• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 3, 2008

DoubleClick has grouped its suite of ad products for Web publishers under the DoubleClick Revenue Center umbrella and upgraded its ad sales management and forecasting tools.

The Revenue Center encompasses Dart for Publishers, Dart Enterprise, Dart Sales Manager, Dart Adapt, DoubleClick Ad Exchange and its rich media, video and mobile ad-serving platforms.

The new umbrella term is intended to highlight the growing range of integrated ad technologies DoubleClick offers for publishers to fully monetize their sites in the Web 2.0 era. "This includes everything we have to help publishers and all types of media sellers to increase revenues," said Jonathan Bellack, VP of Publisher Core Products at DoubleClick.

DoubleClick today also launched a new version of Dart Sales Manager, its workflow and financial management tool that includes improved financial reporting and forecasting capabilities, and greater compatibility with third-party applications.

The goal is to give publishers a more accurate picture of ad inventory and an increased ability to predict future sales. Since its launch two years ago, the system now has 60 clients and handles a sales transaction volume of $2 billion.

DoubleClick also upgraded the forecasting capability of its core Dart for Publishers ad platform by allowing sites to better use historical data to predict future traffic patterns. "This is probably the biggest improvement to forecasting we've made in a while," Bellack said. "It provides enormous flexibility in using historical data to make forecasts into the future better."

The ultimate goal is for sites to be able to better monetize seasonal and repeating traffic patterns through the upgrade.

Separately, Seevast Corp. has partnered with DoubleClick to incorporate its new SyndiGO software for building niche ad networks into the DART platform. SyndiGO handles the back-end chores of running an ad network from recruiting sites to syndication of ad tags and content widgets to customer service. Publishers only have to focus on ad sales.

Seevast, through its SyndiGO division, plans to launch a series of vertical ad networks with DoubleClick in the next few weeks spanning local, multicultural and sports-related categories.

Since last year, Seevast has been running a niche ad network for MSNBC focused on politics and another built around subjects tied to the "Today Show." Vertical ad networks have exploded in recent months as publishers large and small try to generate additional revenue by aggregating long-tail sites.