Audience Data Sessions: Q&A with Multilocal

Can you introduce yourself and tell us more about your role at Multilocal?

I'm James Leaver, CEO and co-founder of Multilocal. Before founding Multilocal, I spent over 20 years in digital and programmatic advertising, working in the UK, Singapore, and the US for companies like MSN, AOL, and MailOnline.

As CEO, I oversee all aspects of the company, collaborating closely with senior leaders to drive growth, deliver exceptional service, and continuously invest in the tools and products needed to support our partners. We work with multiple SSPs and engage with hundreds of format and data companies, providing Curation-as-a-Service globally. Our service is delivered by a team of over 55 people across seven countries.

While we’re fundamentally a managed service business, we are supported by a proprietary, market-leading suite of tools and products that enhance SSP curation platforms, ensuring we successfully deliver supply for campaigns worldwide.

Can you discuss the SSP landscape and the rise of Curation partners?

Xandr (now MSFT) were the first of the SSP’s to launch a curation platform that enabled curators to “self-serve” their inventory into a PMP on the supply side. MediaGrid (now Criteo) and Pubmatic were close behind through the course of 2020 and by now, most of the major exchanges have launched some version of a curation platform.

Curation came about as a response to certain limitations that were causing frustration for companies across the programmatic ecosystem:

1. Inefficiencies of the OMP
2. Scaling PMPs
3. Data leakage
4. Media investment wastage
5. Media Quality concerns
6. Buy side performance and data asymmetry

While all the platforms solve the same problem, there is a huge variety of approaches across them. From features and functionality, to scale and transparency. This is why we put so much resource into ensuring our teams are able to find the right inventory on the right platform that will deliver against the advertisers expected KPI’s in the most efficient way every time.

What role does Curation play within the media buying landscape?

Curation enhances efficiency for the buy side. With a well-curated and optimised PMP, the buy side can concentrate on perfecting their buying strategies.

After running thousands of campaigns globally over the past 5 years, our data clearly shows that when the supply side (curation) collaborates with the buy side, campaign KPIs are almost always exceeded. For example, a CPG case study demonstrated that results were twice as effective with curation compared to standard methods.

• Multilocal has created an advanced planning tool for the open web, seamlessly integrating 12+ SSPs, over 60 data providers, and 25,000 first-party publisher deals. This ensures we can effortlessly locate your exact audience across a fragmented ecosystem.
• Our unified taxonomy connects supply with audiences, delivering deals to your DSP in under 12 hours for quick activation.
• Our recommendation engine identifies the optimal SSPs based on each DSP integration, considering SSP product and targeting features, scale, and price per geo and format.

• Getting PMPs to work efficiently takes time and expertise. Our dedicated teams, available 24/7, leverage advanced tools and deep knowledge of SSP platforms to ensure your deals go live on time, every time.
  
• We specialise in unlocking throttling issues between DSPs and SSPs, ensuring seamless performance and scalability.

• Optimise supply across multiple KPIs in synergy with buying strategies to achieve outstanding results.
• Achieve a 32-38% increase in reach and an 80-112% boost in completed views with our integrated supply-side and demand-side optimisation.
• Benefit from an average of 33% reduction in CPM by leveraging our strategy to identify the best-priced audiences across publishers, SSPs, and segments.

• Curation inherently addresses the excessive carbon output of the programmatic open marketplace by ensuring relevant supply. Our CarbonSmart solution takes this a step further, reducing the carbon footprint of each deal we run, all at no additional cost to advertisers. On average we see carbon emissions for a campaign fall by 50-80% when using audience curation

Can you talk a little bit about efficient media buying / consolidation buying strategies?

In our experience, curation resolves the challenge of delivering advertisers the desired results in premium environments that align with their brand standards.

Curation optimises DSP efficiencies, providing substantial value and enabling direct access to contextual environments and target audiences. This approach fosters the development of dynamic PMPs that yield superior efficacy and improved returns.

By consolidating traditional programmatic supply paths, we streamline the process for advertisers to efficiently and effectively reach their audiences.

What are the benefits of curated PMPs for audience targeting?

- Performance: Achieve enhanced campaign outcomes.

- Efficacy: Ensure effective targeting and engagement.

- Cookieless: Adapt seamlessly to evolving privacy standards.

While layering data on the DSP can be effective, it often disconnects the provider from performance metrics. Curation empowers data providers to optimise their data sources, delivering superior audience efficacy directly to advertisers. This approach enhances campaign performance and informs more strategic bidding strategies.

Global buying strategies with fixed CPMs can limit scalability, particularly in the diverse landscape of media buying. Curation offers dynamic pricing based on performance and scale, eliminating throttling and ensuring optimal results.

What are the benefits of audience curation?

• Quality Supply: By curating audiences, advertisers gain access to high-quality, vetted inventory that aligns closely with their target demographics and brand values. This ensures that the content and context surrounding their ads are suitable and enhance brand reputation.
• Controlled Environment: Curation allows advertisers to exert greater control over where their ads appear, ensuring they are placed in contexts that are relevant and engaging for their target audience. This control minimises the risk of ad placements in irrelevant or harmful content environments.
• Improved Performance: Curated audiences are more likely to engage with ads that are relevant to their interests and needs. This improves campaign performance metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and overall return on ad spend (ROAS).
• Lower Carbon Cost: Curation also addresses environmental concerns by optimizing ad placements to reduce carbon emissions associated with digital advertising. By selecting efficient ad placements and minimizing unnecessary ad impressions, advertisers can lower the carbon footprint of their campaigns.

Why now?

While curation itself isn't new, the ongoing challenges within programmatic advertising - such as effectiveness, MFA (multi-factor authentication), commoditisation of value, cookie deprecation, and price sensitivity - have created a perfect storm for its resurgence. Curation transparently addresses the pitfalls of the open marketplace (OMP).

We see curation as a reinvention of programmatic advertising, particularly in 2024 - a pivotal time to advocate, educate, and showcase its true value.

Curation benefits advertisers by delivering superior results and provides publishers with fairer monetisation opportunities. It enables effective audience targeting without reliance on cookies and fosters the development of a high quality, competitive media buying ecosystem that serves as a viable alternative to walled gardens.

Want to learn more about Multilocal Media and how we work with them to improve your advertising campaigns?