AdReady Finds Sweet Spot With Mid-Market Display

AdReady is an established presence in display advertising, serving up both creative automation and media campaign buying tools for agencies, publishers and advertisers alike. The Seattle-based firm has undergone a leadership change over the past year, however, and new CEO Karl Siebrecht wants businesses to be able to utilize AdReady at a more granular level for optimal audience segmentation and message targeting.

The company has released the latest iteration of its digital display ad platform — AdReady Version 3 — which has been upgraded to allow agencies and advertisers to create multiple campaigns more simply and then automate targeting controls of these campaigns across all media sites. It also makes media placement and bidding recommendations.

Siebrecht told BIA/Kelsey that AdReady specializes in serving mid-market companies because “huge digital agencies have difficulty profitably serving smaller clients.” It is yet to significantly tap the SMB segment, which has proven difficult to achieve scale in. 

For “vastly underserved” mid-sized businesses, ad versioning is crucial to position specific messages and offers to their demographic, behavioral and geographic needs. Siebrecht cited regional travel companies (Alaska Airlines) and colleges with multiple graduate program as ideal candidates to take advantage of AdReady’s re-messaging and re-targeting capabilities.

AdReady white labels its platform to several high-visibility publishers to incorporate in their display offerings, including The New York Times, ESPN and Pandora. Agencies and advertisers can run campaigns themselves or have AdReady “provide a layer of service on top to assist.” Again, SMB prospecting is limited, though Yahoo uses the service to drive its self-serve display program, My Display Ads, geared toward smaller businesses.

For those SMBs that have the understanding and fiscal capability to self-serve, there are immediate benefits. Campaign costs are significantly lower (starting as low as $300 per month) than typical pricing barriers, and businesses can choose from among 800 display templates for more sophisticated creative. 

AdReady is banking on a display renaissance, competing with PaperG and Mixpo to provide localized solutions to agencies. While display ad revenues sagged by more than 5 percent last year, many projections for 2010 and beyond suggest a rebound.