ZEDO founder launches online ad exchange

BANGALORE, INDIA: Indian-origin Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of ZEDO, an ad serving company, Roy de Souza, on Friday launched ZINC India, India's first online ad exchange through an independent company ZINC India Pvt. Ltd. specifically created for this purpose.

ZINC India will work as a marketplace or exchange that brings together publishers and media planners to buy and sell online ad inventory, said a press release.

The company is an e-commerce site that sells advertising space to media buyers and advertisers as easily and conveniently as travel sites sell airline tickets and hotel stays.

ZINC ad exchange allows any of the sites using ZEDO ad serving technology to immediately list their ad space for sale on the ZINC India Ad Exchange. Any advertiser or agency can then instantly find the ad space they need and buy it with a click of a button.

The publishers that are already selling on the exchange include key English websites and also newspaper websites in Hindi, Telegu, Tamil, Punjabi and Malayalam that also have high SEC readers visiting them.

ZEDO Inc. dominates the India market for Ad Serving and has 75-80 per cent of online websites in India using its technology platform for all the ads on their sites.

Its customers include NDTV.com, Hindustan Times, ABP, Malayalam Manorama, Mid-Day, DNA, Walt Disney India, UTV Bloomberg, Star TV and many more.

According to Roy de Souza, CEO, ZEDO and MD of ZINC Ad Exchange (India), “An Ad exchange is a one- stop- shop for agencies to compare prices and buy online ad space. Today, if any agency needs to buy online ads he/she needs to call up websites and ad networks to get current market rates and availability”

The agency, he added, will then put all this together and then again present these rates to the client. This is way too time consuming and inefficient. ZINC is the future of the buying reserved inventory online.

“Besides showing online ad rates LIVE much like a stock exchange, it will save agencies a lot of time and money. Agencies as well as publishers are already very excited about this new avenue!,” he said.