Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Rocket Fuel Ad Network Arrives

Today saw the launch of Rocket Fuel, a new hybrid ad network founded by veterans from Yahoo!, DoubleClick, NetGravity, Epiphany and salesforce.com. Unlike existing ad networks, Rocket Fuel bills itself as "the first intelligent ad serving technology platform that combines demographic, lifestyle, purchase intent and social data with its own suite of targeting algorithms, blended analytics and expert analysis to find active customers". The system automatically leverages internal and third-party data using its real-time Progressive Optimisation technique, allowing it to serve a suite of impressions with specific context to each advertiser's individual marketing objectives.

“We saw how important it was to let the data tell you which ad to show, so we let the data tell us what works and what is important. Instead of inflicting on customers thousands of targeting options, we figure out which options are working well and move inventory in that way.” says CEO George John. "Rocket Fuel was founded to disrupt online display advertising with a superior computational approach that blends smart decision making, creativity and science to predict consumer behavior. We understand the last thing the industry needs is just another ad network. It needs a smarter one."

"We believe there is a profound difference between reaching audiences and activating customers," said Richard Frankel, president and co-founder of Rocket Fuel Inc. "For us, it's about marrying many different types of data with advanced technology to create intelligent and dynamic campaigns that reach the people who will buy, blog, tweet or tell their friends about your product or brand. Our goal is to turn passive audiences into active consumers."

Frankel, shows how it works:



Although Rocket Fuel only launched today, it has undergone extensive testing during the last year and already boosts an impressive client list including major brands like Nike, Dell, Microsoft, and American Express. This combined with the capability of reaching 40 million people through 100 million ads per month, are sure to make it an attractive offering to advertisers. So the only question left to ask is do advertisers want another ad network? In my own experience I would say that it all comes down to one simple question; will Rocket Fuel out-perform other networks? If it does it will succeed.

Frankel and John, along with CTO Abhinav Gupta, are ex-Yahoo emplyees.

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