The advertising industry has long been a dynamic place with many companies coming and going over the years. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the media and advertising industry had to undergo a rapid strategic change, which resulted in the rise of a new era of Digital and Programmatic Advertising.
Founded in 1999 by the ‘Vanderhook brothers’—Tim, Chris, and Russ—Viant Technology is a leading people-based advertising software company that is at the forefront of emerging market trends, such as digital and programmatic advertising and the significant rise of Connected TV advertising. Viant’s self-service software, Adelphic, empowers advertisers and brands to plan, buy, and measure their digital advertising investments.
A Duo of Astute Leaders
Today, Viant is a newly public company. CEO, Tim Vanderhook leads the company’s strategic vision and drives innovation. Chris Vanderhook manages the company’s operations as the COO.
Throughout the company’s 21-year history, Tim and Chris have raised private equity capital, executed a number of acquisitions, and ultimately took Viant public through the IPO process in early 2021. The Vanderhook’s have been recognized for their digital advertising expertise and innovation and have authored a number of patents, including the Company’s ‘Internet Connected Household’ patent which is a roadmap for the cookieless future-facing digital advertising industry.
As advertisers and marketers continue to seek ways to understand their return on ad spend (ROAS) and the impact of their ad campaigns, Viant will continue to take a leadership position in solving the industry’s biggest challenges.” said Tim Vanderhook, Co-Founder and CEO, Viant.
Mapping Success
The industry is at an inflection point, given Google’s announcement that its Chrome browser will join several others and phase out third-party cookies. As a result, several identity solutions have emerged in the market in a fast and furious reaction. But more than a decade ago, Viant was proactive, anticipating a better way forward without browser cookies, and developed an approach to solve today’s challenges. Viant’s pioneering leadership in a people-based approach, along with its Internet Connected Household patented technology is ushering marketers into this new era with forward-looking targeting and measurement solutions.
The core of Viant’s people-based approach is its Identity Direct Match Table which sits at the nexus point of 70 plus deterministic data partners. This people-based framework offers marketers insights on real-world identifiers—versus cookies that do not represent actual people. This process allows marketers to incorporate e-commerce measurement, but unlike other DSPs, this process allows marketers to measure in-store sales channels as well.
All of that data can then be matched to Viant’s Internet Connected Household Identification, otherwise known as The Viant Household ID.
The Viant Household ID analyzes the billions of IP addresses flowing through the bid stream daily to determine which are the 115 million households in the U.S. This patented, layering approach, anchored by physical address and verified by GPS coordinates, lives outside of big tech’s control.
Given the ongoing challenges with other identifiers either deprecating or lacking scale, a greater focus on return on ad spend,s and the rise of connected TV, Viant Household ID also uses a household-level approach.
With so many purchase decisions being made at the household level, it has become critical for marketers to also be able to target and measure at the household level. The premise behind householding is in grouping the household members as a collective buying unit to provide meaningful marketing messages.
The Viant Household ID approach allows for marketers to deploy in all environments at scale and accurately measure the effectiveness of their omnichannel campaigns.
The company has a long track record in developing these kinds of next-generation advertising solutions and has the expertise to guide marketers through this ever-changing environment.
For example, in 2010, the company founded one of the first ad-supported, streaming platforms, Xumo, which was sold to Comcast in 2020. Unmatched scale in connected television (CTV), along with the company’s streaming expertise, is making Adelphic the go-to software solution for advertisers.
Viant has received several awards over the years, with the most recent being:
- AdAge: “Best Places to Work 2021”
- Builtin: “2021 Best Places to Work, Los Angeles”
- AdExchanger: “The 2021 Programmatic Power Players”
- Inc.’s “Best Workplaces 2018”
Omnichannel Advertising Solution
Viant’s long history and deep expertise in advertising provides significant advantages. In addition to campaign performance, identity resolution capabilities, omnichannel advertising solutions, and advanced reporting, there are substantial differentiators for the company.
As a public company, Viant focuses on serving advertising agencies and marketers on the buy-side of the industry. Through the Adelphic advertising software, Viant’s clients have access to over 280,000 audience attributes. This data is generated by 70 leading data companies. The software solution offers access to a wide range of data partners across a broad range of industry verticals and channels to enable precise audience targeting and measurement.
“With many devices and browsers limiting user signals and Connected TV becoming critical to media plans, the identification of the household is becoming even more important in the digital ecosystem, something we anticipated years ago when we filed for this patent,” asserts Tim.
Furthermore, Adelphic’s omnichannel integrations allow marketers to buy ads across Desktop, Mobile, Connected TV, Linear TV, Streaming Audio, and Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) channels. Adelphic is highly versatile, yet easy to use. Viant is known for providing high levels of customer service and satisfaction along with flexible pricing options to support a wide variety of customers. Viant’s customer satisfaction rate has been 95% for three years running.
The Industry in 2021
Both global and domestic advertising marketplaces are volatile by nature. In 2020, unforeseen events wreaked havoc on the economies of many countries. New opportunities, especially in CTV, have affected the ad spend allocations of many companies.
The media industry is expected to undergo several changes in the coming years. The traditional means of advertising are giving way to more effective digital channels. The popularity of programmatic advertising is accelerating at a fast pace. Its ability to transact through real-time bidding platforms has evolved well beyond banner advertising.
Today, advertising has become data-driven. Marketers are increasingly becoming interested in software solutions as they seek to reduce costs, leverage their customer data, and control their content. Marketers need to be able to target larger scales of audiences, on an individual as well as a household level, while respecting consumer privacy. Viant offers these solutions, in addition to developing next-generation advertising solutions.
The Future is Autonomous Advertising
All of the technology features, functions, and advancements made available through programmatic software like Adelphic are both powerful and complex. Viant’s vision for the future is one where the burden shifts from the programmatic trader to the software itself, driving optimal execution through artificial intelligence and machine learning. A world where advertisers simply enter flight dates and campaign goals and the software determines everything from the ideal channels and formats to reach and frequency, publishers, etc. A lofty vision to be sure, but one the industry needs to efficiently deploy key resources as the market evolves.
Read Full Magazine:- The 10 Innovative Companies of 2021
