• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 6, 2012

Trusted social signals and word of mouth have become important input for consumers making a purchase decision. Now a group of ad industry entrepreneurs and veterans have adapted that model to support businesses through the DMR Index, an online platform created to evaluate technology and solve the biggest problems facing advertising agencies and brands today.

The index emerged from DMR Partners, which launched about nine months ago as a thought-leadership group to focus on issues in the online ad industry. Those identified issues in social TV, cross-device retargeting, augmented reality, location based targeting, and others became the initial focus of the DMR Index. The searchable database is now in beta.

Gayle Meyers, DMR co-founder, said companies that provide the services will create and update profiles and maintain registration information. The entry will also connect to Web sites, Facebook pages, Twitter and other sites. "There's a variety of measurements like ROI, audience adoption and performance," she said. "Agencies will go in and rank the companies. They can make themselves anonymous or known." 

Think of a cross between LinkedIn, Hoovers and LUMAscape slide. The site supports a search and review tool to help agencies and brands find and feel comfortable about doing business with companies in specific niche areas within digital advertising. It will help to connect clients with the best vendors and solutions, as identified by advertisers' reviews and comments. 

Reviews and rankings of companies are only available to view by agencies and brands. Social elements include sentiment through a thumbs-up or thumbs-down symbol. The service is free today, but the company plans to roll out several levels of services for a fee. Data and analytics on the back end are on the product roadmap for the future. The site, which is self-funded, also gets support from consulting work with clients.

Partners on the site include Alec Andronikov, who started inFreeDA Free411, acquired by AT&T, as well as MoVoxx, acquired by MOTR; Gayle Meyers, former senior executive at ValueClick, who earlier in her career was part of team that took 24/7 Media public; Sean Finnegan, former CEO of IPG's Geomentum, and prior president and chief digital officer at Starcom MediaVest Group, as well as Omnicom Media Group CEO; and Jessica Joines, former VP of new business development at Universal McCann, DDB and OMD.