Marin Software, an
online ad management tool provider, plans to launch an ad retargeting platform Tuesday in beta with a handful of clients. Supported by Criteo, it combines workflow, analysis and optimization tools
aimed at helping advertisers and agencies add retargeting to their online media strategy.
Although Marin's roots began in paid search, the company has expanded into managing campaigns in
display and social. The benefits from increased visibility across a variety of advertising media provide better budgeting for improved attribution management and higher ROIs.
Having the
ability to assign correct attribution to a specific click becomes increasingly important, especially as more advertisers combine online and offline media, from search to social, mobile to OOH.
Cross-platform advertising has led to a proliferation of data silos and proprietary systems that ultimately cause waste and missed opportunities for marketers. Marin Retargeting will integrate with
Criteo, giving clients from both companies a unified platform from which to manage campaigns.
Criteo will support retargeting by dropping a cookie in the browser of the Web site visitor, then
wait for it to reappear on the radar of an ad network serving up the ads. Advertisers report on the performance of the ads within Marin's platform.
The combined platforms that make up Marin
Retargeting monitor both search and display campaigns, so it can attribute and weigh the clicks to conversion as the consumer makes choices. Then the platform calculates the bid with help from a
proprietary algorithm, says Matt Lawson, Marin vice president of marketing.
Criteo sends through the back end to Marin's system cost, impressions and view data. Marin measures the
conversions and builds the reports. As Marin's bidding algorithm changes, it pushes the bid back to Criteo to apply against the campaign.
Advertisers getting started with retargeting will
find that adding tags to the Web site represents another pixel on the page. With the joint solution, marketers can use one tag for search and retargeting to streamline deployment and minimize ongoing
tag maintenance.