Click Forensics Inc., known for its tools that monitor fraudulent clicks on pay-per-click ads, has acquired online ad analytics firm Adometry Inc. and taken its name. Terms were not disclosed.
The combined company will be better able to help advertisers optimize their online ad campaigns and measure their effectiveness at reaching and converting consumers, the company says.
“The key challenge online marketers face today is accurately measuring and improving the performance of their online ad campaigns as they flow across a changing landscape of ad networks and web sites,” says Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics, who will retain the same title at the new Adometry. “With the addition of ad verification technology from Adometry, our ad analytics suite integrates all the pieces of display campaign measurement and optimization in a single offering for brand advertisers.”
The new company today also launched what it describes as the online advertising industry’s first integrated ad analytics suite designed to help advertisers optimize and measure ad performance across different display ad networks and individual web sites. Adometry says the new Adometry Ad Analytics software suite, introduced a year ago in a beta test version, has processed billions of advertising clicks for dozens of advertisers. The suite verifies ad placement across multiple online advertising networks, attributes results such as online sales back to ad campaigns, and provides tools to let advertisers adjust ad placement in response to ad performance.
The new suite was also designed to provide advertisers with more centralized control of their online ad campaigns at a time when advertisers have more places to run their ads than ever before. “As the number of middlemen between display advertisers and audiences continues to grow, brands need ways to identify exactly where and when their campaigns deliver results so they can maximize return on ad spend,” Pellman says. “Our new cross-platform ad analytics suite allows them to do just that by tracking the quality of impressions and unique attributes contributing to success across different systems and networks.”
The acquisition of Adometry will help the new company to more quickly build a reputation for a broader range of online ad management technology, says Joanna O’Connell, a senior analyst specializing in online advertising at Forrester Research Inc. “Click Forensics required a company like Adometry to round out its offering,” she says. “It was not a major player in the newly emerging ad verification space from either a perception or technology standpoint. It was seen as a click fraud company.”
The advertising market, meanwhile, has plenty of room to grow, she adds. In a study O’Connell authored last fall, “Campaign Verification Pulls Back the Curtain on Display,” she notes that 51% of advertisers surveyed said they were likely to continue buying online ads in their traditional venues rather than use verification tools to test if new venues delivered ads as promised and displayed them next to appropriate content and in page locations that produce the best click-through rates.
O’Connell also says, however, that ad verification technology is rapidly improving and advises marketers to investigate whether it could help improve their online advertising strategies.
Click Forensics launched in 2006 with technology and services designed to monitor fraudulent clicks on paid search ads, moving in recent years into the display ad analytics market. Since its founding, Click Forensics has received $21 million in venture capital from Austin Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Stanford University. Its clients include Facebook, eBay Inc. and Expedia.
The original Adometry was founded in 2008 and has since received $450,000 in funding from angel investors, a spokesman says.
The new combined company now has about 45 employees, including five who previously worked at Adometry. John Dietz, who co-founded Adometry and was its CEO until the acquisition, joins the new company as vice president of applications.
Forrester Research will have two of its analysts speaking at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2011. James McQuivey, a vice president and principal analyst, will speak in a session entitled “The Convergence: How the coming together of the Internet and TV will change e-retailers’ business.” Mike Gualtieri, a senior analyst, will speak in a session entitled “Do your web pages need a new fitness regimen?“
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