Newly Launched Ad Network Impact Radius Lands $6 Million In Funding

For performance marketing, the trend in 2010, is for networks to go multi-channel. Impact Radius, who just officially announced their launch last Monday, is poised to get a jump start on that trend. Touting itself on the argumentative moniker as the “first multi-channel performance advertising solution”, Impact Radius does come out of the gate offering a wide array of solutions to its advertisers and publishers.

Ads can be slotted and tracked on a wide variety of media online; but what is really powerful is their ability to track performance based ads offline in such traditional placements as TV, radio, and print. This ability does provide Impact Radius a first mover market edge over many ad networks for advertisers looking for a single place to help broker and manage integrated multi-channel campaigns.

Started by long time industry veterans Todd Crawford and Lisa Riolo, both have had extensive experience at Commission Junction and in the affiliate industry, the company shows none of the hesitation of a new start-up. This is clear by their move to capitalize on their cutting edge position as  Impact Radius announced today that they have secured $6 million dollars in financing led by Redpoint Ventures. Redpoint Ventures partner, Greg Martin, who with this investment was named to the Impact Radius board said,

“Impact Radius is now introducing the next generation performance advertising platform—meeting the needs of advertisers and media partners across all forms of media. This will truly change the business of advertising distribution and enable great new business opportunities.”

Consider the gauntlet thrown. Many networks are piecemealing offline features like pay-per-call. It will be interesting to see how quickly the other ad networks start to role out similar services around television and radio. There is also the question of advertiser education since many companies today have not internally integrated their online and offline initiatives which are often run by completely separate teams with separate budgets.

This will an interesting battle to watch in 2010. Look for our in-depth interview with Lisa Riolo of Impact Radius later this week.