PubMatic and Semasio Expand Partnership and Deliver Increased Reach for Omnicom Media Group

By activating Semasio’s audience segments within PubMatic’s Audience Encore, OMD Netherlands and OMG Germany engaged more consumers compared to DSP activation 

Today, PubMatic, a sell-side platform that delivers superior outcomes for digital advertising, and Semasio, a pioneer in Unified Targeting, which seamlessly combines audience, and contextual targeting on the buy- and the sell-side, announced an expanded partnership that enables media buyers to increase audience addressability at a user- and page-level. Semasio’s audience and contextual segments can now be activated directly in PubMatic’s sell-side platform (SSP) for rapid, precision targeting.

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With the prevalence of third-party cookies continuing to decline and consumer privacy paramount, it is important for agencies to re-define audience addressability strategies to optimise reach. A common concern when targeting data segments is the risk of suboptimal reach due to poor cookie match rates.

In order to determine whether activating data segments in the SSP compared to targeting the same audiences in a demand-side platform (DSP) would result in improved reach, OMD Netherlands, OMG Germany and PubMatic tested the performance of mobile web and in-app campaigns with Semasio segments activated in PubMatic’s SSP compared to activation in a DSP. The results for OMD Netherlands showed a 205% increase in reach when Semasio segments were used in the SSP compared to the campaigns where the same data was applied on the DSP side. Furthermore, OMD Netherlands saw a 16% uplift in viewability and 21% uplift in click-through rate (CTR) by activating the segments via PubMatic.

“Data will continue to play a big role in the future of addressability strategies and will help advertisers achieve their campaign goals,” said Kevin Donker, Product Lead Programmatic, OMD Netherlands. “We’re delighted with the results we have achieved with PubMatic and Semasio and look forward to leveraging the expanded contextual capabilities and a unified targeting strategy to maximise reach and performance for our clients.”

“OMG Germany aims to reduce complexity in programmatic advertising, to increase transparency in the supply chain and to find new ways to better engage audiences,” said Can Zeybekler, Managing Partner Investment & Accountability, OMG Germany. “By integrating Semasio’s data segments, viewability thresholds, and KPIs on the SSP side, we were able to better reach our target-audience and increase the efficiency of our OMG Marketplaces campaigns significantly.”

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Semasio’s Unified Targeting bridges the gap between audience and contextual targeting leveraging the strengths of both tactics. By using a semantic approach, Semasio enables advertisers to build audiences and contextual targeting strategies free of any taxonomical limitations and seamlessly extend between the two at the push of a button. The solution also allows advertisers to run data-driven contextual strategies using insights from a seed audience and scaling known users on a user- and page-level based on their shared behaviour.

“The power of such evolved contextual targeting approaches is valued by media buyers, tech platforms, and data providers as it provides a launchpad for greater addressability in a cookieless world. Semasio’s novel approach gives media buyers the flexibility and precision required to run highly-effective campaigns in cookieless environments and is a perfect fit for PubMatic’s clients,” said Emma Newman, CRO EMEA, PubMatic. “One of the major attractions of contextual advertising is that it comes with built-in advertiser, industry, and consumer trust. Additionally, contextual targeting is privacy-forward, as it’s based on the context of the page and not the individual and thus provides marketers with a long-term alternative to cookie-based targeting.”

Kasper Skou, CEO and Co-Founder of Semasio added: “Sell-side targeting is a very interesting industry development. By informing the sell-side of the targeting, you enable ‘traffic shaping’ of the right bid opportunities to the campaign. This results in a definitive increase in reach and confirms the strength of sell-side targeting. We’re excited to join forces with PubMatic and bring our clients closer to publishers and consumers for enhanced campaign deliverability and flexibility.”

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