Centro and FreeWheel Release Two-Way API Integration for End-to-End Digital Media Automation

Linking Basis by Centro with FreeWheel’s Strata Platform for Finance Management 

Centro, a global provider of advertising technology, announced the availability of a two-way API integration with FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, to deliver end-to-end digital media automation. The pairing of Basis by Centro, a comprehensive digital media activation and management platform, with FreeWheel’s Strata platform for finance management empowers agencies to maintain strong cash flow by streamlining the reconciliation, billing and collections for their services.

“Organizations using Strata are well-positioned to protect their bottom line. Agencies gain Basis’s programmatic advertising and digital media capabilities that seamlessly integrate with our financial systems and cross-media stewardship solutions for a holistic view of a client’s entire media plan,” said Joy Baer, general manager, FreeWheel Advertisers. “FreeWheel is putting in action our vision to give customers a wide array of technology choices, deep flexibility and media automation, made possible by our platform’s open architecture.”

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Basis offers media planning and buying technology. The integration with Strata creates operational advantage for agencies spending millions in digital media on hundreds of vendors every month on behalf of dozens of clients. Nearly two-thirds of agencies that specialize in local advertising expect their digital spend to increase in the next 12 months, illustrating the need for unifying technology stacks to seamlessly work within existing financial systems. Basis sends contracts, media activation and delivery data into Strata for billing and reconciliation in real-time, with the information automatically rationalized and formatted. As a result, agencies accelerate client billing and vendor payments.

Other benefits include:

• Improving cash flow by distributing invoices on time and collecting client payments faster.
• Accessing the single source of truth on campaign data.
• Minimizing financial risk by tracking billing information from the beginning of campaigns and ensuring that it is accurate at the end.
• Saving time for media professionals and accounting teams by eliminating data-entry steps such as tracking and updating campaign data; the systems use a two-way data feed.
• Consolidating digital and traditional media delivery, billing and payments data in one system.
• Strengthening relationships with vendors, with faster payments when campaigns are reconciled.

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“With industry complexity continuing to increase and brands attempting to pay agencies less for their services, it’s critical that software companies work together to automate as much of the manual processes as possible,” said Shawn Riegsecker, founder and CEO, Centro. “The FreeWheel integration with Basis is a huge first step in marrying platforms for traditional media and digital media, so agencies can focus on value-additive, strategic and important work. Basis has been proven to increase productivity by 30% and the FreeWheel/Basis integration will automate most of the back-office and financial reconciliation work associated with digital for thousands of agencies.”

The Strata platform is trusted by over 1,200 advertising agencies for planning, activation, optimization and billing management. FreeWheel’s Strata platform continues to support Adazzle, its own cloud-based global platform for digital media management, as well as Strata Buying Management System (SBMS) Digital, a suite of tools for planning, buying, stewardship, optimization and billing across all forms of digital media.

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