Amit Mittal decodes the digital advertisement space in India and the challenges associated with it
The need of robust platforms creating such tools in marketing/advertising sectorIJ
There are majorly three issues which emphasise the need. First, we need to ensure the advertising communication across digital platforms is not turning into blind spots. Second, it is important to save advertising budgets from being consumed by bots and non-human traffic. Finally, it needs to be ensured that the advertiser’s digital campaigns are within the viewable frame and not just impressions.
What are the factors responsible for the need of this technologyIJ
At present, 56 per cent of ad impressions do not fall in the user view ability frame and same percentage of number of the internet traffic is bots and non-human traffic which led to wastage of $11 billion of digital ad spend in 2014 as per a recent study. Also, there is no platform to ensure advertiser pays only when the user interacts with his brand. Hence arises a requirement for an integrated tech platform to ensure engagements between user and brands in a bot-free environment.
What are the opportunities in this spaceIJ
Digital space is quite crowded with many platforms. In India, most of them act as just mediators between advertisers and publishers. There are very few ad-tech companies who use core technology to drive ROI for the brands. Ad-fraud has many components and at present no firm is trying to solve this issue in real-time in India. Most of the firms act as audit firms or do a post facto analysis on ad spends. This method loses its essence as the ad spends have already been wasted. Hence, arises an opportunity to ensure real-time saving in ad spends. Globally, a few companies have started the same but in bits and parts. There is still a huge gap to solve this problem holistically.
How does Simpli5d bridge this gapIJ
We offer Real Human Engagements via its proprietary products - NlPCaptcha and NlPVideo. These products have a patent pending against them. The products are plugged across publishers and hence huge amount of data is generated every day. Our intelligence platform filters this data based on our proprietary algorithm as human/non- human data. The data also helps us to profile audience on their browsing behaviour. This ensures that whenever an ad banner is served, it is served to humans and not bots.
How is it different from other such similar platforms availableIJ
First, they are ad-tech enablers instead of platforms. Globally there is no single platform. All the tech providers either provide one solution or the other based on third party data. The key to enable any technology is the accuracy of the data to ensure right targeting and bot free environment.
What is the company’s objectiveIJ
The objective of the company is to be the leader across the globe to ensure real human plus real engagement plus right targeting for any ad campaign.
Are there challenges in this sectorIJ
The main challenge is lack of education in India among marketeers on the ad-fraud ecosystem. Though the same is evolving but it will still take some time for this information to percolate. Another major challenge is marketeers consider a campaign successful if it generates X amount of clicks/visits but they do not understand 30-40 per cent of the same is driven by bots and not real human.
What about expansion plansIJ
The company is currently operational in India, Thailand and Spain. We intend to cover the complete South-east Asia markets and the European markets with our offerings. Apart from this, we intend to open our product for third party ad serving to prevent ad-frauds and ensure real targeting across any platform and not just specific to our products.