As one of the top players in the online advertising space, ExoClick maintains a leadership role through its constant pursuit of new techniques and technologies for serving ads and monetizing website content.
This involves staying abreast of compliance issues, consumer and market trends, and developing new tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) and application programming interfaces (APIs) among other innovations, while eyeing up-and-coming tech and how it fits into today’s overall advertising ecosystem.
AI is helping brands understand user behavior and needs. Users leave online footprints all the time when they are using the internet.
It also involves the release of the company’s new Admin Panel, which puts the power of all its innovations into users’ hands.
To learn the latest about these efforts, XBIZ turned to ExoClick CEO and founder Benjamin Fonzé, for this executive seat interview.
XBIZ: How does ExoClick meet today’s tech challenges for advertisers and publishers and how do new features like the Admin Panel improve classic functionality?
Fonzé: “Version 2” of our new administrator panel is built using the latest technology from Google called Material Design, which is a visual programming language that synthesizes the classic principles of good design with the innovation of technology and science and all this is backed by open source code — and because Material Design is modular, it means we can develop and integrate new features much quicker.
We completely redesigned the user interface to make it modern, focusing on usability, performance and efficiency; the light design means faster load times and it is fully responsive and works seamlessly on any device. It is also packed with great new features including a redesigned dashboard, toggle stats, advanced multi-filtering, bulk editing, intelligent search and more.
Let’s kick off with the new Dashboard for both publishers and advertisers. It features high level data, quick view trend charts and tables; you can select stats for the current day, yesterday, last seven days, last 30 days, this month. The purpose of the Dashboard is to show a client where there have been the biggest positive or negative changes. For advertisers this will be campaigns and spending, and for publishers, their ad zones and revenues. These are listed directly below the trend charts, so that the client can take immediate action.
We have introduced new toggle columns that are now grouped and include many more features, which are selectable with additional toggle on/off buttons so clients can customize their stats display. Advertisers also get new video statistics including Video Impressions, Views, Views Ratio, CPV as well as new filters including Bidder, Variations, Max Daily Budget, Pricing Model, Frequency Capping, Traffic Type, Start Date and End Date. Publishers also get new video stats, along with Push Notification stats, while RTB accounts can also view RTB metrics.
Data are how clients evaluate their KPIs so we have introduced deep analysis via advanced multi-filtering options. This very powerful tool allows publishers and advertisers to use a mix of tabs and drill-down menus to provide more detailed filtering for better cross-referencing.
Advertisers now have bulk campaign and landing page editing and the new Ad Destination option allows clients to update the landing page of all their selected campaigns. Additionally, advertisers can update single landing pages as well as create offers and add multiple landing pages to those offers.
Both advertisers and publishers get a new search box to quickly locate a campaign or site/ad zone just like Google’s predictive search, and that’s just a taster! So, I recommend that clients go and check out v2 to get a feel for what they can achieve with our new administrator panel.
XBIZ: Why is it important for affiliates and advertisers to use automation tools? What problems do these tools solve and what profit paths do they enable?
Fonzé: Automation is the direction that the ad industry is moving towards and the benefits are game-changing. Imagine that you are an affiliate running 200 different campaigns: to carry out all the bidding and optimization manually would be very time consuming and inefficient. The affiliate can use automation tools to make the correct decisions for every step of each campaign, simply by setting predefined rules. These rules create his own algorithm that an imaginary set of “digital assistants” use in order to carry out the work on his behalf. So now he does not overspend, he can target ad zones that convert his offers the best, he can change creatives on the fly, send different types of traffic to the best converting landing page, and pause and restart campaigns. The list is endless and automation tools will increase his profits because he can scale up, optimize and increase his ROI.
ExoClick provides a range of automation tools including the Bidder, landing page traffic share algorithms in our Offers tool and our platform API. And because we are a totally transparent ad network, clients have full visibility and control over the automation processes they want to use. Automation also comes in the form of RTB and is programmatic with our ad exchange, allowing advertisers to bid for one single, targeted impression, whilst automating the selling of media space for publishers. In fact, our RTB team is now managing a billion daily RTB events for both supply and demand.
XBIZ: As ad tech continues to evolve, AI and APIs are playing a greater role in modern marketing. What do advertisers and publishers need to know about these technologies and how can ExoClick put this power into their hands?
Fonzé: AI is helping brands understand user behavior and needs. Users leave online footprints all the time when they are using the internet. Search data, clicks and social media conversations can be analyzed and leveraged by marketers to understand an individual user’s needs. Additionally, deep learning algorithms are designed to predict user behavior, so brands can show ads that are relevant to the user which leads to highly targeted ads for better optimization and a higher ROI.
AI is becoming an essential part of every advanced media-buying platform, in order to take optimization decisions on behalf of advertisers. ExoClick´s Bidder enables advertisers to set predefined metrics in order to optimize bidding on ad zones. The metrics set limits to control spending and additional rules can be created in order to automatically block underperforming ad zones.
Similarly, in programmatic bidding, advertisers should start getting familiar with AI solutions to make smarter decisions on which query to reply to and how much to bid. ExoClick helps advertisers and publishers to save resources by automatically adjusting the volume of programmatic requests sent to their servers based on performance.
Another application of AI is ad security. We currently have AI algorithms implemented in order to identify and stop malvertising and we use natural language processing and image recognition to analyze advertising elements in order to stop noncompliant ads/creatives from being served on our network.
Now APIs provide a means to implement more automation and connectivity, because APIs can talk to each other. We based our new administrator panel on ExoClick’s platform API which means that clients can automate every feature. Clients can build their own bespoke dashboards, create and optimize campaigns, track conversions across a range of different networks or affiliate programs, implement several sub-ID levels that allow tracking of media buying costs and revenue down to user level, edit and change ad zones or even create their own version of our administrator panel to suit their needs. Our API also contains a code generator that allows developers to quickly implement chosen automation features.
XBIZ: Virtual reality continues to make inroads into adult entertainment, with new offers for tech-forward audiences. What can advertisers do to reach this new market and how can ExoClick help?
Fonzé: The key to growing the VR segment is through content, because by driving demand for new content, consumers will integrate their headsets into their everyday lives for entertainment purposes. While many people thought that it would be gaming that would push VR, it is actually adult content that is really driving VR technology forward.
ExoClick’s platform does offer ways for VR content producers and brands to reach users. Within our adult niche targeting, advertisers can select virtual reality. Additionally, with our keyword targeting, I suggest advertisers use phrases such as “VR porn,” “VR videos,” “VR 360” or try specific niches’ names before VR, e.g., “Teen VR,” “MILF VR” or “Gay VR.” Also try keyword targeting with brands such as BaDoinkVR and VR Cosplay and by devices like VR Gear. Ad formats that convert well for VR offers are popunders, banners and pre-roll, all across mobile or desktop.
Advertisers and publishers can learn more by visiting ExoClick.com.
