QUISMA, a GroupM company and a leading performance marketing specialist across Europe, launched in the UK earlier this year. It was a move designed to ensure GroupM kept pace with other competitors such as Publicis, who have Performics in the group acting as the performance marketing specialist.

At the time of the launch, confusion reigned around how an agency with proprietary technology would coexist in a larger agency entity. There was also a degree of uncertainty of how QUISMA would effectively be able to position itself in a holding group that has in the past struggled with clear clarification of how its various components operate alongside each other. Nine months since the launch, ExchangeWire caught up with Ronald Paul, CEO of Quisma to discuss how the integration has been managed and whether they have been required to pivot their model.

What was behind GroupM’s motivation to acquire QUISMA?

QUISMA was founded in 2001 in Germany and very quickly became one of the biggest agencies for search engine marketing in the country.

GroupM’s motivation for acquiring QUISMA in 2007 was primarily to gain expertise in search. Over the years we have gradually implemented additional services, such as affiliate marketing and performance display advertising, until QUISMA became the dominant performance marketing agency within Europe, with 12 offices in ten countries.

With more than 200 staff, QUISMA specialises in all areas across digital marketing, and our strong European footprint means we can quickly and efficiently service and scale a client’s campaign across multiple markets.

How have you integrated into GroupM?

From the very beginning, the collaboration with the other GroupM agencies has worked well. Our integration into GroupM has been a great success.

For example, QUISMA’s performance product has been a great addition to Xaxis’ audience products and Videology’s video on demand products. Connecting the three platforms means we can offer our clients a powerful solution that can meet their advertising needs and objectives whatever they may be.

How autonomous is the business? Can you work outside of GroupM?

Just as with all GroupM agencies we operate as our own entity, but we enjoy the benefits of collaboration and grouped resources. Don’t forget, we are the lead performance agency in Germany and over 60% of our business is direct. In the UK we work very closely with our GroupM partner agencies, as our first priority is GroupM’s clients. However, we are increasingly seeing interest from direct clients in the UK as well.

Are you viewed as an internal agency? Or an internal network? How are you positioned internally?

As mentioned, QUISMA has autonomy within the group and operates as its own entity, just as the other GroupM agencies do. QUISMA is what I call a ‘next generation performance agency’. By this I mean a technology-led agency with our own proprietary platform, which is augmented by experts working across search, affiliate marketing and all areas of performance display, including dynamic retargeting, conversion optimisation and attribution modelling.

The days of tools that can only measure performance are long over. The QUISMA Media Platform brings together all the components that are crucial for the success of a client’s campaign.

Our platform includes a high-performance ad server which is connected to all major ad exchanges and is capable of auto-optimising campaigns to deliver the best campaign results, combined with a holistic multi-channel tracking system that can anonymously track user activity across all channels and identify the highest-performing and least-performing conversion paths.

However, pure reliance on tech can also have its limitations. We’re focussed on ensuring each individual performance area of the agency is supported by a dedicated technical team. Whether it’s analysis and tracking tools for an overview and optimisation of campaign performance, or intelligent applications for affiliates, or bid management and ad serving software – great success is achieved with a combination of superior technology and expert advice. Because of this, we’re well-placed to complement and service our sister agencies with the performance element for their client campaigns.

How does QUISMA operate alongside Xaxis? Is there a natural distinction between what you both offer? How does consolidating buys into QUISMA and Xaxis deliver incremental benefit?

We work closely with the Xaxis team, as we do with all agencies and departments within GroupM. Xaxis leverages data and technology for advanced audience targeting for advertisers, whilst QUISMA offers the performance-based element including measurement of offline impact through econometric modelling. Our services are therefore distinctive but complimentary.

We’re seeing clear benefits for clients who consolidate their media buys into QUISMA and Xaxis: namely increased efficiencies in their media buy, resulting in the best rates and results. Advertisers who run their whole digital campaign across QUISMA and Xaxis are able to benefit from greater transparency and insight across the full customer journey.

Can shared learnings be applied at execution level?

Within QUISMA we take industry learnings from cross-platform campaigns and utilise this data in real-time for maximum efficiency within the buying process. The difference for advertisers is that neither company is vying to have their methodology seen as the only true channel, rather, we work closely to make sure that at all times the advertiser’s aims and objectives are constantly being considered throughout the lifetime of the campaign.

How do GroupM agencies leverage QUISMA expertise without being in conflict with other services/offerings? In particular, how do MediaCom Direct and QUISMA exist alongside each other?

QUISMA offers risk-free digital CPA solutions to clients, while Mediacom ensures best allocation across all channels, digital and offline. While Mediacom operates in a fully transparent agent model, where the conversion risk lies on the client’s side, QUISMA takes the full conversion risk. Also, Mediacom owns the direct client relationship, has the holistic brief and is there to activate the client’s needs across a range of media vehicles. The Mediacom team works closely with the QUISMA team to make sure the buy is optimised and invested in properly within the context of the other media’s performance.

The advantage of QUISMA's performance suite is that it's not an off the shelf solution but tailored to each advertiser's specific campaign needs. When working with MediaCom Direct we will look at the objectives of the campaign, and when QUISMA is the best option, we will operate as MediaCom's performance partner just as they would buy any other media, such as press or TV.

QUISMA takes the phase after planning and technically executes the media distribution, campaign optimisation, and campaign deliver,y offering MediaCom Direct a level of consolidation across all Performance Media. Our product suite allows us to manage multiple response objectives, across a single multichannel platform (QMP). The ability to offer no risk payment models with bespoke solutions for each campaign goal, adds value to MediaCom Direct's planning strategies.

What differentiates QUISMA from an RTB perspective?

Having our own proprietary technology stack that has been built from the ground up definitely gives us an advantage. We have our own bidder, unique to QUISMA, with predictive learning algorithms gaining insights across the user’s entire digital journey, not just their display touch points.

Our QUISMA Media Platform is connected to the main exchanges, SSPs and, indeed, large publishers, meaning that we have a single-dashboard view of all campaigns. From an optimisation viewpoint, it’s a much more efficient and effective way to manage client budgets and ensure that you’re hitting their objectives.

When you overlay the client’s first- or third-party data on top of this, things start to get really interesting. For example, when we integrate third-party semantic data into the bidding process, we are able to make accurate targeting decisions in a real-time environment.

QUISMA has a heritage around advanced measurement. How does this apply to RTB?

With so much crowding in the RTB market, it’s important to have full visibility across the whole customer journey and not just the activity delivered via RTB. I believe our real value in this space lies in our ability to analyse a client’s RTB activity in conjunction with their other online activity, and even offline activity, and start to do this in real-time.

With an ever increasing move towards digitisation of other channels, such as the unification of telephone, internet and mobile, it won’t be very long until users can be identified across several devices in real-time. It would lead to a significant increase in efficiency, since costs for advertising would fall while the output of the highly targeted advertising mediums would rise.

The increased availability of data will certainly enhance our use of RTB and will set a new standard for data processing. This presents an exciting challenge for marketing researchers and research departments within agencies.

There is a wealth of inventory available within the RTB environment - the challenge is to provide the advertiser with real insight and value about the inventory. It’s not just about buying inventory via RTB, but using real-time prices and insight to get that inventory. This is where you have to be clever: the advertiser’s data, audience information, as well as context of that impression, all have to come into play.