Dagensanalys.se har pratat med Vanessa Tadier som är General Manager of Europe på företaget Visual IQ. I denna intervju berättar hon hur de utvecklar sina komplexa algoritmer, vilka produkter som är mest populära bland kunderna samt hur de gång på gång koras till marknadsledande.
How do you develop your algorithmic attribution products? Are we talking white robes in a lab or a genius behind a big screen?
Actually, they’re developed by a group of guys in lab coats sitting at computer screens – you just need to know the secret handshake in order to gain access to their lab! In reality, they are developed by a team of PhDs in mathematics who don’t produce custom algorithms or models for each client, but face the more difficult task of creating the math behind our products so that they are able to ingest marketing performance data from any channel, any client, and any business model. By doing so, our products then create the appropriate model for each client. Working alongside the team that produces the technology infrastructure is a team of professionals with backgrounds in media, manufacturing and other disciplines, where both analytical and predictive modeling are frequently used.
Which one of your offerings is most popular among your clients – IQ Envoy, Audience IQ, IQ Sage or IQ Deploy? And why?
It’s not a question of which are the most popular, because the methodology behind our products dictates that clients start with IQ Envoy, and then add additional products as their needs and sophistication grows. IQ Sage, which builds upon IQ Envoy’s backward-looking analysis to provide forward-thinking predictive analytics and “what if?” scenario planning, is the second most used product. Due to the rise of programmatic, our IQ Deploy product as also significantly grown in popularity over the past 12 months, as it takes the attributed metrics and recommendations produced in IQ Envoy and IQ Sage and automatically sends them to media buying platforms. As a result, these platforms, including DSPs and RTBs, can perform automated media buys based on more informed attributed metrics, rather than the last click metrics on which they typically operate.
Who is your typical customer?
Today, our current customer is primarily a business-to-consumer (B2C) brand engaged in direct response activities, who spends a sizeable portion of their budget on digital advertising. They are an organisation that can easily justify the cost of our products based on the 15-35% increase in media efficiency that our products typically provide.
In 2014, Visual IQ was ranked a leader in The Forrester Wave: Cross-Channel Attribution Providers for the fourth time in row. How do you stay ahead of the competition?
While it might sound cliché, much of the secret behind how we remain cutting edge in our industry is by listening to our customers. Our customer base is comprised of many of the world’s largest and most demanding brands, which work with some of the world’s largest and most demanding advertising agencies. We are pushed by them to innovate on a daily basis. Often, our clients will read about something, or hear about something at a conference, and will ask us what we can do to take advantage of it. It’s that type of input that goes into our product roadmap. Beyond that, we also have a lot of really smart, talented people working at Visual IQ, who come from different areas of the industry, and bring a lot of different perspectives on marketing measurement and optimisation. These diverse perspectives help shape the future of our products as well.
What is around the corner for Visual IQ?
As I mentioned earlier, our typical customer is reaping the benefits of optimisation and the media efficiency gains associated with their direct response efforts. But frankly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Worldwide, there’s a lot more money being spent on branding and brand engagement than on direct response. There’s a huge opportunity for a solution that can solve the brand marketing attribution problem. Let’s just say, stay tuned . . .