Q&A with Tom Logan, Co-Founder & CEO at Cohley

Media 7 | January 5, 2021

Tom Logan, Co-Founder & CEO at Cohley, is a Tech guy, a Sports Writer, and a Rom-Com lover. He helps to dictate Cohley's direction, monitor and emphasize its culture, and puts his colleagues in the best possible positions to succeed.

MEDIA 7: How did you come up with the idea of founding Cohley?
TOM LOGAN:
The idea started to take shape while my co-founder Erik and I were working at a startup called Piqora, where we were focused on helping brands discover, get rights to, and utilize user-generated content (UGC). That content primarily consisted of smartphone photos posted on Instagram by brands’ consumers.

But there were a variety of challenges associated with that process, primarily around timing, content quality, and legalities.
It was right around the time that Piqora was acquired by a company called Olapic that Erik and I observed a major spike in the influencer marketing industry.

Don’t obsess over writing the perfect piece, the writings that go viral and take you to the next level of clout are very likely not the ones that you’d expect.



M7: What channels do you think are the most relevant for content marketing? How do you gauge which ones are the most promising, given your target customers?
TL:
For Cohley, it’s all about having a presence where our target customers spend time. We work hard to produce original blog content that can be shared on LinkedIn, for example, and we’ll focus on the types of topics that are relevant to our buyer personas. What most companies do, which is the opposite of Hubspot’s blog (for example), is produce content that talks about how great they are. Okay, that’s cool, but how does this help me solve my most pressing challenges?!

M7: What are the major advertising and marketing tools you use to hike up the brand awareness of your company?
TL:
We run a variety of social demand gen campaigns using a tool called Metadata.io (would highly recommend). Reachdesk is another one that we’ve leaned into more as of late. It’s essentially a gifting platform to sprinkle a bit of TLC on prospective clients, and the gifts include things like Cohley cupcakes, wine tasting kits, spa treatments, etc.
As always there’s no replacement for testing a variety of different campaigns and initiatives and using data (not gut feel!) to inform ongoing content strategy.


There’s no replacement for testing a variety of different campaigns and initiatives and using data to inform ongoing content strategy.



M7: What are your best practices for creating content that caters to the customers’ interests?
TL:
Make it about them! 80% of buyers are considered “away” buyers, meaning that they’re buying to get away from a pressing pain point (or points). “Towards” buyers are your early adopters who want to be the first in line to try something new, regardless of social proof points.

M7: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your work - what day to day processes have you had to re-tool to be able to pull them off remotely?
TL:
Beyond the obvious ones, more time on Zoom, etc., we realized that we needed to stop assuming our same communication channels and structures would hold up in fully remote work (they didn’t’). Our leadership team in particular has been hyper-specific and almost overcommunicated at times to avoid misalignment, particularly among team leads and their team’s initiatives.


Test, test, and test some more! Be active on Twitter, and know your target audience.



M7: Your advice to the professional writers for effective content curation?
TL:
Test, test, and test some more! Don’t obsess over writing the perfect piece, the writings that go viral and take you to the next level of clout are very likely not the ones that you’d expect. Be active on Twitter, and know your target audience to a T. Jason Lemkin and the team at SaaStr come to mind as writers that truly “get it.”

ABOUT COHLEY

Cohley is an NYC-based tech startup that’s changing the way that brands and agencies generate and test content. Cohley’s aim is to continue to help the world’s best brands generate the content that they need through vetted 3rd party creators, allowing those brands to generate high volumes of diverse, actionable content for a fraction of the cost. 

More C-Suite on deck

Q&A with Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, CEO of Hawthorne Advertising

Media 7 | September 9, 2021

Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, CEO of Hawthorne Advertising, fosters long-standing client relationships with the company's expansive base of Fortune 500 brands to develop highly strategic and measurable advertising campaigns, designed to ignite immediate consumer response. From strategy, creative and production to media and analytics, Jessica is committed to premium quality and innovation throughout all agency disciplines. Jessica is a contributor for various industry publications and speaks on panels offering insights on key industry trends. She has published hundreds of articles with Forbes, AdAge, AdWeek, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and many more. She has received many awards for her career accomplishments including the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur Of The Year” in the Transformational Leader category, and Los Angeles Times B2B Publishing “CEO Leadership Award” Winner. Prior to joining Hawthorne Advertising, Hawthorne-Castro was a successful TV literary agent with William Morris Endeavor (formerly Endeavor), one of Hollywood's top, full-service talent agencies representing writers, directors and producers for television. Jessica is the Chapter Chair for YPO Los Angeles and on the YPO Pacific U.S Regional Executive Board and YPO Global Editorial Advisory Board. In addition, Jessica is on the Board of the ANA/Association of National Advertisers ECHO Awards, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce’s CEO Council and social justice Boards including Dignity Moves Homelessness Board and is a Climate Change Reality Ambassador.

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Q&A with Fred Pike, Managing Director/CFO at Northwoods

Media 7 | August 23, 2021

Fred Pike, Managing Director/CFO at Northwoods, is an experienced presenter, teacher, and blogger on GA, GA4, and GTM topics. He is a GA/GTM Practice Lead at Northwoods, DataDrivenU (Jeffalytics) Community Expert and CXL Institute Instructor in three courses: Google Analytics Audit, Excel and Sheets for Marketers and Using the GA API add-on for Sheets. He is certified in both Google AdWords and Google Analytics (GAIQ). Through ConversionXL, he is certified in CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). He is also an active pit musician, playing guitar, bass, or mandolin for various musical venues around Milwaukee.

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Q&A with Itamar Benedy, Co-Founder & CEO at Anzu.io

Media 7 | August 5, 2021

Itamar Benedy, CEO and Co-founder of Anzu.io, was previously the CEO of Glispa, a Berlin-based advertising firm with €100M in annual revenues, a team of 250 people, and 9 international offices. Itamar led the acquisitions of JustAd, a playable ads start-up, and Relevantech, a Telecom monetization platform. Previously, Itamar served as the VP of Marketing at Sport.com and Yoga.com, leading the user acquisition, monetization, and analytics teams. He guided Sport.com to become a market-leading fitness firm and transformed mHealth into a business with over 40 million downloads across 30 apps. With a decade of experience in mobile and marketing, Itamar is a member of the Mobile Steering Group Board of IAB, and the Young President Organization (YPO). He was also nominated for Forbes Israel 30 under 30 in 2016.

Read More

Q&A with Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, CEO of Hawthorne Advertising

Media 7 | September 9, 2021

Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, CEO of Hawthorne Advertising, fosters long-standing client relationships with the company's expansive base of Fortune 500 brands to develop highly strategic and measurable advertising campaigns, designed to ignite immediate consumer response. From strategy, creative and production to media and analytics, Jessica is committed to premium quality and innovation throughout all agency disciplines. Jessica is a contributor for various industry publications and speaks on panels offering insights on key industry trends. She has published hundreds of articles with Forbes, AdAge, AdWeek, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and many more. She has received many awards for her career accomplishments including the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur Of The Year” in the Transformational Leader category, and Los Angeles Times B2B Publishing “CEO Leadership Award” Winner. Prior to joining Hawthorne Advertising, Hawthorne-Castro was a successful TV literary agent with William Morris Endeavor (formerly Endeavor), one of Hollywood's top, full-service talent agencies representing writers, directors and producers for television. Jessica is the Chapter Chair for YPO Los Angeles and on the YPO Pacific U.S Regional Executive Board and YPO Global Editorial Advisory Board. In addition, Jessica is on the Board of the ANA/Association of National Advertisers ECHO Awards, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce’s CEO Council and social justice Boards including Dignity Moves Homelessness Board and is a Climate Change Reality Ambassador.

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Q&A with Fred Pike, Managing Director/CFO at Northwoods

Media 7 | August 23, 2021

Fred Pike, Managing Director/CFO at Northwoods, is an experienced presenter, teacher, and blogger on GA, GA4, and GTM topics. He is a GA/GTM Practice Lead at Northwoods, DataDrivenU (Jeffalytics) Community Expert and CXL Institute Instructor in three courses: Google Analytics Audit, Excel and Sheets for Marketers and Using the GA API add-on for Sheets. He is certified in both Google AdWords and Google Analytics (GAIQ). Through ConversionXL, he is certified in CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). He is also an active pit musician, playing guitar, bass, or mandolin for various musical venues around Milwaukee.

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Q&A with Itamar Benedy, Co-Founder & CEO at Anzu.io

Media 7 | August 5, 2021

Itamar Benedy, CEO and Co-founder of Anzu.io, was previously the CEO of Glispa, a Berlin-based advertising firm with €100M in annual revenues, a team of 250 people, and 9 international offices. Itamar led the acquisitions of JustAd, a playable ads start-up, and Relevantech, a Telecom monetization platform. Previously, Itamar served as the VP of Marketing at Sport.com and Yoga.com, leading the user acquisition, monetization, and analytics teams. He guided Sport.com to become a market-leading fitness firm and transformed mHealth into a business with over 40 million downloads across 30 apps. With a decade of experience in mobile and marketing, Itamar is a member of the Mobile Steering Group Board of IAB, and the Young President Organization (YPO). He was also nominated for Forbes Israel 30 under 30 in 2016.

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Equativ Renews Partnership with Seedtag & the Extension of Their Contextual AI Solution

ExchangeWire | March 23, 2023

Equativ, the leading independent ad tech platform, and Seedtag, the leader in contextual advertising, announce today (March 21st, 2023) the extension of their global strategic partnership into Equativ’s curation offering. Seedtag has selected Equativ’s curation platform to enrich its contextual targeting solution with the power of Equativ’s targeting capabilities and premium ecosystem. The common goal of this partnership is to empower buyers to engage with relevant audiences across brand-suitable premium content with full respect to their data privacy. Building on Equativ’s curation offering, advertisers will benefit from Seedtag’s contextual AI solution LIZ© that leverages the power of machine learning to provide a human-like understanding of content to deliver precise targeting in a cookieless environment. This is an important advantage as third-party cookies and identifiers are set to disappear. Through this integration into Equativ’s curation platform, Seedtag will be able to create a 100% cookieless contextual marketplace enabling advertisers to drive campaign performance and brand recognition through brand-suitable ad placement across high-quality cross-publisher inventory. This partnership also allows buyers to run private marketplace (PMP), programmatic guaranteed (PG), and direct deals via Equativ with access to Seedtag’s exclusive inventory to deliver ads in the right place. In addition, Seedtag is renewing its existing partnership with Equativ as its primary SSP after a successful four-year collaboration spanning several European markets specifically in Spain which saw a more than 100% revenue increase in Q1 2022 compared to Q1 2021. Ingrid Couasnon, EVP EMEA at Equativ, comments: “We are pleased to extend our global strategic partnership with Seedtag. The integration of their unique contextual AI capabilities into our curation platform will support the creation of closer relationships between buyers and sellers. In the face of the end of third-party cookies, it is critical that we offer privacy-first, transparent, and effective solutions to media buyers everywhere." Grego Martínez, VP of product at Seedtag, states: "Over the past few months, we have been working on developing a tool that would allow us to connect our contextual capabilities with Equativ's curation platform. As a result, we have established a solid partnership and have made our contextual signals, created by Seedtag's contextual AI LIZ©, available in a 100% cookieless contextual marketplace. We are excited about this partnership and will continue to work to deliver a scalable, efficient, and privacy-first solution that enables advertisers and publishers to expand their business" About Equativ Equativ is the new single name for Smart Adserver, DynAdmic, and LiquidM — three proven innovators in advertising technology. The vertically integrated company provides brand and privacy-safe solutions that empower its clients to achieve maximum impact while respecting the rights of consumers. The union combines client expertise and engineering excellence to serve the interests of both the supply-side and demand-side with equal professionalism and technical sophistication. Headquartered in Paris and New York, Equativ operates globally. Equativ offers the market its own independent ad server, SSP, buyer tools, and media services to fulfill the promise of advertising technology.

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BRAND MARKETING

CitrusAd Brings Sponsorcart’s Shoppable Video to Retail Media

Business Wire | March 29, 2023

CitrusAd and sponsorcart.io partner to deliver on-site shoppable video ad technology to retail media networks in the U.S. and abroad. The CitrusAd and Sponsorcart partnership simplifies video campaign activation, and retail monetization, making it easier than ever for brand advertisers across the globe to activate shoppable video campaigns on retail media networks. Brands can implement, manage and scale video ad creative alongside, add-to-cart functionality for corresponding SKUs that enables closed-loop, transparent measurement of return-on-ad-spend (ROAS). The new, innovative video ad formats will drive high-impact engagement for brands and fetch greater CPM in the retailer’s revenue stream. “CitrusAd is excited to scale these dynamic and innovative video ad formats. Brands will be able to easily align commercial video assets with SKUs directly within the path-to-purchase in a shopper-relevant manner. These enhanced shopper experiences deliver tremendous storytelling power and an attractive way for retailers to expand their media offering,” said Adam Skinner, Managing Director, Retail Media Networks, CitrusAd. “Our goal was to make it easy for video to play a larger role in retail media. We are delighted to tie our video ad platform to CitrusAd to make shoppable video ad campaigns dynamically populate in a native and personalized manner with lightning-fast load times,” said Stephen Caffrey, CEO and co-founder of Sponsorcart. Advertisers spend $50BN per year in video ad spend as 66% of customers prefer video when learning about a new product. Retailers can improve customer experiences while earning up to five times CPM when adding video to advertising campaigns. Both companies will be at ShopTalk in LasVegas this week to provide further insight on the benefits of shoppable video. About Sponsorcart.io Sponsorcart.io is an onsite, end-to-end, shoppable video platform built for Retail Media Networks (RMNs). The platform makes it simple to launch and manage high-impact, unique video ad formats. Add-to-cart functionality provides closed-loop analytics for transparent and measurable ROI. Sponsorcart’s shopper centric, video solution appears natively along the path-to-purchase with dynamic SKU optimization led by privacy protected, first-party retailer data for personalized relevancy at scale. About CitrusAd CitrusAd is a leading retail media company and part of Epsilon, a global advertising and marketing technology company. The CitrusAd, powered by Epsilon platform, sits at the center of Publicis Groupe’s comprehensive, scalable retail media network offering. By harnessing the power of first-party data and industry-leading identity resolution, the unified, self-serve platform delivers shopper-relevant advertising experiences on commerce websites and across the open web resulting in higher conversions. Leading retailers across the globe rely on CitrusAd to help grow retail media as a core function for incremental media revenue and sales volume that delivers great ROI for brands. For more information, visit citrusad.com.

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PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING

Hivestack Partners with Focus Media Hong Kong for Exclusive DOOH Ad Access

Hivestack | March 16, 2023

Hivestack, a company that makes programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising technology, has teamed up with Focus Media Hong Kong to give local and international buyers access to Focus Media's network of digital panels and billboards. The network has Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mongkok, and Kwun Tong, as well as Hong Kong's first digital screen that can be turned on programmatically with 3D creative executions. It is the first and only one in Hong Kong. With the help of Hivestack's programmatic DOOH advertising technology, advertisers will be able to reach a wider audience and send more targeted and personalized ads. It also marks a significant step towards the digital transformation of Hong Kong's out-of-home advertising industry. Troy Yang, MD of North Asia at Hivestack, said, "Focus Media Hong Kong helps to expand the variety of DOOH screens for media buyers." He also said, “The whole team at Hivestack is thrilled to partner with Focus Media in Hong Kong, which will now exclusively use the Hivestack SSP to drive incremental revenue from our global network of advertisers." He further said, "This partnership provides countless opportunities for brands, agencies, and omni-channel DSPs both locally and globally to activate programmatic DOOH campaigns across some of the most strategic locations in Hong Kong." (Source - Exchangewire) The goal of the partnership is to bring in more money from global advertisers and take the process of buying programmatic DOOH ads to the next level. In Hong Kong, digital advertising that is based on data was expected to bring in 62% of all advertising revenue by 2022. About Hivestack Hivestack is a full stack adtech company that specializes in programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) advertising. Their platform offers a complete suite of tools and services to enable buyers and sellers of DOOH advertising to activate campaigns and attract programmatic revenue. On the buy side, marketers can use the Demand Side Platform (DSP) to create measurable campaigns that activate DOOH screens in real-time based on consumer behavior and audience movement patterns. On the sell side, DOOH media owners can use Hivestack's Supply Side Platform (SSP) & Ad Exchange. Additionally, the Ad Server can power impression-based, directly sold campaigns. Attribution enables buyers and sellers to measure business outcomes at all stages of the consumer sales funnel, providing a more complete picture of the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Read More

AD TECH AND MARTECH

Equativ Renews Partnership with Seedtag & the Extension of Their Contextual AI Solution

ExchangeWire | March 23, 2023

Equativ, the leading independent ad tech platform, and Seedtag, the leader in contextual advertising, announce today (March 21st, 2023) the extension of their global strategic partnership into Equativ’s curation offering. Seedtag has selected Equativ’s curation platform to enrich its contextual targeting solution with the power of Equativ’s targeting capabilities and premium ecosystem. The common goal of this partnership is to empower buyers to engage with relevant audiences across brand-suitable premium content with full respect to their data privacy. Building on Equativ’s curation offering, advertisers will benefit from Seedtag’s contextual AI solution LIZ© that leverages the power of machine learning to provide a human-like understanding of content to deliver precise targeting in a cookieless environment. This is an important advantage as third-party cookies and identifiers are set to disappear. Through this integration into Equativ’s curation platform, Seedtag will be able to create a 100% cookieless contextual marketplace enabling advertisers to drive campaign performance and brand recognition through brand-suitable ad placement across high-quality cross-publisher inventory. This partnership also allows buyers to run private marketplace (PMP), programmatic guaranteed (PG), and direct deals via Equativ with access to Seedtag’s exclusive inventory to deliver ads in the right place. In addition, Seedtag is renewing its existing partnership with Equativ as its primary SSP after a successful four-year collaboration spanning several European markets specifically in Spain which saw a more than 100% revenue increase in Q1 2022 compared to Q1 2021. Ingrid Couasnon, EVP EMEA at Equativ, comments: “We are pleased to extend our global strategic partnership with Seedtag. The integration of their unique contextual AI capabilities into our curation platform will support the creation of closer relationships between buyers and sellers. In the face of the end of third-party cookies, it is critical that we offer privacy-first, transparent, and effective solutions to media buyers everywhere." Grego Martínez, VP of product at Seedtag, states: "Over the past few months, we have been working on developing a tool that would allow us to connect our contextual capabilities with Equativ's curation platform. As a result, we have established a solid partnership and have made our contextual signals, created by Seedtag's contextual AI LIZ©, available in a 100% cookieless contextual marketplace. We are excited about this partnership and will continue to work to deliver a scalable, efficient, and privacy-first solution that enables advertisers and publishers to expand their business" About Equativ Equativ is the new single name for Smart Adserver, DynAdmic, and LiquidM — three proven innovators in advertising technology. The vertically integrated company provides brand and privacy-safe solutions that empower its clients to achieve maximum impact while respecting the rights of consumers. The union combines client expertise and engineering excellence to serve the interests of both the supply-side and demand-side with equal professionalism and technical sophistication. Headquartered in Paris and New York, Equativ operates globally. Equativ offers the market its own independent ad server, SSP, buyer tools, and media services to fulfill the promise of advertising technology.

Read More

BRAND MARKETING

CitrusAd Brings Sponsorcart’s Shoppable Video to Retail Media

Business Wire | March 29, 2023

CitrusAd and sponsorcart.io partner to deliver on-site shoppable video ad technology to retail media networks in the U.S. and abroad. The CitrusAd and Sponsorcart partnership simplifies video campaign activation, and retail monetization, making it easier than ever for brand advertisers across the globe to activate shoppable video campaigns on retail media networks. Brands can implement, manage and scale video ad creative alongside, add-to-cart functionality for corresponding SKUs that enables closed-loop, transparent measurement of return-on-ad-spend (ROAS). The new, innovative video ad formats will drive high-impact engagement for brands and fetch greater CPM in the retailer’s revenue stream. “CitrusAd is excited to scale these dynamic and innovative video ad formats. Brands will be able to easily align commercial video assets with SKUs directly within the path-to-purchase in a shopper-relevant manner. These enhanced shopper experiences deliver tremendous storytelling power and an attractive way for retailers to expand their media offering,” said Adam Skinner, Managing Director, Retail Media Networks, CitrusAd. “Our goal was to make it easy for video to play a larger role in retail media. We are delighted to tie our video ad platform to CitrusAd to make shoppable video ad campaigns dynamically populate in a native and personalized manner with lightning-fast load times,” said Stephen Caffrey, CEO and co-founder of Sponsorcart. Advertisers spend $50BN per year in video ad spend as 66% of customers prefer video when learning about a new product. Retailers can improve customer experiences while earning up to five times CPM when adding video to advertising campaigns. Both companies will be at ShopTalk in LasVegas this week to provide further insight on the benefits of shoppable video. About Sponsorcart.io Sponsorcart.io is an onsite, end-to-end, shoppable video platform built for Retail Media Networks (RMNs). The platform makes it simple to launch and manage high-impact, unique video ad formats. Add-to-cart functionality provides closed-loop analytics for transparent and measurable ROI. Sponsorcart’s shopper centric, video solution appears natively along the path-to-purchase with dynamic SKU optimization led by privacy protected, first-party retailer data for personalized relevancy at scale. About CitrusAd CitrusAd is a leading retail media company and part of Epsilon, a global advertising and marketing technology company. The CitrusAd, powered by Epsilon platform, sits at the center of Publicis Groupe’s comprehensive, scalable retail media network offering. By harnessing the power of first-party data and industry-leading identity resolution, the unified, self-serve platform delivers shopper-relevant advertising experiences on commerce websites and across the open web resulting in higher conversions. Leading retailers across the globe rely on CitrusAd to help grow retail media as a core function for incremental media revenue and sales volume that delivers great ROI for brands. For more information, visit citrusad.com.

Read More

PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING

Hivestack Partners with Focus Media Hong Kong for Exclusive DOOH Ad Access

Hivestack | March 16, 2023

Hivestack, a company that makes programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising technology, has teamed up with Focus Media Hong Kong to give local and international buyers access to Focus Media's network of digital panels and billboards. The network has Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mongkok, and Kwun Tong, as well as Hong Kong's first digital screen that can be turned on programmatically with 3D creative executions. It is the first and only one in Hong Kong. With the help of Hivestack's programmatic DOOH advertising technology, advertisers will be able to reach a wider audience and send more targeted and personalized ads. It also marks a significant step towards the digital transformation of Hong Kong's out-of-home advertising industry. Troy Yang, MD of North Asia at Hivestack, said, "Focus Media Hong Kong helps to expand the variety of DOOH screens for media buyers." He also said, “The whole team at Hivestack is thrilled to partner with Focus Media in Hong Kong, which will now exclusively use the Hivestack SSP to drive incremental revenue from our global network of advertisers." He further said, "This partnership provides countless opportunities for brands, agencies, and omni-channel DSPs both locally and globally to activate programmatic DOOH campaigns across some of the most strategic locations in Hong Kong." (Source - Exchangewire) The goal of the partnership is to bring in more money from global advertisers and take the process of buying programmatic DOOH ads to the next level. In Hong Kong, digital advertising that is based on data was expected to bring in 62% of all advertising revenue by 2022. About Hivestack Hivestack is a full stack adtech company that specializes in programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) advertising. Their platform offers a complete suite of tools and services to enable buyers and sellers of DOOH advertising to activate campaigns and attract programmatic revenue. On the buy side, marketers can use the Demand Side Platform (DSP) to create measurable campaigns that activate DOOH screens in real-time based on consumer behavior and audience movement patterns. On the sell side, DOOH media owners can use Hivestack's Supply Side Platform (SSP) & Ad Exchange. Additionally, the Ad Server can power impression-based, directly sold campaigns. Attribution enables buyers and sellers to measure business outcomes at all stages of the consumer sales funnel, providing a more complete picture of the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Read More