First-of-its-kind DSP integration enables custom audience activation at scale across connected TV households in a programmatic, privacy-focused manner

Madhive today announced a partnership with Blockgraph, a privacy-focused data collaboration platform, to facilitate secure, streamlined activation of first-party data for premium video and TV ad buyers, sellers and distributors.

The collaboration allows marketers and media companies utilizing Madhive’s demand-side technology to activate first-party programmatic audience campaigns using Blockgraph’s identity platform. In doing so, data owners will be able to deploy their aggregated and de-identified data quickly, safely, and accurately, ultimately driving improved campaign performance.

Madhive’s platform provides end-to-end solutions for planning, targeting, activating, and measuring programmatic TV campaigns with hyperlocal precision, and unique demand from thousands of local advertisers. Blockgraph's audience intelligence and identity resolution will enhance Madhive's end-to-end advertising offering. Additionally, the Blockgraph platform will enrich Madhive's reach extension offering, which helps media companies combat fragmentation by selling programmatic audience-based advertising outside of their owned and operated properties.

“This partnership will help directly activate first-party data using scaled, deterministic household identity in combination with Madhive’s leading programmatic platform,” said Jason Manningham, CEO of Blockgraph. “Madhive customers will be able to take better advantage of their first-party data and deploy it with greater speed, accuracy, and confidence, ensuring improved outcomes for marketers of all sizes.”

“As the connected TV advertising landscape continues to grow, so does the need for solutions that can better harness the power of first-party data while protecting consumer privacy," said Spencer Potts, CEO of Madhive. "Our partnership with Blockgraph is a significant step towards meeting this need. By combining Madhive’s full-stack programmatic platform with Blockgraph’s privacy-enhancing identity solution, we are unlocking new possibilities for media companies to monetize their inventory and for advertisers to reach new audiences, all while maintaining the highest standards of security."

Unique Insights, Analytics and Real-Time Benchmarking Helps Consumer Tech Determine How to Best Execute Customer Acquisition, Retention and Operations to Outperform Competition

Proxima, a data intelligence software company that helps consumer technology businesses scale customer acquisition and improve customer lifetime value, today announces the launch of their new AI-driven business health check tool, providing greater insights into profitable unit economics, capital efficiency, profitability and performance. Instead of needing to rely on a data team, this advanced tool digs deep into data to help brands optimize their efficiency, cost of customer acquisition and maximize customer lifetime value.

As consumer retailers are facing immense challenges stemming from increasing privacy restrictions and macroeconomic headwinds, including a 50% higher cost of customer acquisition, more than 60% of customers opting out of tracking and 40% of B2C executives forecasting missed profitability targets. Without profitable unit economics, capital efficiency and operational discipline, consumer brands are less likely to survive.

"The iOS 14 update abruptly disconnected the signal between marketers and their customer data, creating a unique moment in time where the need for a data intelligence solution was greater than ever to power acquisition, retention and operations for consumer companies," Alex Song, CEO and founder of Proxima. "By leveraging the latest innovations in AI technology as well as our proprietary data network, our new solution provides consumer companies with the insights needed to identify their biggest pain points and recommendations for profitable growth and improved operational performance."

Proxima's consumer data intelligence platform leverages a rich data pool of first-party data from popular media platforms and more than 60 million unique shopper personas. Innovative features of Proxima's new tool include:

• AI-enabled acquisition: Audience technology that lowers cost of customer acquisition by 26% on average.
• Advanced business intelligence: Actionable insights and analytics detailing how to improve performance across your business and maximize customer lifetime value.
• Network-powered enrichment: Benchmarking that shows you how you're stacking up on key performance metrics compared to similar businesses plus enrichment of your siloed customer data with the power of the network.

With a proprietary data network and AI capabilities, Proxima consistently delivers results which outperform existing campaign strategies, saving brands time and money in reaching the highest-performing audiences. Since launching in April 2022, the company has achieved 400% revenue growth and grown its proprietary network of B2C brands and media companies to over 12,000. This robust network provides unique, anonymized shopper personas from which the company's AI builds custom audiences to scale performance on platforms including Meta, TikTok and Google, and now highly valuable business benchmarking.

"Given the similar size and scope of today's consumer retail companies, one of the biggest obstacles we face is clear competitive differentiation," said Kasper Garnell, Co-Founder of Joe and The Juice. "Proxima's data intelligence not only tells us exactly how we stack up against our competitors, but recommends what we can do differently to create more impactful engagement with our customers and build long-term value."

Proxima has full visibility into shoppers' transactions from thousands of live data integrations with ecommerce stores, email service providers and SMS providers. Audience data is refreshed daily with real shopper data including frequency of spend, recency of spend, average order value and lifetime value by product category to unlock profitable growth at scale through acquisition and retention intelligence.

PubMatic, Inc., an independent technology company delivering digital advertising’s supply chain of the future, today announced the appointment of Ramon Jones, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, to the PubMatic Board of Directors. Jones brings over three decades of marketing and business operations leadership to his new role at PubMatic.

“I’ve long admired PubMatic’s mission and vision,” said Jones. “I’m honored to join their Board of Directors and look forward to contributing to their success going forward. PubMatic’s innovative approach to digital advertising represents the future of our industry, and our discipline.”

Since joining Nationwide in 2000, Jones has held several leadership positions including Regional Vice President of Nationwide’s Western U.S. operations, Associate Vice President for the Office of the Chief Executive Officer, Marketing leader of Nationwide’s Property & Casualty businesses, and Financial Services Marketing leader. Since being elected CMO in November 2019, Jones has been responsible for brand and marketing strategies, advertising, creative services, social media, and corporate communications. Prior to joining Nationwide, Jones was an engagement manager with Accenture’s financial services strategy practice.

Jones earned a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from Villanova University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Columbus Regional Airport Authority and the Mount Carmel Foundation. He is additionally a member of the Executive Leadership Council and the Black Executive CMO Alliance.

“We are excited to welcome Ramon to the PubMatic Board,” said PubMatic Founder and Chairman, Amar Goel. “Ramon’s marketing expertise and leadership at a Fortune 100 brand will be incredibly valuable to PubMatic and our clients as we continue to build innovative solutions for the digital advertising supply chain of the future.”

Today, Unacast announced a partnership with Google Cloud that combines the cloud company's generative AI technology with best-in-class location data. This collaboration involves Unacast leveraging Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform along with its own location analytics platform, Unacast Insights. This combination powers Unacast's gen AI chatbot, Una, who interacts with Unacast customers to easily derive actionable location intelligence through open, responsible, and secure AI. 

Unacast Insights makes it easy to get value from location data. Working with data can be resource-heavy and time-consuming, whereas Unacast Insights streamlines the work by providing instant visualizations and analysis. Unacast Insights brings easy-to-use location intelligence to users with features like contextual summaries and the newly introduced Una chatbot, powered by Unacast proprietary location data and Vertex AI. Users get instant access to the location insights that will power their business forward.

"Unacast Insights built on Vertex AI removes the countless steps between working with data and realizing its value," said Jonathon Schuster, Chief Product Officer at Unacast. "The way people move throughout the world impacts investment portfolios, new brick & mortar locations, merchandising efforts, and more. The key to making smarter decisions is truly understanding the how and why behind these movements. With Google Cloud as our AI partner, Unacast makes this level of understanding easily attainable."

Unacast uses Vertex AI to combine its best-in-class anonymized location data with the knowledge of the web to instantly summarize visitation trends for any venue, while keeping user privacy top of mind. Location analysis gets even easier with the help of Una, where users can chat with her to ask location questions and receive answers all within the Insights platform. This opens the door to data exploration that would normally take hours of organizing, analyzing, and visualizing data.

"The Unacast and Google Cloud partnership illustrates how technology is bringing the benefits of complex and technical work to more industries and businesses," said VP of Google Cloud's Global AI Business Philip Moyer. "Location data was once only used by industry leaders with large data teams, the same goes for leading technology like generative AI. Our partnership will create a space where location intelligence and gen AI are accessible to more companies than ever before."

To maximize the partnership with Google Cloud, Unacast leveraged the expertise of Google Cloud Premier Partner, SADA, an Insight company. SADA's technical assistance has made it possible to harness the power of Google Cloud and combine it with Unacast's unparalleled location data. Working together has resulted in the new Una chatbot, which showcases the amazing potential for gen AI to summarize structured data with high accuracy. 

New capabilities extend Cloudinary’s market-leading automations to help brands bring any video experience to market quickly, easily, and at scale

Cloudinary, the image and video platform that powers many of the world's top brands, today announced several new Video API enhancements to speed up management, customization, and optimal delivery of long-form video experiences, such as lifestyle (how-to) videos, product demos, event recordings, and on-demand tutorials. With the new enhancements, including expanded support for advanced compression codecs enabling adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR), Cloudinary is the only video API offering robust programmatic and UI-based automations for both short- and long-form videos.

While brands understand the power of video when it comes to improved customer engagement and conversions, many continue to struggle to deliver video-rich experiences quickly and efficiently. Without intelligent automation, it can take several hours, even days, for developers to prepare a single video for use across a brand’s digital channels, reducing critical engagement opportunities. Through its flexible API-based solution and AI-powered automation, Cloudinary eliminates these complex manual workflows, enabling developers to manage, customize, optimize, and deliver video to any channel or device within minutes.

New features and benefits include:

• Fast delivery of long-form video. Users can now upload video files up to 100GB to Cloudinary and deliver them in minutes by leveraging on-the-fly video encoding and automatic bitrate, format, resolution selection based on device and network conditions - minimizing the need for advanced data preparation.
• Maximized performance. In addition to support for the HLS protocol, Cloudinary’s Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR) capability now supports CMAF and DASH protocols, as well as advanced codecs H.265 and VP9, to offer the most efficient video compression for streaming on desktop, mobile, and more.
• Branded, customized viewing experiences. Cloudinary’s HTML5-based video player can now be easily customized using an intuitive UI. This enables users to deliver branded, interactive video experiences by adjusting video content to meet brand standards, configuring auto-play or looping features, and even selecting between progressive download and ABR delivery methods.
• Faster scaling to mobile apps. New Video Player SDKs for iOS, Android, and Flutter come pre-built with ABR to help developers deliver consistent video experiences to mobile apps, while ensuring superior performance.
• Out-of-the-box accessibility compliance. The Cloudinary Video Player includes chapters, auto-captioning and AI-based histograms to make it easy for screen readers or assistive technologies to provide structured access to content and improve SEO.
• Clear and actionable engagement insights faster. Updated analytics dashboard now offers time-series graphs for key engagement metrics such as views, watch rate, and more to identify trends that guide digital content strategies. Users can also export video engagement insights via API to their own business intelligence tools.
• AI-enabled optimizations for social media. Users can now leverage Cloudinary’s existing AI features to generate eye-catching previews for long-form videos and use AI-based smart cropping to easily adapt aspect ratio to the requirements of each social media channel.

According to 2023 Comscore data*, Cloudinary's next-gen video platform is one of the five most popular tech properties for managing video content in the U.S. The report also highlights the largest 100 properties and platforms in the US**, dozens of which are Cloudinary customers, including Discovery and Mediavine. Cloudinary’s unique combination of deep image and video expertise, track record of AI innovation, and commitment to delivering significant customer value in a rapidly evolving digital landscape are foundational to its latest video innovations.

Doximity, a leading digital platform for U.S. medical professionals, relies on Cloudinary to serve news-based video content to its app users. According to the platform’s Director of Engineering, James Hicks, “The number and length of the videos hosted on our platform requires us to have an easy, quick, and reliable way to ensure each one looks and performs as intended in each user’s feed across multiple devices and resolutions, which wouldn’t be cost-effective to do manually. Cloudinary has been instrumental in helping us speed up all aspects of our video management, optimization, and delivery workflows."

“As video becomes more prevalent and more foundational to the customer experience, organizations must be able to easily manage and instantly deliver optimized videos of any length without significant manual intervention,” said Nadav Soferman, co-founder and chief product officer at Cloudinary. “With support for longer-form videos, faster on-the-fly video transformations and optimizations, improved analytics and more, the Cloudinary Video API is now one of the most powerful platforms for delivering the engaging, fast and beautiful video-rich experiences that consumers love and increasingly expect.”

Internet for Growth Fights to Protect Ad-Supported Internet

Amidst growing attacks on digital advertising in Washington, D.C., nationwide small business coalition Internet for Growth has grown its membership of entrepreneurs, startups, and content creators to nearly 2,000 individuals across all 50 states, reflecting the vital importance of digital advertising and the ad-supported internet to innovation, jobs, and economic growth on Main Street.

The coalition, launched in 2022 to raise awareness of digital advertising's importance to low costs for small businesses, greater competition in the marketplace, and increased choice and convenience for consumers, also announced today it has organized more than 50 meetings this year with members of Congress and their staff, providing critical perspective on data privacy and other legislation and regulation that could have serious consequences for every American.

"Internet for Growth supports data privacy, but Congress and regulators are failing to strike the right balance, restricting or eliminating essential data and digital advertising tools that save small businesses time and money, enabling them to invest in their businesses and employees, serve more customers, and grow," said Internet for Growth Executive Director Brendan Thomas. "Polls show consumers prefer relevant ads and a personalized online experience. We're happy lawmakers are listening."

"The average internet user receives thousands of dollars of free or low-cost ad-supported content and services each year, but legislation like the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADDPA) and the AMERICA Act would raise costs for millions of working and middle-class people, rewarding the same big tech companies policymakers are seeking to punish," said Thomas.

Last week, Internet for Growth hosted events in Spokane, Washington, and Canton, Ohio, spreading a positive message about digital advertising's under-appreciated role supporting local communities. The events attracted area congressional staff, government leaders, and their constituents. In May, coalition members flew to Washington, D.C., to urge House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers to improve federal data privacy legislation. This year, retailers, restaurateurs, realtors, beauty experts, health care professionals, technologists and more, have met personally with Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Michael Bennet (D-CO), as well as Representatives Troy Balderson (D-OH-12), Brittany Pettersen (D-CO-7), Max Miller (R-OH-7), Joe Morelle (D-NY-25), Jason Crow (D-CO-6), and Bill Johnson (R-OH-6) to urge Congress to protect personalized, data-driven digital advertising.

Internet for Growth also announced its Advisory Council this year to guide outreach to policymakers, the press and public, and avert a severe impact on the economy from misguided bills in Congress, as high inflation and interest rates persist. The ADDPA, AMERICA Act, and "commercial surveillance" rules from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that describe digital advertising, marketing, and the internet itself, as widespread harms, could be devasting to opportunities for people of all backgrounds.

"Lawmakers pushing these anti-advertising bills seem eager to punish a few big Silicon Valley companies whose politics they don't care for. Let's hope they pause long enough to realize it's mom-and-pop businesses who'll end up paying the price," writes Marc Alessi, a New York small business leader, in the Long Island Press. "Startups' ability to carefully and narrowly target ads to the customers who are most interested and attracted to what they're offering is one of the greatest equalizers allowing digital Davids to compete with global Goliaths."

"Running a small business is an uphill battle," writes Chariese Blue, owner of Urban Central Marketplace, in Colorado Politics. "I'm competing against global behemoths with nearly limitless access to capital… And yet, policymakers in Washington, D.C., are poised to make the climb even steeper, by undermining one of the few equalizers left that help small businesses compete against large chains: targeted digital advertising."

Internet for Growth has delivered thousands of letters to Congress from concerned constituents, urging federal representatives to rethink digital advertising policy. The coalition is planning more events in Washington, D.C., and across the U.S. in 2024. "The vast majority of over 31 million small businesses in this country depend on digital advertising," said Thomas. "We're encouraging Congress to keep the internet free and open, a home to entrepreneurialism, commerce, and creativity."

Internet for Growth, an initiative of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, promotes the transformative role the advertising-supported internet plays in empowering America's small businesses, helping entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life. Supported by a diverse community of over 700 IAB members including marketers, agencies, publishers, platforms, and ad tech providers, as well as hundreds of small businesses and creators, we highlight the benefits digital advertising delivers to local economies, expanding opportunities for innovators to reach markets far beyond their neighborhoods. Our work ensures people understand the limitless opportunity the internet provides for creativity and commerce, fair competition, and connecting with consumers on mutually shared values and interests, no matter their background or geography. 

MikMak further solidifies its position as the leading commerce intelligence platform that helps brands convert global consumers by forming a new partnership with Circana to offer digitally influenced offline sales reporting, providing new shoppable recipe capabilities, and adding ‘Direct Add to Cart’ feature

MikMak, the global software company that helps the world’s leading brands grow commerce-first, unveils today the latest innovations to MikMak 3.0, the most advanced eCommerce enablement and analytics platform worldwide. These product enhancements, coupled with MikMak’s new partnership with leading global advisor on consumer behavior Circana, will offer brands insights on how digital marketing influences their offline sales lift, prevent cart abandonment, and implement strategies to convert shoppers in a turbulent and highly competitive economic context.

Measuring the impact of digital marketing on in-store sales: MikMak and Circana’s Digitally Influenced Offline Sales Lift Report
While the majority of brands’ revenues today come from brick-and-mortar sales, today’s consumers are focused on digital. Research from Forrester notes that U.S. digital-influenced retail sales are expected to reach $3.8 trillion (+7.2%) by 2027. In this context, brands need a better understanding of the channels, platforms, and retailers driving the highest offline sales impact.

To overcome this industrywide pain point, MikMak partnered with Circana to create a first-of-its-kind solution to measure the impact of MikMak-enabled digital marketing on offline sales lift. The Digitally Influenced Offline Sales Lift Report enables eligible U.S. brands to confidently understand three types of insights:

• Digital marketing’s overall impact on offline sales, by channel, campaign, and more
• Demographic insights into who is most likely to make in-store purchases after interacting with digital marketing content
• Incremental sales values to strengthen relationships with retailer partners and advocate for more in-store shelf space and better positioning online

“Understanding the relationship between omnichannel marketing, online sales, and offline sales has long been a challenge for brands, and we’re thrilled to partner with a market leader like MikMak to bring this solution to their impressive roster of brand partners,” says Michael Quinn, senior vice president of global media at Circana. “With MikMak and Circana’s new analytics capabilities, MikMak’s brand partners will be able to get actionable insights into their offline sales, justify their digital marketing strategies, and strengthen and develop partnerships with retailers.”

Shortening the path to purchase: MikMak Commerce Direct Add to Cart capabilities

Accelerating sales and retaining customers means resolving continuous pain points in the path to purchase, specifically cart abandonment. A recent study found that 17% of online shoppers have abandoned their shopping carts due to a complicated and lengthy checkout process.

MikMak’s new Direct Add to Cart feature enables quick, easy, and efficient checkouts, as it allows shoppers to send a selected product directly to the retailer’s cart with a single click, from all types of media and brand websites. This eliminates points of friction that could lead a would-be customer to abandon their cart and decide to shop later - or elsewhere.

Transforming recipe content into conversion opportunities: MikMak Commerce Shoppable Recipes

In an ultra-competitive eCommerce landscape, brands must ensure their products are easily discoverable and purchasable across all digital touchpoints and content types.

MikMak’s new Shoppable Recipes helps brands increase basket value and accelerate sales by transforming recipe content into conversion opportunities directly from their brand websites. This empowers consumers to make quick purchases directly from a brand’s recipe content at their preferred retailer and allows brands to simultaneously collect valuable first-party data to optimize future marketing efforts. In addition to helping accelerate sales, this new feature can unlock partnership opportunities for brands, who can market well-fitting complementary products together.

MikMak 3.0: More growth and innovation to come

“Maintaining profitability and increasing sales is on every brand’s mind in our current global economic context. Our newest partnerships and advancements to MikMak 3.0 address this by making products more discoverable, unlocking a deeper understanding of markets and consumers, and revealing crucial offline sales data so brands can make informed decisions about their marketing and advertising dollars,” added Rachel Tipograph, CEO and founder of MikMak. “Our strategic partnership with Circana ensures brands remain at the forefront of the eCommerce insights landscape and stay ahead of the competition.”

MikMak has seen tremendous growth in 2023. Its acquisition of France-based analytics software Swaven accelerated the company’s global expansion and product innovation, while the addition of the Shoppable Media and Brand Analytics product lines from competitor ChannelAdvisor (CommerceHub) means MikMak owns the majority of global GMV and media impressions.

In 2024, the company is set to expand its product portfolio into new areas of brands’ commerce marketing tech stacks, including new AI-powered predictive analytics tools, further attribution capabilities to equip brands with more data and help them combat walled gardens and privacy regulations, additional data partnerships to provided deeper omnichannel insight and improve decision-making, and an optimized integration of MikMak into brands’ data lakes, analytics platforms, and business intelligence (BI) tools via API.

Ninetailed, a pioneering force in the Composable MarTech landscape, is delighted to announce it has met the MACH Alliance criteria to be granted MACH certified status. This significant milestone in Ninetailed's growth trajectory underscores its unwavering commitment to advancing the MACH principles: Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless technologies. Ninetailed has consistently embraced these core principles, showcasing its ability to innovate by providing marketing technology solutions that are not only flexible and scalable but also designed to stand the test of time. This commitment is exemplified by their experimentation and personalization platform, which seamlessly integrates with various composable content platforms, as well as various data sources, CDPs, and CRMs, offering businesses unparalleled agility and customization capabilities in their marketing endeavors.

"We are thrilled to be part of the MACH Alliance. This opportunity not only validates our efforts in the Composable Experimentation and Personalization space but also aligns perfectly with our vision, a vision rooted in the belief of a world where everything you experience is tailored for you. This aligns seamlessly with our admission into the Alliance, as it not only validates our efforts in creating personalized, customer-centric solutions but also mirrors our dedication to shaping a future where every digital experience is as unique as the individual it reaches. We are excited to contribute to the Alliance and look forward to collaborating with fellow members to drive innovation forward and support buyers in their MACH transformations", said Andy Kaiser, CEO and Co-founder at Ninetailed.

Recently, Ninetailed has made significant strides in consolidating its position in the market. Joining the MACH Alliance and securing SOC2 compliance demonstrate its commitment to industry excellence. Additionally, the company has strengthened its leadership team with the appointments of Irina Botea as VP of Marketing and Kim Bergstrand as VP of Sales. These appointments significantly bolster the go-to-market organization, ensuring a more cohesive and impactful approach to market strategies and customer engagement, ultimately driving business growth.

"We are delighted to extend a warm welcome to Ninetailed as they join the MACH Alliance. Their solid work in developing advanced, composable marketing technologies shows just how much they can contribute to the evolution of experimentation and personalization of digital experiences. Ninetailed's membership underscores our dedication to embracing diversity of expertise and methodologies. It also bolsters our joint efforts in driving innovation and agility within the realm of digital commerce and other sectors'', said Casper Aagaard Rasmussen, President of the MACH Alliance.