Ad-Tech Firm Brings AI-Powered S-to-S Header Bidding To U.S.

Adyoulike, a European-based artificial intelligence-based (AI) native in-feed advertising platform, has launched a new server-to-server (S2S) header bidding solution in the U.S. Its point of differentiation is that it incorporates IBM Watson AI-powered semantic targeting.

The company will need all the differentiation it can get as it enters an already crowded U.S. market where ad-tech firms are transitioning to S2S header bidding and struggling to achieve scale.

The new tool aims to ensure that native ads are placed in contextually relevant places online. Using Watson, Adyoulike is capable of scanning millions of pages of content (50 million new pages per month), according to the company. “What Watson garners from these pages goes far beyond what is possible with just keyword and/or data targeting. It’s far more like what a human would gain if he or she were able to read at this scale and speed,” Francis Turner, recently appointed Adyoulike’s U.S. general manager and chief revenue officer, told Real-Time Daily via email.

For example, instead of targeting for specific words like “lipstick,” Watson enables Adyoulike to include more complex semantics and sentiment such as “this page is talking positively about on-trend lipsticks for summer, plus  emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, joy, or sadness.”  In addition, if an advertiser is launching a new lipstick, Adyoulike can target publisher pages where the keywords “lipstick,” “makeup,” “lips,” and “beauty” will appear. It can also target publisher Web sites matching the Interactive Advertising Bureau category “fashion/beauty/cosmetics/lipstick” and select only the pages that have a positive sentiment score above 70%.

Also, AI would guarantee that the ad doesn’t appear next to a piece of content about lipstick colors to avoid or a lipstick that’s been recalled because of listeria. “We’ve seen this kind of tragically bad placement happen with banner ads in the past. With in-feed [native advertising], the potential for negative impact is even greater,” Turner told Real-Time Daily.

The company said the new S2S header bidding platform will also help publishers manage their inventory and enable them to create private marketplaces and deals for buyers that include more precise targeting based on context and sentiment.  A recent Adyoulike campaign in the U.K. for mobile giant O2 saw a 113% uplift in click-through rate performance after implementation of the AI-based technology, according to Adyoulike.

As part of the Adyoulike’s U.S. launch, the company, which operates in 18 countries, appointed Francis Turner to the position mentioned above; he was formerly head of the firm’s U.K. office. And the company’s co-founder and CEO, Julien Verdier, will move to New York.

Next story loading loading..