To coin a phrase, the rumors of MediaMath's demise have been greatly exaggerated.
In this edition of Demand-Side Spotlight, we sit down with Gus Quinzani, VP of Partnerships at Infillion, to get the full story on the triumphant return of MediaMath, the role of Infillion's rich data pedigree, the future of curation, and more.
1.) Hi Gus, and thanks for joining us today! To kick things off, could you please give us a brief history of MediaMath and its acquisition by Infillion, and share your vision for the DSP’s future?
As an early pioneer in the global DSP landscape, MediaMath has long been recognized as a trailblazer, spearheading the development of sophisticated DSP technology—evidenced by its ability to deliver programmatic media services with fully customizable features tailored to cater to the diverse requirements of agencies and brands across the globe.
In mid-2023, MediaMath filed for bankruptcy not due to a lack of a sustainable business, but rather as a consequence of an over-leveraged balance sheet. Recognizing a compelling opportunity, Infillion seized upon the chance to acquire MediaMath with the intention of revitalizing its operations. The acquisition and integration into the Infillion product suite marks a significant milestone, opening a new chapter of growth and advancement in the advertising technology sector.
The relaunched MediaMath is enhanced and upgraded for a new era, designed to deliver even more value to our partners and clients. Our strategic vision for MediaMath is to position it as the preeminent DSP for the forthcoming era of programmatic advertising.
2.) One big upside of the acquisition is MediaMath’s access to Infillion's first-party and zero-party data, particularly with the integration of your proprietary XGraph. How do you see this enhancing MediaMath's identity resolution and audience targeting abilities?
MediaMath has always had a flexible identity core built to allow any identity provider to transact natively on the platform.
Infillion's XGraph integrates major cookieless ID solutions into a unified graph, enabling consistent household and individual-level targeting and measurement, supporting MediaMath's ID-agnostic approach and extending ID mapping touchpoints. The addition of Infillion's unique first-party data, including the largest diversified panel of location data and extensive opt-in survey data, enhances our reach by expanding the number of cookieless touchpoints to maximize addressability and campaign KPIs.
3.) We're seeing curation and curated marketplaces making a big impact in the industry right now. How does MediaMath leverage curation to drive ad performance across different verticals, especially in tightly regulated industries like pharma and gaming?
MediaMath Marketplaces were developed to provide buyers with access to supply at scale, eliminating the need to navigate complex arrangements with numerous deals and SSPs.
Recognizing that many clients may lack the resources and capacity to develop their own supply strategies, which often entail forging partnerships and configuring complex targeting parameters, we offer curated markets as a solution. By streamlining the process, our curated markets offer a time-efficient and effective pathway for clients to achieve their objectives, sparing them the investment of substantial time and resources.
Pharma and gaming sectors demand heightened attention and effort due to their unique and sensitive nature. Procuring suitable supply that accommodate these categories can prove time-consuming, complicating what would otherwise be standard daily optimizations. In light of these challenges, the availability of off-the-shelf solutions such as specialized marketplaces tailored for pharma and gaming verticals offers a significant advantage. By leveraging these pre-existing marketplaces, buyers can expedite campaign launches and access historical data, facilitating immediate activation and optimization of their campaigns.
4.) With tools like MediaMath's Brain and Infillion's measurement solutions like Arrival and UpLift, what advancements in ad performance measurement and optimization can clients expect? How do these tools work together to provide a fuller picture of campaign effectiveness?
Arrival and UpLift provide Infillion with unique user-level data signals used for precise audience building and measurement. We've been exploring additional use cases and integrations of these data signals, specifically feeding these into the Brain for first-party signal optimization to drive better targeting and performance.
5.) Creative execution is always critical in digital advertising. How does the collaboration with Infillion Creative Studio enhance MediaMath’s capabilities in delivering personalized and high-impact ad formats?
MediaMath now has access to Infillion’s Creative Studio, a full-service creative powerhouse comprised of Project Management, Strategy, Design and Production.
Leveraging 10+ years of data-driven creative solutions, and understanding what garners attention and performance across verticals, KPIs and devices, the Creative Studio will now offer all MediaMath clients a means to tap into Infillion’s creative expertise with Creative-as-a-Service. CaaS will provide flexibility and optionality for clients to meet their creative needs and requirements to ensure each campaign is set up for success. The CaaS optionality will include a solution for fully managed services where the Creative Studio will build creatives and the MediaMath team can manage or take a partnership approach where clients can manage campaigns leveraging creative built by the team.
6.) We touched a little on the role of data earlier, but let’s zero in on Chrome’s imminent deprecation of third-party cookies later this year. How is the combined expertise of MediaMath and Infillion poised to navigate this evolution?
As a DSP, we're taking a couple of different approaches to the deprecation of third-party cookies:
- Enhanced Cookieless Identity: MediaMath now leverages Infillion's XGraph, a robust, cookieless identity graph that is agnostic to specific identifiers, enhanced by direct publisher integrations. This identity spine integrates various first-party identifiers into a cohesive Connected ID (CID) framework, enriched by zero-party cookieless data assets. ID5, UID2, PanoramaID, RampID and more are already integrated. This strategic enhancement not only facilitates precise targeting across devices but also fortifies privacy compliance and user addressability in a post-third-party cookie era.
- Foundation of Zero-Party Data: Infillion’s strategic focus on zero-party data establishes a solid, cookieless foundation that significantly enhances data products across our media platforms. By harnessing data that users voluntarily share in a value-exchange context, we can provide advertisers with highly accurate and reliable targeting options.
A big thanks to Gus and the Infillion team for taking part in this Q&A. If you're a supplier looking to tap into premium demand, ask your BidSwitch account manager about MediaMath and Infillion today.