Personalised advertising solutions provider ValueClick Europe has followed the lead of its US brethren by rebranding as Conversant Europe.
The new, single entity brings six ValueClick-owned enterprises under one roof as the company looks to create a much more integrated and consistent offering.
Conversant Europe will now offer services from ValueClick Media, Dotomi, Commission Junction (now CJ Affiliate, by Conversant), Mediaplex, Greystripe and the newly acquire SET Media, meaning advertisers and publishers will only have to communicate with one partner.
ValueClick’s US division made the move across to Conversant in February 2014 at the cost of around $3 million. The benefits of offering a comprehensive solution seemed to be hitting home with clients, as the American arm reported an 8% year-on-year rise in Q1 revenue to $145.9 million.
Talking to PerformanceIN, Conversant Europe president Oded Benyo said the European division was slightly behind in its rebrand due to a lack of access to new ValueClick offerings like SET Media. The company offers brands the chance to target their consumers with high quality video ads and is set to launch in Europe over the next two months.
Joining the dots
The unification of ValueClick under Conversant Europe is to summon a new era for the company, leveraging the power of a proprietary stack of solutions to deliver online and offline personalised ad services at scale, and in real time.
With an entire product arsenal operating under one brand, both advertisers and publishers can gain access to an expanded wealth of data for use with personalised campaigns across display, affiliate, search, and video among other channels.
Benyo, who played a huge part in unifying the US operation, says advertisers and publishers are now on the lookout for tech suppliers who can join the dots.
“In the world of today you have to go to dozens if not hundreds of point solutions, and you have to pick through all all of these vendors and assemble everything together to hit your business objectives If you think of Valueclick in the past, it’s almost like a holding company where businesses worked independently. It is much more of a team now.”
Judging by the start of Conversant’s first year in the states, Benyo expects the European arm to welcome a raft of new clients as the company reinvents itself as a comprehensive solution.
“We’ve had hundreds of new conversations with agencies and direct partners (advertisers), who are now looking at us in a very niche sort of way.
“It’s been a wake-up call to them”, he says. “People have been saying ‘These guys are very different’ and once they’ve looked a little deeper, we’ve generated a lot of new business from it.”
Conversant seeks ROI
Benyo claims his last four months have been spent changing the way Conversant Europe offers its solutions to get Europe “up to speed”. Part of the development stage saw the tying-in of three separate entities that were purchasing media independently. The trio have now been integrated to make one bidding system, which has improved visibility of data.
Plenty has changed about ValueClick internally and externally, with behind-the-scenes work including the purchase of new data centres to aid system integration.
However, after seeing plenty of potential in the European ad market, Benyo is adamant of a return on investment.
“We wouldn’t be investing in Europe unless we felt there was a massive opportunity. We have invested millions in Europe over the past 4-5 months because we believe there is huge potential here. The market is definitely at a level of maturity and in a place where the value proposition of Conversant is going to be well received.
“Nobody puts in millions thinking they are not going to get a good return.”