Jukka Sundquist is Partner and Head of Display at KliKKi, a Digital Marketing company focused on the Nordics markets. Here Sundquist gives an overview of the KliKKi porposition in the Nordics, the real-time technology they are currently building out and the opportunity for Nordic performance and brand advertisers around programmatic buying. Sundquist will be speaking at the upcoming ATS Stockholm event.

Can you give some overview on the Klikki solution in the Scandinavian market? Are you a pure play digital agency?

Klikki is a fast-growing Nordic Digital Marketing Company with offices in Helsinki, Stockholm, Piteå, Copenhagen and Oslo. The Company represents the next generation of Digital Marketing Company focusing on technology-driven, results-based, integrated digital marketing solutions that maximise the total effect of our clients’ digital marketing budgets.

We provide services within four main areas:

- Klikki Search - Paid Search and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services
- Klikki Display - Advanced Display Solutions
- Klikki Social - Brand and Sales Promotion services utilising Social Media
- Klikki Analytics - Website analysis, Conversion Optimisation and integrated reporting services

In Finland we do have our own online display network as well, but I think it is safe to say that we are a pure play digital agency.

Are you building out your own technology to buy dynamic inventory? Can you give some insight into the process?

Yes, we started out this project a little over a year ago and we are now connected to Doubleclick, Admeld and Appnexus. We launched our own DSP technology, KliKKi ASX, in January this year to great reviews. Since the launch, we have done campaigns in all nordic countries.

Are you building your own bidder? How difficult is it building and successfully launching a bidder? Will buyers have to build their own to differentiate?

Yes, we have that available to our clients already. Building it is of course a lot of work and is still a work in progress. We learn new stuff based on campaign data every day and use that data in our development. The goal is of course to deliver the right ad, for the right person, at the right time with the right price. This is a mix of making our bidding algorithm better and better, as well as having the best targeting options available. Just building your own bidder isn't necessarily enough to differentiate yourself, you need the targeting tools as well. On a regional level, however, building your own bidder helps, since people's online behavior usually seems to vary a bit between regions.

What kind of trends are you seeing in the display market? Are your advertiser clients looking at automated buying as an opportunity to drive more ROI?

RTB and advanced targeting solutions are the driving trends in the display market here in Scandinavia. Advertiser clients are looking at automated buying as an opportunity to drive more ROI in increasing numbers, but we are still just in the beginning stages of the whole evolution of Display in Scandinavia. There is still a lot of educational work that needs to be done with clients. In general it can be said though that all clients are looking for more efficient and better performing solutions, of course, but what has changed in recent years is the fact that clients understand and demand data-driven analysis about the actual performance of the solutions used. No matter if the advertising goals are brand or sales related. This was not the case a couple years back.

Klikki works with a lot of brand advertisers. Are they not put off by the DR-focused aspect of buying display via RTB? How does this type if buying help them?

Well, in some cases it doesn't help. There still is, and will be, room for brand-related customised campaigns that are done with more human relations and in a specific media environment. Having said that, RTB with the right kind of better-advantaged targeting options that enable advertisers to identify their target groups from the whole inventory available, e.g. predictive behavioral targeting, can help these advertisers to increase their brand awareness, sympathy or purchase intention. The goals and the reporting need to be set-up and measured to show these things then as well. Looking at impressions, clicks and conversions doesn't really cut it in these cases. We at Klikki offer and have done these kinds of brand-related campaigns already with great success.

Klikki does a lot of SEM. Are you able to tap into resources and insight from this part of your business in order to drive better performance for clients?

We have our own R&D centre in Piteå, northern Sweden. We have more than 10 people constantly following up the changes that are done by Google to its algorithm, both in Adwords and Search Engine Optimization. Based on this, we constantly develop our tools to answer to the changing search environment. Nevertheless, we don't believe in pure automated solutions when it comes to SEM. There always needs to be a human touch to reach the best possible results.

There is a lot of competition from agency trading desks in the area of data-driven media buying. How is the Klikki solution differentiating itself in the market?

Firstly, the fact that we have been the first mover in the Nordic region is an important factor. We have been able to make a name for ourselves and thus we are often the natural choice. Secondly, compared to our more international players, we have a true Nordic presence. Thus we are able to provide better service and support to our clients compared to our international competitors. Lastly, since we have built our own technology, we are able to develop in a more rapid pace compared to other players and have already introduced, for example, more sophisticated targeting options. There are more new features to come later this year as well.

Are publishers putting inventory on the exchanges and SSPs? Are you seeing lots of premium inventory made available in the automated channel?

The smaller publishers are putting their inventory on the exchanges in good numbers, but the big ones are still holding back with their own SSPs. There is some premium inventory available in the automated channels, but most of that is still sold the traditional way. This will eventually change in Scandinavia as well, but it seems like the big publishers are waiting for the market to mature still a bit before they open their inventory to DSPs through their SSP solutions.

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