• by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, September 15, 2016

More companies are looking for “signals” that can give them more information about their target customers’ attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities to purchase something. These signals can be predictive of behavior in the moment and in the future.

AcuityAds is a company that aims to help advertisers connect with audiences across mobile, video, social, and display platforms. Last month, the company acquired 140 Proof, a social media and mobile targeting company, to help it focus on interest-targeting, which AcuityAds hopes the $20 million all cash deal will beef up its programmatic marketing platform.  

This ties into the “signals” referred to earlier. The firm says it’s capable of analyzing more than 20 billion interest signals from a universe of over 700 million public social profiles. It then models and sells custom audience profiles and ad targeting to brands. This signals-based approach is what attracted AcuityAds to 140 Proof. Essentially, 140 Proof collects data from many sources and targets relevant ads based on consumers’ social activity across social media.

AcuityAds sees 140 Proof as a complementary offering to its programmatic platform because its adds important social and mobile signals.  Acuity, which went public in 2014, was EBIDTA positive in the last quarter—it’s hoping to get to full profitability in the next few quarters, according to Renzo Dipasquale, VP of enterprise and self-serve. The company, which considers itself in the same competitive set as Google, MediaMath, Rocket Fuel, and The Trade Desk, launched in Europe with a self-service offering at the end of June.

Acuity has three service offerings: 1) A managed service, which comprises around 50% of revenues and is used by roughly 100 partners -- mostly agencies, some brands, and tech partners. 2)A self-service model, which means customers run the technology themselves, with training and support from Acuity. 3)A hybrid model, which is for any size business that wants to take its ad tech stack in-house but isn’t quite ready for programmatic. “We work with brands to embrace programmatic and offer them a campaign and an account manager from the self-service team,” Dipasquale said.

He noted that most most marketers don’t have time to do all the media and optimization themselves. The hybrid offering launched earlier this year. Dipasquale noted that even for large enterprises, it can take six to eight weeks of hands-on training, analyzing reports, and results to get a handle on the system. The industry's pain points continue to be transparency, from a cost perspective, and fraud: “Senior marketers want to know where their ads ran and what did they cost,” Dipasquale said.