• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 27, 2013

Nielsen Online Audience Segments - TV Viewing has begun using eXelate conneX, a cloud infrastructure service, to segment, map, and create customer audiences it can push to multiple media partners.

These partners -- including video demand-side platforms (DSPs), online publishers and ad networks -- use the data for ad targeting, analytics and more. Nielsen, one of the first to test the platform, has been using it for about four months. The company's television group last year launched the program -- Online Audience Segments - TV Viewing -- designed to enable brands to target online consumers based on their television and Web-viewing habits.

eXelate conneX provides connections to more than 100 media platforms that allow companies to share data with partners. It eliminates the need for data owners to build, maintain and staff their own data pipes through one universal connection point and an open platform.

Aside from Nielsen, the platform allows any company supporting its own data to rely on this platform to support the pipeline. Web publishers with data can distribute it to any media partner, and companies also can create their own private data exchange, explains Damian Garbaccio, eXelate CRO.

"We knew the industry needed the product, but making it commercial was a huge challenge," Garbaccio said. "Companies wanted the technology to distribute the data to anyone they want at scale, maybe for ad targeting or analytics, but they didn't know how to do that."

Garbaccio said eXelate also works with companies that own the rights to search and social data they want to share. The platform can take any data, create a raw feed or file, and organize and distribute it. He said the company will continue to build out Web-based services to support data at companies like Nielsen that might want to use the technology across all business units.