• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, September 22, 2010

Facing stiff competition, display ad solutions provider AdReady on Wednesday unveiled the latest version of its display ad platform for advertisers and agencies. In 2007, Seattle-based AdReady debuted its demand-side platform, which continues to offer advertisers template-based ad creation together with media planning and buying automation.

With AdReady Version 3 -- expected to launch widely in early October -- the company is offering algorithmic media planning, automated intelligent bidding, and better multi-campaign management.

AdReady's platform provides creative development and testing, along with media planning, optimization and measurement. It is designed specifically for advertisers who need to quickly test, iterate and identify the best-performing ads within multiple campaigns, each targeted to specific audiences.

"We're uniquely suited to micro-target specific audience segments," said Karl Siebrecht, president and CEO of AdReady. "Many advertisers and their agencies focus on executing the location and timing aspects of online display advertising, making sure ads appear in front of the right audience at the right time."

"However," added Siebrecht, "they often neglect to sufficiently and successfully implement the creative component, such as testing ads to find the appropriate granular message -- because this level of customization has historically been very costly."

The new platform comes on the heels of AdReady's $5.3M in funding earlier this year. To date, the company has raised over $17 million. According to Siebrecht, the majority of the company's resources are presently going to hiring talented engineers.

Siebrecht, who joined AdReady about a year ago, spent eight years at aQuantive, including time as president of the Atlas technology division. After Microsoft acquired aQuantive, Siebrecht spent over two years at the software giant as a general manager of online services.

For further guidance, former aQuantive chief and co-founder Brian McAndrews has joined AdReady's board this summer. Mike Galgon, another co-founder of aQuantive, previously joined AdReady's Advisory Board.

A key enhancement to AdReady's platform includes advanced media planning intelligence, which leverages more than 20,000 campaigns executed on the platform since its original launch.

The new platform automates and centralizes the process of creating multiple simultaneous campaigns, while agencies and advertisers can automatically generate bids based on designated budgets.