ADOTAS: Terence Kawaja’s infamous display ecosystem landscape places TRAFFIQ in “media management systems” with companies like Centro — closer to the supply side than DSPs. Do you think this is a fair placement and why?

O’HARA: I don’t think we should put too much emphasis on placement in the landscape chart. Many companies belong in one or more buckets—and some of the logos should appear much larger than others, based on overall impact within the landscape itself. TRAFFIQ, for example, could appear in many of the categories (DSP and Ad Serving being two of them), but I believe there is a revenue threshold to be met before LUMA will place you in multiple buckets.

That being said, I think TRAFFIQ is in the right category. Eventually, the notion is that TRAFFIQ would appear as an overlay to multiple sections of the map, providing dashboard level access to an advertiser’s entire vendor toolset.

How does a media management system differ from a DSP? Confused agency people want to know.

Mostly, it’s nomenclature. I think the term “demand-side platform” is a great term for a technology tool that helps advertisers manage their media. The reality is that now “DSP” means “technology tool for real time managing exchange buying.” Agencies have every right to be confused, as companies within the landscape are changing from network to “platform” and from data provider to “DMP.”

The difference is simply that a “management system” should provide tools that cover inventory discovery, vendor negotiation, offer management, contracts, ad serving, analytics, and billing; DSPs handle a sliver of the overall media buy. For example, TRAFFIQ customers will be able to manage several DSPs within our platform at once.

It seems like the new Private Marketplaces tool allows advertisers to customize publisher and exchange lists — fair assessment, or is there more, so much more?

Right now, TRAFFIQ private marketplaces enables advertisers to buy outside of our curated list of 3,000 guaranteed inventory sources, which is especially important in terms of giving agencies the control they need over media. Publishers increasingly want the convenience and efficiency of exchange buying…without exposing their quality inventory to the world.

Demand side customers like the reach and price efficiency they can achieve with exchange-buying—but still struggle with brand safety and transparency. Our next-generation system will offer both sides a lot more control over who they work with, and that is sorely needed in our business right now.

Can this tool also offer hookups into the increasingly popular private exchanges, such as The Weather Channel’s Category 5 and Quadrant One?

Yes, as long as the demand-side partner has a business relationship in place with the inventory supplier, TRAFFIQ will be able to enable the connection.

Why are agencies going gaga over your new finance management tools?

If agency CFOs could actually go “gaga,” they may be doing so over our new tool for the simple reason that most digital platforms don’t take the vagaries of agency pricing into account. At TRAFFIQ, we have to manage several different pricing scenarios at once.

What is the agency’s margin, and how do they want that margin reflected in the pricing (baked into the media cost, or shown transparently)? How about data and technology fees? Those can be added to the gross media cost, or shown separately as well. Also, handling net and gross costs with publishers has always been challenging.

Smart systems should recognize these fundamental business needs, and expose the correct pricing to everyone within the system, eliminating confusion and duplicative work.

Can you explain how the multiple user permissions work? Why is this important for your agency clients and how can they best be deployed?

For the demand side, multiple user permissions means giving access to a subset of clients for an individual account team. On the supply side, it means having the ability to put the right publisher rep with the right demand side customer.

For example, an individual agency account team may buy from Fred at ESPN for one client, and Joe at ESPN for another. It is also necessary for agencies to be able to manage which of their end-clients gets to view certain reports. Multiple user permissions adds the layer of flexibility that enables TRAFFIQ users to expose the right data to the right set of customers.

What kind of agencies are you working with these days and what kind do you hope to add to your client base? Are you working with brands directly as well?

For the past several years, our focus has been getting total product adoption from the small to mid-sized agency market. Some are the types of shops that have a thriving traditional media practice, but not necessarily the right tools to tackle digital media. Still others are strong in digital, but are struggling with multiple tools, and having a hard time putting all of the pieces together efficiently.

We partnered with some of the great agency groups like TAAN, Magnet Global, AMIN and Worldwide Partners to reach these shops, and have been quite successful. We have also done some work with the holding companies, but mostly on a campaign-by-campaign basis, rather than getting the large shops to adopt our solution fully.

The product features we are working on now will actually enable big agencies to adopt TRAFFIQ by enabling API connections to their existing systems (ad serving, billing, etc). You can’t walk into an agency and ask them to drop all of their vendor relationships at once… You have to be able to work seamlessly with what they have.

What sets apart your attribution services from your media management peers as well as other attribution providers? What kind of extra insight do you provide?

Right now, a lot of our customers are working with our embedded Aperture audience measurement reports. Unlike other platforms, we make it fairly easy to take those demographic campaign  learnings and take action against them. So, it’s not just click- or view-based data; it’s using third-party data to understand who is seeing your campaign, clicking on it, and ultimately converting against it.

We are the only platform that can help marketers react to that data through guaranteed buying—and RTB. In the near future, we will be able to show how our efforts in initial media budget allocation and optimization are driving performance. We also see a great opportunity to get some key attribution metrics out of search and display, once out customers are doing both types of media in the platform at scale.

How does TRAFFIQ integrate first-party and third-party data into audience buying efforts?

Right now we have over 15 data segmentation partners. Some of them work directly with our Trading Desk (we apply those segments to exchange buys), and some of our partners provide both targeting and media execution. We see our role as a platform as provisioning our advertising clients with the right best-of-breed partners, no matter what the targeting need.

That means Proximic and Peer39 for semantic; AlmondNet (now Datonics) for search keyword retargeting; Media6Degrees and 33Across for social targeting; Nielsen, Lotame and eXelate for demo targeting, etc. We also have the ability to match any first-party data with available audience within our real-time bidding system, and find that audience as well.

Do you foresee more mobile partnerships in TRAFFIQ’s future or is Phulant your one and only?

TRAFFIQ is an open platform, and that means we must be willing to integrate partners based on our clients’ needs. We see Phluant as a key TRAFFIQ partner for mobile ad serving, and have plans to work closely with them to define and grow our mobile capabilities. We want to see more standardization around mobile workflow, and that means making it easier for marketers to allocate budgets across different media types (social, search, mobile, video, and display) in one system.

Phluant has developed amazing technology to help marketers take rich media for display  and bring it to mobile devices. That’s a great starting point… and something that can be leveraged across multiple mobile inventory vendors.

Regarding your partnership with Bizo, what kind of opportunities lie in the realm of targeted B2B display?

Bizo is doing an amazing job of bringing the power of B2B to display advertising. Until recently, B2B marketers stayed away from display advertising (or struggled to get online reach with smaller, niche business publishers). Now, they can take the success that they are used to having with targeted direct mail in B2B, and apply that in real time display.

We believe that there are some real opportunities to make both B2B and local display digital advertising more manageable, scalable, and accountable.

Besides its “interesting” name, what about Oggifinogi (recently acquired by Collective Media) attracted TRAFFIQ to make it your video and rich media network partner?

Our customers use Pointroll, Mediamind, Spongecell, and all kinds of third-party rich media vendors, but we needed a reliable “go-to” partner that could help our registered demand-side client base tackle rich media and video more easily. We saw that “Oggi” had a strong commitment to both technology and customer service, and we felt that we could work with their team well. I think Collective media validated what a great partner choice we made there!

TRAFFIQ appears to have spread itself out pretty well across digital marketing channels, so what area is next on the agenda? Social?

The first big channel we are going to tackle after display is search. In a few months, TRAFFIQ will feature bid management tools for search engine marketing right in the platform—along with access to the Facebook self-service ad inventory. This means that, for the first time, guaranteed display, real-time display, search, and social can be managed within the same “media management system.”

It’s going to be exciting, but the real challenge will be making it seamless for marketers—and getting some great insights out of all the data that such an integrated platform will produce. That’s what we’ll be working on over the next several months.

Collective Media:

Jennifer Morgan was named Chief Marketing Officer. Morgan’s former positions include director of operations at The Wonderfactory, an interactive branding, advertising and design agency, and vice president and managing director of David Stark Design and Production, a leading event and experiential marketing agency. Earlier in her career as executive producer with USA Networks Interactive Entertainment, Morgan oversaw the digital strategy for the company’s television and film businesses, including cross-platform promotions and programming. She also held the positions of director of communications and director of operations for IAC.

DoubleVerify:

David Bell, former CEO and Chairman of the Interpublic Group of Companies, has joined its Board of Directors. Bell is currently an Operating Advisor at Pegasus Capital Advisors, L.P., a private equity fund manager. From March 2006 until March 2007, he was Chairman Emeritus of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. From January 2005 until March 2006, Mr. Bell was Co-Chairman of IPG and from February 2003 until January 2005, he was its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and served as Vice Chairman from July 2001 to January 2003.

The Concept Farm:

Matt Plavoukos was named Digital Director. Previously, Plavoukos was a Director of Digital Strategy for Colangelo Synergy Marketing. He also led his own digital consulting firm in which he provided marketing and business strategy for many clients, including The Concept Farm.

Burst Media:

Has joined the Network Advertising Initiative, a coalition of leading online advertising companies committed to developing actionable self-regulatory standards that establish and reward responsible business and data management practices and standards. Burst, which is also a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program, has been working with the NAI since late 2008 to become a Full Compliance Member.

Pangea Media:

The company’s popular tween/teen quiz site, Quibblo.com, was awarded the top “Advertising Media Web Site or Blog” for 2009 at The American Business Awards

Titan Worldwide:

Promoted Sales Director and Deputy Managing Director of Titan Ireland Heather McGuire to Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Northern California region. Ms. McGuire will also sit on the Executive Committee of the company. She spent 13 years working in media in New York in senior sales management roles at Discovery and Screen Vision. She then joined Titan Ireland as Sales Director in 2006, and was promoted in early 2009 to Deputy Managing Director.

Fanscape:

Christina Mejia and Bithika Mehra were hired as director and coordinator, respectively, of research and analytics. Both are based out of Fanscape’s Los Angeles office.

Mejia was with Fanscape from 2001 through 2007, most recently serving as director of data, media and market research. Before returning, Christina Mejia was a market research analyst at DEI Worldwide.

Prior to Fanscape, Bithika Mehra worked in the financial sector in India where she devised successful channel marketing strategies to meet the company’s revenue targets.

Collective Media:

Brian Elliott was named Director, Automotive Category. Elliott, who previously served as the Director of Yahoo!’s Automotive Category, will lead Collective Media’s Detroit office. During his four year tenure at Yahoo!, Elliott led automotive category sales efforts, identifying and bringing to market new targeting products. He also led the audience creation and planning function, demand planning and sales support efforts. Prior to this position, he served as both Strategy Director and Sales Director.

Ripple6:

Paul DePinto assumes the position of Vice President of Sales East. Prior to joining Ripple6 Paul was Vice President of Sales for Invoke Solutions. Before Invoke, Paul was instrumental in the success of marketing solutions and Internet start up organizations Red Brick Systems and enCommerce. He started his career at AT&T and moved into senior sales and national account management roles at Information Builders.

Mike Tracy was promoted to Vice President of Sales West. Mike has been with Ripple6 for 6 months in the position of Regional Sales Director West. Prior to joining Ripple6 he managed the Central & West Region for SPSS, a $300M Predictive Analytics software company. Additionally, Mike was a co-founder and principal partner in Seamus, Inc. a sales outsourcing company assisting start ups with sales strategy.

Crowd Science:

Robert Hooven is joining Crowd Science as Vice President of Sales. Hooven comes to Crowd Science from comScore, where he was senior vice president of sales for the comScore M:Metrics division. Before M:Metrics, Bob was head of sales for the Forrester High-Tech Group in the Western Region.

MediaVest USA:

Amanda Richman is elevated to EVP, Managing Director, MediaVest USA. Prior to her role as SVP, Director of Digital Services, Amanda served as SVP, Digital Group Client Director at MediaVest on P&G.

The Jordan, Edmiston Group:

Wenda Harris Millard, the veteran digital advertising and media industry senior executive, has joined the firm’s Advisory Board.
 In April 2009, Ms. Millard became President of Media Link LLC, a strategic advisory and representation firm. Previously, she was co-CEO and President, Media, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Ms. Millard is immediate past chair of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and has served on the Boards of the Advertising Council, the American Advertising Federation, the Advertising Education Foundation and others.

According to an ad network study released by Collective Media, 89 percent of the respondents intend to work with ad networks in 2009, up 5 percent from 2008. Over 50 percent of respondents expect to spend up to 15 percent of their online budgets with ad networks – while another quarter of respondents indicated that their ad network spend will represent up to 30 percent of online budgets.

“Targeting emerged as the primary area of interest in this year’s findings, relative to how advertisers and agencies are leveraging ad networks,” Joe Apprendi, CEO, Collective Media, said in a statement. “Over 60 percent confirmed using demographic, behavioral and contextual targeting. And we saw strong growth over 2008 in those using both site and search retargeting. These findings support the shift Collective Media is seeing among advertisers and agencies toward buying audiences rather than just sites. Based on these survey responses, we expect this trend to continue across 2009.”

Other findings include:

- More than 70 percent work with only one or two ad networks on an average media plan.
- 71 percent noted that there are now too many ad networks, up from 62 percent in 2008. When asked about what best differentiates one from another, the top two responses were inventory quality and targeting, followed by site transparency and level of service.
- Although 4.5 percent more agencies and advertisers said they worked with ad exchanges than those surveyed in the prior year, these respondents remain in the minority. A vast majority do not work with exchanges, and only 7 percent believe exchanges will replace ad networks.
- Efficiency continues to be the number one reason why agencies and advertisers use ad networks, but not at the expense of ad environment and quality. This is demonstrated with 23 percent of respondents citing inventory quality as the largest differentiator between ad networks, with targeting a close second with 19 percent.
- More than 50 percent of respondents continue to work with ad networks for both their branding and direct marketing plans. At the same time, there was a statistically significant decrease between 2007 to 2009 in the percentage of those using ad networks for only direct marketing plans – which correlates to an increase of marketers using networks strictly for branding purposes.

The survey, which was fielded by independent marketing research firm, Sterling Research Group, Inc. between February and March of 2009, garnered close to 500 responses from online media decision makers – double the number of respondents to the 2008 survey.

The company will utilize the new funds to further fuel organic growth, as well as to accelerate technology development, expand internationally and explore acquisitions, according to a press release. Since its launch in 2005, Collective Media has helped Fortune 1000 brand advertisers extend their reach and target audiences with technology products designed to offer advanced audience targeting, ad network management and analytics.

According to the firm, Collective Media experienced a revenue increase of over 200 percent and an EBITDA increase of 333 percent for year-end 2008 over year-end 2007.

Collective Media helps advertisers, publishers and agencies develop and execute ad network strategies through technology, targeting, distribution and analytics. From advanced semantic technology and proprietary ad effectiveness reporting, Collective Media fully evaluates the efficacy of an ad well beyond just impressions and clicks – including engagement metrics for all ad units. The company’s current client list comprises nearly 300 brand name advertisers and over 250 premium publishers, served from seven offices in the United States.

Collective Media:

Jeffrey Skaggs, as account Executive. At his previous post at Broadband Enterprises, Skaggs was Director of West Coast Sales. Skaggs also served as Director of Advertising Sales at IFILM (an MTV Networks Company). He has also held positions at various online properties, including DesignGuide.com and Yahoo! Inc.

Owen Sidd, as account executive. Sidd brings a solid foundation of sales experience from his recent position at Pointroll, Inc., where he cultivated relationships with advertisers such as CBS, LionsGate Films and Sony Pictures, among others.

Revenue Science:

Danielle Stone, as senior sales executive. Stone joins the Revenue Science team from Commission Junction, a Division of Valueclick, Inc. Stone was senior southwest regional sales manager at Commission Junction, where she represented clients including Dell, Intuit, NewEgg.com, Edmunds, Best Western, Petco, Disney, True.com and Blockbuster.

Specific Media:

Robert Zamzow, as sales director. Zamzow joined Specific Media in April 2006 as the first employee in the Midwest territory. He has since helped turn Specific Media into the premier online advertising media company in the Midwest. In his new role, Zamzow will continue to manage a team of sales executives.

Lars Djuvik, as sales directors. Djuvik, who joined Specific Media in August 2006, has become an online industry expert trusted to execute all aspects of the company’s growth strategy within the Midwest territory. In his new role, Djuvik will continue to manage a team of sales executives.

Brent Roberts, as a sales executive. Prior to joining Specific Media, Roberts focused on cost-per-click, contextual and display advertising at LookSmart and, prior to that, sold nationwide cable spots at National Cable Communications. He holds a Psychology degree from the University of Memphis.

The network has been designed to achieve marketers’ goals, sans the risk that their ad will appear next to inappropriate content, or in a lackluster editorial environment.

“The concept behind the Directive Network rejects the notion that direct marketers must compromise transparency and quality content in exchange for more affordable pricing,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO of Collective Media. “Collective has always believed that successful online advertising begins with a desirable editorial environment. This foundation, combined with our best-of-breed audience targeting and optimization tools, gives direct marketers the first performance ad network that protects their brand and bottom-line.”

Directive Network is the second online advertising network developed, owned and operated by Collective Media. Directive Network will operate as a standalone business unit with its own sales and support services.

Noting the presence of more than 300 online networks, the Journal rakes through the muck to extract some key nuggets:

Targeting network JellyCloud died this month (after raising $11.5 million this year).

Targeting network Adzilla also went to the big data cloud in the sky.

AdBrite has slashed 40% of its workforce in a bid to become profitable (it has raised a total of $35 million).

AOL is getting slammed in several major verticals, including autos, financial, telecommunications, travel and on ads it sells to third-party sites.

ValueClick may be in trouble: analysts have said that declines of 2% for the entire fiscal year of 2008 should be expected; in 2009, the declines may reach 7%.

Burst Media and Collective Media are actively seeking buyers.

The network will also aim highly targeted ads at LinkedIn’s 27 million members. Because the social network’s profiles already provide it with a wealth of information on its users, the company predicts that accurate targeting will be a breeze.

“The message we hear from advertisers is simple: they want mass reach against specific segments of decision-making professionals, and they want their ads to appear in quality environments,” said Steve Patrizi, LinkedIn’s director of advertising sales. “The LinkedIn Audience Network offers advertisers one of the most accurate audience data sets available on the web along with the confidence of knowing that their brands will only appear on sites with high editorial standards.”

In a filing today with securities regulators, Yahoo officially said it will expand its board from 9 to 11, making room (with Kotick’s leave-taking) for Icahn and two of his hand-picked candidates. To remain on the board, Ichan must own at least 30 million shares of Yahoo.

In other industry news, Collective Media announced the expansion of its national sales force in Chicago and Detroit. The online advertising network brought Jeffrey Dillman on board as a regional sales director in Chicago; he hails from Tribal Fusion / Exponential Interactive. David Terski joins as an account executive responsible for Detroit; previously, he was an account executive for Tribune Interactive.

ContextWeb, a contextual ad company, has announced that Chip Meakem has joined its advisory board. Meakem is a general partner at Kodiak Venture Partners.