“We are able to assist our customers more efficiently and achieve economies of scale”
Point Blank is an independent digital ad Trading Desk, operated by a team with a strong expertise in ad operations and performance-driven marketing. Point Blank helps its clients to increase reach, traffic and conversions through a relatively new way of selling and buying display advertising, called Programmatic Advertising.
Complete solution for digital advertising campaigns
Based on its experience in performance driven advertising on the one hand, media and campaign management and technical operations on the other hand, Point Blank is able to provide a complete solution for digital advertising campaigns. When Point Blank commenced its activities in 2013, Real Time Bidding (an auction process where you bid on banner placements one impression at a time, allowing advertisers to identify the most valuable audiences and target these exclusively, thus saving money and increasing ROI) was still very new. Point Blank was considering various options to market and sell its services when one of the founders came across Aexus.
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Skilling up & gaining customer feedback
Alex Van de Wal (Managing Partner at Point Blank) remembers that he and his co-founder decided to give the collaboration that Aexus proposed a chance. Van de Wal: “The market was still in its infancy stage. We knew we had to obtain a more in-depth market understanding first, followed by extensive evangelization.” In the early stages of our cooperation, both Aexus and Point Blank invested significantly in skilling up and in gaining tons of customer feedback.
“This is one of the main advantages of working with a sales outsourcing company such as Aexus: we were able to scan the market in a low risk, fast and cost effective way”
Limited amount of resources and time
“Together, we determined which areas seemed most challenging and where the biggest potential was and we defined our strategy and plans based on this. Because of our partnership with Aexus, we could do this by investing only a limited amount of resources and time from our own organization. Being a small, pragmatic and highly results oriented organization, we immediately zoomed in on the accounts that seemed most promising. Fortunately, it did not take too long until we were able to start the first test campaigns. The total incubation time was approximately six months.”
“We started working together with Aexus around the Summer and had developed a strong funnel which generated a continuous stream of new business by the end of that year.”
Finding the right people is difficult
“Besides its partnership with Aexus, Point Blank also has its own sales staff. Van de Wal: “In the early days, we found it difficult to find the right people, with the right profile and background. And when Aexus proved to be a good choice for the new business development activities of our company, there was no immediate need any more for Point Blank to invest in its own talent acquisition.
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Launch new services in a very fast and scalable manner
“We worked closely with Aexus to try out new approaches, focus in on new promising target groups and launch new services in a very fast and scalable manner. And we continuously monitored and optimized our joint activities. Earlier this year, we did hire our own account director, though. He is focusing on what we call organic leads: mostly locally operating, somewhat smaller organizations coming out of our network or contacting us via our website. Meanwhile, Aexus is focusing on the large accounts.”
“By having such clear, distinct responsibilities there is no overlap. Instead, we are able to assist our customers more efficiently and achieve economies of scale as a result of increased focus.”
Selling together is much more comprehensive
Through the years, the scope of the collaboration has broadened. Van de Wall: “Initially we focused on RTB, but now the offering that we are selling together with Aexus is much more comprehensive. We are basically providing our customers with a complete solution for their digital marketing strategy, including programmatic, but also search, social and marketing automation.”
“By working with Aexus, we are able to concentrate on what we do best: maintaining and developing our service offering and keeping our customers happy.”