Online marketing agency, Harvest Digital, has selected real-time ad platform AppNexus to provide the infrastructure for the agency’s new trading desk.
Harvest Digital will increase the efficiency of the media buying across the agency’s main media accounts, using AppNexus’ technology to bid for individual impressions in real-time, serve more targeted advertising and reduce media wastage.
The new trading desk will enable the agency to buy auction-based display media across all the major exchanges including the Microsoft Advertising Exchange, launched in the UK in June, as well as Supply Side Platforms (SSPs).
As part of the new trading desk, Harvest Digital is strengthening its data department which encompasses web analytics, multivariate testing and data analysis.
Emma Wilson, Managing Director, Harvest Digital comments, “This move to programmatic trading means we can improve the targeting we offer to clients, putting data and insight at the heart of our offering and serving advertising to the target audience in real-time. We were really impressed by AppNexus’s technology and the experience major direct response advertisers have had in the US via ad networks and trading desks built on AppNexus. At the heart of our trading strategy is an advanced propensity model that helps us define bidding and pricing strategies across display media and search marketing.“
Michael Rubenstein, President of AppNexus, adds, “$353 million in was spent in the US via real time bidding last year and Forrester projects that it will be $823 million in 2011[i]. Now, real time bidding and exchange-based buying is growing fast in the UK and forward thinking agencies such as Harvest Digital are well-placed to benefit from the increasing advertising budgets flowing in this direction. The agency will harness the technology and data to target and bid for only the impressions they need for their clients, at a price that delivers the most effective returns.”
www.harvestdigital.com