AmEx Makes Display Move

“Display advertising can often be perceived as complicated or too expensive for small business owners. Many lack the design or media-buying expertise to run successful campaigns,” said Rob Ciccone, vp of AmEx OPEN. “We launched this product to bridge the gap between business owners’ current knowledge of the display advertising space and potential customers that are spending more time online. AdManager simplifies the inherently onerous process by offering a start-to-finish platform that tackles every facet of building and sustaining campaigns, from creating ads to determining where they will appear.”

The local sector is not only one of the fastest growing segments in advertising, but when local campaigns combine display with search the effects can be substantial, stated Ciccone.

“When combined with a search campaign, display advertising provides a significant lift in onsite engagement, and an increase in online purchasing by consumers exposed to integrated campaigns,” said Ciccone. That significant documented brand lift is one reason that brands, local and national, are placing an emphasis in local campaigns which have a higher ROI than national. Locally targeted campaigns such as those enabled by AdManager are expected to double to $2.3 billion, according to Ciccone.

Can AdManager succeed in an industry choking with DSPs? AmEX’s OPEN’s AdManager is aimed at small businesses that want the convenience of a single-dashboard DSP which connects basic functions like ad buys with CRM features and analytics. The platform “helps make digital display advertising work similarly to search advertising by allowing users to optimize campaigns and maximize return-on-investment by shifting budget to higher performing ads,” said Ciccone.