ATC Hamburg Wrap-Up by Improve Digital

The Ad Trader Conference, a German-focused conference on the emerging data-driven and automated display marketplace, was held last week in Hamburg. The joint venture between ExchangeWire and Adzine was a great success attracting many international speakers and attendees. The full-day event focused on the growth of automated media buying and how it is effecting the online display marketplace in Germany and and around the world.

Below is a final-thoughts video wrap-up put together by Improve Digital:

AudienceScience wins KURIER.at

AudienceScience, a global leading provider of technological solutions that give businesses access to their target groups, announced this week that KURIER.at will use the AudienceScience Gateway data management platform from April 2012.

KURIER.at, the online platform for Austrian nationwide daily newspaper KURIER, is one of Austria’s most popular news sites. With 40 million page impressions, more than 814,000 unique users per month (ÖWA Plus 2011-IV) and a growing offer, all contribute to making KURIER.at one of the biggest publishers in Austria.

George Nimeh, Chief Digital Officer, KURIER.at, comments: “The AudienceScience Gateway solution guarantees KURIER.at the highest efficiency in the delivery of targeted online advertising. We are delighted to be working with the global market leader in targeting solutions.”

KURIER.at is the first media company in Austria to use audience-targeting technology, in a bid to secure a competitive edge in the Austrian ad sales market.

Frederike Voss, Director Account Management Europe, AudienceScience, adds: “We are very proud to be growing our customer base in Austria. This shows that our European expansion strategy is a success, and that AudienceScience is advancing internationally.”

Struq Secures $8.5 million Investment

Advertising platform startup Struq has attracted the attention of major backers this week, with a significant $8.5 million funding round from Reed Elsevier Ventures, Pentech Ventures and Allen & Company LLC.

The company has certainly garnered attention. It’s already working with 200 of the world’s leading retailers across 19 markets (including Adidas, Hilton Hotels and Levis). Its Ad Personalization platform operates dynamically and in real time. As a result it claims to be able to deliver 12 times higher click through rates than standard retargeted ads and says its platform can generate up to $30 in revenues for every $1 spent in marketing spend.

Sam Barnett, founder and CEO of Struq, says Reed Elsevier Ventures’ experience in big data (an early investor in Palantir Technologies, now the 11th most valuable start up globally), combined with Pentech’s experience in Personalization (an early investor in Maxymiser,), and Allen & Company’s advisory history, will provide valuable experience in scaling the company up.

Kevin Brown, General Partner at Reed Elsevier Ventures calls Barnett “one of the most talented young entrepreneurs in Europe,” which is high praise indeed given the current field of EU CEOs which is probably the best it’s ever been.

Tesco to Invest £150m in Online Business

Tesco has announced plans to invest £150 million in its online division, as it aims to refocus attention on its underperforming UK business.

The UK company plans to invest more than £1 billion in total to turn round its operations in the home market.

In its preliminary results for the year ended 25 February 2012, the company revealed that while group trading profit had increased by 1.3 per cent to £3.8bn, the UK arm’s profit was down one pe rcent to £2.5bn.

Philip Clark, Tesco’s chief executive, comments: “Whilst our international business is delivering excellent growth, contributing £1.1bn of profit to the group, we fully recognise that we need to raise our game in the UK. As a result, we are committing over £1bn to make the UK shopping trip better for customers. We are also focusing our lower overall capital expenditure (£3.3bn next year compared to £3.8bn last year) more into our existing stores and in building our online businesses.”

The company said that it will be increasing its capital investment in online to around £150m in 2012/2013.

“We have already made a strong start with our new web platform for Tesco Direct launched a few weeks ago,” it said. “The new website, which has been well received by customers, will soon house almost all of our UK online businesses.”

Tesco said that the new website – which has more than 75,000 products for sale on it, double the amount compared to the previous site – has greater functionality and is easier for customers to use. It is also fully configured for mobile devices.

In addition, following the likes of e-commerce site Amazon, the site features third-party marketplace vendors selling their own products through Tesco.com.

“A much greater expansion of the product range and further platform upgrades are planned in the months ahead,” the company said.

The retailer also provided an update on its Tesco Bank online migration progress, revealing that it had nearly completed building the new systems and infrastructure for the business.

“Having taken the decision to slow down the introduction of new products until we have settled in the new bank team, processes and systems, following some technical issues last summer, this is an important milestone,” the company said.

Some 75 per cent of the bank’s business is already done online, with a strong performance in the insurance business driving a 13.6 per cent increase in total revenue for the bank last year.