Now that Magnite works directly with agencies, its measurement service must answer (or conciliate) buy-side demands. Which means adding data to justify ad spend.
On Tuesday, Magnite increased its purchase data reservoir through a partnership with Attain, a purchase data company. Agencies buying video supply through ClearLine, Magnite’s direct platform for agencies, can link ad exposures to actual purchases without going through a particular retailer’s ad platform.
But the capability is restricted to ClearLine. Magnite said it plans to expand Attain’s outcomes-based measurement for video to buyers that don’t use ClearLine soon, but declined to share a timeline.
“The aim is to help advertisers more easily quantify the impact of their streaming buys,” said Kristen Williams, Magnite SVP of strategic partnerships.
It’s not a new idea; it’s more like the next step for SSPs to woo advertisers. Last month, for instance, PubMatic launched a self-service ad platform for commerce media. And in June, Criteo released a whole new SSP dedicated to commerce.
SSPs can give advertisers access to retail data by going around the retail media walled gardens. It’s much harder for advertisers to attribute campaigns to transactions when they’re juggling inconsistent data from multiple sources.
Breaking down the walls
Until now, Magnite’s access to retail data was limited to stock-keeping units (SKU) that identify inventory with barcodes. That data was “very specific to certain retail channels” (aka whether you’re out of stock in a particular store), Williams said, and therefore not very helpful for advertisers spanning many retailers.
Attain gets most of its data via Klover, a financial services app that it owns. Klover users link their retail loyalty programs to the finance app to secure pay advances.
Attain sorts the data into a panel, which, in this case, is matched to Magnite’s campaign and audience data, said Co-Founder and CEO Brian Mandelbaum.
Friendly competition
Attain’s data refreshes every 15 minutes, Mandelbaum said, so marketers can use that information to move budget dollars around while a campaign is still in-flight.
For example, if a buyer is running a campaign using ClearLine and sees sales jump from a particular publisher or ad creative, that advertiser can shift more budget to the publisher or creative delivering a higher return.
Although, in this case, the competing publishers that gain or lose ad spend are both Magnite clients.
It’s a new consideration for Magnite, which, until recently, had only ever been a pure-play SSP.
“I don’t think there will be any issues or conflicts there,” Magnite’s Williams said. “These types of campaign optimizations are common for buyers ensuring they’re getting the most out of their ad dollars.”
After all, the partnership is meant to help both media owners and buyers increase their return on investment, she said.
A fine ClearLine
But with the feature only available to agencies buying inventory through ClearLine, one must wonder: Is Magnite’s data upgrade a way for it to attract more demand to its new platform, bypassing demand-side platforms?
It wasn’t the purpose for the partnership, Williams said. But it will likely happen if agencies that buy Magnite’s supply see more data in that platform than they get through their DSPs.
“This [integration] will bring more unique demand to our media owners [that are] better able to quantify the value of campaigns [they run],” Williams said.
Currently, the agencies using ClearLine include GroupM, Horizon Media, Camelot and Omnicom Media Group Germany.
Magnite declined to share details about when Attain’s data will be available to advertisers using DSPs to reach the same supply.
