The Barcelona Diary: Andreas Akesson, speaker SIME Barcelona talks about why Performance Marketing is the new black

Andreas Akesson has a profile thats heavily drenched in marketing and creating brand perception and transactions through different vectors. Presently his day job is as a Partner in Result helping companies grow from different markets into Spain – specifically Barcelona where he has his base.

Rewind to 1996, Andreas joined Olé, the biggest Spanish search engine company managing Olé 1-2-3 (which today would be an equivalent to Google Adwords). In 2000 he founded his own online marketing agency, Active Internet Consulting which has worked with companies such as Autoscout24, Friendscout24, Cofidis, Planeta, Liberty Insurance, Extrafilm, Godo, and Unidad Editorial. Andreas also started a VC company focusing on new technologies (VC More, 2000-2001), an IT firm (Glaukopis, 2002-2004) and an ecommerce solution company applying artificial intelligence (Aibits, 2004-2006).

You can read Andreas’s profile here

We grabbed him to ask him a few questions about his talk at SIME Barcelona and why he thinks Performance Marketing is the new black.

Why do you think Performance Marketing has reinvented the concept of marketing again?
With Performance Based Marketing we mean the possibility, not only to track and know what advertising channel performs, but also in real time optimize the campaings in order to improve your results in terms of return on investment.

Is performance marketing the next step in the marriage between technology and marketing?
More and more we learn about the true value that Technology can offer in Performance Marketing. Criteo for instance improve optimizations based on their technology and so does most of the modern adservers. The displays that perform the best in terms of Cost per Sale will be the one exposed to the consumers. SEM is popular because it performs, not because Google is such a great brand.

Can any brand engage in performance marketing campaigns?
Performance Based campaigns or Direct Response campaigns is born through transactional modules but I believe that any type of brand should start to dig deeper on how and why they spend their advertising budget. BMW might not sell directly cars online but they can be able to measure response by building communities and making their consumers interact with the brand and in this way provide them with valid opinions. That is worth gold for any marketeer.

Is this one more nail in the coffin for traditional media focused brands and agencies?
I am sure that we will see a situation in the future where people say, “how could we spend expensive TV ads and not knowing the Return of investment and furthermore not being able to change the ads if nothing comes out of it”.

You can catch Andreas at SIME Barcelona. Have you registered yet?

The Barcelona Diary: Perform or get the hell out of my marketing budget

The Barcelona Diary will focus on an agenda topic a day, and the speaker(s) involved in the topic for SIME Barcelona. SIME Barcelona is to be held on June 16th with Barcelona Day of the Entrepreneur featuring over 5000 business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and press representatives.

You can read up about the agenda and register for SIME Barcelona here

Getting back to the agenda, the featured topic for today is the one at 10: 15 titled: Perform or get the hell out of my marketing budget

The experts featured in this panel are:

Andreas Åkesson, internationalization Internet strategy experts Result. Rewind to 1996,  Andreas joined Olé, the biggest Spanish search engine company managing Olé 1-2-3 (which today would be an equivalent to Google Adwords). In 2000 he founded his own online marketing agency, Active Internet Consulting which has worked with companies such as Autoscout24, Friendscout24, Cofidis, Planeta, Liberty Insurance, Extrafilm, Godo, and Unidad Editorial. Andreas also started a VC company focusing on new technologies (VC More, 2000-2001), an IT firm (Glaukopis, 2002-2004) and an ecommerce solution company applying artificial intelligence (Aibits, 2004-2006) and is currently working with Result as a Partner

Heiko Rauch, co-founder  and CFO / COO of Zanox one of Europe’s leading advertising networks and a global market leader for performance-based online marketing. Before joining the zanox executive team, Heiko served as a project manager for Bankgesellschaft in Berlin. His strengths in developing and maintaining lean, efficient organisational structures coupled with his strong financial competencies have proved a driving force in the success of zanox’ European and international expansion. It was also Heiko who established zanox’ subsidiary in the US – a strategic move to realise the vision of a globally spanning network covering Europe, Asia and the Northern American markets.

Grégory Gazagne, Criteo.com – Europe’s fastest growing retargeting company. Founded in 2005, Criteo provides the world leading pay per click (PPC) personalized retargeting solution. Criteo’s advanced technology enables online e-commerce sites to re-engage with potential customers who have left their website via dynamic banners containing the most relevant product specific recommendations that are generated in real-time for each individual.

Who is this panel for?

The focus of the panel will be on

• the latest trends in online marketing – more measurable, more ROI, more accountability …
• why performance based marketing is the new black – the deeper marriage between technology and marketing
• how you can turn clicks into cash with little or no risk – segmenting your  potential consumers from the rest.

Rest assured, the guys in the panel have been in the business of defining this new age marketing growing their clients visibility and revenue multifold.  If you are a marketer, a brand manager, a big company trying to understand the technology behind the idea or simply an enthusiast of new age marketing, you know which room to be in if you are in Barcelona.

Very welcome to take the leap with us at SIME Barcelona.

Christoffer Granfelt, the CEO of SIME has a special message for you

He wants you to beware of trends that will hit you at SIME Barcelona.
(Actually, we would also advise you to watch the road while crossing)

Take the leap with us at SIME Barcelona, June 16th

About SIME Barcelona

June 16th SIME Barcelona brings together some of the sharpest brains from the international digital arena. SIME Barcelona is a day with the best of SIME followed by business matchmaking for companies interested in doing business in Spain and Barcelona as well as expert workshops with international speakers.

SIME is hosted together with Barcelona Day of the Entrepreneur with 10 000 entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors and representatives of the press. SIME Barcelona is offered free and matchmaking and knowledge tracks are charged separately based on your needs.

More about the agenda, location and speakers here!

Welcome to a day of inspiration, knowledge, business and fun!

SIME Barcelona Registration Opens. Your SIME Experience is on us, for free!

SIME Barcelona June 16th opens its doors open for registration, and thanks to the City of Barcelona who have been lovely partners to work with, we are opening up the registration for free – your SIME experience is on us. And as its become part of the legend, we are thankful to our top notch speakers who have agreed to share their learnings with us and to party even harder to celebrate the digital scene and the personas.

Enter year 2 of SIME Barcelona, a half a day event featuring the best of SIME (speakers, content, discussions and party). Taking our learnings from 2009′s SIME Barcelona, SIME is once again bringing top minds to converge and discuss the digital world and this time adding in more flavor with a rock star, a criminal turned author cum director and many more.

We want you to enjoy the SIME journey with us, and we invite you to read up about the speakers, the agenda, and to register, to enjoy a quick download SIME version, a preview of sorts to the main Stockholm event in November.

• The Agenda
• The Speakers
• Register

Come, lets celebrate and learn the nuances of the digital world and explore greater digital opportunities.

Registration is right here

Very Welcome to the big SIME Day in Barcelona on the 16th of June!

SIME Barcelona – June 16th building up an incredible speaker roster. Who do you want to see at SIME Barcelona?

SIME Barcelona is about 40 days away, and we are building up an incredible speaker roster – a rock star, a screen play writer, a hacker, a futurist all on stage talking about digital opportunities, talk  about marrying diversity and maximization.

Take a look at last year’s SIME Barcelona Speakers

16-17 June SIME Barcelona is hosted together with Barcelona Day of the Entrepreneur with 5 000 entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors and representatives of the press. SIME Barcelona is a day with the best of SIME followed by business matchmaking for companies interested in doing business in Spain and Barcelona as well as expert workshops with international speakers. SIME Barcelona is offered free and matchmaking and knowledge tracks are charged separately based on your needs.

Take a look at a proposed v 0.1 agenda – to be fine tuned in the coming days

Barcelona has been a great host city to SIME. SIME held in partnership with the Barcelona City Council go back 2 years in time. Couple of folks came from the City Council Barcelona to SIME Stockholm in 2008, were quite impressed with the show and wanted to export the concept into Barcelona to give Spanish entrepreneurs access to world class digital knowledge. And we had SIME Barcelona last year to much critical acclaim giving the best of SIME in a quick download format. This year we have revised themes and speakers, but the concept remains the same – a quick format held in conjunction with one of the biggest events to be held in Barcelona for entrepreneurs and investors.

Very welcome to hang out with us in Barcelona. You can find more details about the event here

The SIME 2010 dates are out. We are in Barcelona, Silicon Valley, Helsinki and Stockholm

SIME is coming to the city near you. This year we have added Silicon Valley and also continuing our love with Barcelona and Helsinki, and Stockholm of course.

SIME Barcelona : 16 June (Save the date)

SIME San Fran: 13 – 17 September (Save the date)

SIME Helsinki: 21 October (Save the date)

SIME Stockholm: 17 – 18 November (Save the date)

Different Cities, Different formats

SIME Barcelona – ‘Taking the Leap’ 16 June is held together with the Barcelona Day of the Entrepreneur featuring over 5000 Spanish entrepreneurs, business angels, VC’s and members of the press. SIME Barcelona is a day with the best of SIME followed by business matchmaking for companies interested in doing business in Spain and Barcelona as well as expert workshops with international speakers. SIME Barcelona is offered free and matchmaking and knowledge tracks are charged separately based on your needs.

Read about SIME Barcelona here

SIME Silicon Valley - ‘Crossing the Pond’ 13 – 17 September is a high energy, international , thought leader journey focusing on digital opportunities. The participants are by invitation only movers & shakers from Europe and Asia that meet in their peers and exchange ideas in the heart of Silicon Valley. SIME brings together world class speakers in cutting edge topics, international match making opportunities, and some of the hottest entrepreneurs in the digital space SIME Silicon Valley is also a match making journey where local leaders from Europe and Asia come to Silicon Valley to meet future partners, clients, investors and new friends.

Read about SIME Silicon Valley here

SIME Helsinki – ‘Taking the Leap’ 21 October will focus on winning strategies for taking the leap to take market share, to find the best talent and to operate smarter. Join the smartest brains in the Finnish digital industry together with international thought leaders and SIME aficionados.

Read about SIME Helsinki here

SIME Stockholm – ‘Taking the Leap’  17,18 November

Tough times are behind us or at least something we have been forced to get use to. For some last year’s turmoil will mean falling behind… for others now is the best possible time to take the leap. Industry after industry are embracing strategies for capturing digital opportunities and more efficient ways of doing business and technology is in the very fabric of success.

Read about SIME Stockholm here

So save the date, and be part of one of the most important event of the year in the digital sector. SIME as usual will feature thought leaders, inspirational speakers across different dimensions. Stay tuned for the agenda, and a list of speakers.

Very welcome to SIME in the city closest to you!