Featured Startup Pitch: ADmantX—Taking online ad targeting to a new level (without cookies)

Company: ADmantX
Website: www.admantx.com
Headquarters: Hartford, CT
Year Founded: 2010
Employees: 12
Investors: Atlante Ventures ($2.8 million, closed 6/8/11)
Company Description (in 140 characters or less): “ADmantX reads URLs and knows consumers ‘frame of mind’ in real time for superior contextual ad data including emotions and buying intention.”

By J. Brooke Aker, CMO

Product Overview

ADmantX is a contextual targeting data provider that improves the match between ads and content using semantic and natural language processing technology. We provide unique data channels on buyer intention and emotions that represent a consumers “frame of mind” in real time. This advanced contextual data is cookie-less and a viable alternative to behavioral targeting or can supplement the same. Recent Yahoo research suggests a combination of behavioral and contextual targeting generates 40 percent better ad engagement.

Founders’ Story

ADmantX is a spinoff of Expert System which is a leader in semantic web and natural language (NLP) processing platforms. Thus ADmantX was born from a 20 year history of spell checkers, grammar checkers, NLP, semantic networks and semantic coding tools across hundreds of corporate and government engagements. Now tuned for the digital advertising vertical space ADmantX is uniquely placed to excel at providing contextual data at a speed, depth and accuracy level not seen before.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

ADmantX uses a B2B marketing and promotion strategy. Our customers are the ad networks, demand and supply platform vendors, publishers, advertisers and their agency partners. We reach them with a direct sales force, publication of thought pieces, blogs, speeches, webinars and conference attendance to build awareness.

ADmantX also makes a full-featured version of its product available online for limited trial and use. Private, cost free trials are also part of the company’s marketing and promotional strategy.

How ADmantX differentiates itself from the competition

All semantic data providers to the online ad world must analyze URLs for people, places, things and content categories. ADmantX does this as well but at a greater depth than most with 35 entity types and 700 standard categories. Self-Serve, real-time design tools allow for the creation of new categories from combinations of standard categories. This gives ADmantX a nearly unlimited ability to tune semantic data matching algorithms.

Two additional data channels distinguish ADmantX. One is the emotion readers are likely to be experiencing as they consume content. The other is the buying intention content may elicit in readers. Buying intention is geared to direct response advertisers and emotions are geared to brand advertisers.

Business Model

ADmantX uses a traditional CPM model based on volume. Pages are analyzed and stored in a rolling cache with simple java script integration at the page or ad server level. Consumers who open the page call the semantic data associated with the URL and the data is integrated for ad placement in milliseconds. High volumes can be priced at three cents CPM.

Current Needs

ADmantX is expanding its sales professional staff in North America. We are looking for seasoned digital ad and digital media technology professionals who can sell to ad networks, platforms, exchanges, publishers, advertisers and agencies.

In 2012 ADmantX will be looking to raise a second round of funding to complement its sales, marketing, infrastructure and product efforts.

ADmantX – www.admantx.com