• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, June 10, 2015

Quantcast, an audience measurement and real-time advertising firm, on Wednesday announced it has tapped Stephen Collins as CFO.

“Today, it’s clear that better data and better modeling are two keys to success,” stated Collins. He was drawn to Quantcast because the company’s of the company's focus Big Data and audience measurement; it's essentially a data management platform (DMP).

But Quantcast has been expanding beyond measurement to including buying technologies as well.

Per a release, Collins has been advising Quantcast for the past 18 months. In that time, Quantcast has acquired Ad Performance, a Nordic digital ad platform, and Struq, a retargeting firm that still has access to Facebook Exchange inventory (albeit behind closed doors). Both of these acquisitions strengthened Quantcast's advertising business.

In essence, Quantcast is becoming a DMP/DSP hybrid. It grew its roots in audience measurement and data management and has been layering on advertising technology to offer advertisers a more well-rounded solution.

Collins was most recently CEO and director at SaaS company Bazaarvoice. Before being promoted to CEO of Bazaarvoice, Collins served as CFO, a position he held when the SaaS company went public in 2012. Prior to Bazaarvoice, Collins was CFO and chief information officer at DoubleClick. He guided that company through an IPO as well.