• by February 5, 2001

By Debbi K. Swanson

So what's a saxophone player doing running an online media buying service in these tumultuous times, when there's almost no sax'omoney floating about? Putting together what he hopes is a killer combo of technology that will beat out the competition.

Kevin Frazier just wanted to make some money to finance his love of music so he could play on his own terms. Somehow he came up with the idea for AdAce, founded in 1998. The company recently launched their new model, a completely automated system where sellers can create their own branded sites and sell inventory, advertisers can buy targeted inventory across many websites via a single transaction, and all campaign information is updated daily and integrated on a single invoice. All this to benefit small business which, Frazier says, up to now hasn't been able to take full advantage of online services because of small budgets.

AdAce's promo materials say it was the first advertising network to develop an automated system for small businesses that included an integrated online ad creator, ad storage, campaign reporting, and many unique targeting options online. Acknowledging that many companies have since developed similar offerings, AdAce says they still fall short in providing a complete solution for advertisers on the web.

"Our closest competitor is Digitalroot, but our backend technology goes different directions," says Frazier. How does AdAce work?

Each media outlet or website with inventory to sell can create a private branded sales system called the Ad Buyer. This 150-page site comes with credit card processing, campaign fulfillment, invoicing, reporting, animated ad creation, ad storage, ad service and electronic insertion order processing.

"This allows partners control over editorial copy that goes across the buy types so they can explain the way they want, set their own targets and pricing, and lay it out in a way they want," says Frazier, while AdAce promotes their brand to foster customer retention through brand awareness.

The AdAce System offers small to medium-sized websites the ability to generate new revenues with no upfront fees. Large websites, with an in-house sales team, also benefit in that the AdAce System provides a channel in which to generate incremental revenue from companies looking to spend less than their current minimums.

It's making for some unusual bedfellows, says Frazier, niche sites like Japanese animators who can now afford a site that will sell ads on their site for them.

"Say I've got three employees and 6 million impressions a month on my site. I've got inventory to sell and if I sell through a network, it's sold at rock bottom prices and I have no control. By using AdAce," says Frazier, "they've got their own ad sales system. They can still work with a network, which works like a rep firm, but sometimes they have minimums that small business can't meet and lose the sale. On AdAce, ads are priced down