Yesterday afternoon technology author and blogger Bob Cringely, his family, and a television crew visited Avenue Right on the Cringely’s (NOT in Silicon Valley) Startup Tour.
We were delighted to see the not-so-subtle black RV pull into the parking lot, here with a camera crew to talk to our CEO. The Tour will result in a 13-part television series profiling 24 startups across the country. More on that here .
The spirit of the project is to show the importance of American startup companies, wherever they’re located—how they contribute to the U.S. economy, serve to develop new markets and job opportunities, help us discover new technologies no matter our industry, and keep our country competitive in a global market.
Representing the media and advertising space, Avenue Right was selected for the Tour from among the nearly 400 startup companies nominated. Brian Gramer, founder & CEO, described his vision for the interview:
“My vision is to automate the process of media buying by providing a transparent media exchange that brings buyers and sellers together, helping small to mid-size ad agencies and the businesses they serve. The process of buying and selling local media—any medium—should be automated, transparent, and easy.”
So far, Avenue Right has built a database of over 49,000 media outlets; automated the RFP process for any local advertising medium; and above all, provided a place where media buyers can plan, negotiate, buy, and report on all their campaigns and clients, from one central location. And this company is just getting started.
With some big things coming over the next few months, we look forward to sharing that story as part of this television series that’s all about innovation, scheduled to air on a currently undisclosed cable station in January.
A big thank-you to those who nominated, voted, or commented in favor of Avenue Right.
Seeing that RV in our parking lot, it was an honor to know that we kick enough ass to bring this Tour all the way to Fargo, North Dakota, on a day so humid that we all wore the air like a second skin. Of course, a few of us still went outside for a picture. For now, it’ll have to do.
Avenue Right is pleased to announce the release of Avenue Right 3.1, web-based media buying software that streamlines and automates the process of buying local advertising, across online and offline media channels.
The real-time platform helps media buyers keep up with a changing media landscape and deliver targeted advertising messages more efficiently. The release of Avenue Right 3.1 brings even greater flexibility in communicating and managing information during the media planning process.
Here are some of the new features and enhancements:
The ability for media outlets to attach documents such as an avails sheet when they respond to an RFP,
Enhancements to the Media Schedule Builder and change order process, and
Simpler management of custom fields for media types, building on the features released in May with Avenue Right 3.0.
Avenue Right 3.0 introduced customization features that allow users to add, interact with, and report on any advertising medium that’s included in the overall media schedule, such as OOH and local search advertising, in addition to the standard media types in the database. Also released was the ability for users to create custom media formulas and questions in order to capture and measure specific information in their media planning process.
The ability to plan and manage local online and offline advertising from a central location lets media buyers see where they are getting the most value based on audience delivery and budget, optimize the media mix accordingly, and communicate that value to their clients or business stakeholders.
To see media buying automation in action, request a demo.
Media buying is a fast-moving, complicated process that demands a mix of both hard data and intuition to be executed successfully.
It’s not as easy as making a few phone calls and plugging some numbers into a spreadsheet, neither for ad agencies nor the businesses and organizations that plan and buy their own advertising.
Each media channel is measured differently, and the formulas used to determine the best placements vary depending on the advertiser’s goals, the different media used, and how the campaign results will be measured. And if you stare long enough, the formulas can turn into one big circular reference.
There’s a mountain of information to collect and manage that—if printed out and piled—would rival the height of the campaign budget in dollar bills.
To make sense of it all, Michael J. Massey and Chrissie VanWormer offer their media buying experience and expertise in their new book Your Ad Here: De-Mystifying the Business of Media and Advertising.
In fewer than 100 pages, the book provides a high-level overview of basic advertising concepts and how to implement them in a media plan. The chapters are laid out in an order that follows the process of a media buy, making it a quick read with easily digestible tips, tricks, and examples. It’s worth the time spent following the case study of retailer Crazy Boy Jeans, who is making a buy to promote an upcoming denim sale.
Not only does the book demystify the esoteric language of media buying by providing clear definitions for words like flighting and makegood, it also offers practical tips on negotiating placements and for managing and organizing all the information related to a media buy.
In the first section, Massey and VanWormer cover
Audience profiling and targeting
Budgeting
Account management
Avail requests
Data management
Trafficking and creative
The second section reviews all media and the strategy and tactics behind the ads—from broadcast to word of mouth—and provides tips for incorporating those media channels into an advertising campaign.
Your Ad Here captures some of the key challenges that media buyers face, especially when working with a tight budget. There’s also an overriding theme of “win-win” that applies to everyone who participates in getting the message out there—agency, media outlet, the business, and even the interns looking to get into the advertising space.
And above all, note Massey and VanWormer, the message needs to be good, too, to help it spread.
Top 10 Tips from Your Ad Here: De-mystifying the Business of Media and Advertising
Your Ad Here is written from the perspective of media buyers who have been there, done that. Readers with any level of background in advertising will benefit from the practical advice and examples.
Here are 10 of my favorite tips from the book. What are yours?
1. Hire a college intern to work on target audience profiling.
2. SPEND the budget. If a business is going to advertise at all, it should spend enough budget to capture the attention of its target audience.
3. Layer the message across multiple media channels for increased impact.
4. When buying radio, plan to reach listeners 7 times before they start to retain the message.
5. Target locally.
6. Use a three-ring binder, or technology like Avenue Right to help gather and manage the information related to a media buy.
7. Don’t call the media outlet if you don’t have to.
8. Get an audience duplication report to help you determine whether a lower-rated radio station would also reach your audience and save you money. Get a click-through rate for the ad placements you’re buying.
9. Share as much budget information as you’re comfortable with in negotiation process, but use caution. Give a budget range rather than an exact number.
10. Use social media channels to position yourself as an expert in your field.
Learn more about De-mystifying the Business of Media and Advertising and purchase the book at www.YourAdHereTheBook.com.
To keep up with a changing media landscape and deliver targeted advertising messages, media buyers need access to real-time market information, automation tools, and a central platform to manage their activity across media channels. That’s the premise behind Avenue Right’s web-based media buying software, and the release of version 3.0 brings even greater flexibility in working with various media channels and measurements.
Avenue Right announces the release of version 3.0 of its web-based media buying software, the first on-demand platform that allows small to mid-size advertising agencies to plan, buy, analyze, and report on local advertising across media channels.
Challenging the complex legacy processes of planning and buying media, the platform delivers not only real-time information about a local advertising marketplace, but also the tools media buyers need to make that information actionable and manageable.
Instead of spending hours searching the internet or on the phone, media buyers can login to Avenue Right and quickly identify online and offline media outlets that reach their local target audience, get contact information and rates, finalize schedules, generate reports and calendars, and communicate with media outlets.
Avenue Right increases efficiency in the media buying process by automating manual, administrative processes and providing a central location to manage and report on all the information related to their media buys.
The platform streamlines the media buying process through access to a real-time database of local advertising opportunities, electronic RFP and media scheduling tools, contact management, dashboards, and reporting. This recent feature release brings even greater flexibility for cross-channel media buying with customization.
Avenue Right’s database consists of over 50,000 local media outlets—radio, broadcast & cable TV, newspaper and magazine, and online display advertising.
The release of Avenue Right 3.0 introduces customization features that allow users to add, interact with, and report on any advertising medium that’s included in their overall media schedule.
For example, alongside the local traditional and online display advertising opportunities found in Avenue Right’s database, media buyers can include OOH and search advertising in their planning, budgeting, and reporting for a campaign.
This integrated approach lets media buyers can see where they are getting the most value based on audience delivery and budget, optimize the media mix accordingly, and communicate that value to their clients or business stakeholders.
“The media landscape is fragmented and more targeted,” says Brian Gramer, Avenue Right founder & CEO. “The platform increases efficiencies in the buying process by leveraging automation technology, and empowers decision-making by integrating data directly into the media buying process.”
In addition to custom media, the release of Avenue Right version 3.0 lets users request more detailed information from media outlets in the RFP process, such as custom data fields and questions. A new calculator lets users create and save media formulas to capture and measure information such as CPP or Reach and Frequency.
Ad agency users can also organize information on their clients and services with custom fields for the client environment.
Customization has been on the product roadmap for some time. Feedback from agency users helped the company make these features a development priority this year.
Avenue Right is an affordable and pragmatic solution that serves small to mid-size ad agencies that buy online and offline media for local and regional advertising campaigns.
The platform connects media buyers and sellers in real-time, saving time through automation and providing the tools needed to gather, analyze, and act on information about an advertising opportunity or marketplace.
“Avenue Right lets media buyers focus their time on what they do really well and what provides the most value for their clients,” Gramer says, “like strategy and planning and placement.”
Request a demo to see how you can automate media planning and buying.
To help media buyers find, segment, and evaluate their target audience, Avenue Right has integrated online audience service Quantcast®. This effort allows users of Avenue Right’s web-based media buying software to view and compare expanded audience information for online media properties, side by side with offline media, using a consistent measurement across media channels.
Marketing technology company Avenue Right has integrated online audience service Quantcast to help media buyers evaluate and compare online display advertising opportunities alongside their traditional media, such as radio, TV, and print.
Avenue Right provides a channel-neutral platform that streamlines the media buying process for small to mid-size advertising agencies. The web-based software provides full functionality for planning, scheduling, buying, and measuring both online and offline media—radio, broadcast and cable TV, print, online, from one central location.
Quantcast’s real-time, direct measurement of web traffic and audiences for websites that have been “Quantified” gives media buyers better insight into audience-based activity on properties during the strategy, planning, and buying process. The integration will allow media buyers using Avenue Right’s web-based software to view and compare audience information for online media properties side by side with offline media (local radio, broadcast & cable TV, newspaper, magazines) using a consistent measurement across media channels.
An industry standard for online audience measurement, Quantcast provides real-time audience measurement and demographic data for over 25 million online media destinations. The solution is free and, when website owners Get Quantified, they receive directly measured site traffic and detailed audience insights around demographics, affinities, geolocation and business usage. Quantcast is currently used by all 10 of the top 10 media agencies.
Among other efficiency gains, Avenue Right’s technology introduces a standardized electronic RFP process for multiple media types designed to simplify the process of gathering information, negotiating media schedules, and ultimately confirming and analyzing the buy. Tools such as the schedule builder, electronic negotiation, campaign dashboards, and customized reporting allow media buyers to make actionable the information collected in the planning process. Users searching the media outlet database for online advertising opportunities will be able to view Quantcast’s audience information in an integrated window within the Avenue Right platform.
During the RFP process, if a media buyer would like to include an online media property in their consideration set but the site lacks third-party validated audience information, the media buyer can request that the site be “Quantified.”
With both technologies delivered via the internet, the offering reflects the need for real-time, actionable information for evaluating and placing advertising; better audience data through, real-time direct measurement rather than historical, panel-based survey methodologies; and a standard approach to information collection and management in the advertising industry to help streamline business processes for both media buyers and media sellers.
Insight Marketing Design uses Avenue Right to streamline their media planning and buying and manage all the information related to a buy in one central location.
A full-service agency, Insight Marketing Design buys media in local and regional markets—radio, broadcast & cable TV, newspaper, magazines, outdoor, and online. The agency’s main challenge was to research and plan campaigns efficiently, eliminating manual tasks and finding a central location for all the information related to a media buy.
To streamline media research, planning, and information management, Insight Marketing Design started using Avenue Right in December of 2008.
Since then the agency has been able to save about 25% of the time it takes to research a market by using Avenue Right’s media outlet database.
To learn more about how Insight Marketing Design uses Avenue Right, read the case study.
Media buyers should be able to spend more time on the activities that create value for their clients, such as negotiating placement and rates, rather than manually collecting and organizing information related to a buy. That’s the premise behind Avenue Right’s web-based media buying software.
Avenue Right founder and CEO Brian Gramer was interviewed by “Media Man” Michael Massey on his Internet radio show Your Ad Here (February 12, 2010). This is the third and final post in a series of excerpts from that interview. You can listen to the full recording of the show here.
In this excerpt Brian shares a bit of his background and experience in advertising, along with an overview of Avenue Right’s media buying software, the target user for whom the product is designed, and why a “pragmatic approach” to development works in this changing media landscape.
Michael Massey is also author of Your Ad Here: Demystifying the Business of Media and Advertising and an Avenue Right power user.
MM: Welcome to the Friday, February 12, broadcast of Your Ad Here hosted by Media Man, that’s me, Michael Massey. Today’s topic is streamlining the media planning and buying process, and I gotta tell you, anyone that does this can tell you it can be a daunting, frustrating process. Today my guest is Brian Gramer, founder and CEO of marketing technology company Avenue Right. He’s going to share how his company is working to make this process a bit less painful, right Brian?
BG: Correct.
MM: Why don’t we take a couple minutes and sort of explain how you got where you are, what jazzes you, and why Avenue Right.
BG: I got exposed to the advertising business from him when I was 12 years old. My dad brought me to his agency one day, and he said, “We’re going to do some mapping so we can target my clients’ customers and figure out where they’re coming from.”
In the 1980s with advertising, there wasn’t a lot of technology, and my dad’s agency was doing their books by hand. And shortly after that they got their first computer and with it an accounting process.
But he put up a map, which was the state of Minnesota and counties in North Dakota, and took the receipts of his clients and gave me some tacks, and he read of the zip codes from the receipts for where the customers were for his clients. I put the thumbtacks on the board, and that’s how we figured out the geography of where the client’s customers were coming from by looking at where the tacks were.
Then he’d draw up a report by hand and deliver it to the client and say, “Based on where the tacks were, here’s where most of your customers are coming from percentage-wise, and I’m going to break it down county by county. We can continue to build brand awareness and advertise where your customers come from to keep that competitive advantage, and/or we could market in other areas around where your customers come from to try to get other people to visit your retail store.”
But anyway, that was my first exposure, and I’ve been interested in it ever since. So I’ve been for more than 20 years now exposed to the advertising industry and that was my first love.
At the age of 28, I started my first company. It was a niche search engine to help high school kids find colleges, started in 1999. Then I got into the database marketing space and started a marketing automation company called Vtrenz, and after those two ventures, I decided to start Avenue Right.
MM: Tell me who your primary target is. You’ve said media buyers, but can you say more about that?
BG: Yes. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 30,000 advertising agencies that have 100 employees or less in the United States, and represent about 20% of all media bought in the United States. But the smaller part of the media spend in the US is about $60 million dollars.
Depending on how well the economy is doing and what report you look at, there’s about $300 billion dollars spent on media, annually, in the United States. Most of that media buy is done by the largest brands and largest agencies, okay, and so 80% of it is spent by them, but 20% is spent by these smaller agencies.
MM: Like me.
BG: Right. So that’s who we’re going after. Because most of the products being built are addressing that larger side of the market, and they’ve neglected to provide products that are affordable and pragmatic for small advertising agencies.
MM: You know what, that’s a perfect mission statement right there, Brian. That’s one of the things that turned me on to this particular product.
BG: That’s why I was saying you have to pick what functionality you’re going to build first when you start these things, and so we decided to address the biggest problem first, which is collecting information. But now we have a customization rolling out in a near-term release where you can actually pull in and manage all the different media, even if it’s not in our searchable database. You can add stuff in there and customize it for budgeting and reporting purposes. And so that’s exactly one of the things we’re adding is the ability to do that, based off feedback, and it’s always been on our roadmap. The question was, what priority are we going to give it, and right now it’s a very high priority.
MM: We just got a question so I want to be sure we address it. Why would someone use this sort of product over something like a Strata or a Donovan or a SmartPlus or a Google TV.
BG: I think all those products have their place in the marketplace, and I don’t think they’re going anywhere. Some of them are very, very expensive, so we like to build pragmatic software.
One of the things I would say first off is that in relation to this, some businesses need QuickBooks to run their accounting, and some need programs like Microsoft Dynamics and these huge accounting programs for companies that have multi-national operations in 80 countries and they have 4,000 users using the accounting system, from office admins to controllers to CPAs, right? And with QuickBooks, it’s an office manager that needs to input simple invoices and billings and stuff, which most businesses need QuickBooks, not the big one.
It’s not that these other systems aren’t valuable; it’s just way too much functionality for their needs and way too costly. Some of the products they described, that’s the limitation—it’s way more functionality than a small agency needs, and it’s too costly. That’s going to be the determining factor for the agencies. People don’t need all that functionality in many cases, and they don’t want to pay for if they don’t need it.
Strata is a different product. I don’t even think of them as a competitor. They do a great job, but for a bigger agency that needs all that functionality. And so in many instances small agencies bit the bullet and said this is the only choice I have. I don’t need 80% of the functionality they’re delivering, but I’ll buy it.
The second thing is that they are limited by media type with a lot of the products. The third thing is that many are seller-side solutions and we’re a buyer-side solution. Our whole goal is to make tools to make media buyers more efficient, and we think the sellers will naturally come. So again, we’re making buy- side solutions, not sell-side solutions.
MM: Another question we got is to have you share, in your opinion, what are one or two strengths and one or two weaknesses that you feel are there in Avenue Right.
BG: One of the strengths is that we’re multi-channel, media agnostic, and not involved in the commission process. We don’t have any financial stake between the buyers and the sellers, which allows you to things a little differently, and better.
Another strength is that we look pragmatically and simply at the problem, we try to add the most valuable functionality that solves your biggest problems first. We know it’s not going to solve everything, but I think our pragmatic approach is why people are buying us, even though the system doesn’t do everything already that they wish it would today.
The disadvantage we have is that we’re new, so we’re finishing building our roadmap.
The other disadvantage we have—and this is a disadvantage for everybody—is that the media buying landscape continues to get more complicated. And this is always going to happen in media, so you’ve got to make the system flexible like we’ve talked about so you can customize it and have an open API. But the disadvantage for all of us is there’s always a new type of media. There’s always a new outlets being created. There’s always someone else providing content and trying to make money off advertising, you know. So being fluid.
That constant change is a disadvantage for a software company because you really have to think about how you develop the product in a world of constant change, and if you’ve never done it before, it’s really hard to do. So I think that’s an advantage for us is that we’ve done it before.
Here’s a question we hear quite often during phone calls with our agency users and media outlets: “Really, you’re in Fargo? What do you there during the winter?”
Well, we build things–new features and functionality for our media buying solution. This month’s feature release brings the addition of cable television, homepage notifications, search tags, pre-negotiated schedules, and rate cards management.
I want my MTV!
The addition of cable television to the list of Avenue Right supported media types is a much-requested feature. Now users can add the cable outlets they work with to be included in their campaigns. Adding and requesting information for cable uses the same process as broadcast television.
Keeping you up-to-date…
Account homepage notifications allow users to keep track of what is going on in your account along with recent market activity including responses from media outlets, notices when your campaigns are scheduled to start and end, and what media outlets in your market have been added or updated (xyz media outlet updated their profile, or a new radio outlet has been added in your campaign market).
Introducing My Rates
Media buyers can manage pre-negotiated rates in their File Cabinet. Current and historical rate cards allow media buyers to keep on top of what rates they have already negotiated and review and track how those rates change over time. Users can also access these negotiated rates from within their campaigns by using the detailed schedule builder.
It’s a done deal
Pre-negotiated schedules is a great tool for media buyers that need to enter a schedule that’s already finalized with the media outlet. By creating the schedule and selecting “Finalized Proposal,” the budget, placements, and data will automatically be added to your campaign.
What’s the word
Search tags allow you to enhance your search for media outlets by using keywords. Media outlets have keywords associated with their information in Avenue Right that is describes the content they provide and the audience they reach.
For example,a radio station may have keywords that describe their format, such as country or rock. A media outlet can also have keywords that describe their audience, such as Hispanic or sports enthusiasts.
More big things in 2010
The coming year will bring some big updates and changes to Avenue Right, allowing users to become even more efficient in their media planning and buying. Some of the new features will include additional customization and reporting. Stay tuned!
Full-service agency Ad Monkeys uses Avenue Right to coordinate media schedules, manage information related to a buy, and provide better campaign visibility to clients.
The agency buys primarily radio and television in regional markets that cover Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. One of the primary challenges the agency faced with their media buying services was finding the time to get it done.
Ad Monkeys needed a more efficient way to manage their growing media buying services. To increase efficiencies in their media buying process, Ad Monkeys started using Avenue Right in December 2008.
Since then the agency has been able to streamline its internal workflow for media buying, increase client satisfaction through better visibility into media plans, and find more time for creative development and other services.
To learn more about how Ad Monkeys uses Avenue Right, read the full case study.
To kick off the new year, Avenue Right hosted its first Client Meeting to talk about what tools media buyers need most in 2010, give a preview of some new features in development, and get feedback from online and offline media sellers.
Agencies from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Dakota attended the meeting, along with sales representatives from local radio, television, online, and print media outlets.
Later this month, Avenue Right will be adding cable to its platform and releasing features such as campaign tagging, the ability to manage rates and pre-negotiated schedules, and an enhanced notifications system.
Read more about Avenue Right’s on-demand media buying software, and watch for more details on January’s feature release, based on feedback from Avenue Right users.
ion, scheduled to air on a currently undisclosed cable station in January.
