We’re pleased to announce that Jana Kusick, formerly Head of Publisher Sales, has with immediate effect taken over the position of Director Cooperations here at plista. In this newly created role, Kusick will take on the overall responsibility for the development and expansion of both online and mobile strategic partnerships. She will also oversee the strategic planning and coordination of all international activities in the field of marketer and publisher cooperations.

Together with Dirk Schacht, the Director of Sales, Kusick will be responsible for expanding the mobile team in order to develop a powerful unit to further strengthen the mobile network. In close cooperation with the plista management, Kusick will also be responsible for entry into new markets such as Spain and France.

Prior to taking on the role of Director Coorporations, Kusick was as Head of Publisher Sales responsible for maintaining relationships with existing clients and the acquisition of publishers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Since joining plista in February 2010, Kusick has established many partnerships, including but not limited to United Internet Media, OMS, Axel Springer, Burda and Interactive Media.

It’s official: personal recommendations are the most trusted form of communication when it comes to consumer behavior. According to a recent report on ‘Trust in Advertising’ by the research company Nielsen, 88% of those surveyed stated that a recommendation from a friend would entice them towards a product or service, with online consumer reviews coming in second at 64%.

Listening to the recommendations of a trusted friend will go far in influencing behavior, but relevant recommendations can also come in the form of innovative targeted advertising. Personalized advertisements can help build trust, develop the consumer-brand relationship and encourage user interaction- be that a click, a purchase or brand endorsement in the form of glowing reviews.

Here at plista, we offer market-leading recommendation technologies, and with the groundbreaking RecommendationAds are able to deliver individually personalized ads straight to the target audience. Our clever algorithms analyze user data and deliver relevant content recommendations to the user via the plista ‘you might also find this interesting…’ format, based on his or her interests.  The user finds the ads useful and relevant, as the content recommendations have been tailored specifically to their personal browsing experience. And as there is no interruption to the reader flow, positive brand perception develops.

If personal recommendations influence online consumer behavior the most, then individual targeting based on user’s interests in the form of personalized content recommendations is surely the next logical step in ensuring high attention and response rates. The results speak for themselves: our RecommendationAds have an average click-through rate of 7,4%, and a 33% higher conversion rate compared to classic text/image ad formats.

With the plista RecommendationAds, everyone benefits: advertisers and publishers generate revenue, and users receive individually tailored recommendations based on what they are actually interested in. Now that’s what we like to call the power of recommendation.

The plista-team is looking forward to attending Swiss Online Marketing, the major Swiss Trade Fair for digital marketing, in Zürich this week. As plista is expanding into the Swiss market, several meetings with big publishers and publishing houses have already been scheduled.

“We’re looking forward to gaining more high quality publishers as we expand into the Swiss market. Our attendance at Swiss Online Marketing should provide a great opportunity for making new contacts”, says Jana Kusick, Head of Publisher Sales.

We can’t wait. See you there!

From the 1^st of March, two new plista ad formats will become available:  SlideAds and FlyAds. These innovative, performance-based ad formats will enable advertisers to increase positive brand perception through targeted advertising. The ad formats can be modified and adapted to the individual needs of each advertiser, and publishers who want to profit from the new ad formats can as of now implement them cost-free.

The SlideAd, a text/image format, and the FlyAd, a ‘flying image format’, incorporate plista’s proven targeting technology, which enables individual reader recommendations to be delivered to the user. Through this type of relevant, targeted advertising, attention and interaction rates significantly increase.

The SlideAds appear in the lower right-hand corner of a website after a user has read an article online, and can contain either a content recommendation linking to the site’s top article, or a relevant ad.

The FlyAds also appear in the lower right-hand corner, and have the ability to ‘fly’ horizontally across the webpage after a user has called up an online article.

“Our many advertising clients have repeatedly asked for an ad format that combines our highly successful targeting technology with image ad formats. With the SlideAds and FlyAds we now offer advertisers the possibility to effectively reach their target audiences with relevant, innovative ad formats, whilst at the same time increasing brand awareness, “explains Dr. Dominik Matyka, CEO and founder plista.

See a demonstration of a FlyAd here: http://www.plista.com/demo/flyad

We are delighted to announce that plista is partnering with Goldbach Audience, the Austrian Display, Performance, InGame and Mobile-Marketing specialist. Starting immediately, Goldbach will extend its own offer by implementing plista’s innovative RecommendationAds solution.

The newly created Austrian Performance Network will offer customers in Austria performance-based advertising models on a CPC-basis, and includes high-quality titles from both companies’ portfolios such as SPIEGEL ONLINE, BUNTE, XING and Bazar, amongst others. An easy-to-use self-service booking platform is now available for the network.

Participating publishers will receive the benefits of plista’s recommendation technology through the personalized RecommendationAds, which not only increase revenue, but also traffic and the duration of the visits.

Other publishers and advertisers can join the network at any time. Major partners are already negotiating to join, so the network will expand significantly over the next few weeks.

To find out more about the Austrian Performance Network, contact advertising@plista.com.

We are very pleased to announce that Dirk Schacht has joined plista as the new Sales Director.

Dirk will be responsible for heading up the sales department, winning new clients and partners and generally strengthening the sales side of things.

With over 10 years’ experience, Dirk was the ideal candidate for the position- one we spent over 6 months looking to fill. So, how does the man in question feel about his new role at plista?

“I’m very excited to have the opportunity to play an active part in the plista success-story. I see a huge growth potential in the exciting market of online marketing and I see plista at the forefront of product innovation and market know-how.

I’m looking forward to tackling the challenges ahead and to help make plista even more successful than it already is. A real driver for me is to be able to work with such great people here. Everyone is extremely motivated, driven and cares for the future of the company. That makes working here a privilege and a pleasure.”

Welcome aboard, Dirk!