AD TECH AND MARTECH
Smartly.io | March 17, 2023
Smartly.io, one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, today announces significant company advancements, stemming from months of strategic moves—including two acquisitions, a new platform release and strategic hires to senior leadership—under the guidance and vision of industry veteran Laura Desmond. The company, which holds certified partnerships with media leaders Meta, TikTok and Google, among others, brings dynamic integrations to the digital and social space, successfully “redefining social and creativity,” according to Nikhil Lai, Senior Analyst at Forrester.
Desmond, the former Global CEO of Starcom Mediavest Group and senior executive of Publicis Groupe, has a seasoned track record for creating symbiotic relationships between advertising and technology—influencing opportunities that reshape entire industry categories. As was the case in 2021, where Desmond, a member of DoubleVerify’s Board of Directors and operating partner at Providence Equity, played an integral role in leading its IPO—one of the most successful in the media and technology sector that year.
“When Providence acquired Smartly in 2019 and I became Chair of The Board, the company’s potential was clear from the start. Smartly is uniquely solving real problems that brands and marketers need to have solved: agile creative and media management at the same time; rapid intelligence around performance—what's working and what's not; the ability to execute personalization at scale. The steady updates we’ve been making are unlocking a depth and breadth to the technology that’s affording brands the ability to move across channels as fluidly as the consumers they aim to engage do,” commented Desmond. “Coupled with the additions of Brett Wein as Chief Sales Officer, and Oli Marlow-Thomas as Chief Innovation Officer, I am confident that our vision for Smartly.io will effectively redefine the future of digital advertising for brands and marketers alike.”
Smartly.io’s continuous releases to Workspaces has created a unique full-funnel, multi-channel approach to social advertising, integrating creative, media buying and intelligence at scale, in one platform. Specifically, the company’s creative-focused adtech enables marketers to:
Reach Smartly: Automate campaign workflows across all major platforms, reaching audiences quickly, easily and cost effectively.
Engage Smartly: Create beautiful, cohesive, and effective creative across the funnel that drives action.
Learn Smartly: Extract consolidated actionable insights to respond to audience behaviors in real-time to maximize return on investment (ROI).
"The depth of knowledge [Smartly.io] brings across verticals is really impressive,” said Merry Morud, Lead, Global Creative Optimization for Consumer Products at Uber. “On top of that, they have a fantastic creative team, which is very mobile-first, which is what we, as digital marketers, in a mobile space and mobile-first world look for.” Uber, a longtime client of Smartly.io, has used the company’s platform to execute iterative creative approaches at scale as part of their global media buying practice.
Smartly.io, now managing upwards of $5B in media spend, is unlocking the ability for true multi-platform brand building that exceeds both customer expectations and drives engagement across platforms, at scale. As a result, platform partners like Meta have leveraged Smartly’s Advantage+ Shopping solution to deliver upwards of 150 creative variations across all creative placements, expanding consistent brand reach and personalization in a privacy-safe way.
“Reinvention tends not to come from large scale companies, so we are using our nimble size and strong influence to create real movement in the industry,” said Oli Marlow-Thomas, Chief Innovation Officer, Smartly.io.
ABOUT YOU, one of Europe’s fastest growing fashion platforms, leverages Smartly’s TikTok Shopping Ads across markets. Since implementation, it's seen a near 30% uplift in ROAS for catalog sales, compared to the business-as-usual catalog sales campaigns, and greater than 100% uplift for "add to cart” actions compared to TikTok’s data.
“The Smartly Digital Advertising Platform is the result of years of collaborations, acquisitions and continuous innovation that’s allowing us the ability to really push the limits of what’s been possible, up until now that is. We’re working on some exciting new builds with partners that will hit the market in the coming months, that will take dynamic creative and media optimization to new heights,” continued Marlow-Thomas.
To learn more about the Smartly Digital Advertising Platform and how it’s revolutionizing the industry, please go to https://www.smartly.io.
About Smartly.io
Smartly.io is one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, managing nearly $5B in ad spend with 700+ brands worldwide. Our leading end-to-end technology and outstanding customer service help brands such as Walmart, FanDuel, L’Oreal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Nestle, and Disney/ESPN to better reach audiences, engage creatives and learn what performs best—consistently driving scale for brand and performance across the largest media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest, TikTok, and Google. Visit Smartly.io to learn more.
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ADVERTISER PLATFORMS
GlobeNewswire | May 12, 2023
Vistar Media, a cutting-edge global provider of programmatic technology for digital out-of-home (DOOH), announced today new data showing billboard advertising delivered full funnel lifts and results against key industry performance metrics. Vistar conducted an analysis of campaigns that utilized billboards* to determine the venue type’s effectiveness in delivering positive contributions toward awareness, consideration, intent and foot traffic, with the results demonstrating why billboards have remained a timeless staple in DOOH.
As one of the oldest advertising mediums, billboards have continued to cement their reputation for driving meaningful outcomes for advertisers for decades, with this new data showcasing just how effective the venue can be across programmatic activations. In the US market, billboard advertising within Vistar’s campaign activations in 2022 drove a:
Lift in awareness on 72% of campaigns
Lift in consideration on 82% of campaigns
Lift in intent on 79% of campaigns
Lift in foot traffic on 67% of campaigns
Advertisers from the retail industry ran the most billboard campaigns that included measurement in 2022, followed by consumer packaged goods (CPG), financial services and telecommunications.
The research explored how campaigns within each industry performed against the core metrics list below. The findings demonstrated:
Billboards drove lift in awareness on 92% of CPG campaigns, 67% of financial services campaigns, 57% of retail campaigns and 83% of telco campaigns
Billboards drove lift in consideration on 80% of CPG campaigns, 73% of financial services campaigns, 86% of retail campaigns and 75% of telco campaigns
Billboards drove lift in intent on 82% of CPG campaigns, 58% of financial services campaigns, 69% of retail campaigns and 91% of telecommunications campaigns
Vistar’s advanced suite of technology capabilities enable measurement for DOOH across both upper and lower funnel KPIs, such as awareness, consideration, intent and foot traffic. By partnering with the industry’s leading measurement providers such as MFour, Foursquare and others, Vistar conducts brand studies and foot traffic studies based on verified DOOH exposure.
“Billboards have always been a cornerstone of OOH advertising, and this data from our 2022 campaigns solidify the channel as an effective driver of key performance metrics for brands, regardless of industry,” said Eric Lamb, SVP of Supply at Vistar Media. “While OOH has evolved significantly over the past few decades, these results reaffirm our confidence in the power of roadside advertising in OOH, and how the format can maximize the impact of a campaign. We’re honored to partner with some of the largest billboard owners across the US, including Clear Channel Outdoor, Lamar Advertising Company and OUTFRONT Media, as well as hundreds of screens from independent operators, to connect their high-impact DOOH billboards with leading advertisers from around the world.”
With lower hardware costs and the rise of programmatic DOOH, media owner networks are able to monetize digital signage in new environments that weren’t previously possible, such as retail, healthcare, entertainment and more. However, this data shows digital billboards are still an extremely effective way to influence consumer behavior for a wide variety of verticals – making it more important than ever to consider billboards for future activations.
“This latest research affirms the power of billboards to drive awareness, connect brands with target audiences, and influence critical purchasing decisions when used within a data-driven DOOH campaign,” said Ian Dallimore, VP of Digital Growth for Lamar Advertising Company. “Roadside billboards have become an integral part of our daily lives. Lamar’s extensive nationwide digital network reaches and connects consumers on premium displays at key moments using impactful creative, reminding them what they want and need and piquing curiosity. As the use of first and third-party data continues to evolve, brands can further enhance their strategies to target based on behaviors, extend their reach, and amplify brand messaging.”
“Marketers are focused on quality, scale and impact when it comes to DOOH formats and screens,” said Wade Rifkin, EVP and GM, Programmatic, Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO). “We’re encouraged Vistar’s latest research underscores how billboards consistently deliver a data-rich programmatic buying experience that is measurable and optimizable, and that Clear Channel’s large format, premium digital billboard displays in top markets across the country have been proven highly effective at driving outcomes.”
“Billboard advertising is an incredibly effective medium for reaching a wide and diverse audience,” adds Neil Shapiro, VP of Programmatic at OUTFRONT Media. “Not only do billboards drive lifts in awareness, consideration and foot traffic, but they also optimize other media channels such as social, search and video, improving performance metrics across the board. When combined with the flexibility, targeting and speed to market offered by programmatic, billboard advertising becomes a powerful and measurable tool for brands looking to increase awareness and drive sales.”
*This analysis reflects US DOOH campaigns Vistar measured in 2022 that included billboards.
About Vistar Media
Vistar Media is the leading global provider of programmatic technology for digital out-of-home (DOOH). With a mission of enhancing every OOH transaction with automation, data and measurement, Vistar has established the most comprehensive marketplace for programmatic out-of-home transactions via a demand-side platform (DSP), supply-side platform (SSP), and data management platform (DMP). Vistar also offers core infrastructure software for media owner networks, via the Vistar Ad Server and device and content management platform (Cortex). For more information, visit www.vistarmedia.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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AD NETWORKS
Perion Network | April 04, 2023
Perion Network Ltd. (Nasdaq & TASE: PERI), a global advertising technology company whose synergistic solutions are delivered across the three primary channels of digital advertising – search, social media and display / video / CTV advertising, today announced that it has seen growing adoption of SORT®, the company’s anonymous, privacy-driven breakthrough solution.
The scope of ESG initiatives is widening to include privacy, as consumers grow even more deeply concerned about how their personal data is collected, stored, and utilized. Perion’s latest survey of current SORT® users found that 67% of customers who responded think that privacy-safe solutions are very important to their brand image.
Having run on over 800 campaigns across all verticals and proving performance two times higher than traditional third-party tactics and three times the Google benchmark, SORT® is well positioned to play a vital role in the privacy ecosystem of the future, along with identity-based and contextual-based solutions.
More than 300 companies have leveraged SORT® since its launch, with momentum building, and recent clients include leading brands and NGOs such as Stop & Shop, Mercedes-Benz USA and UNICEF USA. Given that the “right to privacy” is the UN’s Declaration of Individual Human Rights, Perion was honored to have them adopt SORT®.
"There are a lot of claims about the effectiveness of privacy solutions, but the data to back that up is lacking. We conducted our survey to provide a fact-based analysis of our SORT® platform, and we are gratified that it confirmed our ability to deliver outstanding performance – most often better than cookies – without compromising users’ privacy. There is no doubt that the market for cutting-edge, scalable solutions for protecting consumer privacy will trend throughout and beyond 2023,” said Doron Gerstel, CEO of Perion. “As brands invest greater dollars in privacy-respectful solutions, we are confident SORT® will continue to attract new customers and outperform other solutions.”
“Stop & Shop is always working to ensure that we are ready for the cookieless future and that we were working with partners that were putting both privacy and innovation first,” said Shoshana Przybylinkski, Media Director, AMP Agency, the agency for Stop & Shop. “SORT®, Perion’s cookieless solution, continues to check all the boxes when it comes to easy activation and outperforming third party cookie tactics.”
SORT® enables advertisers to reach their audience at the exact moment they are most receptive to seeing an ad and can be applied on any impression or site with any format. Further, SORT® does not collect personally identifiable information (PII) and rather utilizes cookieless data points to inform decisions. The technology is certified cookieless by Neutronian, a leading data verification company, and has won several awards including the “Excellence in Online Advertising Artificial Intelligence” category for the 2022 MediaPost OMMA Awards.
For more information on SORT®, visit https://perion.com/solutions/cookieless-targeting.
About Perion Network Ltd.
Perion Network Ltd. is a global advertising technology company whose synergistic solutions are delivered across the three primary channels of digital advertising – ad search, social media and display, including video and CTV advertising. These channels are brought together by Perion’s intelligent HUB, which integrates Perion’s business assets from both sides of the open Web, providing significant benefits to brands and publishers.
For more information, visit Perion's website at www.Perion.com.
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