Datran Media and ContextWeb are in the midst of a quiet merger, according to several sources. Datran Chairman and CEO Patrick Vogt will lead the combined companies. Technology from the combined
companies will give advertisers the ability to more accurately target ads, MediaPost learned late Wednesday. A Datran company spokesperson declined to confirm.
ContextWeb's business model
varies from Rubicon and Pubmatic. The company buys and offers ad inventory, guaranteeing CPMs to publishers by not promising to serve impressions unless the chances of conversion remain high.
One
of Datran's products, Aperture, provides real-time audience measurement and audience targeting. Combining audience targeting with contextual content would allow advertisers to target contextual
content. Advertisers would have an option to reach consumers who are reading about sports and generating an income of more than $100,000 with children at home.
ContextWeb first reviews the
inventory, and if there's a contextual buyer for the segment, they buy it and guarantee a CPM to the publisher. The company can pay higher CPMs because they guarantee 100% sell through, according to
one source that calls it "the holy grail." They hold the right to take the ad unit at a certain CPM, but also have the right to kick it back to a publisher.
In August, ContextWeb announced that
Adnetik, Criteo, IgnitionOne and Netmining joined its RTB Platform Partnership Program. There are more than 25 companies in the partnership program. The program gives members access to 200 million
daily impressions from more than 11,000 direct publishers. The company said its technology offers 31 impression-level data attributes, including referrer URL and fold count position.