MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (July 16, 2008) – In an effort to streamline the online media direct sales process, DoubleClick, a premier provider of digital marketing technology and services, today unveiled a new electronic proposal exchange platform for its publisher and agency customers. The new integration automates the media request for proposal (RFP) process via seamless data exchange between DART®Sales Manager (DSM), an end-to-end workflow and financial management solution for publishers, and DART® for Advertisers’ (DFA) MediaVisor planning tool. Also today, DoubleClick further strengthened its integrated platform for media sellers by announcing the release of an adapter designed to allow the seamless exchange of data between DSM and Salesforce CRM, salesforce.com’s industryleading suite of CRM applications.
DoubleClick’s new proposal exchange platform is built upon application agnostic standards, which will ultimately allow for broader integration with other advertising technology solutions. The company has worked closely with the IAB in their efforts to establish a consistent standard for electronic order exchange across the online advertising industry. Establishing a common proposal exchange standard will also allow for better automation of discrepancy reconciliation – another key challenge for buyers and sellers of digital media.
In a 2007 survey of its ad agency clients, DoubleClick confirmed that the majority of the media RFP and contract process is still handled manually—via the exchange of emails, spreadsheets and faxes. Respondents also named lack of internal coordination at publishers and inaccurate proposal responses as top concerns. More than 70% of agencies responding said that a publisher’s use of an automated proposal tool would positively influence their decision to send that publisher an RFP. By digitizing and standardizing the RFP process, publishers are also expected to benefit from increased operational efficiency and accuracy, while advertisers will enjoy faster response times and more accurate proposals.
With DoubleClick’s new electronic order exchange feature, agencies can select DSM-enabled publishers directly from the MediaVisor planning tool. Selected publishers receive an electronic request for proposal directly within the DSM interface and can check inventory, build a proposal, and respond electronically. Once approved, the proposed media package can be trafficked by the publisher directly into DART for Publishers. Previously, publishers had to manually enter their proposals within MediaVisor for each advertiser in addition to their own system, often a time consuming and error-prone process. Currently, more than 20 publishers are testing the new order exchange platform including BabyCenter.com and Mansueto Ventures.
Also announced today was the release of a Salesforce.com adapter that allows DART Sales Manager to exchange data with this leading customer relationship management solution to deliver increased transparency throughout the ad sales cycle. The new adapter synchronizes opportunities and proposal information as well as sales data between the two systems, creating a more seamless end-to-end media sales solution.
“DoubleClick’s vision is to help digital advertising scale by developing platforms that bring advertisers and publishers together,” said Group Product Manager Jonathan Bellack. “Our new proposal exchange platform reduces operational friction by eliminating error-prone manual data entry. In addition, our tight integration with Salesforce.com continues to develop DART Sales Manager’s mission to enable an integrated quote to cash solution for publisher sales teams.”
About DART Sales Manager (DSM)
DART Sales Manager (DSM) is an end-to-end workflow and financial management solution for publishers.With over a dozen timesaving features for sales teams and six financial reports, DSM is a best-of-breed tool for media sellers with sales teams of all sizes. DSM is part of DoubleClick’s Revenue Center, a comprehensive suite of solutions for media sellers designed to maximize revenue and minimize operational friction throughout the digital ad sales process.
DART Sales Manager reduces the burden of manual data entry and improves the accuracy and transparency of the entire sales and service process. The result is increased visibility, including enhanced real-time inventory access for sales and additional pipeline and revenue forecasting capabilities for sales management.
For more information about DART Sales Manager please visit http://www.doubleclick.com/dartsalesmanager
To learn more about the entire DoubleClick Revenue Center please visit: http://www.doubleclick.com/revenuecenter
About DoubleClick
DoubleClick is a premier provider of digital marketing technology and services. The world’s top marketers, publishers and agencies utilize DoubleClick’s expertise in ad serving, rich media, video, mobile, search and affiliate marketing to help them make the most of the digital medium. From its position at the nerve center of digital marketing, DoubleClick provides superior insights and insider knowledge to its customers. DoubleClick is a division of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Learn more at www.doubleclick.com
