• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, April 27, 2010

Online media planning and buying platform Traffiq is pushing into the Spanish-language ad market with a new service for publishers, advertisers and agencies targeting the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American audiences.

Partnering with the New York-based company on the new Traffiq Latino initiative is The Media Maquiladora, a Hispanic-focused marketing agency with offices in Sarasota, Fla. and Mexico City. A dedicated team within the agency will manage day-to-day operations and business development for the program designed to tap into the approximately $3 billion in digital ad spending across the Hispanic and Latin American markets.

"The underlying premise is that audiences consume content based on language almost as much as geography. And as more and more content finds its way to audiences around the Spanish-language world, advertisers need to find them regardless of where a publisher is located," said Kent Kirschner, CEO of The Media Maquiladora and executive managing director of Traffiq Latino.

Already lined up to selling inventory through the new offering are Spanish-language Web publishers including Taringa, with 56 million monthly visitors, as well as Terra, Punto Fox and Batanga. Traffiq has not named any advertisers for the Latin-centric platform at launch but the company is targeting smaller regional and Spanish-language agencies as customers.

"They may be doing Google AdWords but they haven't gotten a big display campaign off the ground yet," said Chris O'Hara, head of sales and marketing at Traffiq. "We're the first real digital people coming to visit them."

Traffiq has carved out its business working with bigger agencies like Havas Digital and AdStrategies.

Traffiq's system promises to provide buy-side clients a single system for handling everything from planning and RFP distribution to order execution, optimization and billing. It also allows media planners to negotiate and buy inventory from Web publishers on a one-to-one basis or to propose campaigns widely.

With Madison Avenue heavyweights pushing more aggressively into the Latin ad market, O'Hara said it's more important than ever for small and mid-size agencies to adopt new digital tools to help them hang on to existing clients and grow their business. "They have to continue quickly improving their skill set and and ability to generate significant return on investment," he said.

Started in 2006, Traffiq has raised $17 million in venture funding to date from investors including Court Square Ventures, GroTech Ventures and Greenhill SAVP.