When local expertise meets global innovation

Q. Daniel, can you tell us about your background prior to starting Netric?

I started my career in adtech in the late 1990s, working for an ad measurement company, and by 2002 was running creative sales campaigns and analytics for what was then one of the largest social networks in Sweden, LunarStorm. It was hugely popular with people aged 12-24, and a great early opportunity for me personally. 

From there, I went on to head up a crowd-sourced agency startup, where we took on creative briefs from some big names such as Ben & Jerry's, Google, and many more high profile brands - this was also an invaluable experience. 

Hit by the economy's downturn in 2008, we decided to dial down the efforts with the crowd-sourced agency and form a strategy on how we could monetise all of the unsold inventory that many of our partner sites had. This was the autumn of 2008, RTB was not even invented but everything we looked at led to the principle that auctioning out the inventory was the way forward. 

Q: So that’s when Netric was born?

Yes exactly; we built an early iteration of an exchange with proprietary tech, and our work across the four Nordic countries led to conversations with the LA-based adtech company Rubicon Project (now Magnite). We struck up a partnership to penetrate the Nordic market - bringing in newly evolving RTB practices and technology.  

This went on to become an incredible 12-year collaboration, during which time Netric, with one of its partners, Leeads, built a robust media tech group, under a NASDAQ-listed holdco, VO2 Cap Holding (VO2). The journey for VO2 has since continued with further acquisitions in adtech and media. 

Q: That must have been an interesting period for Netric. You have since formed another major partnership to evolve and grow the company. Tell us about that.

Yes, we wanted to keep full control of Netric’s evolution as a company, but we knew that to retain publisher relationships and trust, we needed to have an exchange within our offering. As such, we joined forces with Index Exchange in January 2023, becoming their exclusive partner in the Nordics and the Baltics. 

Index Exchange is an exciting company, building and maintaining high-quality technology, full of talented people, and we knew we could help them extend their reach and reputation in our regions. Index also prioritises customer support and service, which is a key part of our culture and success at Netric.

Q: On that note, why should publishers work with Netric specifically?

Netric is focused on delivering regional adtech expertise, and personalised relationship management. As a small team, we are accountable to our clients and we know they value both our local knowledge and our total reliability as a partner. We are also increasingly looking at our green credentials, with carbon neutral deals as an important part of our future operations.

And of course, by providing refined, bespoke analytics and advice as a fundamental part of our ad optimisation offering, we also drive additional revenue to support that all-important bottom line.

Q: What is in the pipeline for Netric?

We are well into our partnership with Index Exchange and could not be more delighted with how it’s panning out. We had significant growth over 2024 and it continues into 2025. We will continue to build Index Exchange presence across our markets - making the complete Index value proposition available to both buy- and sell-side clients over the coming years. 

We also see that curation has a significant role to play in programmatic. In fact, it has been a prominent topic across the Nordics for quite some time so we will be looking to make sure our offering takes that into account. As Index’s CEO Andrew Casale says, it could even impact the industry more than the advent of RTB did, back in the day.

Netric is evolving just as we hoped - we've signed many of the larger publisher accounts including Amedia, Bonnier News, Berlingske Media, Schibsted Marketplaces and others over the last 18 months. And we have more to follow - watch this space! 

In summary, we’re combining the local presence and exceptional client support for which we are known - with the world-class technology of our partner company - making us the SSP of choice for publishers operating in the Nordics and Baltics. It is truly an exciting time. 

To learn more about how we help publishers and advertisers maximise every impression, chat to the team today at netricsales.com/contact.