Publicitas Digital and AdMagnet to jointly handle ad sales duties of People Interactive

People Interactive owns portals such as Shaadi.com (matrimonial site), Fropper.com (social networking) and Makaan.com (real estate)

People Interactive, which outsourced the ad sales function of its portals such as Shaadi.com (matrimonial site), Fropper.com (social networking) and Makaan.com (real estate) to online ad network company AdMagnet Select in 2009, has now also appointed Publicitas Digital, an online and mobile media sales firm, to handle its ad sales function.

Publicitas Digital and AdMagnet to jointly handle ad sales duties of People Interactive

According to the new arrangement, AdMagnet Select will continue to look after the ad sales duties for People Interactive in Mumbai and Maharashtra, while Publicitas Digital will help the company to rope in advertisers from eight Indian states, including Delhi and NCR, Karnataka, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat.

"The key reason for appointing Publicitas Digital is that for matrimonial advertising, we need to get into smaller cities as well and Publicitas has a presence in these. AdMagnet has done a great job, so we will continue with it but have added Publicitas to supplement our revenues," says Anupam Mittal, founder and chief executive officer, People Group, in an e-mail response to afaqs!.

"While we have always been clear that ad sales is not our core business, we needed to demonstrate the viability of advertising on vertical sites such as ours for advertisers, which we have done over the last few years. Now that the revenues have scaled up and the model is proven, the upside is best left to the specialists. We hope to increase our revenues up to 40 per cent in the near future through our partnership with Publicitas Digital," Mittal adds.

As per an industry estimate, People Interactive earns up to Rs 20 crore as advertising revenue from all its sites. The company claims that it has ad inventory of more than 300 million impressions.

Namita Sahu, chief operating officer, Publicitas Digital, says, "Publicitas Digital will help People Interactive to leverage its sales network across eight states in India. We promise a focused dialogue for national as well as local advertisers with their target markets, thereby maximising Shaadi.com's value proposition through this equation."

AdMagnet Select is a part of DGTL Media and is backed by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. As per the information available on Publicitas Digital's website, the company also handles the ad sales of the websites Reuters.co.in and Anandabazar.com in India.

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