• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 10, 2016

HookLogic, which focuses on ads for retail ecommerce sites, has extended its platform by allowing advertisers to bid on product listing ads running on Google's and Bing's Shopping platform, as well as on an unnamed retargeting platform. The ads aim to drive potential customers from search results onto the retailers' Web sites. The platform also enables brands and retailers to share the cost through co-marketing.

The media buying is powered by HookLogic Fusion, a programmatic technology that makes co-marketing possible. Brands bidding on Drive to Retail are matched in real-time with retailers that sell their products to share in the cost of media buys. 

The HookLogic's platform determines the best combination of the bids between retailers and brands automatically through programmatic technology, based on the economics of the outcome.

Brands only pay when consumers click on their products, with traffic leading to the product page on the corresponding retailer's Web site or mobile app.  The shared financial benefits, along with first-party data, let brands and retailers subsidize the campaigns, according to Jonathan Opdyke, co-founder and CEO of HookLogic.

Drive to Retail allows marketers, through the HookLogic platform, to purchase product listing ads, whenever the company's retailer partners buy product listings ads, Opdyke said.

Hasbro, for example, can combine its bid with the retailer's for a specific keyword to win the bid in Shopping. "It lets marketers bid on and buy offsite media from Google and Bing to drive offline traffic from search engines to the retailer's sites," Opdyke said.

The ads on Google and Bing click-through to the brand's product page on the retailer's site. "A brand like Hasbro may bid to list their products higher on major retailers like Toys R Us, Target or Wal-Mart.

The co-marketing or co-bidding process typically requires the brand to hand the retailer money, but in this case it's done automatically. It also provides ways for retailers and brands to retarget consumers with ads in products in which they show interest.

Performance and attribution across devices, from desktop to smartphone and tablet is measured by HookLogic 360.