• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 30, 2024

Quantcast has rebuilt its ad platform based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to give small and mid-sized advertisers a better understanding of advertising on the open web.

The self-serve demand-side (DSP) platform works similar to those offered behind walled gardens and provides an even playing field to reach consumers.

“We always believed AI and ML would bring new levels of audience understanding and performance,” says Amit Kotecha, Quantcast CMO. “The technology helps to create a balance between simplicity and performance. In ad tech, as companies strive for performance, they tend to add a lot of capacity.”

The company has been testing the platform for about nine months with hundreds of its thousands of clients worldwide.

The independent agency Charts+Darts has been using the Quantcast Advertising Platform to support its client Yokohama. In the cookieless campaign, the agency helped them achieve their most efficient quarter yet by doubling audience reach and lowering CPA by 46%. It also decreased the cost per incremental visit by 55%.

The basic platform was built years ago to support larger advertisers and then rebuilt to simplify the ad-buying process on the open web for independent agencies and small- to-medium-sized advertisers. It offers them the tools and insights previously available only to those with the biggest ad budgets.

“There are always challenges when trying to make technology as simple as possible,” he says. “This was no different, but it really came down to making decisions. That was the most challenging part. How to optimize toward a goal like brand lift or traffic to a website, for example.”

The platform enables a smooth transition to cookieless advertising by helping independent agencies and advertisers stay competitive and effective in their marketing efforts. Kotecha says the company build services for cookieless advertising while delivering the measurement. It uses modeling to fill the gaps of less data. Any advertiser can build and find an audience.

"Many customers use walled gardens to drive performance for campaigns, but when they start to reach a plateau, they start to see detrimental performance on budgets and campaigns," he says. "That's when they start to look at the open web for other options. To use a tool like ours, it needs to be really easy to use."