Adtech

Google Introduces 2 New Audience Solutions In Display And Video 360

Google introduced new audience solutions with first-party data and machine learning in Display and Video 360. The two new updates are Optimized Targeting and Exchange Provided Identifier, also known as EPID.

What is it about

a. Optimized Targeting

Optimized targeting helps advertisers expand reach across relevant audiences and increase return on investment (ROI) with the touch of just a button. Campaign settings, such as manually-selected audiences including first-party data and Google audiences, influence the machine learning algorithm. Optimized targeting then uses machine learning to expand reach across other relevant groups without relying on third-party cookies.

It identifies and targets the most likely audience to drive impressions, clicks, and conversions depending on the advertiser’s strategy.

What are the performance results: This ultimately leads to better performance and increased conversions. The early test results found that advertisers who use optimized targeting in Display & Video 360 can see,

Image Credit: Google

Availability: In Display & Video 360, optimized targeting is currently available for YouTube Video Action campaigns. In the coming months, it will expand beyond YouTube to all display and video campaigns. Once launched, new eligible display and video campaigns will be opted into optimized targeting with the ability to opt out.

b. Exchange-Provided Identifier (EPID’s)

Exchange Provided Identifier, also known as EPID, provides Display & Video 360 with new signals which will be used to automatically future-proof frequency management tools. In the future, EPIDs will be powering a variety of other marketing use cases in Display & Video 360 with no action required by advertisers.

Expansion of PPID technology: EPID expands the PPID technology. Publisher Provided Identifiers, also known as PPIDs, became available for publishers to use programmatically last year. PPID allows publishers to send Google Ad Manager the first-party identifier for marketing use cases. 

EPID makes it available to more exchanges, publishers, or vendors looking to share their first-party identifiers with Display & Video 360’s backend to improve the quality of programmatic ads served on their respective properties. An EPID from a particular exchange or publisher cannot be used outside of an exchange’s inventory. In this way, people are protected from being tracked across the web.

Testing and availability: Google has improved the feature based on the feedback from the tests with several exchanges and partners. In the coming months, EPID will be used to inform Display & Video 360 users frequency management solutions. Brands will be able to avoid ad repetition and maximize reach efficiency even in the absence of third-party cookies. Brands and agencies will automatically benefit from EPID when setting frequency goals.

In the blog, the company also stated, EPID will be used as a signal for building Google audience segments in Display & Video 360. This will give advertisers a chance to deliver more personalized ads on publishers’ sites for which EPIDs are received. Down the line, EPID will also help brands unlock other core advertising functionalities, like cross-device reach on a domain by domain basis, and invalid traffic prevention in a privacy-safe way.

How will this help the marketers?

The new solutions created in Display & Video 360 solutions will allow marketers to successfully reach and influence their most relevant audiences while ensuring consumers feel safe online.

 As digital advertising changes, it’s essential for advertisers to stay ahead of the curve while meeting people’s expectations. Consumers want two things -Ad relevance and privacy. Using these programmatic options, publishers can serve successful programmatic ads despite having a cookie-free future.

Wait there’s more- The Journey From Deterministic To Probabilistic Marketing

MMP Worldwide Partners With Bidstack In MENA

MMP Worldwide announces a new exclusive partnership with Bidstack, the leading in-game ad tech platform across MENA. They aim to offer the next generation of programmatic in-gaming solutions to the market.

Bidstack is the leading in-game advertising and video game monetization platform that enhances the gaming experience with immersive advertising. It offers a range of non-intrusive brand opportunities with a worldwide reach. It provides multi-solution advertising access to the world’s biggest video games through ad formats like native in-game, in-menu, and rewarded video placements.

How is this partnership beneficial?

The opportunity for in-gaming advertising has been growing exponentially over the past few years. The MENA games market has quickly emerged as a key growth region for the global video game industry. Research estimates gamers reached 65.32 million in 2021, rising to 85.76 million in 202 in the region alone.

With MMPWW’s partnership, Bidstack will be able to scale immersive solutions across the Middle East and North Africa. With MMPWW‘s programmatic expertise, it can connect with consumers on the platforms they use most often with multiple activation options and unique experiences.

MENA is on its way to becoming a global hub for gaming, which is why this partnership is an important step for the investment scene in the region. This rapidly evolving space offers advertisers a great opportunity to take advantage of programmatic in-game advertising.

Businesses are increasingly turning to in-game advertising with impressive results – with over 3 billion gamers across the globe.

Interesting Read: Targetspot and Gadsme Unites to Launch In-Game Audio Ads

And that’s what they said

As reported by CampaignME, Walid Ramadan, general manager of MMP Experiences commented,

“This is one of the biggest launches we have done. We are continuing to set the agenda for the region by bringing the most innovative and cutting-edge solutions to our clients as they look to increase their digital presence in new ways, particularly as new opportunities continue to emerge in the sporting industry. By partnering with Bidstack we can offer these ground-breaking in-gaming formats, minimising disruption to the end user experience and helping marketers reach a new, engaged audience.”

Lewis Sherlock, EVP, Bidstack Technologies and Partnerships said,

“We’re delighted to be working with MMPWW across the MENA region to deliver authentic brand experiences that fit in seamlessly with the gameplay.

MENA is an important strategic market for Bidstack, and this innovative new partnership will help extend our sales effort into previously untouched markets. MMPWW will become our first buy-side enterprise sales partner in the region, and we are looking forward to working closely with them to unlock gaming as an engaging and effective new ad channel for their partners.”

Interesting Read: Meta Audience Network Announces Rewarded Interstitial Ads

Foodpanda Forays Into Adtech In Partnership With Group M

The largest food and grocery delivery platform Foodpanda officially announced the launch of panda ads, its suite of advertising technology (AdTech), and marketing solutions.

Originally introduced as a proof-of-concept in 2021, panda ads enable brands to reach millions of digital-native consumers beyond traditional channels. With the launch, foodpanda unveiled a suite of integrated advertising features, including the Foodpanda app, digital marketing assets, and new partnership programs. Through panda ads, foodpanda aims to help brands increase their visibility and reach, improve sales conversion, and build brand awareness to drive sales.

Interesting Read: Meta and JioMart Will Launch Chat-To-Cart Services In India

Accelerating the growth of Panda Ads In partnership with Group M

Food Panda has joined forces with leading media investment agency Group M in line with this launch. This partnership allows GroupM clients to tap into the fast-growing AdTech space by activating Foodpanda’s in-app advertising and other media assets and collaborating with foodpanda on brand partnerships and campaigns. The partnership spans seven markets – Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Kiranjeet Singh Purba, senior director of advertising and partnerships at foodpanda, said in the blog post, 

“foodpanda has worked extensively to improve our ads solutions over the past year, and we are excited to offer advertisers a new, full suite of ad solutions with panda ads. We are especially thrilled to kick off our panda ads launch with a partnership with leading agency GroupM, and believe this will help their clients tap into new areas of digital marketing in Asia.”

Meanwhile, Toni Ruotanen, head of commerce for APAC at GroupM Nexus, commented, 

“Our partnership with panda ads covers an extensive region – across seven markets – opening up expansive possibilities for our clients in the digital and mobile space to enhance their brand visibility and increase business impact. panda ads’ innovative tech will see a great degree of personalization and targeted advertisements, which charts the way forward in retail media.”

With GroupM, Food Panda aims to bridge the online gap between brands and customers as well as enhance its Adtech vertical.

Interesting Read: Procter & Gamble Support Trade Desk’s Unified 2.0

Bridging the online gap for advertisers

As an integrated advertising solution, panda ads offers a full suite of advertising options, from static or carousel images to videos and lead-generating ads. 

Brands can also leverage Foodpanda’s social media channels and enter collaborative partnerships across Foodpanda’s verticals. These build brand visibility and allow for performance tracking and monitoring. panda ads support brands with their digital marketing campaigns by providing-

1. Using Panda ads, brands are able to plan and execute their digital marketing campaigns more quickly.
2. Ad campaigns are designed and managed directly on Foodpanda’s platform which results in quicker implementation. In just two weeks after campaign approval, foodpanda’s ads can go live.
3. Ad assets also have prime visibility on the order tracking page, which captures consumers’ attention for a longer period (up to 30 minutes for quick-commerce deliveries, for example), and as a result, video ads have a 70 to 80 percent completion rate.
4. Advertisers tailor their campaigns to incorporate a variety of solutions, ranging from in-app advertising to digital marketing channels, depending on their unique objectives.
5. Furthermore, foodpanda provides the largest reach in the region, across 11 markets — Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, providing the widest coverage among all on-demand delivery players in the region.
6.  Advertisers can run ads across all foodpanda verticals – including food delivery and pick-ups, grocery deliveries via Pandamart, and foodpanda shops. The Panda Ads network is ideal for brands who want to reach digital-native consumers who value convenience and order food and groceries regularly.
7. Lastly, foodpanda offers exclusive advertising to selected partners with exclusive opportunities to collaborate with its beloved brand ambassador, Pau-Pau.

Brands that have already signed up for panda ads span a broad range of industries, including Tiger Brokers, Heineken, Huawei, and many others. Globally, the market potential for AdTech is expected to reach US$1 trillion by 2030. Separately, food panda’s parent company, Delivery Hero, predicted that AdTech services would generate more than €2 billion by 2024 or 2025.

Panda ads are designed to offer a seamless experience in the native app environment. It will support brands from the start to the end campaign journey- from ideation, activation, and measurement.

Interesting Read: The Journey From Deterministic To Probabilistic Marketing

Procter & Gamble Support Trade Desk’s Unified 2.0

Unified ID 2.0 (UID 2.0), the privacy-conscious identity framework spearheaded by The Trade Desk, is winning the support of Procter & Gamble, one of the largest advertisers in the world.

P&G senior executive Eric Austin said,

“P&G supports new solutions like Unified ID 2.0 that are designed to help improve the U.S. consumer advertising experience. Advertisers and publishers need a consumer-centric identity solution that will raise the bar on privacy.”

The CPG giant is the latest major ad player to join the growing list of brands, agencies, streaming platforms, publishers, and ad tech suppliers supporting and embracing UID 2.0. Last year, P&G reclaimed its top spot as the biggest advertiser.

Interesting Read: Clean Rooms Explained: How Marketers Can Prepare For Cookieless World

UID 2.0 aims to provide a new identity framework for the open internet, with user transparency and privacy controls, flexibility, and interoperability key to its offering. The need for an alternative to cookies is necessary as consumer privacy takes center stage around the world. UID 2.0 creates an identifier from a hashed and salted email address, which is regularly regenerated to enhance security and give consumers greater control over how their data is used.

In digital channels, such as connected TVs and mobile apps, cookies are largely irrelevant. Furthermore, it aims to take the place of third-party cookies, which Google plans on deprecating in the second half of 2024. The changes Google made to its deprecation plans have actually helped its push to develop and deploy UID2, which has been integrated with Disney, Amazon Web Services, and Vox Media. The Trade Desk and Disney Advertising expanded their partnership in July to integrate Disney’s Audience Graph with UID 2.0.

Jeff Green, co-founder, and CEO at The Trade Desk said,

“P&G continues to be a force in moving the digital marketing industry forward. P&G recognizes that we need to work together as an industry to develop new identity solutions that preserve value for advertisers and publishers, and control for consumers.”

Interesting Read:And Google Does It Again,  Delays Phaseout of Third-Party Cookies

GroupM’s outcome media specialist ‘Xaxis’ launched a new programmatic media commerce solution in India 

GroupM’s outcome media specialist, Xaxis, has launched a new programmatic media commerce solution in India called Discovery Commerce. This helps brands and advertisers navigate the evolving programmatic media commerce ecosystem and drives stronger outcomes from their media investments.

Interesting Read: Omnicom Partners With Walmart, Instacart,  First Of Many eCommerce Deals at Cannes Lions 

Discovery Commerce, the new programmatic media solution

– With Discovery Commerce, advertisers can leverage specific data signals associated with product adoption, search patterns, and purchase patterns. Next, integrate advertising tactics that drive sales, promote brands, and engage customers on e-commerce platforms.

– The solution leverages Xaxis’ programmatic expertise, strong global partnerships, proprietary technology, and tailored data touchpoints to drive consumers to make purchases across various platforms and retail outlets. In the following steps, the data and insights gathered through each touchpoint will be used to inform future campaigns and audience planning.

– Brands can use Discovery Commerce to better understand consumer behaviors and create more accurate target audiences by connecting online and offline data. This will aid in driving stronger e-commerce performance and building benchmarks for future campaigns.

– With the ability to reach multiple online environments, premium publishers, leading marketplaces, and shoppable media formats, the service provides consolidated and simplified consumer data management that unifies previously siloed consumer information.

– Discovery Commerce leverages this data using Shoppable Media, a solution powered by Xaxis’ own in-house creative and execution studio (XCS), to elevate brand outcomes. With AI, XCS understands real-time consumer behavior on retailer websites and recommends products based on that data. 

– Shoppers can add branded products more conveniently to their preferred retailer’s basket, eliminating the need to remember brands when shopping online or in-store. As a result, consumers are able to browse, compare, and complete orders without leaving the ad.

Interesting Read: The Journey From Deterministic To Probabilistic Marketing

New Partnerships

Xaxis has onboarded numerous partners into Discovery Commerce, including key partnerships with Shopalyst and Flipkart that provide data, inventory, technology, and creativity capabilities.

Girish Ramachandra, Co-Founder of Shopalyst, said, 

“We are happy to partner with Xaxis. With Xaxis’ Discovery Commerce solution, brands can make their ads instantly shoppable and help drive impressions to conversions in one seamless journey for consumers.”

Atique Kazi, president of data, performance, and digital products, GroupM India said.  

“We believe there could not be a more exciting time to launch this solution as there are so many opportunities for brands and advertisers to capitalise on e-commerce platform growth. From consistent datasets to campaign measurement and optimisation knowhow, there’s various key ingredients when it comes to doing e-commerce advertising right.” 

Interesting Read: Have You Played Netflix Games?

Why Adtech Firm Tremor International Buys DSP Amobee For $239 Million

Tremor International, a video-focused advertising-technology company, is buying Singtel’s digital arm Amobee, a cross-channel, demand-side advertising platform, for $239 million. It will acquire Amobee’s Omnichannel Demand Side Platform and Advanced TV Platform.

Singtel first bought Amobee in 2012 for $321 million, making this latest deal quite a steal. Singtel says the divestment is in line with its strategic reset to revamp its business focus and recycle capital and assets into higher-returning growth areas. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

Interesting Read: Connected TV Explained: The Essential Glossary Of CTV

How this acquisition benefits Tremor?

– The acquisition is expected to create one of the most compelling and scaled CTV and video end-to-end platforms in the market. It is expected to drive incremental financial growth within the first twelve months of completion.

– The deal is intended to expand Tremor’s demand-side market share. The transaction expands its self-service DSP, CTV, and video reach, while creating new technology and partnership opportunities, including the ability to integrate major linear capabilities.

– Over the past couple of years, Amobee has been branching out into advanced TV. Amobee uses CTV to supplement and support linear TV, which remains a large part of the market despite streaming.

– The combined company seeks to benefit from meaningful annual run-rate operating cost synergies. It would build upon Tremor’s proven track record of successfully integrating acquisitions to drive growth, scale, and long-term value for shareholders at attractive valuations.

– Ofer Druker, chief executive officer of Tremor International, said in a release that the deal “would increase our U.S. and international customer reach and data footprint, and drive more advertiser spend to our SSP Unruly.”

Tremor International has scaled and deepened their strategic relationship through a $25 million in VIDAA, the smart TV operating system subsidiary of Chinese-based TV set maker Hisense Co. The company is looking to be a major player in TV OS as well as connected TV (CTV). With that deal, Unruly became VIDAA’s exclusive supply-side platform for North America, Europe, Canada, and Australia.

– It would expand Tremor’s international presence as Amobee currently serves over 500 global customers including McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, and Comcast, and maintains strong relationships with some of the world’s leading media partners.

Tremor’s ad tech roll-up spree just got a whole lot deeper with Amobee’s inclusion.

Interesting Read: Bridging The Gap: Is YouTube Unifying Linear And CTV Ad Buying?

The Journey From Deterministic To Probabilistic Marketing

AVOD Surprise: Netflix Advertising Powered By Microsoft

Netflix is building its advertising business and the streaming giant has signed Microsoft as its first ad tech partner. In April, Netflix surprised the world with the news that it plans to launch an ad-supported tier. Industry watchers were expecting that Netflix was close to picking an advertising platform to help it build the ad-supported tier of service. 

Why Microsoft of all the choices?

Microsoft Advertising is the dark horse contender for the Netflix account and a positive surprise for the industry. Notably, other potential adtech partners such as FreeWheel or Google have interests competitive to Netflix’s. They both sit inside companies that have their own content plays on streaming TV. This likely knocked them out of the race.

Prior to its acquisition of Xandr, Microsoft was not even considered a serious programmatic competitor in the industry. As an early, dominant player in programmatic display advertising, Xandr (formerly AppNexus) started focusing on the TV/video ad space after being acquired by AT&T in 2018. 

Xandr is well suited to build Netflix’s ad operation from scratch, a task that won’t be easy but isn’t new for the company. The ability to provide privacy, combined with an established ad tech stack and a strong ability to iterate quickly, helped Xandr push over the finish line. Greg Peters COO and CPO said,

“Microsoft has the proven ability to support all our advertising needs as we work together to build a new ad-supported offering. More importantly, Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members. “

Interesting Read: Marriott International : A Hotel or An Ad Tech Company?

What does this mean for advertisers?

Marketers looking to Microsoft for their advertising needs will have access to the Netflix audience and premium connected TV inventory. The Microsoft platform will be the exclusive provider of all Netflix ads.

In the future, a Netflix subscription with ads at a lower price may entice value-seeking customers. With Netflix entering the ad-supported streaming world (AVOD), advertisers will have access to a wide range of premium inventory.

As AVOD continues to expand, this partnership not only supports the momentum but also creates more competition in the field. The recent Disney partnership with the Trade Desk also gives advertisers access to more premium AVOD inventory.

Interesting Read: Connected TV Explained: The Essential Glossary Of CTV

Why do we care?

With Netflix getting into the AVOD market, the equation changes entirely for TV watchers who compare steep cable subscription fees with rising streaming costs.

CTV advertising is known for its chaos, consumer dissatisfaction, and controversy. Netflix has never faced any of these issues. The biggest challenge will be to maintain the balance between efficient monetization and retaining subscribers who are used to ad-free content.

The question of the hour: Does this partnership really push the envelope on ad innovation?

Certainly, Microsoft brings gaming to the table, where there are opportunities and innovation, but there is still much room for development. If It could be magic if these new partners are able to translate this kind of next-gen thinking into the more traditional streaming TV ad ecosystem.

Interesting Read: Is Microsoft Reinventing Its Ad Business With Massive Acquisitions?

Verve Group Acquires Mobile DSP Dataseat

Verve Group, a global consumer-first advertising suite and a subsidiary of Media Games Invest (MGI) acquired mobile DSP Dataseat. The latter is an adtech company that provides app developers with the ability to manage in-house mobile app campaigns.

Why Dataseat?

Philippson, CEO of Dataseat explains the company was founded on the thesis that digital advertising would become more privacy-compliant. Hence, they built the world’s first fully transparent user acquisition DSP based entirely on contextual signals, without any reliance on device IDs or user profiling. It gives advertisers full control, transparency, and adaptability over their campaigns in a world where identifiers such as IDFA are deprecated. 

It provides app developers with tools and software to manage and control their own user acquisition, retargeting, and cross-promotion campaigns. Dataseat offers marketers a demand-side platform ( DSP) and unique bidding algorithms based on their customers’ first-party data. 

As reported by Adexchanger, the rationale behind the acquisition is  “Privacy”. Ionut Ciobotaru, co-CEO of Verve Group said,

“The future is less about identity and more about group measurement.”

ATOM and Beemray are Verve Group’s investments in privacy. Anonymous Targeting on Mobile, its first homegrown solution, creates cohorts using on-device data instead of identity-based targeting. Additionally, it acquired contextual targeting company Beemray last year.

Interesting Read: 6 Data Privacy Trends To Look Out For In 2022!

An accretive acquisition, accelerating the Flywheel

As part of MGI’s advertising software platform, the Dataseat DSP will have direct access to MGI’s strong first-party content and data, including a games portfolio with more than 800 million users and its SDK used in 20,000 apps with 2 billion users. Verve Group has access to an extensive SDK installation base. The alignment of Dataseat with Verve Group enhances Smaato and Hybid SDKs, which have huge global install bases.

In a privacy-first world, mobile DSPs are increasingly urging publishers to integrate their SDK because direct access is a strategic advantage. Adexchanger quoted Philippson, CEO of Dataseat,

“It used to be that whoever had the most data would win even if they had suboptimal creative, because you knew exactly what a person likes, so the creative didn’t matter as much.”

“But if you don’t know anything about the individual, creative becomes very important, and if you have control of the SDK you have ultimate control over the creative.”

Philipson noted that it was important for Dataseat to maintain independence and invest further in providing world-class solutions for its existing and new clients.

“We didn’t want to join a gaming company that would take our technology for their single use. Verve Group has a vast ecosystem with some of the world’s top names of advertising technology under its roof. We’re eager to demonstrate how we can help all of our clients leverage this opportunity to drive further growth.”

MGI stated that the acquisition will enable the company to empower its DSP segment which currently accounts for 7% of its total revenue. Sameer Sondhi, co-CEO of Verve Group said,

“Dataseat has exhibited bona fide expertise working with gaming companies, and that sweet spot dovetails with Verve Group’s growing strength of integrating the worlds of gaming and advertising, together. Working with Dataseat will allow us to accentuate this opportunity so our clients will benefit.”

The companies declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal. All 25 Dataseat’s employees, including co-founders David Philippson and Paul Hayton, will join Verve Group.

Interesting Read: 5 Ad Industry Trends That Are Likely To Unveil in 2022!

Marriott International : A Hotel or An Ad Tech Company?

Major international companies have entered the world of advertising to drive revenue for advertisers by leveraging their tech platforms and first-party data.

Does that seem like 90% of business for 2022?

Following on the heels of retail media success stories, Marriott, the world’s largest hotel group, launched a new advertising platform ‘Mariott Media Network.”. And this hotel juggernaut is more likely to succeed than not. 

As Marriott put it,

“Marriott’s audience has intent, and travelers will be in the right mindset when receiving these offerings.”

Why Does It Matter?

Marriott Media Network is described as an “omnichannel cross-platform advertising solution for brand advertisers. Marriott can thus offer advertisers new ways to reach travelers – an audience often on the lookout for new experiences with discretionary funds available. An advertising network can also advertise products that travelers may be interested in besides future bookings. As part of this endeavor, Marriott has exclusively partnered with Yahoo.

First Party Data

Apple’s privacy effort has impacted travel marketing. App developers increasingly need users’ consent to track their online behavior. As consumers opt out in large numbers, brands, and ad sellers are increasingly looking to use “first-party data”. Data like customers’ profiles, search history, and reservations act as a first-party data source for advertisers. Marriott plans to tap into its treasure trove of first-party data

Reach

Marriott says it has 8,000 properties under 30 brands spanning 139 countries. Advertisers will have access to more than 164 million Marriott Bonvoy members and renowned loyalty programs. The program allows Marriott to know when its members are traveling, which means brands will likely be able to target travelers before their trip, and while they’re captive in Marriott’s quarters.

It is also planning to extend its reach to non-endemic advertiser categories, notably airline, ride-sharing, and restaurant bookings.

Revenues

In the ad tech world, advertisers are willing to spend money but do not have sufficient and reliable inventory. Considering Marriott’s CRM data and large reach, advertisers may see this as a viable alternative to Google and Facebook.

Interesting Read: Unlock The CTV Opportunity: What The Future Looks Like

Targeting

Marriott is being cautious about programmatic targeting and will not venture into audience network play. With leisure travel volumes returning to pre-pandemic levels, this is a good opportunity for those who want to target a specific segment of travelers.

The company serves ads for now across its owned channels, including display, mobile, video, email, and digital out-of-home (in-room TVs and digital screens in lobbies, gyms, and bars) once fully implemented.

It will show how a travel media network fits into a brand’s media strategy. For instance, an apparel company might identify customers traveling to a ski resort, while an entertainment company might advertise shows, events, or whatever fun things are available in a particular city. 

In fact, even small (local) advertisers would get an opportunity to display their offerings. Marketers will be able to reach consumers who are looking for specific services, experiences, and entertainment options in the city or locale they are visiting.

CTV- a better option

CTV ad campaigns enjoy much higher engagement rates than traditional ads. It achieves high-performance results for brands – 94% viewer completion rate compared to just 74% and 69% on PC and mobile devices, respectively. 

Advertisers now have a perfect platform to shine on the 42-inch TV  in every Marriott room. There is no better way to link the TV screens in hotels with connected TV (CTV) than through programmatic advertising.

The streaming platforms Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and others are looking into ways of monetizing viewers with CTV inventory. And Mariott adding a CTV inventory to its offering opens up a whole new viewing context, during travel.

Interesting Read: Connected TV Explained: The Essential Glossary Of CTV

Full stack 

The Marriott Media Network uses Yahoo as an exclusive SSP. Yahoo’s supply side platform serves as a platform for advertisers to buy inventory. As a result, the Yahoo advertising team will manage demand generation and sales across Marriott paid media and the Marriott Media Network utilizing Yahoo’s demand-side platform. The Marriott supply can be measured and targeted holistically across all of Yahoo’s open web programmatic inventory.

Privacy

Legislation like GDPR in the EU and CCPA in the US, privacy changes by Apple, and the forecast demise of the third-party cookie have severely hampered advertisers’ ability to target customers. Brands are seeking new avenues to reach consumers.

Marriott’s media network is a “demand and supply solution for the cookieless world,” -Iván Markman, Chief business officer at Yahoo.

The media network will not share customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) with the advertisers. It will leverage anonymized customer data that will help to curate the content on behalf of the advertiser to display relevant ads to travelers.

Yahoo, the ad tech partner, will match anonymized customer data with advertisers’ data. Advertisers will shop for ad inventory via Yahoo’s portal and sales team.

Untapped ad prospects 

The addition of a new layer of revenue is an amazing opportunity for Mariott.  Though it has had an advertising business for more than a decade this is its first programmatic offering which has immense potential for growth.

Assuming an average occupancy rate of 75% in 2021 and at least 5 ads shown per day at $40-$50 CPM adding additional revenue to its bottom line. The reported revenue is  $13.86 billion in 2021. Also, the partnership with Yahoo means a low cost of ad sales.

Presently, the most lucrative and growing market for Mariott International is China. It has 448 hotels spanning 23 brands across more than 110 cities in Greater China. The country with the highest population is the most brand loyal to the hotels. The largest consumer economy has the elite and affluent travelers. The pandemic has prompted them to explore destinations closer to home. An opportunity for Mariott too good to be missed!

Bottom Line

Through a partnership with Yahoo, Marriott is launching an advertising platform to better monetize its substantial customer base. It will support advertisers and publishers in unlocking the full value of their content, audiences, and marketing.  Also, Mariott will not be hindered by varying regulations of any country, because it owns the first-party data (information on guests received from loyalty membership). 

So next time, one can expect ads that might be potentially relevant on Marriott’s owned properties – website, app, or room TV screens as opposed to welcome messages. Marriott’s move is indicative of a larger trend within the travel industry. And why not? Brands can get around rising operating expenses and establish a new revenue stream with it. Till then Bon Voyage!

Interesting Read: 6 Data Privacy Trends To Look Out For In 2022!