Online profile marketing and insights technology company Pureprofile is acquiring programmatic advertising company Sparc Media as part of its move to list on the ASX.
The acquisition will accelerate Pureprofile’s knowledge and product offering in the programmatic advertising and insights space. Sparc Media is due to be acquired just prior to the completion of the Pureprofile IPO, scheduled for late July.
Pureprofile will combine its 15 years of consumer research and profiling technology with Sparc Media’s programmatic trading and performance marketing capabilities. Its intention is to increase the effectiveness of marketing and advertising campaigns and provide deeper insights into consumer behaviour.
Programmatic media buying is structurally changing the way media is being sold and is quickly becoming mainstream. As an industry it is also experiencing huge growth – expected to rise to US$53 billion worldwide by 2018.
Sparc Media is a programmatic advertising company that has the capacity to buy and sell digital advertisements in real time.
While Sparc Media uses its own platform and expertise to target ads to consumers, Pureprofile’s database of profiles will add a layer of sophistication and introduces new opportunities for consumers to manage and benefit from the value of their own profiles. This means consumers will see increasingly more relevant ads and be able to participate in the process.
The acquisition of Sparc Media will build on the industry disruption Pureprofile has achieved in the research panel space since launching its website in 2002.
CEO Paul Chan says:
“We successfully introduced and scaled the online research panel in Australia, proving there was a much more efficient way to gain consumer insights than annoying telephone research.
The Sparc Media acquisition will allow Pureprofile to apply this same disruptive approach to programmatic media by providing a smarter solution to deliver relevant ads than the digital banners that follow you around the internet.By focusing on creating a better consumer-driven experience, and using the combined clout of both companies, we seek to make targeted advertising less ‘creepy’ and more profile-driven, ensuring marketing messages are more welcome, useful and ultimately desired by the consumer.”
Wout van Damme, CEO of Sparc Media, adds:
“We’re excited to be teaming up with Pureprofile to combine the complementary strengths of each business to drive positive change in the industry with new products that seek to take precision-targeted marketing to the next level.
Sparc Media shares and supports the vision of profile-driven, targeted programmatic advertising and the team is delighted to be taking this forward to benefit brands, marketers and, most importantly, individual consumers themselves.”
The coming together of Pureprofile and Sparc Media seeks to further the company’s vision of a world where people will eventually be able to curate their own ads – giving consumers more control over the content and advertising they do and don’t see and the ability to improve their own experience on a publisher’s website through their profile.
The key points about the acquisition
- Pureprofile is acquiring Sparc Media for up to A$6.6 million in cash and scrip.
- Global programmatic media exceeded US$20 billion in 2014.
- This figure is expected to reach US$53 billion by 2018.
Facts about Sparc Media and programmatic media
- Sparc Media is an innovation-driven company.
- Founded in 2004, it was an early entrant into the ad exchange world in 2009.
- Recognising the growing trend in programmatic media sales, it changed its business to become a digital media buyer.
- Currently employs more than 50 programmatic media experts.
- Offices in Australia, Poland and India. Most of Sparc’s transactions are done through real-time bidding.
- Real-time bidding is the buying and selling of ad impressions through real-time auctions that occur in the time it takes a digital ad to load on a web page.
