Case study: patagonia.com.ar

The background
Gaston Groisman launched travel website www.patagonia.com.ar ten years ago, when the internet was almost unheard of in Argentina, let alone in Patagonia where Gaston lives. In the early days, Gaston wrote his own PHP scripts to rotate banners. Eventually it became obvious to him that he needed to find a more sophisticated ad serving solution and that’s when he turned to OpenX.

Why OpenX?
“I was researching different ad serving solutions when OpenX was recommended to me, so I decided to check out the website,” explains Gaston Groisman. “It’s one of the clearest websites I’ve seen when dealing with tools of this sort - they are usually far more convoluted, technical and confusing. The OpenX site was very straightforward and in one evening I knew exactly what I was looking at, what it would do for me, and how to install it. Twenty four hours later it was up and running. That for me is a fantastic selling point - usually these things take a long time to understand and trust.”

Features
“One of the options I find extremely useful is being able to run campaigns in different zones and ensure that no two ads in the same campaign show on the same page,” says Gaston. “Another great feature is that I can let my customers log in and view their statistics. I know that in the future this will prove invaluable.”

A new business model
“The best thing that OpenX did for me,” explains Gaston, “is it made me look at my ad space in a more serious, more professional way. Up until now, I wasn’t reaching the full potential of my site. And this was partly because I wasn’t managing the ad space properly. Once I installed OpenX, a lot of opportunities appeared that weren’t there before; a lot of new ways of selling the space emerged.

“OpenX opened up the opportunity for me to offer different types of ads that I couldn’t offer before. As a result, I have contracted an agency to take care of my inventory and offer it amongst large hotels here in Patagonia. I have started making new contacts, which in a few months will represent a large increase in ad revenue. I know that once the clients show up, with OpenX it’s a matter of minutes to add them to the inventory.

“I now have a new business model that I wasn’t even considering before OpenX and that’s due to the things that OpenX offers me and I can in turn offer to the customer,” says Gaston.

Any negatives?
“There’s nothing bad I can say about OpenX. On the contrary, to me it was the right tool at the right time and it filled the extremely wide gap that emerges when you start thinking commercially about your ad space. In the beginning I wasn’t thinking seriously about it and I was doing ok, but the moment I wanted to get more professional, it was the only way to go. I couldn’t do it any other way. OpenX fulfilled all my needs and felt extremely friendly from the very first time I read about. It’s been like that from day one, very simple to use and it works flawlessly. No argument,” concludes Gaston, “it was the right tool for the problem.”