THE USER IS STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MOST PRECISE TARGETING

This interview by Anton Priebe with Welect appeared in ADZINE on 9 April 2020

Digital advertising offers targeting options to reach your target group with as little wastage as possible. This means that moving image advertising, which only appeals to the masses on TV, can be played out in a highly personalised way online. However, various developments are threatening the future accuracy of targeting, at least at browser level. Olaf Peters-Kim and Philipp Dommers from Welect do not see this as a problem, but rather an opportunity for their company. The Düsseldorf-based adtech provider accurately delivers adverts from major agency networks, Commerzbank and Nissan to the right target group on sites such as Focus, Kölner Stadtanzeiger and Chip. In the interview, Dommers and Peters-Kim explain how they give users the opportunity to do the targeting themselves.

ADZINE: Hello Olaf, hello Philipp, would you please try to explain Welect in two sentences?

Peters-Kim: We stand for self-determined advertising consumption by users and call this on-demand advertising. We think that co-determined advertising consumption is no longer in keeping with the times.

ADZINE: How do you implement this technically?

Peters-Kim: We present the user with a selection of videos from various brands during corresponding ad breaks on the Internet. To do this, we connect publishers and advertisers on a joint advertising platform.

ADZINE: How can we imagine this from the user's perspective?

Dommers: As a rule, we provide the user with six videos to choose from, whereby they can then decide in favour of one of these with a single click, just like a ‘Netflix for advertising’. Welect is used in different variants. For example, there are placements where the video player scales to full screen and then plays the advert in full screen. Other integrations run instream, as part of a paywall, an adblock dialogue or in the CMP area.

ADZINE: So you offer a monetisation solution for content on the one hand and an audience for advertising videos on the other, with users choosing which one they want to watch. That sounds like a lot of interfaces and therefore very complex - where does your technology come from? Did you develop it yourself or do you work with individual solutions?

Peters-Kim: We developed the technology ourselves. So it wasn't outsourced to a third country, but actually built here in Germany. That was always very important to us. Right from the start, we focussed on high-performance and scalable technology. Due to the different interfaces, we have to ensure that mass ranges can be handled there. After three years, we can confirm that this works on the platform.

ADZINE: For mass reach, you first need the masses. How has your product been received in the publisher landscape, i.e. how much reach have you achieved in the meantime?

Peters-Kim: We currently reach five million unique users per month. However, the number is growing very dynamically.

ADZINE: Does the marketing only run via your own platform or do you work together with partners? And how are you connected to the programmatic ecosystem?

Dommers: First and foremost, we market ourselves. We also have some partnerships with four or five marketers. Most of our bookings are I/O, but you can also access the inventory programmatically. We are connected to all major demand-side platforms (DSPs).

ADZINE: There are often very high financial barriers to entry in video advertising. Can smaller advertisers who don't want to put six- or seven-figure sums on the table get on board with you?

Dommers: Absolutely. They often do, because we offer regional targeting that is booked at short notice.

ADZINE: Speaking of targeting - how do you select the right adverts for the user? You talk about ‘organic targeting’ - where is the intelligence in that?

Dommers: Apart from geotargeting, we offer various themed channels that we put together ourselves. Of course, this has a lot to do with the topic of environment and means a combination of different pages that we bundle for a target group. The tech channel then runs on Chip or in the technology section of Spiegel Online, for example. In some cases, this is also done by analysing the content using keywords. However, with our approach, the environment does not have such a big influence on the targeting quality, because the user makes the final decision himself: He selects a video and thus operates the ‘organic targeting’. The intelligence is therefore extremely high, as every user knows best which video they want to watch in the respective situation.

ADZINE: Does that mean the user does the targeting themselves?

Dommers: Exactly. This targeting works without data. In times of cookie extinction, this is very much in demand. We can also store a frequency cap so that it is possible to play campaigns in series, for example when different content pieces build on each other. And we only charge once a user has watched the entire video. In this way, we ensure that the user is also interested in the topic, i.e. is relevant to the advertiser and belongs to the target group. However, it is important that the advertiser designs the teaser of their campaign for our campaign overview in such a way that people only view it if the topic is relevant to them. Good creation is therefore also required at this point. We can support our advertising clients in this if required.

ADZINE: ‘Better advertising impact through self-determined video consumption’ is your motto, which you also back up with studies. But is that scalable? Where do you want to go with it?

Peters-Kim: Yes, it is absolutely scalable. This feedback channel option is available throughout the Internet. We can address people wherever they consume things and ask them which video they would like to watch. It can also be used on any device and is by no means niche. We also notice this in the variety of placements. When it comes to video views, it's all about quality. We will never have the mass of contacts like YouTube or Facebook. But when it comes to 100 per cent completed views, we will be able to keep up with the big players in a few years' time. In 2021, we want to move towards internationalisation.

ADZINE: Olaf, Philipp, thank you very much for talking to us!