• by Tameka Kee , February 6, 2008

SearchIgnite, a division of Innovation Interactive, announced that it has inked multi-year deals to provide the search management technology for CyberAgent and Septeni, two of Japan's largest search marketing firms. Together, CyberAgent and Cepteni manage search campaigns for more than 2000 clients and over 25 billion yen ($250 million USD).

"With SearchIgnite's technology, we are able to centralize our customer reporting and can also transparently optimize all of our search marketing with portfolio algorithms and other optimization techniques--something not possible with any other technology offering in the Japanese market," said Yasuo Okamoto, president of Internet advertising headquarters for CyberAgent.

The New York-based search technology firm had been working on adding Japanese-language capabilities to the user interface of its campaign management platform for the latter half of 2007. According to Roger Barnette, SearchIgnite's president and founder, the company received inquiries for adaptations of its technology from several parties in Japan, and saw the market as a key step in their international expansion.

"We've been able to manage advertising creative in different currencies and creative for quite some time," Barnette said. "But our ability to localize the product from a user interface perspective was vital. Having an international presence is very important to us as the search market matures around the globe."

The firm plans to launch a European-language version of its platform in the second quarter of this year.