – advertisers and publishers – the big question remains: how to achieve and measure success?

Sometrics co-founder and CEO Ian Swanson will address that question in a session at Digital Hollywood at CES in January. He is available in the meantime to discuss how to get the most out of opportunities within free-to-play and casual online games. Swanson can address:

– How advertisers can successfully generate response through loyalty programs within free-to-play online games.
– The various loyalty programs available within online games – including cost-per-action offers, in-game shopping feeds and more – and how to optimize each.
– How publishers can ensure the quality of offers within their games.
– How publishers can optimize and merchandise offers to increase revenue.

WHEN:
Ian Swanson is available immediately for media interviews, and will be available at the Digital Hollywood CES event.

Digital Hollywood Events at CES 2010 (Track I – DH19)
Swanson is participating in the session entitled: “Advertising Analytics and Social Media, Search, Video Search and HyperTargeting”
Saturday, January 9 at 3 p.m.

HOW:
To schedule an interview with Swanson, contact:
Ken Greenberg, Edge Communications, Inc.
ken@edgecommunicationsinc.com
(818) 990-5001

WHO:
Ian Swanson is co-founder and CEO of Sometrics (www.sometrics.com). Sometrics pioneered social intelligence – combining deep, relevant social analytics with precision-targeted ad serving capabilities to help developers and brands monetize the social web. The company has adapted its advanced targeting and optimization expertise to give online game developers the first-ever full-service offer and payment management solution.

Before launching Sometrics, Swanson was business development manager for Userplane, an AOL company that provides social media apps to hundreds of thousands of online communities, supporting millions of users daily. Swanson was instrumental in helping the company extend the reach of its hosted chat, IM and other communications apps, and in building the company’s ad network. Before Userplane, he was an executive with Sprint and helped launch two mobile web startups.

Swanson actively advises several successful social networking applications, Fortune 500 companies and startups with their brand and marketing strategies within the social media ecosystem. He is often invited to share his insights at industry events and has addressed audiences at the IAB’s Leadership Forum – Audience Measurement; SNAP/SWAT Summits; Graphing Social Patterns, User Generated Content Conference, among many others.

ZEDO has been expanding its presence in the European market. Recent feature developments for Europe include new formats and built-in ad network optimization, behavioral targeting data and a self-service platform.

Oana Dereli, Managing Partner at Pictas Group, said, “The difference between Pictas Interactive and the other Eastern European ad networks is the fact that we deliver real targeted advertising, which benefits our clients. The future prospects look brighter. Several great formats that ZEDO offers have already been rolled out to the ad network. We are very happy that our clients now have access to the ZEDO platform to get informed in real time about the campaign status and make quick changes, if necessary.”

“ZEDO is excited by the demand in Europe,” said Amit Pai, Head of European Sales. “We plan to make ZEDO the largest privately held ad server in Europe. ZEDO has formed powerful strategic partnerships and continues to sign new customers on a weekly basis.”

About Pictas Interactive

Pictas Group recently launched Pictas Interactive, an online vertical ad network focusing on parents and children. One of the premier advertising networks in Romania, Pictas gathers websites with a common specific target: diverse informative articles, online contests, online shopping and entertaining activities for both parents and children. The Advertisers benefit from targeted advertising, low costs, and consultancy from Pictas online marketing specialists, while Publishers benefit financially by placing ads on their websites. (www.pictas-interactive.com)

About ZEDO

ZEDO, Inc., the largest privately held ad server in the US, has been offering a variety of products and services to websites, advertisers and networks for 10 years. ZEDO focuses on premium technology to increase ad performance and maximize revenue for publishers. This includes cutting edge behavioral targeting; ad network optimization; video ad serving; ad serving on iphones; a widely acclaimed easy-to-use UI; self-service advertising and new formats to meet advertisers’ needs for innovation.

ZEDO is headquartered in San Francisco and has four development centers in Russia and India. (www.zedo.com)

By Scott Meyer, CEO, Better Advertising

Fitting The Pieces of Self-Regulation Together

WASHINGTON – At Better Advertising, we believe that industry self-regulation is the key to more transparent ads that produce better results. How our industry fits the pieces of Self-Regulation together will be a major topic of conversation at the FTC’s Exploring Privacy Roundtables. The first is Monday, December 7th. Better Advertising will be there, actively tweeting and blogging. Keep an eye out for me, Colin O’Malley and Sim Simeonov. And, Better Advertising will be filing a request to participate at the next one on January 28th in Berkley.

While Better Advertising lives this stuff every day, it can be fairly opaque to many. Here’s the way Better Advertising sees the situation.

The Cross-Industry Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising which rolled out in July of this year was a huge step. The leading trade associations in the online advertising industry came together to document the rules of conduct they expect their members to follow. If you haven’t read it yet, you should. As the document states:

“The Self-Regulatory Program consists of seven Principles. These Principles, described below, correspond with the “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising” proposed by the Federal Trade Commission in February 2009, and also address public education and industry accountability issues raised by the Commission.”

The seven self-regulatory principles are: Education, Transparency, Consumer Control, Data Security, Material Changes to Existing Online Behavioral, Advertising Policies and Practices, Sensitive Data and Accountability.

The first to roll out was the IAB’s new Privacy Matters campaign to address the education principle. More than 500 million impressions are being donated by major media outlets to get the point across. WPP, a Better Advertising design partner, did a great job here on the creative. Twenty leading publishers and ad networks donated ad inventory. Stay tuned, there will a lot more information to educate consumers as to what is going on. Better Advertising will be playing a major part of that effort.

The next step in self-regulation is “the icon.” The icon will alert consumers that an ad is using or collecting behavioral data to target them. It also gives consumers more information about behavioral advertising and provides a logical way to exercise the choice of whether or not to be targeted. The Future of Privacy Forum (where Better Advertising is on the Advisory Board) working with important academics Mary Culnan and Manoj Hastak plus Better Advertising’s friends at WPP’s GroupM and Kantar have pulled together a very impressive set of choices. They just announced it as their New Privacy and Personalization Symbols Finalists. This is a project which Better Advertising enthusiastically supports. It’s been incorporated into what Better Advertising will be delivering to clients.

So, that brings us to the last piece of the self-regulation puzzle. How will companies be able to prove that they actually following all of these principles? That’s where the Accountability Principle comes in, and that’s what Better Advertising does. This will end up being the most complicated, and most important, part of successful self-regulation. It requires processing billions of events per day and integrating with hundreds of companies across the online advertising ecosystem. For that, you need a custom-built technology solution that is laser focused on Behavioral Advertising and complying with the Principles.

Better Advertising is actively engaged with all the key players in this effort as we roll out our platform. And there is a lot of good work that’s going into this space. The NAI’s new opt-out extension for Firefox is one example. As is the Yahoo CLEAR notice protocol. The Better Advertising platform supports, and is complementary to, these and alternative technologies that will be coming to market soon.

Behavioral advertising is here to stay. It makes for a better consumer web experience. It delivers better results for advertisers. It will take a lot of continued hard work to deliver the kind of transparency that consumers, regulators and legislators are demanding. And Better Advertising is committed to working with everyone to make this happen to ensure our industry stays self-regulated and keeps on growing.

Publishers will experience superior service and solutions enabling them to monetize their entire inventory at the highest ecpm levels. Current DMX publishers will simply need to contact Michelle Collins (michelle@kitaramedia.com) to seamlessly transfer their account.

“Currently we are the largest DMX network provider, and in light of Right Media’s decision to shut down DMX, we welcome the opportunity to work directly with DMX publishers to provide a very exciting solution and excellent customer service,” says Michelle Collins, Sr. Account Manager for Publisher Services.

With access to hundreds of advertisers and networks, publishers will be running ads and earning points in minutes. “While the DMX enabled publishers to work with a limited number of Right Media networks, The Kitara Media eXchange instantly provides competition from over 100 networks,” says Lizz Cramm, Director of Publisher Services and Business Development.

About Kitara Media

Kitara Media is a full service Network with fully transparent, behaviorally targeted, and performance-focused advertiser and publisher focus. We bring advertisers and publishers together in the smartest way possible. Using cutting edge technology and exceptional resources, we provide real value to advertisers and publishers with a completely transparent performance solution.

Kitara Media is an Intrepid Investments, LLC Company.

www.kitaramedia.com

NEW YORK – To educate consumers and provide them with the resources to help them manage their privacy online, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the launch of “Privacy Matters,” its first-ever consumer education campaign that will run across a broad cross section of top-tier online media outlets. While the digital media industry has done an extraordinary job of transforming the way consumers experience entertainment and information, it hasn’t been as effective at explaining how it all works to the average person.

The “Privacy Matters” advertising campaign and its accompanying website, www.iab.net/privacymatters, were designed by Schematic, a WPP company. The online campaign consists of a series of unique and visually striking aesthetics and bold headlines that will guide people to the “Privacy Matters” site, an information-rich website where consumers can access resources and tools designed to help them protect their online privacy and engage in conversation about their privacy concerns.

“The ‘Privacy Matters’ campaign and website is an example of how the IAB is taking a leadership role in communicating with consumers in plain English about how to manage their privacy online and providing them with the resources to do it,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. “What’s most impressive about this campaign is that the media partners and agencies involved in this effort donated their time and resources for free—a testament to their collective commitment to our work to protect consumers and allow digital media to keep transforming the way consumers experience entertainment and information.”

The “Privacy Matters” campaign is part of an ongoing, industry-wide effort to develop more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral advertising practices by increasing transparency, developing ubiquitous consumer choice mechanisms, improving data security and advancing consumer awareness of online privacy issues. In July 2009 the IAB joined the nation’s largest media and marketing trade associations in the release of “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising” to protect consumer privacy in ad-supported interactive media. The principles directly address public education and industry accountability issues raised by the FTC and include an Education Principle that calls for organizations to participate in efforts to educate individuals and businesses about online behavioral advertising. The “Privacy Matters” campaign launches with commitments of more than 500 million online advertising impressions and will run through 2010 with the goal being at least 1 billion impressions served, which would be sufficient to reach nearly every American online.

“As a marketing partner to some of the world’s largest brands, we are pleased to have been selected to develop the ‘Privacy Matters’ campaign in conjunction with the IAB,” said Trevor Kaufman CEO of Schematic. “With consumers living such a large portion of their lives online, it’s imperative that they understand how their information is used in providing them with a more relevant and personalized Internet experience. We applaud the IAB for launching this campaign and think Web users will find the information extremely helpful.”

To view the “Privacy Matters” website, please go to: www.iab.net/privacymatters

To view the advertising campaign, please go to: www.iab.net/pr-120309

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. – In its aggressive campaign to protect online advertisers against click fraud, Advertise.com announced that its patented ClickShield™ technology will be integrated with its Display Advertising Network. Advertise.com is a premier network for search, display and cost-per-action (CPA) marketing. Advertise.com’s search advertising already benefits from this anti-fraud technology to protect against click fraud.

Adding click fraud protection across display advertising gives advertisers the power to add and remove traffic sources immediately based on real-time information and a level of transparency rarely available from other online ad networks. The Advertise.com display platform utilizes its publisher network using behavioral targeting, vertical channel targeting, geo-targeting and Remarketing, to boost advertisers’ display ad performance.

ClickShield is Advertise.com’s patented and independently-certified fraud-monitoring technology which identifies and removes low performing traffic. ClickShield optimizes the Advertise.com ad network by ensuring that clicks are “scrubbed” from fraudulent activities. This is done based on user behavior patterns and other proprietary methods.

“ClickShield™ has proven very successful on our Search Network, so it only makes sense to apply it to our display traffic,” said Daniel Yomtobian, CEO of Advertise.com. “Display advertising has gone too long without a tool to dynamically track and keep the traffic clean.”

Yomtobian believes that there is a reason the Display Advertising Industry is behind in click fraud protection. “Many display ads are billed on a CPM, so there’s the perception that advertisers haven’t cared about click fraud; they’ve paid for a set amount of impressions. With PPC there’s been more focus on the click and subsequently on click fraud.”

Advertisers will see greater ROI on traffic as high quality sources are added to the network faster while poor quality sources are removed immediately. This process gives advertisers control over where and when their ads show by allowing low-performing traffic channels to be automatically identified and turned off. This saves advertising dollars by delivering only the traffic that converts best.

ABOUT ADVERTISE.COM

Advertise.com is a premier platform for search, display and performance marketing enabling advertisers to reach a wider audience through our exclusive network of search engines and publisher properties. Founded in 2001 as privately held pay-per-click (PPC) search network ABCSearch.com, the company was re-launched in April 2009 as Advertise.com, Inc. We continue to lead the charge in online advertising, connecting thousands of advertisers with millions of consumers every day – now delivering over 10 billion ad impressions each month.

Our mission is to provide online marketers with easy and effective online marketing solutions including high-quality PPC traffic, cost-per-action (CPA) marketing, banner ads, and remarketing opportunities. Using our patented ClickShield fraud protection software, Advertise.com is dedicated to providing the most qualified and affordable options available for search and display advertising.

Headquartered in Sherman Oaks, California, Advertise.com has more than 75 employees in the US and India with a portfolio of brands including ABCSearch and the award-winning social search engine Scour.com.

Follow Advertise.com on Twitter at twitter.com/Advertisedotcom.

NEW YORK & LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Ad:tech New York has been the setting last week as Acxiom® Corporation (Nasdaq: ACXM) showcased its vastly expanded advertising solutions that redefine effectiveness in reaching the right consumers with relevant messages.

Irrelevant ads annoy consumers and are beginning to frustrate marketers due to the resulting wasted impressions and media spend. Up to 80 percent of online impressions fail to reach their intended audience with desired frequency (source: comScore) and companies spend an estimated $112 billion in wasted advertising in the United States each year (source: What Sticks).

Acxiom helps clients prevent wasted advertising through Acxiom Relevance-X™, which spans channels from online and mobile to social media and interactive television and enables marketers and advertisers to:

* Incorporate new ad decisioning technologies to ensure their messages reach the most receptive audience every time.
* Select audience and channel based on deep consumer insights, including in-house marketing and behavioral data.
* Apply consumer-centric analytics to continually improve relevance for every interaction across the entire buying cycle.

“Armed with Relevance-X, advertisers can achieve high-performance marketing results and superior returns, often times generating three to five times the return compared to campaigns based on reach, context or behavior,” said Tim Suther, senior vice president for Acxiom’s Global Multichannel Marketing Services. “For years, progressive marketers have counted on Acxiom to enable better performance. Relevance-X continues the tradition of providing value through targeted customer engagements driven by powerful insight.”

Relevance-X allows marketers to easily select and engage consumer segments, then reliably deliver the right message through the most relevant channel. Strong analytic capabilities equip marketers with the tools to monitor results and optimize campaigns in real time. This ensures purposeful messaging to consumers throughout campaigns and leads to the most effective marketing possible with improved customer engagement and fewer wasted ad impressions.

About Acxiom

A global leader in interactive marketing services and infrastructure management, Acxiom connects clients with their customers through deep consumer insight, powering effective and profitable marketing initiatives and business decisions. Our consultative approach spans multiple industries and incorporates decades of experience in consumer data and analytics, information technology, data integration and consulting solutions for effective marketing across digital, Internet, email, mobile and direct mail channels. Our secure, high-performance technology services deliver consistent value and reliability. Founded in 1969, Acxiom is headquartered in Little Rock, Ark., and serves clients around the world from locations in the United States, Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific. For more information about Acxiom, visit www.acxiom.com.

As consumers embraced mobile technologies like never before, last year the channel began to catch up with its hype. 2009 may actually be the point when advertisers start shifting to include mobile.

The Mobile Advertising and Usage report analyzes the (finally) accelerating mobile opportunities opening up for both consumers and marketers.

The true turning point for the industry was the introduction of the smartphone, heightened by Apple’s iPhone launch in mid-2007. The development of third-generation (3G) mobile phones led to better connection speeds, Wi-Fi connectivity and the rise of mobile Internet browsing.

Another critical factor was pricing plans that took the mystery out of data usage and encouraged unlimited mobile content consumption.

In light of the heightened activity and interest, eMarketer forecasts that advertisers will spend $3.3 billion on mobile advertising in 2013, up from $648 million in 2008.

Key questions the “Mobile Advertising and Usage” report answers:

How will mobile advertising fare in a down economy?
Can marketers count on smartphones to expand mobile’s reach?
How will changes in mobile usage patterns affect marketers?
What will be the affect of mobile video?
Which ad-funded business models will take off?
And many others…

Executive Summary

US Mobile Advertising Spending, 20082013 (millions and % change)

Key Questions

Mobile Ad Spending

US Mobile Advertising Spending, 20082013 (millions and % change)

Comparative Estimates: US Mobile Advertising Spending, 2008-2013 (millions)

Marketer Usage

New Media Marketing Tactics that US Senior Marketing Executives Are Most Interested in Adding to Their Marketing Mix, August 2008 (% of respondents)

Most Popular Advertising and Marketing Tactics in 2009 According to US Advertising Agency Executives (% of respondents)

Tactics on Which US Marketers Plan to Focus Their Online Marketing Budget in 2009 (% of respondents)

Change* in Advertising Spending According to US Advertisers, by Media, OctoberNovember 2008 (% of respondents)

Change in Marketing Spending According to US Marketers, by Tactic, September 2008 (% of respondents)

Year When Mobile Advertising Will Become a Major Advertising Medium According to US Marketers* (% of respondents)

Consumer Attitudes About Mobile Advertising

US Internet Users Who Are Interested in Receiving Personalized Ads, by Media, 20062008 (% of respondents)

US Adult Mobile Subscribers Who Would Be Willing to View Mobile Ads*, 2008 (% of respondents)

Number of Mobile Ads per Day that US Adult Mobile Subscribers Would Be Willing to View*, 2008 (% of respondents)

Mobile Advertising Recall and Receptivity Among AfricanAmerican and Hispanic Mobile Data Users, Q2 2008 (index)

US Adult Mobile Phone Users Who Recall Viewing Mobile Advertising in the Past Three Months, by Type, Q3 2008 (millions)

Demographic Profile of US Mobile Phone Users Who Recall Viewing Mobile Advertising, Q4 2008 (% of respondents in each group)

US Text Message Users Who Recall Seeing a Text Message Ad, by Age and Race/Ethnicity, Q2 2008 (% of respondents in each group)

Mobile Usage

Comparative Estimates: US Mobile Phone Subscribers, 20072013 (millions)

US Mobile Phone Subscriptions and Penetration, 20042014 (millions and % of population)

US Mobile Phone Users, by Age, 20052008 (% of respondents in each group)

Mobile Internet Activity

US Mobile Phone Subscriptions and Mobile Internet Users, 20082013 (millions)

Mobile Content and Application Activities of US Mobile Subscribers, August 2008 (thousands and % of mobile subscribers)

Mobile Devices Used by US Consumers to Access the Internet in the Past 12 Months, June 2008 (% of respondents)

Mobile Activities of US Mobile Phone Users, by Generation, SeptemberOctober 2008 (% of respondents)

Smartphones

US Mobile Phone and Smartphone Shipment Growth, 20082010 (% change)

US Smartphone Sales, Q4 2007 & Q4 2008 (% of total mobile phone sales)

Online Methods Used to Access Information About Brands* According to Young Adult Internet Users in the US and Worldwide, JuneJuly 2008 (% of respondents)

Top Five Mobile Content and Services that US Mobile Phone Users* Intend to Use in the Next Two Years, November 2008 (% of respondents)

US Adult Smartphone Users, by Age, Q1 2008 (% of respondents)

Installed Base of Mobile Content and Devices Among US Low and MiddleIncome* Mobile Subscribers, June & August 2008 (thousands and % change)

US Mobile Phone Users and iPhone Users Who Recall Viewing Mobile Advertising, by Type, Q4 2008 (% of respondents in each group)

US Mobile Phone Users and iPhone Users Who Responded to Mobile Advertising, by Method, Q4 2008 (% of respondents in each group)

Text Messaging

Text Messages Sent in the US, June 2007 & June 2008 (billions and % change)

US Mobile Phone Users* Who Use Text Messaging, by Frequency, 20052008 (% of respondents)

US Adult Mobile Phone Users Who Have Texting and Data Plans, by Age, April 2008 (% of respondents)

US Mobile Phone Users Who Have Responded to Mobile Phone Offers, by Offer Type, MarchApril 2008 (% of respondents)

Adult Mobile Phone Users in India, UK and US Who Recalled Viewing Text Message Advertising in the Past Three Months, Q2 2008 (% of respondents)

Mobile Video and Mobile TV

Methods Used to Access Mobile Video According to US Mobile Video Viewers, Q3 2008 (% of respondents)

Weekly Time Spent Watching Mobile Video According to US Mobile Video Users, September 2008 (% of respondents)

US Mobile OnDemand Video Viewers, by Content Type, August 2008 (thousands and % of total)

Demographic Profile of US Internet Users, by Time Spent Watching Online Video on Their Mobile Phone, OctoberNovember 2008 (minutes per day)

US Mobile Broadcast Video Viewers, by Content Type, August 2008 (thousands and % of total)

Trends to Watch

Conclusions

Endnotes

US Mobile Advertising Spending, 20082013 (millions and % change)

Comparative Estimates: US Mobile Advertising Spending, 20082013 (millions)

Comparative Estimates: US Mobile Phone Subscribers, 20072013 (millions)

Related Information and Links

Related Links

Contact

Report Contributors

To order this report:

Mobile Advertising and Usage

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0128114/Mobile-Advertising-and-Usage.html

San Francisco, CA — Bizo, the leading online B2B audience targeting platform and advertising network, announced today a revenue increase for the first three quarters of 2009, providing a financial proof point of the growth and demand for online ad targeting for B2B advertisers. During this period, Bizo added over 50 new B2B advertiser clients and more than 300 publisher sites, while maintaining a 150% revenue renewal rate among its advertisers.

Bizo, which launched its service in 2008, saw quarter over quarter revenue grow more than 250% from Q1 2009 to the third quarter of the year, and the company is on track to close the year with sequential 100% revenue growth from Q3 to Q4.

“These numbers are an extension of the success we’re able to deliver for our advertisers and publishers. With Bizo, our customers can reach the exact audiences they want, and get better results for their spend,” said Russell Glass, Bizo CEO. “At the same time, we’re delivering much better value for our publisher partners, and helping them diversify their digital revenues away from the standard low-paying text ads.”

Advertisers including UPS, Sprint, Capital One, Superpages and Hoover’s have tapped the Bizo network to reach targeted subsets of specific industries resulting in campaigns with superior results.

“Hoover’s is a valuable tool for sales and marketing audiences, and Bizo allows us to efficiently reach specific target audiences to describe the value we can deliver,” said Rocky Brown, marketing manager for Hoover’s.  “We have been working with Bizo for a few months now and are excited that we’ve found a new channel that is showing increased ROI above and beyond our past efforts.”

To deliver high quality audiences and impressions, Bizo works with a growing number of the top B2B publishers include Access Intel, Vance Publishing, Lebhar-Friedman, MerchantCircle, McGraw Hill, Nielsen Business Media, Spoke and others. Bizo helps its publisher partners earn better rates for their audience on-site, and create brand new revenue streams for their audiences off-site.

“Bizo gives us more than 100% better value for our impressions than any other ad network while delivering additional revenues from anonymously targeting our audience after they’ve left Spoke,” said Frank Vaculin, the CEO of business information publisher Spoke, “that’s real money that goes right to our bottom line.”

Bizo also recently launched its Premier Reseller Partnership program, and announced interCLICK as the first ad network to be accepted into the program.  The Premier status gives partners access to better pricing, more visibility, sales training and other benefits that help them deliver more value using Bizo business data.

Bizo offers a distinct value to each of the following groups:
• For a B2B marketer, Bizo enables the targeting of specific business audiences on publisher sites across the web to easily and affordably reach highly qualified audiences.
• For a publisher, Bizo creates new revenue opportunities and more efficient monetization of online audiences.
• For business audiences, Bizo decreases the volume of irrelevant advertising across the web. Bizo only uses anonymous information, ensuring complete user privacy.

About Bizo
Bizo, Inc. is the world’s first targeted B2B audience targeting platform and advertising network, and currently reaches more than 45 million targeted business people across thousands of sites on the web. Bizo has created a new approach to online B2B marketing with precise ad targeting that’s based on a prospect’s bizographics – industry, functional area, seniority, size of company, education, gender, location and more. This unique understanding of a person’s bizographics allows Bizo to anonymously deliver powerful ad targeting based on these attributes and behaviors. Bizo is privately held and based in San Francisco, CA.

NEW YORK – 24/7 Real Media, Inc., the leading global digital marketing company, released the latest product innovations to Open AdStream®, its award-winning ad serving and campaign management platform for the targeting and delivery of ads to Web sites. Open AdStream 7.3 introduces several new workflow enhancements that help publishers and traffickers work more efficiently, driving higher ROI through advancements in targeting and productivity.

Through an enhanced user interface and organizational structure, network management with Open AdStream becomes even more intuitive and less time-intensive. Publishers can now view and compare all their properties and creatives on one page, without having to log in separately. Innovative new functionality for traffickers also enables more than 30 creatives to be uploaded at once.

Open AdStream users can now use the convenient ‘Save and Share’ e-mail reporting tool, allowing them to personalize many different reports outlining specific information needed for monitoring, via a template and schedule of their choice. These tailored reports make publishers better able to identify campaigns that resonate, based on the metrics most important to them.

“24/7 Real Media has listened closely to our customers’ needs, and Open AdStream 7.3 includes several feature innovations to enhance their day-to-day workflow,” said Nicolle Pangis, Vice President, Product Management, Global Media and Technology for 24/7 Real Media, Inc. “We have maintained a consistent release schedule with at least one software upgrade per quarter for the past two years, something that none of our major competitors have been able to execute. Publishers recognize that deploying Open AdStream gives them ongoing access to the latest ad serving technologies.”

Open AdStream combines the powerful business intelligence of Web analytics and behavioral targeting with a world-class management platform, across every digital channel.

For more information on 24/7 Real Media and Open AdStream, visit www.247realmedia.com.

About 24/7 Real Media, Inc.

24/7 Real Media, Inc., a WPP company, is the leading global digital marketing company, empowering advertisers and publishers to engage their target audiences with greater precision, transparency and ROI. Using its award-winning ad serving, targeting, tracking and analytics platform, powerful search marketing technology and global network of specialized Web sites, the company has turned the art of reaching audiences across virtually any digital medium into a measurable science. The company is headquartered in New York, with 18 offices in 12 countries throughout North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, please visit www.247realmedia.com.

24/7 Real Media: The Science of Digital Marketing.

24/7 Real Media is a member of the NAI and adheres to the NAI privacy principles that have been applauded by the FTC. These principles are designed to help ensure Internet user privacy. For more information about online data collection associated with ad serving, including online preference marketing and an opportunity to opt-out of 24/7 Real Media cookies, go to: www.networkadvertising.org.

WHAT:

TARGUSinfo Summit Highlights Online Marketing Privacy Debate

“2010 Privacy Debate: Who and What Will Drive Resolution?”
Just when you think you’re out of the behavioral-targeting woods, conversion data sneaks out in front of you. Join us for a new take on the privacy conversation. Panel members bring an intriguing blend of passion, precision, maturity and authority to the table, for what promises to be the best discussion on privacy to date.

WHO:

Alan Chapell (Moderator)
President, Chapell & Associates

Chris Pirrone
General Counsel, Connexus

Chris Wolf
Co-Chair, Future of Privacy Forum

Matt Wise
CEO, Q Interactive

Mike Zaneis
VP of Public Policy, IAB

WHEN:

September 24, 2009, 2:25 p.m. PDT

WHERE:

Online Lead Quality Summit (OLQS)

Bellagio Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV

REGISTRATION:

www.TARGUSinfo.com/summit

About Online Lead Quality Summit (OLQS)

Online Lead Quality Summit (OLQS), the premier 2-day event for senior marketing executives in the interactive industry. The Summit will feature a morning keynote from Flickr co-founder, Stewart Butterfield, entitled, “What the Hell Just Happened?” and a bookend keynote from “Mavericks at Work” author, Polly LaBarre.

The Online Lead Quality Summit is the only event in the lead generation space with dedicated tracks for the education, automotive and finance verticals. Additionally, a new track specifically for the display advertising industry will discuss ways to improve online targeting to better support the industry.

To keep up with the latest developments about the Summit, follow TARGUSinfo at http://www.twitter.com/OLQS or join the conversation using the hashtag #OLQS.

About TARGUSinfo

TARGUSinfo, the leading provider of On-Demand InsightSM, provides unique identification, verification, scoring and location solutions that enable communication service providers, retailers, call-center operators, Web-based marketers and others to dramatically increase the quality of their services and the effectiveness of their marketing. A privately held company, TARGUSinfo is headquartered in Vienna, Va. For more information, visit www.TARGUSinfo.com.

NEW YORK – Lotame released results from a sustained program led by Harmelin Media for the Ford Dealer Association in and around the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The program was designed to maximize increases in click throughs, actions and intent to buy.

According to Executive Vice President of Harmelin Media Scott Davis, Lotame has consistently delivered a higher click yield and action yield than any other online advertising option, including ad networks targeted to the local market and automotive interest as well as other behavioral targeting systems. Click yield and action yield are determined by success in creating click throughs and defined actions after users have engaged with an ad, usually by selecting a local dealer.

“Early in our history, we identified local advertising to likely buyers as a particular strength of our platform, and it is very satisfying to see that capability create results for Ford and Harmelin,” said Andy Monfried, CEO of Lotame.

“Lotame has improved our metrics, and has continually worked with us to provide even better results for Ford, either through improved targeting or serving the best creative for the situation,” said Davis. “For example, we noticed that many times people acted on our ads after they had seen them a few times. Working with Lotame, we were able to serve a lower cost ad the first couple times we reached a new person in our target audience, switching to the more interactive ad when it was most likely to create the highest return. Our cost for conversion has benefited greatly.”

From January through July, Lotame delivered better performance than other advertising vehicles in key metrics including:
Lotame beat the average click through rate by nearly 15 percent
Lotame outperformed in click yield (clicks/interactions) by 88 percent
Lotame delivered a 216 percent improvement over the average action yield (actions/interactions)

During this campaign, users who had seen the Lotame-delivered ads indicated they were 20 percent more likely to buy a Ford over the next six months than a control group that had not seen the ads.

About Lotame

Lotame provides a platform for easily building and addressing customizable consumer audiences based on social activity in addition to implied or stated interests. Lotame has specifically designed its patented Crowd Control platform to take full advantage of the unique attributes of social data, using participation and user generated content as a foundation for improved campaign performance. Lotame is a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Please visit www.lotame.com for more information.

THE HAGUE – Dutch software company Streamtech launched a free version of ad server BittAds, making it possible even for smaller websites to be up and running with a commercial-grade ad server within half an hour.

The new free version of the hosted ad solution, which focuses on usability and scalability, offers all the features that are available in the commercial BittAds product, including behavioral targeting, 100% real-time information and compatibility with all popular ad formats. The free version targets small to medium-sized websites, supporting a maximum of 25 million views a month,

With the launch, Streamtech opens competition with other free ad servers like OpenX and Google’s Ad Manager.
Jaap de Heer, Streamtech CEO: “An ad management system is critical to the operations of a publisher or an ad network. Before choosing a system, it’s important to be able to first try it out. That’s why BittAds.com allows you to create a free account within one minute, and start playing with the system right away. The fact that it’s a hosted solution means that you do not have to worry about setting up and managing a server.”

BittAds aims to differentiate itself among ad servers by offering greater ease of use and a low barrier to entry. De Heer: “With BittAds.com, we want to make professional ad management software accessible to everyone. With a commercial solution, publishers get the peace of mind from knowing that there’s a professional support staff that they can turn to, that the product will not disappear overnight, and that the product is reliable. But not everyone can afford to shell out thousands of Euros for an ad server. With the new version of BittAds, we hope to bridge this gap and to show that professional-grade ad management doesn’t have to be expensive or complex.”

More information can be found at: www.bittads.com

About Streamtech B.V.
With its personalization engine Palmtrace.com and its advertising solution BittAds, the independent Dutch software development company Streamtech helps its clients to get the right information to the right visitor.

NEW YORK – interCLICK, Inc. (OTCBB: ICLK), a leading behavioral targeting company, appointed Roger Clark as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Clark comes to interCLICK from IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI), where he held a variety of senior roles, most recently with IAC Search & Media as Vice President, Office of the Chief Financial Officer. At interCLICK, Mr. Clark will be responsible for all financial activities, including planning and analysis, accounting, investor relations and corporate development.

Mr. Clark will be joining the interCLICK team at a time when the company is poised for explosive growth. The appointment empowers interCLICK with a greater ability to scale operationally and continue to focus on providing best in class advertiser ad solutions.

“Roger’s impressive 15-year track record of financial leadership success at IAC spans start-up, divisional, and corporate environments. His wide range of functional expertise, industry knowledge, and extensive public-company experience make Roger an invaluable addition to our team,” said Michael Mathews, CEO. “We look forward to parlaying Roger’s skills and energies into helping lead the implementation of best practices across our business and guiding our projected growth over the near and long terms.”

In his most recent position, Mr. Clark led cross-company accounting and finance initiatives for IAC’s largest division with more than $600 million in revenue. From 2006 until 2009, Mr. Clark was Vice President, Finance at IAC Advertising Solutions where he oversaw the P&L, directed financial and planning activities, and contributed significantly to the launch of IAC’s advertising network and a string of reorganizations. Between 1997 and 2006, Mr. Clark built and managed IAC’s investor relations and financial communication efforts while the company transformed from a $250 million local television broadcaster into a $15 billion Fortune 500 worldwide conglomerate with 25,000 employees. Mr. Clark began his career with Ernst & Young, LLP. Mr. Clark is a graduate of Ohio University, became a Certified Public Accountant in 1993, and currently holds a non-practicing CPA license in the State of Ohio. Mr. Clark sits on the CFO Council for the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

About interCLICK

interCLICK, Inc. (OTCBB: ICLK) operates the interCLICK Network, a behavioral targeting platform offering complete data and inventory transparency, allowing advertisers to identify and track their desired audience on an unprecedented level. interCLICK offers optimal user targeting technologies across a large network of name brand publishers to ensure the right message is delivered to a precise audience in a brand friendly environment. For more information about the interCLICK Network, visit http://www.interclick.com.

* Up to 50 percent of website abandoners convert with Abandonment Tracker Pro
* Supports best practices for remarketing to website abandoners
* Easy, automated SaaS solution integrates with ESPs and CRM apps

ANDOVER, Mass. – Converting website abandoners with real-time remarketing analytics, SeeWhy, Inc., announced Abandonment Tracker Pro, the first and only web analytics service to enable real-time remarketing for web site abandoners. Available immediately, the new service enables web teams to convert up to 50 percent of abandoners to customers.

SeeWhy also announced that only 2 percent of web analytics users follow up on abandoners with email remarketing campaigns within an hour, while almost 90 percent of those users not currently doing email remarketing want to start.

“Independent studies consistently show that remarketing best practice is an immediate follow up to an abandonment,” said Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy. “When it’s done right, immediate email follow up can convert up to 50 percent of website abandoners to customers. Timing and tone are everything. If you delay in following up, you risk your email becoming irrelevant or annoying to the abandoner. And the email must convey a desire to serve, not sell. Abandonment Tracker Pro makes it easy for you to do remarketing right for the first time.”

Easy, Automated Real-time Follow Up

Abandonment Tracker Pro is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that automates and optimizes abandonment follow-up actions, making it easy to convert up to 50 percent of website visitors who had previously abandoned their shopping carts, online forms, applications and registrations. Building on the functionality, ease of use, and value of Abandonment Tracker Free, the company’s free abandonment tracking service, Abandonment Tracker Pro can recapture a significant portion of the sales value lost to abandonment. For example, medium-size ecommerce companies can recapture up to $5 of each $10 they lose every second to abandonment.

Highlights of Abandonment Tracker Pro include:

* Real-time, first response. Abandonment Tracker Pro automates the sending of follow-up emails to website abandoners in real time.
* Intelligent, multi-stage follow-up campaigns. In addition to immediate, real-time email follow up, Abandonment Tracker Pro lets users automate multi-stage follow-up campaigns using the most appropriate channel for each individual abandoner. For example, an initial real-time email can be followed by a second follow-up email 24 hours later, while updating the contact center at the same time. Continuous real-time analysis of website visitors ensures that multi-stage campaigns are always in step with returning abandoners’ actions on the site.
* Easy, seamless integration with CRM applications and ESPs. Abandonment Tracker Pro offers plug-and-play integration with CRM applications and email service providers — no IT involvement needed. The resulting cross-channel solution supports call center and email touch points seamlessly.
* Advanced behavioral targeting. Using self-learning, behavioral analytics, Abandonment Tracker Pro monitors users’ onsite behavior in real time to determine whether an offer is required to maximize conversion. Optimized offers ensure that no margin is given away unnecessarily and that customers do not learn to wait for a better deal.

Nicholls continued, “Abandonment Tracker Pro makes it very easy to run automated, real-time, email remarketing campaigns to drive up website conversion rates. There’s no complex, time-consuming integration work or complex business rules to set up. The result is a real-time remarketing solution that users can get up and running very quickly and easily, enabling them to send immediate, follow-up emails to website visitors as soon as they abandon their sessions.”

About SeeWhy

SeeWhy delivers breakthrough improvements in website conversion through continuous analysis of individual visitors and proactively optimizes real-time actions. Powered by a unique next generation event processing architecture, the SeeWhy suite of real-time web analytic applications is delivered “on-demand.” Remarketing to abandoned visitors using the SeeWhy Abandonment Tracker Pro service converts up to 50% of visitors that had abandoned their shopping carts, online forms, applications and registrations. This service provides one of the highest and most easily attainable ROI’s of any online marketing initiative.

SeeWhy is a Red Herring Top 100 Company, has been named a Global Innovator by Guidewire Group and was highlighted as a cool company by Gartner, Inc. SeeWhy, Inc. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Andover, MA. More information can be found at http://www.seewhy.com/.

NEW YORK – interCLICK, Inc. (OTCBB: ICLK), the leading ad network in data and inventory transparency, announced an important update to its ad serving platform, increasing scalability and effectiveness of its behavioral platform. This latest release will provide interCLICK’s advertiser base with the most comprehensive understanding of which data sources are most valuable to their campaigns across interCLICK’s large scale network.

interCLICK’s platform leverages the company’s transparent network of the most prominent third-party data providers, network operators and large scale publishers along the online advertising supply chain to enable advertisers to effectively target in-market consumers with unprecedented scale and efficiency. The latest platform upgrade centers on reporting and delivery tools that improve the predictability data and inventory requirements. interCLICK’s advertisers will benefit from:

Additional levels of transparency
Improved campaign optimization and delivery
Improved ROI at greater scale

“Effectively managing our supply chain is contingent upon our ability to properly meet demand by aligning optimal data and inventory with as little lead time as possible,” said Michael Katz, president of interCLICK. “This platform upgrade provides us with greater operational efficiency and lays the final piece of the foundation for far greater things to come.”

interCLICK’s works with Fortune 1000 advertisers to identify highly qualified targets over long sales cycles in a brand safe context. interCLICK provides the premier data, advanced targeting technology and unsurpassed scale necessary to help advertisers influence purchase decisions and drive return on investment for their campaigns. Advertisers work with interCLICK to target campaigns to the appropriate decision maker, providing a level of effectiveness in both the B2C and B2B space.

About interCLICK

interCLICK, Inc. (OTC BB: ICLK – News) operates the interCLICK Network, a behavioral targeting platform offering complete data and inventory transparency, allowing advertisers to identify and track their desired audience on an unprecedented level. interCLICK offers optimal user targeting technologies across a large network of name brand publishers to ensure the right message is delivered to a precise audience in a brand friendly environment. For more information about the interCLICK Network, visit http://www.interclick.com.

SAN MATEO, Calif. – Aggregate Knowledge, the leading provider of real-time display optimization solutions, announced that its CEO and co-founder, Paul Martino, will be speaking at the OMMA Behavioral SF Conference 2009 on a panel that will discuss the emerging audience optimization market and ecosystem.

In a panel called ‘Grill the CEOs: Bring on the Optimizers,’ Martino, along with four other CEO panelists, will be asked about their unique value-add optimization technologies and respective benefits for the marketer or the publisher.

According to the OMMA Behavioral panel program, “In just the last year, a new generation of technology promises to optimize the purchase of audience segments more effectively across massive inventories for marketers and to match the right seller of those audiences with the highest paying buyer for the benefit of publishers.” It goes on to ask, “How is behavioral targeting layered into this new mix? Are these ad network optimizers adding value for marketers or for publishers? And with many different variables and parameters being calculated by these engines in real time, how well does behavioral perform relative to other forms of marketing?” These, as well as other questions will be posed to the panelists.

On this panel, Aggregate Knowledge will discuss how advertiser campaigns are commonly crippled by off-target or low-value impressions and how buy-side optimizers such as Aggregate Knowledge help agencies promote greater accountability and effectiveness from inventory providers.

Research from ComScore indicates that only a minority of campaign impressions reaches their intended audience with the desired frequency. Of eight U.S. brand campaigns with budgets between $400,000 and $2 million, ComScore said none reached more than 20 percent of their target with a frequency of four impressions or less. Even ignoring frequency caps, none of the campaigns cracked 40 percent for on-target delivery. The remainder of impressions, in some cases upward of 80 percent of a campaign’s buy, were delivered either to the wrong segments in the U.S., or to consumers outside the U.S.

Aggregate Knowledge helps agencies, advertisers, and marketers validate and prioritize display impressions from their media buys, in real time, to increase campaign reach by 40 to 80 percent and to boost key campaign performance metrics by 20 to 60 percent. Aggregate Knowledge works across any media buys whether from publishers, ad networks, or ad exchanges.

“Our platform works in real time to validate each impression against the audience objectives of the campaign and to prioritize on-target impressions based on the likelihood of a click or a conversion,” said Martino. “If a person is in the target audience, the ad gets served; if the person is in not in the target audience, we may serve a different campaign, a different creative, pass the impression back to the inventory provider, or resell it on an ad exchange. Throughout the campaign, we provide deep audience insights to inform future audience and media buys.”

Aggregate Knowledge is currently running several campaigns with three of the five largest advertising agencies in the world.

The OMMA Behavioral panel is set for 4:15 pm, Thursday, July 30, at the Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, CA.

About Aggregate Knowledge

Aggregate Knowledge®, the leading provider of real-time display optimization solutions, brings unparalleled efficiency, relevance, and performance to every marketing interaction. Aggregate Knowledge technology helps agencies, advertisers, and ad networks serve the best campaign, the best creative, and the best content, individualized to the tastes and needs of each consumer.

Aggregate Knowledge’s patent-pending platform combines real-time media, audience, and content optimizations by leveraging anonymous click-stream data from over 70 million users, over 1.6 million items, and high-quality data from trusted third-party providers.

Aggregate Knowledge is funded by premier venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DAG Ventures, and First Round Capital.

More information can be found at www.aggregateknowledge.com

Aggregate Knowledge is a registered trademark, and the Aggregate Knowledge logo, Aggregate Knowledge Discovery, Agknow, Audience Discovery, and Personalized Creative are trademarks of Aggregate Knowledge Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. All other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. All statements regarding plans, directions, and intent of Aggregate Knowledge are subject to change without notice.

“We are gratified that existing shareholders have recognized the rapid growth we have generated over the past two years and the prospects for even stronger results in the future,” said Michael Mathews, interCLICK’s Chief Executive Officer. “We expect these new funds will allow us to support our working capital requirements as we grow, as well as allow us to increase our investments in our sales, marketing and technology in order to accelerate our growth even faster.”

Recently, the Company increased its 2009 revenue forecast for the second time this year. The Company now expects revenue to be over $40 million, which would represent an increase of at least 80% compared to 2008 revenue of $22.4 million. Previously, the Company expected 2009 full-year revenue to exceed $36 million, which would represent 60% year-over-year revenue growth. interCLICK increased its forecast due to strong demand from advertisers shifting budget towards ROI centric solutions. Gross margin is expected to be at or above the first quarter 2009 level of 47%.

About interCLICK

interCLICK, Inc. operates the interCLICK Network, an online advertising platform that combines advanced behavioral targeting with complete data and inventory transparency, allowing advertisers to identify and track their desired audience on an unprecedented level. interCLICK offers advanced proprietary demographic, behavioral, contextual, geographic and retargeting technologies across a network of name brand publishers to ensure the right message is delivered to a precise audience in a brand friendly environment. For more information about the interCLICK Network, visit http://www.interclick.com.

BOSTON – Amadesa (www.amadesa.com), the first company to deliver end-to-end Web site testing and personalization solutions to improve conversion and engagement activity, announced at the Internet Retailer 2009 Conference & Exhibition the launch of its automated, site-side Behavioral Targeting capability. The algorithm analyzes hundreds of anonymous user data points in real time to learn which campaign promotion, category image or other content element is most compelling and automatically matches the best content to each visitor to drive engagement.

Behavioral Targeting is the latest addition to the Amadesa Customer Experience Suite and represents a powerful extension of Amadesa’s personalization continuum. Smooth Fitness, the number one online retailer of home fitness equipment and a “Top 500” e-retailer as ranked by Internet Retailer, is among a select group of Amadesa customers already utilizing Amadesa’s Behavioral Targeting. Smooth Fitness achieved a 78 percent aggregate click-through rate increase and a nearly 20 percent increase in average order value as a result of Amadesa’s Behavioral Targeting.

“Amadesa’s site-side Behavioral Targeting algorithm goes above and beyond how most marketers define personalization by incorporating principles more commonly seen in advanced advertising solutions and applying them on marketers’ sites,” explained Rita Brogley, Amadesa’s CEO. “Although the technology is among the industry’s most sophisticated, the integrated user interface makes Behavioral Targeting easy to implement with little follow-up required of the marketer. This truly automated personalization creates micro-segments to engage consumers more quickly and take them deeper into the site to ultimately improve conversions and engagement.”

Amadesa’s Behavioral Targeting key features and marketer benefits include:

* An algorithm that anonymously collects hundreds of user data attributes, including time of day, day of week, IP address, referring URL and more
* In-session updating which captures visitors’ actions and behaviors, incorporates them into personas and acts on these findings in real time
* A sophisticated, yet easy to use, interface with actionable reporting that allows marketers to compare Behavioral Targeting traffic with a control group to track the results of the algorithm
* A quick preview function which lets marketers easily view content options prior to launch

In addition, Amadesa has made significant updates to its Customer Experience Suite, including:

* A Global Control option which allows marketers to measure ROI more accurately and effectively for all Amadesa activity performed on the site, in addition to individual test metrics
* The ability to conduct cross-site A/B and multivariate tests on all pages of the site to identify the most effective elements in navigation, display and other areas
* A “Pick the Winner” feature for A/B testing to optimize the best content or creative in each test wave by automatically removing the worst performing versions according to specific marketer preferences

“Most e-businesses focus on engagement metrics and acquisition events as their key performance indicators,” added Brogley. “By providing customers the most relevant individual experience, marketers can ensure ROI objectives are not only met but exceeded.”

About Amadesa:

Amadesa is the first company to deliver a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution focused on delivering a dynamic Web site of one through personalization and automated content delivery. The Amadesa Customer Experience Suite offers end-to-end testing and personalization products to help online businesses maximize revenues, enhance customer engagement, increase conversions and improve marketing ROI. Learn more at www.amadesa.com.

NEW YORK – Forbes released results of its “Ad Effectiveness Survey,” conducted among senior marketing executives during February and March 2009 to better understand their behaviors and beliefs regarding digital marketing, and to forecast where the major areas of growth – and weakness – will be over the next six months. The complete survey results are available at www.forbes.com/adinfo/research.html

Among the study highlights, when it comes to influencing brand perception, the most effective tactics were site sponsorships and pay-per-impression programs on digital publications. Ad networks and pay-per-click-search were identified as the least effective tactics. For garnering conversions, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click and e-mail tactics were seen as the top three most effective tools, while ad networks, video ads and “other” tactics were cited as least effective.

“Ad network spending is all about demand fulfillment while direct-to-publisher display is much aligned with the traditional advertising goals of demand creation,” said Forbes.com President and CEO Jim Spanfeller. “It is interesting to see the shift of dollars toward demand creation as we see signs of life in the economy.”

Marketers are measuring success as follows:

* 82% say they are using conversions or sales data
* 55% use registrations
* 51% use click-throughs
* 51% use impressions
* 39% use search rank
* 31% use brand perception
* 16% use customer feedback
* 14% use reach to target

When respondents were asked about their expected changes in digital media tactic allocation over the next six months:

* Overall respondents plan to allocate a higher percentage of their digital media dollars to viral marketing (42%) and SEO (40%), while 53% stated they would spend less on Ad networks.
* Behavioral Targeting was the tactic to see the least change (57% plan to allocate the same).
* Among $1MM+ Digital spenders, Viral Marketing (54%) and SEO (50%) will also see expected increase allocations, with Ad networks seeing the highest percentage of expected decreases at 52%.

“It’s amazing that less than one-third of marketers are using brand perception metrics, despite the fact that the digital world makes brand perception research readily available and measurable,” added Spanfeller. “Additionally, the need to build a trusted relationship with customers as part of an overall marketing strategy may in turn increase the need for contextual ad environments that align the advertiser’s message with trusted, branded media.”

Methodology:

The online survey was fielded between February 19, 2009 and March 19, 2009 among the following audiences:

* CMOs, C-suite professionals and senior-level executives (defined as Director or above) who hold roles in advertising, marketing and/or media.
* Senior-level executives (defined as Director or above) who hold roles in advertising, marketing and/or media from the Forbes Advisory Panel, an opt-in panel of senior executives.

Respondents were invited to participate in the survey via email. A total of 112 responses were received.

Forbes Media:

Forbes Media encompasses Forbes and Forbes.com, the #1 business site on the Web that reaches 18.6 million people monthly. The company publishes Forbes and Forbes Asia, which together reach a worldwide audience of more than 5.5 million readers. It also publishes ForbesLife and ForbesWoman magazines, in addition to licensee editions in China, Croatia, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia and Turkey. Other Forbes Media Web sites are: ForbesTraveler.com; Investopedia.com; RealClearPolitics.com; RealClearMarkets.com; RealClearSports.com; and the Forbes.com Business and Finance Blog Network. Together with Forbes.com, these sites reach nearly 40 million business decision makers each month.