• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, February 23, 2016

Nobody ever knows exactly what’s happening in somebody else’s backyard, and that’s the principle behind Pixability’s v4.

It’s announcing the buying solution today, applicable to advertisers buying into massively important social platforms, and having a tough time navigating variety of ad formats and metrics each operates on.

Pixability v4 delivers audience and placement targeting, ensures viewability across four major social media platforms. Advertisers get the first set of normalized video ad metrics that is adjusted for each video platform’s distinct specifications so it’s an apples-to-apples comparison. 

As logical as that sounds, Bettina Hein, Founder and CEO, says it’s a brand new tool  for advertisers to help them understand what’s going on in the big, walled gardens: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  “Knowing the unique capabilities of each walled garden in aggregate will change video advertising,” she says.

Agencies and clients like Carat, iProspect, Blue Chip Worldwide, ZenithOptimedia, Gucci, and L’Oreal are part of the company’s portfolio.

Pixability v4  uses YouTube TrueView optimization, and layers on proprietary targeting and optimization technology to video ad buying on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  The company says that helps set up campaigns three times faster than ordinary planning tools, and make it easy to run concurrent campaign on all those social media platforms.

Making those ad buys as efficient as possible is a big deal as the video action moves off Web sites and toward social media, in a very big way. That’s an outcome Hein says Boston-based Pixability put its money on years ago. “I’m betting my future, and my employees’ futures, on it,” she says.

“There are disparate places where you can put advertising,” Hein says. But each one of those silos is a little, or a lot, different, even down to how many seconds of viewability count toward being a complete view.  

Currently, advertisers can figure out what’s happening “post-factum,” she says, but the new  v4, “makes it a lot easier to see everything cross platform,” and to see what’s really working, even down to gauging how many social media users see a particular ad and then head for the product’s site.  

The Pixability’s database of vertical-specific data and third party viewability lets an advertiser reallocate budgets mid-campaign to maximize return.

“Vision is simple,” she says, “but executing that vision is not” and while that may sound like Hein is talking about the development of Pixability’s v4, it could be she’s talking about her own attitude.

When I joked that her excitement over v4 made it seem like she thought she going to make a billion dollars, she figured I was suggesting Pixability is another “unicorn” in the making, and bristled a bit at the idea her company is some flavor-of-the-month.

“Over the years,” she says. “I’ve learned to be very patient” with products. “I’m well aware of the bell-curve of innovation” that has time and human capital as major ingredients. But that doesn’t mean she might not make a billion dollars.

pj@mediapost.com