• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 4, 2008

WPP Group has taken a strategic stake in a promising new online media buying software system designed to help marketers accelerate the shift of traditional media budgets into online advertising buys. The developer, aptly named Yield Software, has created a suite of automated system enabling marketers and agencies to optimize their media budgets across an array of online advertising platforms including both paid and organic search.

The deal comes four months after WPP rival Publicis announced a similar strategic relationship with Rapt Inc., a developer of yield management systems for various industries that has created a version of its technology to create a "transparent" market structure for buying and selling digital media (Online Media Daily Feb. 8).

Publicis' relationship with Rapt, which does not involve an equity stake, gives Publicis' media and digital shops access to a dashboard-like system capable of looking across inventory and pricing strategies of various online media sellers they are negotiating with in real time. Publicis said it would utilize the system for its Starcom MediaVest Group, ZenithOptimedia Group and Digitas units to create "greater transparency and liquidity" on an estimated $1.5 billion in cross-Internet media buys.

WPP, the parent of GroupM and media agencies such as MindShare, Mediaedge:cia, MediaCom, Maxus, Beyond Interaction and Outrider, did not say how it might integrate Yield Software's systems into its buying processes, but WPP Digital CEO Mark Read implied that it would have a profound affect.

"With online ad spend expected to reach $24 billion in 2008, marketers are looking for better data and analytics to help them optimize their expenditure," he stated, adding, "Yield Software has built a simple, automated and intuitive approach that helps marketers cut through the data to allocate search engine marketing budgets and optimize the effectiveness of their Web sites."

WPP did not disclose its specific stake, but it was one of two lead investors in a new $6 million round of funding for Yield Software.

The deal is one of several media technology investments WPP has been making. In December, WPP's GroupM unit acquired a minority stake in Invidi Technologies, a promising addressable TV advertising technology company, and GroupM global CEO Irwin Gotlieb was named to its board.