New Funding, Tech Platform for Downstream Online

VENTURE capital firm Netus has taken a significant stake in search marketing company Downstream Online, allowing it to boost staffing and bring the Efficient Frontier pay per click bid management platform to Australia.

Efficient Frontier is used by some of the world’s largest search marketers, including Expedia and Amazon. Downstream has exclusive rights for Australia and New Zealand.

Founder Stephen Knowles said Efficient Frontier takes a “portfolio” rather than a “rules based” approach to keyword selection and bidding.

“Efficient Frontier technology is able to evaluate and adjust the entire campaign, unlike some other platforms which analyse individual keywords one by one before measuring them against a benchmark such as Cost Per Click, Cost Per Acquisition or Return on Investment.”

He said new client ninemsn has been using Efficient Frontier with strong results.

“They are getting almost three times as many clicks for the same spend.”

Meanwhile, Knowles said Downstream Online has appointed five staff over the past month, including two campaign managers, two sales managers and a financial controller.

“It was really tough to find good staff,” he said, mirroring the opinion of many in the industry.

“We were looking for four months before we got the people we wanted.”

Copyright Search Engine Room

30 January 2007