Dapper announced its new Dapper DisplayDR, as a full- or self-service option, and which offers among other capabilities the ability to transform “a product catalog into an automatically updating, live feed” which can then be used for ad targeting.Read the release.
Dapper CEO James Beriker discussed his company and the new self-service offering.
AdExchanger.com: Why offer a self-service option for Dapper DisplayDR now? Why is the time right?
JB: Our objective has always been to empower marketers to create dynamic ads based on their valuable content – products, offers, and other dynamic content on their site – without the frustration that often comes with the long turnaround times,custom development, and lack of sophistication of most solutions.
Dapper DisplayDR gives marketers and agencies the tools to create better ads that show relevant products and offers matched to user intent — and makes it dead simple to execute. We feel that putting this in the hands of marketers and agencies, in a consolidated platform that includes efficient media buying and user intent, is a big step towards transforming display advertising into an accountable, efficient marketing channel.
Do you consider Dapper a DSP? How do you define the company?
When we developed our dynamic ad creation solution, we saw a major opportunity in utilizing real-time bidding to assign different bids to each impression based on the products we show in the ad creative. To that extent, we approach media buying the same way a DSP would. However, our true value is in the consolidation of technologies that do efficient media buying, user intent determination, and dynamic ad creative- all on a single platform. There is considerable value in uniting the stack of those powerful technologies. The performance is there, and marketers don’t need to manage several point solutions to run a single campaign.
Dapper DisplayDR sounds like a direct response tool. Does the tool and technology speak to brand marketers? How?
I always think back to first time that I met the CMO of one of our large travel clients. I asked him what he liked best about Dapper’s ads, fully expecting him to talk about performance and profitability. But the first thing he said was, “I like how Dapper engages with my customers by putting my site content in front of my customer in a way that is true to my brand.” Although he went on to talk about performance and profitability, the largest benefit in his mind was the brand equity we were creating by more effectively engaging with his customers.
Beyond that, our technology enables optimization based on brand metrics as well – mouse overs, time on site, buzz on the social networks, white paper downloads; any metric that can be measured to drive brand performance can be optimized by Dapper DisplayDR.
Now that you’ve been at Dapper for over 6 months, what are some of the things or insights that you weren’t expecting?
The speed of the innovation and development of this landscape definitely surprised me. Things are moving much faster than they did in the early days of search, and despite the fact that the marketplace is so fragmented, sophisticated marketers are actively seeking solutions that bring them profitability, efficiency, and accountability to display. It’s a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs with real technology.
Give your experience as CEO of Efficient Frontier, do you see search and display as such a great fit? Why?
Search has been a tremendous performance channel for many brands – I would argue that entire categories like OTAs, classifieds, and comparison shopping, built their brands and businesses on the back of search. This was enabled by innovative technologies that enabled data driven decisioning and scale.
The time of sustainable, double-digit year-over-year growth in search has ended, and many marketers have long since maxed out their ability to efficiently scale their business through SEM. Sophisticated marketers that use data and technology to manage their marketing initiatives are actively looking for the next performance channel that can scale. I think display- especially as mobile, social media and video evolves- is it. New technology such as ours can leverage what worked in search to drive efficiency in display- and this is resonating with large, sophisticated advertisers.
By John Ebbert
