Last week, Adtrade announced a new partnership with Anjos do Brasil to support the organization with display ad strategy and implementation in Brazil. Together, the two will work to develop the domestic digital advertising market and demonstrate for both investors and entrepreneurs the opportunities available in the sector.
This marks another of a string of partnerships for Adtrade, a provider of online advertising services and technologies. Launched in July 2013 by Fernando Mifano Galender and Robson Del Fiol, Adtrade is the third investment made by Project A Ventures in Brazil.
On the heels of the Anjos do Brasil partnership announcement, Mifano Galender spoke with PulsoSocial.
Emily Stewart: You’ve lined up a number of partnerships with various entities. Why take this approach?
Fernando Mifano Galender: Adtrade is primarily focused on educating the market about the benefits of programmatic buying. In a country like Brazil, evangelization is crucial to drive change, and at the end of the day, Adtrade will only succeed if the market understands the value of our services. We have selected IAB (International Advertising Bureau) and APADi as partners because we see them as the country’s most influential organizations when it comes to promoting events about digital marketing.
In parallel, entrepreneurship has always been part of the DNA of our company. Since our inception, we have been incubated with other ventures at Project A (a seed investment fund) and saw other startups as promising clients. It is rewarding to help Anjos do Brasil in connecting entrepreneurs to investors, creating job opportunities and stimulating the growth of the Brazilian economy.
ES: The digital advertising industry in Latin America is still in the very early stages. What do you think needs to happen for it to further develop?
FMG: Latin Americans need to understand the changes developed countries have gone through to narrow this gap. It is important to understand the whole picture of user conversion paths to create a successful digital marketing strategy. The short-term focus on a last-click attribution model – established mostly by the advent of Google Adwords – has distorted expectations and the understanding of other important digital marketing channels.
ES: Are Brazilian companies starting to understand the value of digital advertising? What sectors are still holding back?
FMG: We see a clear shift of investments from offline to digital channels. This has been happening progressively as more channels – such as display, social media, video and mobile – are added. Large offline agencies still manage most of the market’s advertising budget, and some of them are still reluctant to drive investments away from television, as they have a large chunk of their revenues coming from legal cashback benefits from TV stations. Luckily, advertisers are becoming increasingly performance-driven, and that has been helping the market understand the importance of the online marketing channels to achieve their targets.
ES: Where do you see the biggest opportunities in digital advertising in Latin America and Brazil? What platforms and technologies?
FMG: Latin Americans are heavy users of social networks, and there are great opportunities for advertisers to take advantage of this by engaging with their audiences and creating awareness of products and services. Currently, most companies are struggling to grow exclusively through search campaigns, which are getting exponentially expensive, and through traditional display campaigns, where you see an important dispersion of inventory and poor optimization opportunities.
Big data technologies and real-time advertising should provide opportunities for advertisers to access cheaper inventory, through DSPs (demand-side platforms) and SSPs (supply-side platforms) and optimize display campaigns to drive conversions. The advent of DMPs (data management platforms) providing information on users’ navigation patterns will be instrumental in increasing target accuracy and the effectiveness of media buying.
ES: What about mobile?
FMG: Mobile is becoming an increasingly important channel to interact with customers. A recent study from comScore shows that 65% of total social network access comes from mobile devices. In addition, Millward Brown conducted research (AdReaction) showing that Brazilians are spending on average more time with mobile devices than in front of the television, 149 vs. 113 minutes per day, respectively. This demonstrates how important it is for advertisers to effectively engage with users of such devices and adapt their communication accordingly.
