Semcasting Marketing Appliance 2.0 Delivers First End-To-End Audience-Media-Pricing Campaign Optimization Platform

Smart Zones and new Media Zones provide pricing and performance metrics before the campaign starts 

NORTH ANDOVER, MA – (October 22, 2014) – Semcasting, the leader in advanced data solutions for audience targeting, announces the Semcasting Marketing Appliance 2.0. This newest version of the platform features the company’s existing Smart Zones technology, enhanced Consumer and B2B targeting capability, and the introduction of Media Zones, a new patent-pending technology that provides marketers with deep visibility into their audiences, media mix and pricing before a single dollar has been spent and before a single impression has been delivered.

The success of advertising campaigns that use programmatic real-time bidding (RTB) is based on the promise of efficiency and an improved visibility to campaign performance. For  Agencies and Advertisers this improved visibility has provided confidence that the right audience is being targeted. However, the same RTB process also requires the gathering of impression data about each campaign and the use of algorithms to optimize the media mix and to determine bid pricing. Any adjustments made are done so in a “black box,” acting on information being gathered that requires dollars to be spent and impressions to be wasted long before any balance of performance, media and pricing is achieved.The Media Zones addition to the Marketing Appliance 2.0 addresses this timing and transparency problem by pre-scoring and reporting on the optimal media-inventory mix, timing and pricing attributes that best align with each selected audience before the campaign starts.Media Zones applies hundreds of contextual genetic models to a training set of more than 5 billion rolling impressions and engagement events. Campaign performance is accelerated by linking audience behavior to the optimal media mix, determining the right pricing for impressions, and even rating the ad sizes, day of week and time of day that will deliver the best results. Pre-scoring and matching each Smart Zone consumer or business audience to all of the contextual media-inventory enables Agencies and Advertisers to predetermine the best possible campaign design before any impressions are served.

“As technologists we can all appreciate the concept of real-time optimization - until we are faced with an application that requires more,” said Ray Kingman, CEO of Semcasting. “Adjusting in real-time will always  be part of digital campaigns, but any optimization process that by design requires an extensive discovery process is a waste of both time and money. The Semcasting Marketing Appliance 2.0 allows advertisers to ensure that they are able to launch each campaign with the right audience and the right media plan for the best return before the first impression is served.”

The Marketing Appliance 2.0 benefits from improved Smart Zones targeting for Consumer and B2B targeting, and the introduction of Media Zones:

•    A total of more than 30 million Smart Zones provides 100 percent reach to consumers, businesses, government, educational institutions and wireless devices – all with full demographic and Firmagraphic attribution, with no application of cookies or tracking.
•    Marketing Appliance 2.0 now supports rooftop level targeting to more than 4 million businesses and coverage to an additional 10 million SMB businesses, with full NAICS and SIC targeting.
•    Smart Zones B2B coverage now also includes coverage of thousands of educational institutions, government and public facilities, airports, in-flight services, hospitals and medical facilities, financial institutions, and hundreds of other industry segments.
•    Media Zones provides access and reporting for a rolling history of 5 billion impressions, click-thru rate (CTR), time of day, day of week, ad size, device, CPM values, and more.
•    Media Zones uses 350 contextual genetic models to continuously score the 30 million Smart Zones and the performance history of more than 1500 media categories.
•    Marketing Appliance 2.0 provides the ability to determine the optimal CPM bid price for optimal ROI for each audience, category, site, time of day, day of week combination.
•    Agencies and Advertisers can now select the sites/categories that will perform best before a campaign launches, use only ad sizes that will provide the best ROI, and then bid the optimal price per category/site.

Availability and Access
The Semcasting Marketing Appliance 2.0 is available now to qualified marketing professionals who are engaged with or working in corporations with CRM platforms, marketing databases, analysts, ad tech, media planning and more. For most organizations, the Marketing Appliance 2.0 will be free and will provide secure individual access to summarized demographics, personalized reporting and data standardization and hygiene services. Media Zone access is integrated into the Marketing Appliance 2.0 services with reporting, forecasting and white and blacklist generation. Certain data append services and Smart Zone audience deployments as a result of models, audience selections or onboarding will carry a CPM cost.  Organizations interested in accessing the Marketing Appliance 2.0 or learning more should contact Semcasting at support@semcasting.com.