LoopMe Granted First U.S. Patent for PurchaseLoop Brand’s Real-Time Optimization and Industry Benchmarking Capabilities

Today is an exciting day! We are thrilled to announce that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued U.S. Patent No. 20,180,053,208A1 for LoopMe’s PurchaseLoop Brand and its unique system for collecting brand awareness and advertising campaign performance results in real-time. 

The patent, LoopMe’s first to be issued in the U.S., protects PurchaseLoop Brand’s ability to adapt its system, using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, in order to target advertisements to users most likely to be influenced by exposure to brand and present those results during the campaign, in real-time, for “in-flight” optimization. It also allows advertisers to monitor and benchmark performance against similar campaigns across the industry.

The current, conventional method for advertisers not using LoopMe’s newly patented technology is to run a brand campaign, and then complete measurement after the campaign has finished, using surveys to a panel. However, this approach does not enable the advertiser to change course while the campaign is in process (a.k.a. “in-flight”), and it is a major challenge to optimize campaign targeting effectively without real-time feedback. In contrast, LoopMe’s PurchaseLoop Brand runs surveys in parallel with an ad campaign to measure performance in-flight against a control group.

“We are very pleased that the USPTO views the PurchaseLoop Brand real-time optimization platform as novel and inventive, granting our first U.S. patent,” said Leonard Newnham, Chief Data Scientist at LoopMe. “The issuance of this patent is a significant milestone in real-time data optimization and campaign benchmarking. It comes at a critical time in LoopMe’s journey as we continue to unveil new PurchaseLoop Audiences and Measurement solutions to better analyze key brand sentiments.”LoopMe has an additional four patents pending. For more information on LoopMe PurchaseLoop Brand and its technologies, please contact solutions@loopme.com or visit https://loopme.com/purchaseloop/

 

Ukraine flag with LoopMe logo

We have been saddened and shocked by the terrible conflict in Ukraine. Our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine and we will continue to do everything we can for our team and their families. 

With the evolving situation in the country, we want to take a moment to share with you how we are supporting our colleagues who are based there.

Our immediate priority is their health and safety. We are closely monitoring the situation and have plans in place to support them should their well-being come into question. We have opened an office in Krakow, Poland and in the west of Ukraine and will support anyone who wishes to move to either location.

With the help of our technical colleagues and contractors throughout the world – including Ukraine, the UK, Bulgaria, Singapore, and the United States – we continue to operate our core products and services without disruption. We operate a cloud-based data provider network in EU, US and Asia with dedicated servers in a data center in Germany. All customer data continues to be secure.

 This is a challenging time for all Ukrainians, including our team. We’re supporting local humanitarian efforts and join all of those calling for a swift and peaceful end to hostilities. 

If you wish to offer support, we have set up a donation page here that provides help directly to our Ukraine office and to other local resources. The Red Cross Ukraine donation page is available here.

We appreciate your business and your support for our team during this time.

The LoopMe Team

LiveRamp Data Marketplace Debut: LoopMe’s PurchaseLoop Audiences Solution Offers Advanced Audience Segmentation for More Effective Targeting Across All Screens

Big news! Today, we introduced PurchaseLoop Audiences, a new standalone offering available on LiveRamp Data Marketplace. PurchaseLoop Audiences, a solution derived from LoopMe’s successful Audience Intelligence targeting product, provides advertisers with easy access to “always on,” custom segments for more effective audience targeting across all screens, outside of LoopMe media campaigns. As a third-party audience provider, LoopMe now offers clients a unique way to discover hard-to-reach audiences via its proprietary survey tool that reaches 250M U.S. users and covers 90M households in the U.S.

Opt-in, privacy conscious and not reliant on cookies to build the segments, PurchaseLoop Audiences segments are best for use in campaigns with goals around competitive conquesting, uncovering brand loyalty, or for intent to purchase. With identity changes within the ecosystem, PurchaseLoop Audiences does not rely on any cookies in curating the audience segments, making this solution scalable into the future state of the industry. 

Trusted by the world’s largest brands across technology, pharmaceutical, CPG, media companies and other social platforms, PurchaseLoop Audiences delivers the most effective audience solutions due to the AI-powered platform that informs the survey distribution for the recruitment of respondents. PurchaseLoop Audiences serves the survey via mobile devices to find respondents and, using advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify which attributes are involved in those responses, builds a predictive model to find more respondents within that category. The LoopMe AI engine uses predictive precision analysis to recruit more respondents, thus building a strong audience of opt-in, in-market intenders.

Over 200 segments are available, but the unique value PurchaseLoop Audiences brings to the ecosystem is the ability to customize segments across various parameters, a capability that is appealing to advertisers and ad tech partners that need to find unique, recent, reliable and future-proof audiences. Examples of these segments include:

  • Demographics: Family & parenting, urban / suburban dwellers, high net worth individuals
  • Behavioral Intent: Frequent restaurant diners, auto intenders, omnichannel shoppers, in-market travelers
  • Media consumption patterns: TV streamers, mobile gamers, wireless service provider switchers
  • Other unique segments: Health related (vaccine status), early adopters (tech), B2B (small business employees)

For more information on how to access PurchaseLoop Audiences and activate them via LiveRamp Data Marketplace, contact us at LiveRampAudiences@LoopMe.com.

Apple’s Private Relay Announcement and What it Means for LoopMe Customers

Apple is rolling out new privacy controls as part of a larger initiative to provide its customers with a choice in identity protection. However, this poses some challenges to digital marketers who have relied on proven methods for email marketing and retargeting.

LoopMe is 100% committed to serving its customers and providing sophisticated technology solutions that adhere to the changing market conditions, while still reaching the right audiences for our customers. Our 100+ product and engineering teams have been diligently working to ensure our products and services are equipped with the proper tech solutions to thrive no matter how the digital landscape evolves.

In the recent news regarding Apple’s IP obfuscation, we wanted to provide some context on what this means for our clients and LoopMe’s solutions. We are closely monitoring Apple’s plans and how Private Replay will be rolled out. 

While we can’t predict how this will impact our industry as a whole, we do know every company in the ecosystem will have to make changes to how they do business. 

We believe that companies WITHOUT AI-powered, multivariate optimization techniques, will struggle to overcome the identity obfuscation initiatives such as this update from Apple. 

LoopMe has a patented AI platform — leveraging millions of data points for media optimization — that adapts and learns at scale on how to deliver effective media performance for the given advertiser goals, still maintaining a privacy-first compliant solution. LoopMe does not rely on one identifier or parameter for its optimization but rather leverages a multivariate approach for optimization, which means the loss of one identifier or data source is not critical to performance. 

When we tested against IDFA and Google IDs being removed, we found our AI-powered models were 96% effective at serving our customers’ needs. We feel strongly that we’re in the best position to thrive in this era and have scalable technology to adapt to market changes.

The use of AI in media delivery puts LoopMe in the best position to address clients needs, provide effective media performance for brand outcomes, and power campaign optimizations regardless of the changes companies like Apple or Google make to their tech stacks.


LoopMe’s in-flight optimization from its PurchaseLoop suite won’t be affected by this change due to our ability with machine learning and artificial intelligence to find alternative attributes outside of IP that will infer optimization needs.

You can read more about how this impacts the industry as a whole from the IAB Tech Lab’s blog here.

 

How AR Gives Ads New Purpose

Ahead of joining Brand Innovators panel discussion on Collaborative Advertising: How AR Gives Ads New Purpose, last week LoopMe surveyed over 2,300 U.S. consumers and asked about the value of interactive, immersive advertising experience.

Nearly 20% of consumers say they’re more likely to pay attention to interactive ads with 2/3’s of them remember seeing ads while playing games on their mobile devices. So awareness of ads are high but the majority of consumers have not engaged with an AR ad — not surprising since we don’t see many brands really tapping into this yet.

Interestingly though, a quarter of consumers would have a better attitude of ads if they were more engaging and almost 40% of consumers may find it useful to use a virtual first look for products.

This is a huge opportunity for brands to reach consumers in a more meaningful memorable way.

Q1: Have you seen ads while playing games on your phone or tablet?

2/3 of consumers have seen ads while playing mobile games.

Q2: Are you more likely to pay attention to ads that offer interactive components?

20% of consumers say they’re more likely to pay attention to interactive ads.

Q3: Would you feel better about ads if they were more engaging?

1/4 of consumers would have a better attitude of ads if they were more engaging.

Q4: Have you ever engaged with an ad using your camera or augmented reality?

The majority of consumers (94%) have not engaged with an AR ad using their camera.

Q5: Would you find it useful to shop for a product if you can use the ad to create a virtual first look?

Almost 40% (39.5%) of consumers may find it useful to use a virtual first look for products.

Contact Us to find out more about LoopMe.

 

Advertising in a Post-IDFA World: LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board Identity Series

Part 3 of a 3 part series that dives into the opportunities and challenges pertaining to the removal of persistent IDs in digital advertising featuring LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board members.

Privacy is at the forefront of digital advertising, and in recent weeks, the focus has been escalating as companies are planning to make significant changes to the use of persistent identifiers in digital advertising.

In a recent press announcement we shared details of the company’s tech performance with ALL persistent identifiers removed, including Apple’s IDFA, Google’s Ad ID and third-party cookies. We have been preparing for the changes by testing our system’s ability to adapt and perform without these specific attributes and ran scenario testing that surprisingly revealed that our AI-powered predictive models retain 96% of their previous effectiveness, giving us further confidence in LoopMe’s ability to deliver lift across campaigns while the industry undergoes these technical changes.

We also took this opportunity to sit down with LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board, including Greg Coleman (Chairman of LoopMe board and former President of Criteo and Buzzfeed), Wenda Harris Millard (Vice Chairman of MediaLink), John Montgomery (Executive Vice President of Brand Safety at WPP’s GroupM), Rishad Tobaccowala (former Publicis CGO), Eric Eichmann (Spark Networks CEO, former Criteo CEO), Iain Jacob (CEO, Chair, NED), Lynda Clarizio (former President, Nielsen US Media), Mainardo de Nardis (former OMD CEO) and Wanda Young (CMO at Samsung Electronics America) to have a discussion about the future of digital advertising in a privacy-centric world.

Moderated by LoopMe’s CEO and founder Stephen Upstone, we’ve launched this three part series that will answer questions about the impact of digital advertising on marketers, consumers and how we’ll all navigate the post-IDFA world.

Q: What impact will these changes have on measurement and attribution?

Wenda: 

Measurement and attribution is one of the most important areas that need to be addressed in a post-IDFA world.  Without a privacy-centered set of technologies that protect the consumer, we’ll see certain current attribution models weakened, meaning we’ll see a decrease in campaign performance.  Fortunately, there are companies like LoopMe that are way ahead of the game on this, having taken an integrated approach to measurement using AI and multivariate data analysis.

Mainardo: 

Wider, smarter, holistic approach to measurement & enhanced mix modeling. More complex decisioning process. Finally reaching beyond digital.

John M

These changes make it more challenging for companies (agencies, marketers and research companies) that use 3rd party data to measure media performance and attribute impressions to the most effective media. If not addressed these changes could make digital effectiveness more difficult to define.

Lynda:

These changes will make measurement and attribution a more complex, challenging task as there will need to be greater reliance on numerous, disparate data streams and the ingestion and integration of these data streams at high volume and at scale. 

Iain:

Measurement and attribution are entering a new era of maturity that can deliver powerful competitive advantage. To win requires powerful data science capability and the ability to deploy sophisticated AI to predict and optimise real business outcomes. To date, much measurement and attribution has in reality confused correlation with causation and led to poor decisions.

Q: What are the impacts to consumer experience?

John M

Unless alternative methods of targeting and managing frequency are used, consumer experience could be negatively affected. Users do not want to see irrelevant ads at an unmanaged frequency level. This will only undermine the quality and trust of digital advertising as a medium.

Mainardo

Enhanced. Relevant. Safer.

Wenda

Initially, before marketers discover some of the new and best tech companies addressing the targeting issue without the use of cookies and other identifiers, the consumer may experience advertising that is less relevant to their needs and interests.  That leads to less effective campaign performance and therefore lower ROI on advertising investment.  In short order, though, I think that as advertisers and their agencies discover the power of LoopMe and others providing quality solutions to the issue, we will see better and better performance and a more trusting, loyal consumer.  And that, of course, translates to better financial performance.

Iain:

Consumers don’t care about advertising, they don’t generally ‘seek out’ relevance, the vast majority of advertising’s impact comes from subconscious processing and emotional appeal. This is why use of data has to be way smarter at matching media and creative deployment to valuable business outcomes such as building brand equity.

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here of a 3 part identity series.

 

Advertising in a Post-IDFA World: LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board Identity Series

Part 2 of a 3 part series that dives into the opportunities and challenges pertaining to the removal of persistent IDs in digital advertising featuring LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board members.

Privacy is at the forefront of digital advertising, and in recent weeks, the focus has been escalating as companies are planning to make significant changes to the use of persistent identifiers in digital advertising.

In a recent press announcement we shared details of the company’s tech performance with ALL persistent identifiers removed, including Apple’s IDFA, Google’s Ad ID and third-party cookies. We have been preparing for the changes by testing our system’s ability to adapt and perform without these specific attributes and ran scenario testing that surprisingly revealed that our AI-powered predictive models retain 96% of their previous effectiveness, giving us further confidence in LoopMe’s ability to deliver lift across campaigns while the industry undergoes these technical changes.

We also took this opportunity to sit down with LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board, including Greg Coleman (Chairman of LoopMe board and former President of Criteo and Buzzfeed), Wenda Harris Millard (Vice Chairman of MediaLink), John Montgomery (Executive Vice President of Brand Safety at WPP’s GroupM), Rishad Tobaccowala (former Publicis CGO), Eric Eichmann (Spark Networks CEO, former Criteo CEO), Iain Jacob (CEO, Chair, NED), Lynda Clarizio (former President, Nielsen US Media), Mainardo de Nardis (former OMD CEO) and Wanda Young (CMO at Samsung Electronics America) to have a discussion about the future of digital advertising in a privacy-centric world.

Moderated by LoopMe’s CEO and founder Stephen Upstone, we’ve launched this three part series that will answer questions about the impact of digital advertising on marketers, consumers and how we’ll all navigate the post-IDFA world.

Q: What are the main priorities for advertisers to align with these identity changes?

John M

The priorities don’t change. Marketers must get the right message in front of the ideal consumer the right number of times (and in the appropriate environment). The priority for marketers is to find other ways of identifying users who are most likely to buy, be that through AI-driven predictive modelling, contextual targeting or to focus on better creative quality in digital advertising (great creative advertising remains one of the best segmentation tools available to marketers).

Wenda

Marketers and their agencies need to work together to ensure that consumers’ privacy is protected, while at the same time developing new ways to target the consumers who are most likely to buy their goods and services.  We will need to create industry standards for acceptable ways to reach these consumers in a post-IDFA world, and that includes vetting safe new technologies that earn desired results with anonymized data.

Mainardo: 

They need to make sense of their first party data strategies, to have a clear understanding of the importance of content and the knowledge that creative intelligence allows. They need to be ready for constant adaptation to change. Having a holistic market view and focus on business KPIs.

Lynda:

In addition to the comments from my esteemed colleagues, I’d like to add that brands need to demand independent measurement of the business outcomes they seek to achieve from their marketing.  Brands cannot rely on the large digital media platforms to measure themselves without third party verification.

Iain

The main priority for advertisers is to take control of their data strategy and be smart in choosing data suppliers and partners that genuinely build the advertisers’ capability.

Q: Why is there such a heightened scrutiny on consumer privacy?

Wenda

It’s been building for a long time, but consumers’ awareness of the issues has been heightened recently by the number and scale of data breaches that have “hit home” with them personally, whether the breach happened at their banking institution or a favorite retailer.  Stories about hacking and foreign interference in our politics have been front-page news these last few years, creating genuine fear and concern for all — for consumers, for businesses and for government.

John M: 

This is a complex confluence of events. Consumer’s data has been misused for too long and that has caught the attention of the legislators and the press. There has been active publicity about data breaches and data misuse (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) and 3rd party cookie data has been conflated with more serious data infractions such as these. In addition, the large platforms have identified the heightened awareness around privacy as an opportunity to position themselves as privacy friendly “owners” of data by securing permission from their billions of users.

Mainardo: 

Privacy matters. It’s all about trust. And trust and reputation drive growth.

Lynda:

We have reached a tipping point.  There has always been scrutiny but it has been heightened by multiple data breaches and increasing abuse of consumer trust in connection with how consumer data is used to target advertising and to proliferate disinformation, hate speech and other harmful content.  

Iain:

Privacy sits at the heart of trust. Lack of consumer trust is a brand and company killer. It may take a while to hit the bottom line, but with damaged trust you cannot have a sustainable business, period.

Read Part 1 of a 3 part identity series here

 

Advertising in a Post-IDFA World: LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board Identity Series

Part 1 of a 3 part series that dives into the opportunities and challenges pertaining to the removal of persistent IDs in digital advertising featuring LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board members.

Privacy is at the forefront of digital advertising, and in recent weeks, the focus has been escalating as companies are planning to make significant changes to the use of persistent identifiers in digital advertising.

In a recent press announcement we shared details of the company’s tech performance with ALL persistent identifiers removed, including Apple’s IDFA, Google’s Ad ID and third-party cookies. We have been preparing for the changes by testing our system’s ability to adapt and perform without these specific attributes and ran scenario testing that surprisingly revealed that our AI-powered predictive models retain 96% of their previous effectiveness, giving us further confidence in LoopMe’s ability to deliver lift across campaigns while the industry undergoes these technical changes.

We also took this opportunity to sit down with LoopMe’s Data Advisory Board, including Greg Coleman (Chairman of LoopMe board and former President of Criteo and Buzzfeed), Wenda Harris Millard (Vice Chairman of MediaLink), John Montgomery (Executive Vice President of Brand Safety at WPP’s GroupM), Rishad Tobaccowala (former Publicis CGO), Eric Eichmann (Spark Networks CEO, former Criteo CEO), Iain Jacob (CEO, Chair, NED), Lynda Clarizio (former President, Nielsen US Media), Mainardo de Nardis (former OMD CEO) and Wanda Young (CMO at Samsung Electronics America) to have a discussion about the future of digital advertising in a privacy-centric world.

Moderated by LoopMe’s CEO and founder Stephen Upstone, we’ve launched this three part series that will answer questions about the impact of digital advertising on marketers, consumers and how we’ll all navigate the post-IDFA world.

Q: In light of recent announcements, what is your perspective on how the industry will navigate a post-IDFA world?

Wenda

The good news is that this is not a new issue for technology companies, publishers and most marketers. There has been a lot of conversation and press about this, resulting in a variety of new developments in how best to protect consumer privacy while still moving businesses forward by meeting their marketing objectives.  I think we can expect to see innovation in many areas, including measurement.

Mainardo

I see confusion and denial, over a longer period of time while we live through a hybrid phase — cookies are not all disappearing tomorrow. Some very different contracting opinions. It will take some time to spot the opportunities. Some will do better than others in an increasingly competitive scenario.

John M

This will necessitate a changed perspective on behavioral targeting which has driven digital marketing for the last 15 years.

Lynda:

In the short term, there will be disruption for sure as the industry has become over-reliant on IDFA and cookies for targeting.  In the longer term, the industry will emerge stronger as this will spur innovation in measurement in a manner that better protects consumer privacy.

Iain: 

Recent developments around IDFA and third-party cookies have confirmed to brand owners that they need to take control and responsibility for their data strategies and how consumer data is being used on their behalf. Likewise, reliance on reported data from walled gardens is at best problematic. Advertisers need to increasingly work with smart providers that can build their insight and predictive capability, not just in lower funnel metrics, but in brand building and the development of valuable business outcomes.

Q: Who will ‘win’ and what’s at stake?

Mainardo

The winners will be those who better understood what was coming, and when. Those who had a wider spectrum instead of a narrow approach, however deep it may have been. And those who understand the importance of creative intelligence and the need to optimize content, not just audiences, while other signals are already diminishing.

Rishad: 

The ability LoopMe has to automatically learn in-flight, reacting to a changing environment and matching advertising creative to current consumer behavior, is not the norm for advertising today, and would be difficult to recreate. The LoopMe platform works by having 1,500 algorithms (including some of the latest deep learning models, built and updated by the data science team of over 25 people) competing with each other on every campaign, automatically swapping to the best performing algorithm every 10 minutes, based on live data, which is measuring results against that campaign outcome. You have a real time data infrastructure, built and honed over years, and with all the data from prior campaigns, which is making decisions at quickly (<5ms) and at scale (millions per second). Moreover, your tech and methodology means you are in a great place to not only survive the demise of personal identifiers like IDFA and the associated moves to improve personal privacy, but it gives you long-term stability to adapt to the new way of working in this ecosystem. I think you have a long runway of growth ahead of you. 

Wenda: 

Those companies that provide full transparency for both consumers and businesses will be winners. That will require a cooperative effort to help educate everyone — consumers, businesses and government — about the difference between personalized and privacy-safe anonymized data and why it matters.  Ultimately, everyone is a winner.  Marketers will gain heightened levels of consumer engagement and trust, yielding better financial results and longer-lasting relationships with their customers.

John M: 

The most obvious winners are the companies that have the strongest first party relationships with their direct customers and of course the platforms that have been securing agreement from their users to use their data.

Lynda:

The winners will be those that can dynamically leverage and aggregate first party data in combination with anonymized third party datasets and real-time survey and other opt-in data — and, as Wenda says, doing this in a manner that provides full transparency for brands and consumers alike.

Iain:

In this new world those that have the ability to build better understanding and predictive capability around brand development will win. Businesses that can take multiple streams of data signals and use powerful AI techniques to learn, optimise media and develop more effective advertising content as a consequence, will prevail. However, this is easier said than done and in a world of overclaim advertisers need to choose their partners very smartly.

 

International Women’s Day Recap: Empowerment

On Thursday 4th March 2021, LoopMe held an internal discussion to celebrate International Women’s Day. We explored some of the key issues faced by women, and identified ways in which both employees and businesses can drive systemic change. 

LoopMe invited a variety of external talent to join us, our three panelists consisted of:

  • Elizabeth Anyaegbuna, Co-founder, sixteenbyninemedia
  • Katie Grosvenor, Head of Sales, IAS
  • Lukeisha Paul, Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, GroupM

Our panel was moderated by LoopMe’s Sarah Rew, Senior Director, Global Marketing.

Panelists shared their perspectives on what International Women’s Day means to them, and provided examples of the women who inspire them. Lukeisha Paul highlighted the importance of women being unapologetically themselves. Katie Grosvenor echoed Lukeisha’s thoughts, and spoke about the importance of authenticity.  

Elizabeth Anyaegbuna shared a reminder that there is still a lot of work to be done in the push for equality, and that International Women’s Day isn’t just one day. Elizabeth also shared how her mother had been a profound inspiration to her. 

Furthermore, we explored what steps can be taken to help create better workplaces that encourage gender and thought diversification. Katie Grosvenor spoke about starting from the moment you meet someone with a view to employing them. The importance of making recruitment processes more inclusive, offer flexible working and be understanding of an individuals specific needs. Create a culture that embraces diversity, mentoring, but also develop sponsorship programmes and ensure there are role models.

Our conversation then turned to what resources, groups or opportunities are available to those in our industry who want to get involved in Women’s Empowerment projects. 

Lukeisha provided an overview of the American not-for-profit group ‘She Runs It’, of which LoopMe are corporate Members. Whilst Katie and Elizabeth drew attention to Bloom UK.

To conclude our panel, we asked our panelists how men can become better allies to women. Katie spoke about The Exchange, a Bloom led event, the objective of which is to engage more men in the gender debate. The cross-mentoring programme matches industry-leading men with Bloom members to break down the barriers contributing to the gender divide in our industry.

LoopMe Corporate Social Responsibility 2020 –
A Year in Review

2020 was a year like no other. It goes without saying 2020 brought us a multitude of challenges. As we move ahead into a new year, we’ve reflected on our recent Corporate Social Responsibility achievements.

While we have always valued diversity, inclusion and CSR at LoopMe, in 2020 we formalized a company-wide effort to organize, communicate and support various initiatives around diversity, inclusion and the greater good for our communities.