Value-exchange Advertising – Interview with SponsorPay

San Francisco is a hotbed of innovation. It’s the kind of place where last week’s ad:tech interactive advertising conference and this week’s Gamification Summit can meld into an entirely new and effective product. Value-exchange advertising is one of those, new methods.

Value-Exchange Advertising

Display advertising, especially on mobile platforms, doesn’t work for users. As the technology industry rapidly changes and content abounds, brands are searching for innovative ways to capture the attention of discerning consumers. Value-exchange advertising maintains consumer interest by provide value in a way that, done right, barely resembles advertising at all.

One company, SponsorPay has emerged as a leader in the value-exchange ad space. With particular focus on value exchange and top-notch brand engagement, the company has earned the trust of many leading publishers and brands alike. SponsorPay works with brands such as Warner Bros. and Coca-Cola to create user-initiated advertising campaigns with social video and engagement through social channels such as Facebook.

I learned more of the company’s recent success in an email interview with chief revenue officer and co-founder Janis Zech. “As an advertising platform for content monetization, our goal is to ensure value to all stakeholders via what we like to call our ‘win-win-win’ approach,” Zech explains. He describes the SponsorPay platform as an enabler of three-way wins for:

1. users of mobile and social apps to gain access to premium content in exchange for interacting with the ads,
2. advertisers to reach an engaged audience with high-quality ad units and,
3. publishers (and developers) to generate revenue from previously unmonetized users.

“We’ve seen our partnership with SponsorPay grow day by day…In only five months, they have become one of our strongest providers in performance-based campaigns,” confirms Güven Soydan, of SponsorPay client Mobilike.

Differentiating SponsorPay from other players in the market, is the company’s multi-platform approach. Zech explains, “For our advertiser clients, we offer the ability to run campaigns across multiple platforms, including web, social and mobile.” Additionally, the company serves as a single-point solution for the mediation of ad campaigns between sales teams, top agencies, DSPs and worldwide networks. “Our ad unit is remarkably flexible,” Zech continues, “allowing for a variety of high-quality engagement campaigns, incorporating video, social actions and purchase triggers as well as immersive advergames, designed by in-house creative team.”

SponsorPay announced its BrandEngage® product at last week’s ad:tech. The solution gives brands efficient ways to connect with consumers where they already spend their time. Social channels like Facebook and YouTube. “It’s a great product to not only build brand awareness, but also drive social engagement, consumer interaction and purchase intent,” Zech elaborates.

Case Study: The Hobbit

More than just creating solutions to answer the needs of online publishers and advertisers, SponsorPay focuses on complete user satisfaction. The company delivered some impressive metrics in their recent campaign for the movie, The Hobbit. Objectives of the campaign were to build awareness for the movie release, increase viral footprint, and encourage ticket purchases. Using a customized ad unit, SponsorPay focused on generating awareness using the movie trailer and driving ticket purchases on Fandango, followed by fan engagement on Facebook.

The results were stellar. SponsorPay’s immersive ads proved very effective in showcasing the movie to users across mobile, social and online channels as well as building social engagement and purchase intent.

What’s Next?

I asked Zech for a taste of what’s in the works and hasn’t been announced. “For our advertisers clients,” he reveals, “we’re launching a new tool called Planner.” As Zech describes it, this audience verification tool will allow advertising clients to isolate and target user groups based on demographic, geographic and other attributes. The new product is being developed with data collected in partnership with measurement leaders Nielsen and comScore.