With SiteScout Acquisition, Centro Gives Ad Industry the Solution it Needs

by Amina Elahi
November 6, 2013

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You don’t have to be in Times Square to know how massive an industry advertising is. Everyday, as you browse the Internet, you come across any number of ads, all of which contribute to the massive growth of this industry. In fact, the global advertising industry is predicted to surpass $113 million by 2015. Despite the prevalence and importance of advertising however, the process of buying and selling ads is messy, confusing and, frankly, antiquated.

With a promise to transform and simplify the that process, local cloud-based media management platform Centro announced its acquisition of banner ad buying platform SiteScout yesterday. The transaction amounted to nearly $40 million in cash and stock, according to an AdAge report. What Toronto-based SiteScout brings to the table is a platform that offers self-serve real-time-bidding (RTB) capabilities.

“Centro already developed the programmatic guaranteed software, but was missing RTB technology,” says Centro CEO Shawn Riegsecker. “With the acquisition of SiteScout, Centro has all the components needed to fulfill its mission: to automate guaranteed and biddable transactions for all digital media.”

Riegsecker says the 33-person SiteScout team will remain at their homebase “until they outgrow it.” By integrating the SiteScout technology into Centro’s existing cloud-based offerings, he plans to help SiteScout double their local team within a year.

Compared to the three-year-old SiteScout, Centro is a mature company. Founded in 2001, Centro has built up an armory of relationships with over 1,200 agencies and 5,700 marketers. This is thanks to a robust network of sales, service and operations professionals — 370 in all — across some 33 U.S. markets. As of the deal’s closing on Monday, SiteScout was granted immediate access to these individuals, who will work to build on the company’s existing 4,000 customers.

For Centro, the biggest win here is the acquisition of a platform that will allow customers to consolidate their management of media, campaigns and operations. Take it from someone who’s worked in media: The current processes surrounding media planning and buying are at best clunky at at worst baffling.

“Advertisers want unified, self-serve solutions that empower them to plan and execute 100% of their digital media operations,” Riegsecker says. “This acquisition is a way for Centro to deliver a solution that agencies can use for all of their buys instead of having to log into many different systems for one single campaign.”

For the past three years, Centro has consistently been named one of the best places to work in Chicago. For the past four, it’s been profitable. According to Riegsecker, fast growth and profitability aren’t always pursued concurrently, especially where VCs are concerned. But for him and Centro, that sort of tandem-achievement is not only possible, it’s reality. It takes hard work, a strong culture and investment in employees, but it can be done.

“Being a profitable company almost every year of our existence is something we’re proud of and gives us a ton of balance sheet and capitalization table strength for the future,” Riegsecker says. With the acquisition of SiteScout, the eyes and ears of the advertising industry will be trained on Centro, anxious to see what’s to come.

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