Sky hires search marketing giant

BSkyB has appointed Efficient Frontier to deliver paid search marketing services across all its divisions in the UK. The deal will cover marketing areas such as customer acquisition and mobile campaigns, with the potential to integrate search with display advertising and social media.
Efficient Frontier manages more than $1bn spend by major advertisers on performance marketing programmes; and in April last year it launched the industry’s first platform to integrate biddable display advertising and Facebook advertising with search marketing.
Last week, BSkyB put the finishing touches to its digital agency roster with the appointment of Elvis Communications and 20:20 to the £10m business.
Matt Turner, head of online sales and marketing at Sky, said: “Achieving the highest possible return for our marketing investment is critical for Sky and we trust Efficient Frontier to deliver superior performance through its leading technology and services. We particularly liked Efficient Frontier’s unique approach in delivering a unified platform that integrates search with display and social media. Additionally, the Efficient Frontier platform’s predictive modelling lets us accurately assess what returns our initiatives will deliver going forward, providing important data in establishing budget and goals.”
Nick Morley, vice president and general manager for Europe of Efficient Frontier, said: “Sky’s decision to work with Efficient Frontier is further vindication of our unique approach to performance marketing. I am confident we have the right blend of technology and strategic services to drive performance gains for Sky and give it greater visibility and control over where and how it spends its online budget”.
Founded in 2002, Efficient Frontier pioneered the application of modern portfolio theory for search engine marketing and today combines its core predictive modelling algorithms and bidding technology with comprehensive strategic and tactical value-added services.
The company’s headquarters are in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in New York, the UK, France, Germany, and India, and technology licensing partnerships in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia.

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