Seoul based MOCOPLEX has recently announced a strategic alliance with SMAATO, an Ad specialist company based in San Francisco. The partnership will leverage the unique expertise of each partner, while expanding their reach by combining Ad networks in their respective home markets.
Much discussion in Korea has recently centered around the difficulties of successfully expanding into new markets. Korean/Asian startups often struggle to take hold outside their domestic borders. In the same way, US based technology companies often find penetrating Asian markets much more difficult than they’d expected. A strategic alliance like the one forged between MOCOPLEX and SMAATO could become part of the normal route to inter-regional market expansion.
Recently, a similar alliance between US based Tapjoy and Seoul based 5 Rocks also demonstrated the value of collaboration, as a means of market entry and rapid upskilling. In this case Tapjoy acquired 5Rocks, though the relationship between MOCOPLEX and SMAATO is that of partners.
MOCOPLEX was founded in 2011, and since then has built a reputation in the domestic market as the undisputed #1 Mobile Ad Mediation service provider. Their Ad platform “Adlib” launched in 2012. Earlier this year the company also attracted investors, raising $2.5 million USD from investors that included CyberAgent Ventures, who have made a number of strategic investments in Korean companies (including KakaoTalk). They bring extensive Ad experience as well as Asian corporate networks, to support their portfolio companies.
Thanks to this injection of cash, MOCOPLEX has been focusing on building out their technical solutions as part of an aggressive strategy to expand their business globally. “We already have real time bidding on our platform - this will become a big issue on mobile in the near future,” explained a company representative.
Their Real Time AdTracker hs also been developed to a level far beyond other similar services in Korea. It is able to track user behavior in real time on PC, MobileWeb, and MobileApp. Tracking includes installation tracking as well as purchase tracking and conversion tracking. While this level of tracking has been possible on web for some time, MOCOPLEX is one of the first to bring these benefits to advertisers on mobile. Their ‘Personalized Targeting’ service, based on user click behavior analysis, is also empowering advertisers to make much higher returns on Ad spend.
As part of MOCOPLEX’s rapid growth strategy, they have recently confirmed a strategic partnership with global mobile advertisement company SMAATO. As part of the partnership they will be ‘interlocking their own advertising platform 'Adlib' with SMAATO’s own services to create a more complete service offering.
As a result of the partnership MOCOPLEX will be able to provide a much more robust SSP network to international advertisers, having secured SMAATO's network of 80,000 app developers and publishers. SMAATO also now can successfully enter the local Korean market through a DSP Network expansion strategy, in conjunction with Adlib.
RTB Exchange (Real Time Bidding Exchange) is displaying DSP's highest unit-priced advertisements through real-time auctions. The process is similar to the financial markets as it links the highest value Ads to most efficient media. The RTB Exchange market size has been increasing steadily and the combined strength of the partnership presents a great opportunity for capturing this opportunity.
Na-ra Park, a representative of MOCOPLEX said: "Since MOCOPLEX is the only domestic Korean company able to provide an RTB Exchange we were the natural choice to partner with SMAATO. Our goal now is to grow Adlib into an ad-platform that is able to compete on a global scale. We believe this is possible in partnership with SMAATO."
