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03.29.13

Data visualization startup Visual.ly grabs another $2M to take on ad agencies (exclusive)

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Big data may be cool, but it’s not pretty. Visual.ly, a startup focused on data visualizations and infographics, has raised a new $2 million round of funding, the company has confirmed to VentureBeat today.

Visual.ly’s platform is like a “basecamp” for design projects that want to utilize big data from multiple sources. It’s clients (brands, businesses, and news organizations) subscribe for access to the platform, which can match them with Visual.ly’s community of over 55,000 designers. Once matched,the designer and the client work together using the platform, with Visual.ly’s team acting as a project manager. Essentially, it answer the question of what do to for companies after they’ve hired a designer and don’t quite know what to do next.

“Right now existing ad agencies are our biggest competitors,” Visual.ly CEO Stew Langille told me in a phone interview. He explained that, in addition to building useful, interactive graphics for clients, Visual.ly is becoming more attractive because it allows designers to earn more money on a project and advertisers to spend less.

Depending on the level of project management, Visual.ly takes anywhere from 10 to 30 percent cut of each project’s total cost. The goal, Langille said, is to improve the collaboration platform for designers and clients to work on their own. And while he didn’t disclose financial figures, Langille did say that Visual.ly’s revenue is increasing 300 percent each quarter, and the number of projects are increasing 200 percent per quarter.

Visually-GA tool The new round came from previous investors, such as SoftTech VC, 500 Startups, and Giza Venture Capital, as well as strategic investors that include Yammer chief product officer James Patterson and several top executives from the advertising industry that will help Visual.ly build out its presence in New York City.

The additional capital will primarily be used to advance the startup’s data visualization /collaboration technology and hire more talent over the next year. Langille said Visual.ly has held off on raising a larger round, but does plan on raising additional funding in the future.

Langille also said he’d like to use the funding to produce more free data visualization tools that showcase the Visual.ly platform’s potential. For example, the startup’s recently released tool that interfaces with Google Analytics to produce a weekly traffic report, which you can send via email automatically. Also, the startup’s Twitter user battle infographic tool.

Founded in 2011, the San Francisco, Calif.-based startup has raised a total of $4.4 million in funding to date. Visual.ly currently has 25 employees, with plans to hire another 10 to 15 people before the end of 2013.

Filed under: Business, Deals

03.19.13

Half of What Online Advertisers Know About You Is Wrong

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Considering that they’ve never explicitly asked us about our preferences, it’s a minor miracle of big data that web advertising companies know anything about us at all. But at least half of the things they think they know about you—from your political preferences to your affinity for ladies’ fashion—could be wrong, and sometimes hilariously so.

Or at least, that’s what data from a survey put out by a firm called Enliken would suggest. Because Enliken’s business is getting people to give up more-accurate data about themselves in exchange for access to content. Because the survey wasn’t very big—covering just 116 people and about 9,000 data points—I took the survey myself in order to see whether ad targeting firms’ notions about my preferences were as inaccurate as Enliken suggested.

10.25.12

In Mobile Ads, iOS Is Still The Most Valuable Platform; Apps Drive 73% Of All Revenues, Says Opera

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We’re seeing a lot of evolution and growth in the world of mobile ads — Facebook’s recent introduction of ads into its mobile platform being one key development — but some stats are proving harder to budge. The internet browser company Opera today released its latest State of Mobile Advertising report, which indicates that, despite the growth of Android and other platforms, iOS continues to dominate when it comes to monetizing mobile ads. And despite all the effort that has been put into mobile web sites, the majority, nearly 73%, of all mobile ad revenues are coming from mobile apps.

The report is based on traffic across Opera’s own mobile advertising network, which sends ads to some 10,000 mobile sites and apps and sees over 40 billion impressions across the network. It notes that collectively, publishers on its network are on track to generate some $400 million in revenue this year.

Opera notes that iOS on average continues to drive the highest eCPMs (effective cost per thousand impressions) on its network. Although the iPhone generates the most revenue, that is by dint of its ubiquity on the network: it accounts for just over 30% of all traffic, and 34% of all revenues, but its eCPMs are $1.48. By contrast, the eCPMs on the iPad are significantly higher, at $4.42, but it accounts for just 5% of all traffic on the network, working out to 18% of revenue.

That still puts the two into the top two positions in terms of what devices drive the best ad revenues. Android devices (tablets are not broken out) continue to see low eCPMs on Opera’s network, at $0.88. It’s not clear, however, whether this is because in fact Google would dominate advertising on that platform.

And perhaps most importantly, it appears that eCPMs are falling, with the average eCPM across all iOS devices at $2.49 in Q2, compared to $1.64 today.

Opera also delves into the relative performance of ads on native apps versus those developed for the mobile web. Although we have seen some analyst houses point out that the two have reached some kind of parity in terms of usage — although apps seem to be outpacing growth of mobile web for traffic — when it comes to making money, apps still seem to command more engagement, and therefore more revenues.

Opera says that on its network, apps account for over 80% of all traffic, and 72.7% of all mobile advertising revenue worldwide. My guess is that in certain markets like the U.S. that proportion would weigh even more in favor of apps over the mobile web, considering that North America, according to Opera, accounts for 7 out of every 10 ad requests.

The full report is here.

08.07.12

Incentive network FreeMonee gets $34M to turn every day into a birthday

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Gift network FreeMonee has raised $34 million in VCMonee for its consumer incentive program.

FreeMonee delivers cash gifts from participating merchants directly into the bank accounts of consumers. Merchants determine the nature of the campaign, deciding how many customers, how much to give, and when and where to deposit the gift.

Consumers then receive the free money, which of course encourages — but doesn’t obligate — them to go patronize that particular store or restaurant. The incentives function like a gift card, so it feels like getting birthday present, without the card and balloons.

This strategy is effective for merchants because the likelihood that the incentive will translate into profits is higher than other marketing techniques. Unlike rewards or rebates that consumers often ignore, FreeMonee gifts yield a high response rate without discounting the product with deals or coupons.

It seems people are more likely to respond to free money than traditional promotions. The company promises merchants a sales lift of 400 percent to 700 percent and a return on ad spend of 500 percent to 900 percent. FreeMonee turns into actual money.

The third party in this cozy little arrangement, the card issuers, stand to gain as well because consumers have to use their card to unlock their gift.

The technology involves more than just delivering money into bank accounts. The Gift Underwriting Engine figures out what gift will ensure the highest level of consumer interest. It analyzes a consumers’ transaction data to discern how much a gift recipient is likely to spend and where, increasing the likelihood that there will be a return on the investment.

With this model, FreeMonee claims to be “changing the economics of advertising”.

This second round of investment was led by financier Charles E. Ryan and returning investors Opus Capital Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Utter Hill Ventures, and Pinnacle Ventures. It is more than triple the amount of the $11 million Series A from 2010, bringing the total capital raised to $45 million.

FreeMonee was founded in 2009 and is located in San Mateo, Calif.

Filed under: deals