Marketing Tech Firm Nami Launches Media-Buying Division

Nami Media, a Los Angeles-based online marketing and tech company that was acquired by LIN TV in 2011, has announced the launch of its own media-buying division.

The announcement is representative of the blurring lines between tech companies and agencies. Nami has primarily been a tech platform for cost-per-click, pay-per-click and XML search ads, explained Gary Mittman, the company's president and co-founder.

The media-buying division will focus on buying in-text ads, toolbar ads and various forms of search. In other words -- not the type of advertising found on display networks or programmatic environments.

“We have a media-buying team in-house using our technology to grow out this sector of business, which we're starting to call the alternative [to programmatic exchanges] -- for lack of a better term,” said Mittman.

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The technology that Nami's media-buying team will use is a “hybrid,” said Mittman. It involves real-time bidding, but it’s not fully automated. (The bid's prices are predetermined.)

Nami has relationships with a number of agencies, but Mittman doesn’t believe the company's launch of a media-buying division -- a very agency-like thing to do -- will cause those relationships to sour.

“I think it will expand our relationships with agencies,” Mittman asserted, noting that agencies are “always looking for new sources of traffic.” 

Mittman also said the company isn’t looking to “squeeze margins,” and Nami claims it’s launching a media-buying division because of demand. “Client demand to simply purchase media directly from Nami Media has led to the creation and launch of the Nami media-buying division,” the company writes in a release.

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