Goodway Group Adds Brawn and Brain to RealValue Advertising Platform

Goodway Group Adds Brawn and Brain to RealValue Advertising Platform with AI

Sudipto Ghosh

April 27, 2018

Goodway Group Added New Dimensional Bidding and Predictive Performance Modeling Functionalities Powered by Advanced AI and Machine Learning

Goodway Group, a leading programmatic advertising partner, has incorporated two industry-first algorithms into its RealValue® Advertising Platform that allow advertisers to algorithmically optimize their supply paths as well as optimize campaigns with lower budget thresholds. Powered by machine learning, the new capabilities support micro-optimizations at a level of complexity beyond what humans can achieve and improve the RealValue® platform’s average campaign lift to 26% over a control.

Goodway Group is trusted by the digital partner advertisers to deliver campaign performance and media efficiency.

At the time of this announcement, Jay Friedman, COO, Goodway Group, said, “With the over-saturation of SSPs in the market, supply path optimization has become an increasing challenge, made even more complex by domain spoofing and arbitrage.”

Jay added, “Our technology automates supply path optimization, freeing traders to focus more on strategic macro-optimizations.”

RealTime’s Machine Learning Algorithm Protects Advertisers from Domain Spoofing and Arbitrage

Supply path optimization is handled by Goodway’s dimensional bidding algorithm, which allows campaigns to consider two variables simultaneously during the bidding process, leading to the best combination of site and exchange price and performance. For instance, the algorithm can indicate if a certain publisher performs better or has better pricing on a given exchange, prompting a higher bid on the optimal combination of the two. The algorithm also reads signals to protect advertisers from domain spoofing and arbitrage.

Scotty Pate, Data Scientist, Goodway Group, added, “During A/B testing, we found that the dimensional bidding algorithm alone delivered an 8% performance improvement over manual site and exchange supply path optimization.”

Jay continued, “Another industry issue we addressed with this release is that most optimization algorithms first need a certain amount of data in order to start ‘working’ and that data threshold is often out of reach for most local and regional advertisers due to amounts they spend on a line item basis.’

Further, Jay said, “To better support our large customer base of local marketers, we brought all of the big-tech optimization benefits to the local campaign line item level.”

The predictive performance modeling algorithm geared towards regional advertisers affords campaigns the ability to predict which price and performance elements will work best without any data specific to that campaign at the onset.

By pulling historical data from campaigns with similar characteristics and applying a Bayesian model to build a prediction, Goodway’s algorithm circumvents the need for a significant amount of data to begin optimizing. In fact, the algorithm starts optimizing as soon as the first dollar is spent.

Jay explained, “Through extensive A/B testing, we’ve found that overall our platform delivers a 26 percent campaign performance lift compared to a control. These two new algorithms are a big part of that. They continue to build on the foundation of the platform, which facilitates multi-touch decisioning. By taking a more holistic approach and considering the value of every single impression a consumer sees to make an optimization decision, our platform moves away from the industry standard of evaluating campaigns based on the last ad seen.”

Carrie Thomson, Media Director, Strategic America, said, “We have seen consistent, strong performance since launching with Goodway Group, and we are excited to push our campaign success further with the launch of these new features.”

In addition to these two new algorithms, the RealValue® platform features a full suite of pre and post-bid technology, supporting campaign success from beginning to end. For the pre-bid category, RealValue® algorithms address quality and accurate impression valuation. The quality component ensures protections from unwanted and suspicious inventory, while machine learning evaluates each impression individually to make sure maximum value is achieved from each impression.

Reporting and analytics capabilities comprise the post-bid category. Unique features include optimization scoring that is based on all touchpoints along the path to a conversion versus just last-click. The scoring is available for virtually any element of a campaign. Other features include lift measurement, which merges online campaign data with offline sales data to measure in-store sales lift.

Currently, Goodway Group provides trustworthy expertise that meets its clients’ needs – and no one else’s. Using predictive intelligence, Goodway helps advertisers get the most value out of every impression across all paid digital media. Through the combination of employing the smartest technology and the most experienced people in the industry, Goodway aims to deliver authentic results.