AOL, Convertro Team To Help Marketers With Data, Analysis

AOL is running its data through attribution modeling to reemerge as a formidable player in offline and online services for advertisers and publishers through its subscription, publishing and AOL ONE for publishers and advertiser businesses. The data also supports services for linear television and radio to help advertisers determine which ads lead customers to purchase.  

Several data sources recently became available to support advertisers through Convertro, which AOL acquired in early May for $101 million to improve its ad tech operations. Armed with data, the company supports ONE to give advertisers a complete view of the consumer's journey through the marketing funnel.

A peek inside AOL through Jeff Zwelling, CEO at Convertro, reveals that each company within the business units works together yet operates autonomously. "AOL feels comfortable letting their companies exist under their own brand and reputation," he said. "They want to preserve the entrepreneurial spirit."

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AOL has the data, but Convertro supports the attribution and analysis. Convertro's algorithms can tell advertisers to spend money in specific media channels, but it has no knowledge of the available inventory on publisher sites -- AOL does. The integration between analytics and publisher inventory data will give media buyers a much better view into ad targeting. "Knowing that puts Convertro's value proposition on steroids," Zwelling said.

Convertro also is working to create a single sign-on for advertisers and integrate AOL's 100 million signs-on into its cross-device capabilities, becoming one of the largest sources for cross-device data and modeling.

Individual household data related to television commercials also became available to Convertro by accessing the data through the set-top box. Convertro receives this data without names attached. It becomes available anonymously as numbers. "If you put a Kraft Macaroni & Cheese ad in front of Joe Smith in Topeka, and he goes out a week later and for first time purchases a box, you can surmise that the ad influenced the purchase," Zwelling said. "Television is catching up to what online advertising already has in its back pocket."

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