Kontera Unveils ContentLink Local Allowing Advertisers to Target Their Audiences to the City

Kontera Unveils ContentLink™ Local Allowing Advertisers to Target Their Audiences to the City Level Company enters comScore’s Top-50 ad-focused networks, achieving a reach of more than 42 million unique users in the US alone.

San Francisco, CA, October 24, 2007 – Kontera, a leading provider of In-Text Advertising™ solutions for web publishers and advertisers, announces new regional-targeting capabilities with the launch of ContentLink™ Local. This gives advertisers the ability to reach audiences at the country, state, city, area code and Designated Market Area (DMA) levels with their In-Text Advertising campaigns.
 
With this release, advertisers with local or regional-specific offerings are now able to further refine their In-Text ad campaigns and speak exclusively to a geographically relevant audience. Publishers benefit from the ability to offer more targeted, premium advertising packages. The ContentLink Local ad units are Kontera’s standard In-Text ad units and can include video, audio, flash animations, and interactive forms in addition to the standard text & logo ad unit.
 
According to Internet market research and analysis firm eMarketer, local and national businesses advertising in local markets will spend $2.9 billion in 2007, with that number rising to $7.8 billion in 2011. As a result, through 2011, spending for local online advertising will grow at a faster rate than either national advertising or total online advertising, eMarketer says.
 
“We know exactly where our demographic lives, so we need to ensure that our advertising message is seen only in these pin-pointed areas,” said Dr. Lloyd Krieger, founder & medical director, Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery.  “In reviewing our options, we decided to go with Kontera´s ContentLink Local which combines the proven effectiveness of their In-Text ad units with the ability to target at the DMA
level. And with the ads generating a CTR greater than 10% in the local markets we’re targeting, we’re glad that we did."
 
“Local targeting is arguably one of the most powerful and sought after customer-targeting tools on-line, and we wanted to be able to offer that to our advertisers to help them achieve their campaign objectives,” said Bryan Everett, SVP Sales and Business Development at Kontera.  “With ContentLink Local we’re able to deliver a more substantial offering to our publishers, a more targeted audience to our advertisers and a continuously customized online experience for our users.”
 
Though Kontera has national advertisers testing ContentLink Local, including Nortel and Chevrolet, the ability to provide an ROI for local advertisers as well like Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery provides a real proof-of-concept. “We’re looking forward to adding many new local advertisers, including those who previously advertised exclusively offline,” added Everett.
 
What sets ContentLinks apart from other In-Text Advertising solutions is Kontera’s technology - its unique real-time web page analysis that continuously fine-tunes the relevancy it delivers between the content, the keywords, the ad copy, and the advertiser’s products and services.  ContentLink is the only In-Text Advertising solution using a patent-pending text analysis technology to discover relevant keywords on a publisher’s web page in real-time and automatically match them to relevant ads that are shown upon user mouse-over.
 
“Offering Local Targeting and joining comScore’s top-50 ad networks are just the latest milestones in the last 18 months for Kontera, which has seen us raise nearly $18 million in VC funding, increase our publisher and advertiser base, and put us on a path to doubling our headcount,” said Yoav Shaham, CEO and founder of Kontera. “Stay tuned for new end-user focused functionality, like related content tools, improved technology-based relevancy, and net advertising opportunities.”