Retargeting advertising startup MyThings has been growing under the radar for five years, and has now become profitable. In 2010, it had $10 million in sales, and this year it expects to show growth in revenue.
Benny Arbel is MyThings founder and CEO. The company provides technology that enables commercial websites to increase the number of repeat visits, and conversions to sales through personalized display advertising. The company's technology remembers users' online activity, and works out what they want or are looking for. The next stage is for the technology to offer customers exactly what they are looking for. But like other Internet companies, MyThings has learned that it is difficult to make money from end users, and has turned to content and commerce sites.
"250 Internet sites in Europe use our tools, and another 100 will soon join them," Arbel says. "Because we know where the surfers came from, what they are looking at, and how much time they spent on each page, we can display personalized ads on their screen. In essence, we are changing the way banners are used, so that each user sees an ad that is relevant to him or her.
"For example, if you had been looking at red shoes on a website, and then left that site, we can display an ad for red shoes on the next site that you visit. The product is already profitable, and we had a large jump in activity in 2010."
How does the technology work?
Arbel: "We purchase real-time advertising space. We are members of Google ad exchange, as well as another ten media commerce sites. We buy the space using automated tools, and receive information about available space, how much it costs, and buy accordingly. The choice of which ad is appropriate for a specific surfer is made according to behavioral, and not contextual, indexes."
Attracting buyers who have not visited the company's website
The Israel Venture Capital Research Center reports that, since its founding in 2006, MyThings has raised $21 million, and that it employs 50 people. Arbel attributes their success to the many changes occurring in the world of advertising. "In the past, companies would purchase media and then work on branding and marketing," Arbel says. "But today, everything is based on measurable performance. Advertisers have become used to receiving the exact results on the amount of exposure their campaign has had, and that is all they are interested in. We can identify where the user previously surfed, and we have the technological capability to purchase ad space and to build a dynamic ad in real time, which improves our performance."
In the past, ad agencies focused on retargeting in order to redirect them to the website where they looked at a specific product. Arbel says that today, companies want to reach the customer before he or she even visits their site. "As in the example I gave before with the red shoes, if we know ahead of time what the user is looking for, in addition to the products that appeared in the website he or she just visited, we can also offer him or her similar products on different websites. The search engine gathers information using various tools, such as other search engines, social networks, or toolbars, and in this way we can design a personalized ad for each user. The significance of this is that we can bring our advertisers new customers from the Internet - people who had never visited their site."
Arbel says that many companies in the industry refrain from advertising on search engines. "The world of search engines has become unprofitable in many respects since Groupon and similar companies buy ad space on searches at any price. We are looking at other places where we can find different users."
MyThings is active mainly in Europe. Among its investors is T-online, which manages the largest search engine in Germany, and is a subsidiary of international telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom. It was chosen last year to be the retargeting provider for T-online's website group.
Why aren't you active in the largest Internet market in the world - the US?
"We are one of the biggest players in Europe, and the competition and the market structure are different in the US. We are also active in Asia, India, and Japan."
Who are your competitors?
"Criteo, which rejected an acquisition offer of $800 million, and American company, Dotomi." Yair Goldfinger's Dotomi was sold last August to US company ValueClick for $295 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 6, 2011
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2011