Dean Vegliante is General Manager of Netmining, an online ad network and optimization company – and a division of Innovation Interactive which also owns SearchIgnite and 360i.
AdExchanger.com: What problem is Netmining solving for its clients?
Netmining helps marketers drive significantly more revenue from their websites and online advertising. That’s the heart of what we do.
We also simplify the execution of online behavioral solutions with our Smart Tag. One simple Netmining tag in the footer of a marketer’s page can be used to deploy behavioral optimization across their website, email and display campaigns. Any future changes can be controlled by Netmining offsite, reducing the need for marketers to get their IT and website folks involved.
Who is your target market? Please describe your revenue model.
Netmining’s customers include some of the world’s leading digital agencies, as well as direct marketers, particularly in the automotive, retail, travel and B2B markets. Right now we find ourselves best suited to work with marketers who can tie us to a performance metric where we are consistently the best performer for customers like Red Roof Inn and Borders.
In terms of our pricing, we’re in a fortunate position because the rich data we collect and use in our algorithm provides us with the best performance in the space and thus allows us the flexibility to be open to different revenue models – CPA, CPM, rev share. We flourish in all of these models and work with clients to determine the best approach for them.
On your website, the LiveMarketer product is described as analyzing customers on a website in real-time to deliver profiles – targeting profiles I believe. How critical is real-time conversion data – after the purchase? Or is this more about top-of-funnel demand generation when creating the user profile?
LiveMarketer is a real-time visual representation of Netmining’s proprietary audience profiling engine as it analyzes the visitors on a marketer’s site.
Real-time performance data is critical and a key reason that we’re able to consistently drive more revenue per impression than any other behavioral and remarketing providers. Because we track a large number of declared and undeclared behaviors about site visitors in real-time, we’re able to quickly take consumers in and out of segments as their interests change. This inevitably leads to better performance because we’re able to ensure that ad delivery and marketing messages are relevant – served at the right time with the right message to get that customer to convert.
It’s not about top or bottom of the funnel. We look at RFM (recency, frequency and the monetary value of the products looked at) to identify consumers that have the highest propensity to convert and buy at the most appropriate moment. Netmining figures out the optimal message and time to serve it to make that happen.
Plus, LiveMarketer is a really powerful visual tool. It gets a big ‘wow’ factor in every meeting we have with marketers and we have yet to find anyone who doesn’t like watching the “bubbles.” It’s the Bloomberg Terminal for CMOs.
Why is email marketing a natural extension of audience targeting and website optimization services for Netmining?
Our audience profiling engine gathers data that gives companies the ability to customize the entire online marketing lifecycle for a more seamless 1:1 dialogue with consumers. We help make the messaging more relevant and timely. Email is a natural extension of that philosophy and a marketing vehicle that is very clearly driven by performance, an area where Netmining excels. Our technology is also compatible with all major CRM systems, further strengthening our services in this area.
First and foremost, do you consider Netmining a technology or a services company?
Brands and their agencies aren’t looking for technologies or frankly even “services,” they’re looking for solutions that help the brand drive more ROI from their online efforts. Netmining provides solutions that consistently increase conversions and the revenue generated from display, email and a marketer’s website.
What is the difference between a demand-side platform and an ad network in your estimation?
For ad networks, the relationships are one-to-one. We work directly with our clients, be they an agency or a brand. For agencies with demand-side platforms, they are working with multiple ad network vendors to optimize the media buying process on behalf of their clients.
A year from now, what are some of the milestones we will be looking back on for 2010 for Netmining?
2010 is going to be a banner year for targeting (pun totally intended). At Netmining, we have an aggressive product pipeline focused on leveraging our existing audience profiling technology and targeting capabilities to scale our reach while still retaining the high quality of our performance and results.
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