NetGravity and MatchLogic Form Alliance

NetGravity and Excite’s MatchLogic entered a cooperative alliance and technology exchange “to promote continued industry growth and facilitate interactions between buyers and sellers of online advertising.”

Both companies agreed to support a counting methodology that is based on MatchLogic’s TrueCount technology. This approach offers comparable metrics for both advertisers and publishers, using a thorough counting methodology.

NetGravity will license and implement TrueCount technology for its ad management solutions, offering a methodology that accounts for caching.

MatchLogic and NetGravity also agreed on a common format for media-independent advertising tags for third party ad serving, referred to as the “Universal Ad Tag.” This will enable consistent delivery and measurement of all types of rich media ads, and ease the cooperation between third-party ad serving and site products.

They also said they will work together to develop and promote a standard for representing and sharing anonymous consumer profiles for precision targeted advertising. The format will include a base set of profile fields known as a “common profile,” and will include an API and format to extend and add a wide variety of audience information, known as “common profile extensions.” This common profile will enable multiple data providers to easily share and aggregate information.

“NetGravity and MatchLogic combined customers represent a significant portion of the online advertising dollars spent and managed by publishers today” said John Danner, CEO and chairman of San Mateo, CA-based NetGravity. “Our cooperative partnership will improve interaction between buyers and sellers, and aid the growth of our industry. The two organizations share common goals, and will continue to work with organizations such as the IAB and FAST, and actively support their standards as well.”

“This is a win-win-win situation for MatchLogic, NetGravity and the industry overall,” said Pete Estler, CEO of Westminster, CO-based MatchLogic. “The three initiatives. . . will allow all marketers to utilize the medium more efficiently and in turn generate a higher ROI.”