• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Accipiter Partners With Hostworks to Form Leading Asia-Pacific Ad Management Solution Provider

Posted on: Monday, 7 November 2005, 09:00 CST

Online property leader RealEstate.com.au and online media giant News Interactive signed

Accipiter Solutions, Inc., an online advertising technology innovator since 1996, today announced it has struck a deal with Hostworks (ASX:HWG) as its Asia Pacific ad management solution supplier. Hostworks is Australia's leading critical application-managed service provider which provides 24x7 managed outsourcing services for many of Australia's leading online properties. The company has developed extensive expertise with Accipiter's suite of products by hosting Accipiter's AdManager solution for ninemsn Australia since 2001.

Prior to selection of Hostworks as the Asia Pacific Accipiter partner, there was only one major competitor in that market. Accipiter realized an increasing number of customers in the region required a locally-managed alternative to provide reliable performance, a scalable solution, and credible service. With both a site-side ad management solution (AdManager Licensed) and an outsourced ASP-based alternative (AdManager Hosted), Accipiter's Hosted version allows Hostworks to provide the first Australian-hosted application.

"Customers are demanding more functionality as they refine their online ad campaigns and seek to differentiate themselves from competitors as they compete for growing online ad dollars," said Klaus Bartosch, director of sales and marketing for Hostworks. "Our partnership with Accipiter will provide customers with unparalleled service and functionality. Most importantly, there is no ad serving performance latency as is typically the case with competitive offerings that are served offshore."

The recent partnership is already off to a very strong start as the companies jointly signed deals with two of the top ten ad serving customers, by volume, in the region, realestate.com.au and News Interactive. Founded in 1995 as an online property portal, realestate.com.au provides a medium for real estate agents to advertise their listings on the Internet and for potential buyers to search for properties. The site network is partly-owned by News Limited, a Rupert Murdoch company. The network is consistently ranked as one of Australia's 20 most visited web sites and is the dominant real estate web site in the region.

News Interactive, the online media division of News Limited, a Rupert Murdoch company, also signed with Hostworks/Accipiter to manage ad delivery to its site network as the national media giant positions itself for substantial growth in the booming Australian online advertising space. With more than 150% ad volume growth in the past year alone, the company signed a three-year deal for managed service across more than 100 web sites.

The unique Accipiter/Hostworks ad management offering provided News Interactive with the availability, scalability, and affordability the company required. Alistair Carwardine, director of online services for News Interactive, commented that "Hostworks has a proven record of handling high-volume publishing sites and the Accipiter solution has the ability to scale to our needs as we grow."

"With our explosive growth over the past twelve months indicative of a buoyant online ad sector, we wanted to ensure our site network was well-positioned to handle the increased ad delivery requirements," continued Carwardine. "We chose Hostworks' managed service because it gives us the benefits of the solution without the need for extra staff, having to build boxes, or run the application ourselves."

Revenue figures recorded by the Audit Bureau of Verification Services report that Australian advertisers spent 64% more of their budget online in 2004 than in the previous year, making it the nation's fastest-growing medium. The online advertising market grew more than six times faster than the overall ad market last year to hit $388 million. With the online ad market in the Australian/New Zealand region growing at 65% per year, combined with traditional ad media static, Accipiter felt it was a perfect time to expand its presence in this market.

"Accipiter's proven ad management functionality, our strong global reputation, and focus on customer service position us for a strong partnership with Hostworks," said Brian Handly, Accipiter CEO. "Our recent successes with realestate.com.au and News Interactive are just the start of a powerful new revenue stream for both Accipiter and Hostworks in a rapidly growing global market."

Hostworks' corporate vision is to build an integrated digital marketing platform that will become the logical choice for companies planning major traditional media ad campaigns. "Customers are telling us they realize that integration with digital media solutions is now a critical requirement of traditional campaigns. Accipiter is a pivotal component of our solution and we look forward to working with them moving forward," said Bartosch.

Accipiter's AdManager is available as a site-side licensed ad management solution (AdManager Licensed) or as an outsourced ad management solution (AdManager Hosted). AdManager allows publishers to increase targeting capabilities, speed ad delivery, and monitor and control inventory projections in real-time, leading to higher CPMs and less unsold inventory. For more product information, please visit http://www.accipiter.com/solutions/solutions.php.

About realestate.com.au

Founded in 1995, realestate.com.au is Australia's most popular and comprehensive source of real estate listings and information. It is locally and internationally recognized as Australia's number one property website with more than 75% of all agents and developers marketing more than 350,000 properties for sale and for rent on the site every month.

In March 2005, the realestate.com.au website attracted more than 1.85 million unique visitors consisting of 1.53 million Australians and 320,000 visitors from overseas.

realestate.com.au was listed on Australia's Business Review Weekly's Fast 100 in October 2005 and has celebrated for the fourth year running as one of the fastest growing (based on revenue) 100 companies in Australia.

realestate.com.au is listed on the ASX (REA) and has five business units: realestate.com.au, realcommercial.com.au, realestate.com.au Publishing, realestate.com.au Web Design Services and realestate.com.au Home Loans.

About News Interactive

News Interactive is one of Australia's largest online publishers and is the online division of News Limited, Australia's largest media company. With a broad network reach, News Interactive provides advertisers with opportunities to promote their brands, products and services across some of the country's leading websites and well-known brands: NEWS.com.au, CareerOne, AustralianIT, FOX SPORTS, CARSguide and realestate.com.au. The company also operates News Limited's major metropolitan newspapers' websites, including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-Mail, Herald Sun, The Advertiser, and more.

About Hostworks: www.hostworks.com.au

Hostworks is the region's leading critical application managed service provider and is responsible for managing the availability, performance and running costs of its customers' critical business applications. Hostworks does this by selling specialist services designed to ensure IT operations excellence.

Hostworks delivers its services on tightly engineered, secure infrastructure which provides optimal performance and protects its customers' applications and data from security threats. Experience has demonstrated that organizations seek Hostworks services for the following key reasons;

-- Existing IT operations are struggling to meet required company service levels

-- The business has a desire to reduce cost whilst improving service levels

-- Customer acquisition is increasing faster than the internal IT division can support

-- The business has experienced a major disaster or outage.

Hostworks currently manages critical applications for organizations that depend on quality of service and high availability. These companies include American Express, Sony, Ticketek, Codan, AAMI, ninemsn, Compass Group and many others. A public company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX - HWG), Hostworks is an expanding organization that has experienced strong annual growth and is currently the 25th fastest growing technology company in Australia.

About Accipiter

Based in Raleigh, North Carolina and London, UK, Accipiter, an online advertising technology leader since 1996, empowers Web publishers, media networks, and eTailers to maximize revenue and reduce costs through innovative online ad management and behavioral targeting technologies. Accipiter's industry-leading products provide effective campaign management and optimization, accurate inventory forecasting, up-to-the-minute reporting, precise audience targeting, and the ability to easily deliver and track any rich media format-all in real-time. With more than 350 customers worldwide, over 50 billion online ads are served each month using Accipiter technologies. Accipiter's experienced staff delivers solutions, services, and world-class support that help customers future proof their investments as their business needs evolve. For more information, please visit www.accipiter.com.

AdManager is a trademark of Accipiter Solutions, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks or service marks of the company with which they are associated.

Source: Business Wire

More News in this Category