Execs & Accounts for October 29, 2003

Business news publisher MarketWatch.com has named Erin Howard to head its new Atlanta sales office.

Prior to joining MarketWatch, Howard was interactive marketing account director for AOL and an account executive at Cox Interactive Media. She will handle southeast regional sales for the MarketWatch.com’s online properties, including CBS MarketWatch and BigCharts.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has tapped 24/7 Real Media’s Open AdStream Central for ad serving on its Web site. The pro wrestling news and e-commerce site said it chose Open AdStream to improve deliverability and better accomodate growth in its online advertising business.

“24/7 Real Media’s client-centric approach did a remarkable job of assessing our needs and then migrating WWE to Open AdStream in an extremely quick and efficient manner,” said Felipe Negron, director of network administration for WWE.

Torstar’s Toronto Star will use Tacoda Systems‘ audience management system and its new audience registration system to harvest data on its Web site.

The newspaper will use Tacoda’s tools to collect information on separate users into individual profiles containing demographic data, site behavior or the propensity to click on ad banners. Users can then be grouped into audience segments for marketing purposes.

“TACODA has built a track record of elevating the performance of behavioral-targeted ads to a level far surpassing traditional online advertising,” said Victor Kruklis, Toronto Star’s VP of marketing.

TeaLeaf Technology has added American Blinds and Schwan Foods to its client roster. The companies will use TeaLeaf’s technology to replay abandoned user sessions exactly as they occurred. The system is designed to help understand what drives a failure to convert, with an eye toward retaining and reactivating prospects.