DoubleClick Inc. in New York and AdKnowledge in Palo Alto, CA said they formed a strategic partnership to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Web advertising by creating standard industry platforms.
The goal of the partnership “is to facilitate the process of advertising on
the Internet, thereby accelerating the acceptance and growth of Web
advertising,” the companies said.
AdKnowledge said it will now focus primarily on solutions for advertising
agencies and their clients–the “buy” side of the advertising industry.
DoubleClick will partner with AdKnowledge to support AdKnowledge’s “sell” side
publishing business.
Customers of AdKnowledge’s ClickWise Web site ad management software will now
be
able to use DoubleClick’s DART service for proprietary ad serving, reporting
and tracking. Financial terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.
Initiatives in the partnership will include streamlining the process for
trafficking, campaign management and reporting through a closer integration of
information exchanged between DoubleClick’s DART technology platform and
AdKnowledge’s media buying and campaign management tools, MarketMatch and
SmartBanner. Currently, more than 1,750 Web sites use DoubleClick technology,
and more than 100 top advertising agencies use AdKnowledge’s products, the
companies said.
“As the online ad industry continues to expand, there is significant benefit
to creating uniform standards for site publishers and advertising agencies,”
said Kevin O’Connor, chairman and chief executive officer of DoubleClick.
“With the standardization that this
partnership represents, we believe that online advertising will improve
industry-wide. And, by consolidating our efforts with AdKnowledge, we believe
we can expand DART reach and market penetration.”
“AdKnowledge and DoubleClick share a commitment to superior customer service
and this was an overriding influence as we considered strategic partnering
opportunities,” said Scott Kauffman, AdKnowledge president and chief executive
officer. “We believe DART provides the best solution for Web site publishers
and we are confident our ClickWise customers will benefit tremendously from
the power of DoubleClick’s advanced technology.”
Privately-held AdKnowlege was born out of last year’s merger of FocalLink Communications and ClickOver.