• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 11, 2023

Data activation company Audigent has integrated targeting data from IBM’s The Weather Company in a new private marketplace (PMP) announced Thursday. The data is available to brands and agencies to improve performance and protect consumer privacy.

For the first time in Audigent’s PMP, advertisers have access to a programmatic decision engine based on weather events. The data partnership gives Audigent’s clients many targeting triggers related to climate, environment, and weather through its SmartPMP private marketplaces.

“We’re entering an era of more consumer-friendly data sets and the need to build a more privacy-centric future,” said Audigent CEO Drew Stein. “As the industry moves away from personally identifiable information, marketers are looking for cognitive or predictive data sets.”

These are some of the most “robust” data sets that are coming into the marketing, because they are cookieless and deviceless, and drive significant outcomes, he said, adding that the partnership speaks to the need for immediate change.

“Weather happens to every person every day,” said Doug Boccia, head of partnerships at The Weather Company. “There isn’t a business or consumer on the planet that isn’t impacted by weather daily.”

He said brands are bidding on more curated inventory sets, rather than bidding on open-exchange inventory.

“There’s a shift in the marketplace where the application of data is happening further upstream and not just in the buying platforms,” he said. “Brands are asking for the data to be combined at the inventory level and using it as a targeting method.”

Historically, the targeting has been done at the demand side platform (DSP) level.

Butler/Till, an early adopter of the partnership, has been working with both companies for a while. Scott Ensign, chief strategy officer at Butler/Till, says with the availability of third-party data in various regulatory limbo, the agency is continually trying to create ways to use high-quality, privacy-based signals and inventory to help clients engage with specific audiences.

Through the practice of supply-side data curation and optimization, Audigent pairs first-party audiences with premium inventory through PMPs. The use of data from the Weather Company opens new opportunities for brands to tap into previously unused weather insights and reach their target audiences via these cutting-edge marketplaces.