Centro Looks To Automate The Buying Of Premium Inventory With Transis Says Pres Riegsecker

Shawn Riegsecker is Founder & President of Centro, a media services and technology firm and makers of Transis, a media buying system.

AdExchanger.com: Can you discuss the pivots in Centro's business model since 2001? And how has it led today's Transis offering?

Centro’s vision is the same today as the day we started. Our whole belief was that, with the fragmentation of media choices, agencies and buyers wouldn’t be able to scale digital via old processes and using outdated tools like spreadsheets, emails, phones and faxes. Great software was going to have to come into the mix to automate the entire process from beginning to end. We figured if we could create automated software that could profitably scale local online, which is one of the hardest and most fragmented parts of the industry, we could help agencies become more profitable by giving them the software to use also.

After years of developing the software, using it and perfecting it internally, it was time to release it to the industry.

What problem is Transis solving?

Planning, placing, tracking and reconciling digital campaigns are a nightmare for most agencies. A 2009 AAAAs report said the cost of servicing a digital campaign averages about 25% to 30% of the media cost compared to 2% for TV. This is unsustainable. The problem is the industry spends around 80% of its time in low-value transactional activities versus highly strategic and creative thinking. Transis automates the low-value activities and gives digital media teams anywhere from 30% to 70% more of their time back to do the important things they like to do and their clients want them to do.