Cheers to 10 Years: Commemorating the Last Decade at Simpli.fi

It’s hard to believe that ten years have gone by since Simpli.fi was co-founded by CEO Frost Prioleau and CTO Paul Harrison. It’s been a great ride so far, and we know there’s a lot more in store for the company. To commemorate our ten-year anniversary, let’s take a look at what all Simpli.fi has accomplished for its advertisers over the past decade, and how we’ve paved the way in bringing the best of programmatic to so many.

DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY

From the beginning, Simpli.fi has taken a different approach to programmatic. At a time when audience segments were the industry standard, our founders decided there was a better alternative.
 

“We saw an opportunity to potentially reshape digital advertising through programmatic ad buying, and knew that we fundamentally needed to do something different. While most of the entrants into the space at the time were offering solutions based on a legacy approach to audience targeting: pre-packaged, opaque audience segments like ‚Äúauto intenders,‚Äù Simpli.fi was founded to improve upon targeting using unstructured data instead. An approach that is far more precise and uses data in the same way that Google does to target search results.”

— Paul Harrison, CTO and Co-Founder

By taking a non-segment based approach, Simpli.fi was able to break the black box of segments and introduce our clients to a whole new level of audience targeting. We purpose-built a direct data network and a complete programmatic marketing platform made specifically for unstructured data. The results: we can make every individual data element, including recency, visible and valuable. Advertisers no longer have to select from a pre-packaged menu of audience segments. Like a master chef, they can use individual data elements like location, contextual content, keywords searched, browsing behavior, and more to create a custom audience for their campaign, optimizing along the way with the same element-level control.

Providing our clients with a better alternative to segments was and is the cornerstone of Simpli.fi, and it’s the foundation we’ve built our company on.

THE EARLY YEARS: A UNIQUE APPROACH TO KEYWORD-LEVEL SEARCH RETARGETING

In the early years, we dominated programmatic display with our keyword-level search retargeting solution. The reason our solution was (and is!) head and shoulders above the competition is simple: we don’t use segments.

With segment-based search retargeting, a single audience segment is created from all users who have searched on a list of terms within a specified period of time. This segment of users is then targeted with the same bid, and reported on as a single group. There is no visibility as to which keywords are driving the most traffic, which are performing best, etc.

With Simpli.fi, bidding, reporting, and optimizing are all done at the keyword-level. So, just like search campaigns, advertisers get to see exactly the number of impressions, clicks, and actions attributed to each keyword that they specified.

So what does our early success in the keyword-level search retargeting space have to do with how Simpli.fi has evolved as a company over the past decade? The answer lies within localization.

LOCALIZATION: OUR BREAD AND BUTTER

Early on, we learned the value that unstructured data has for localizing advertising efforts. Nomenclature, local preferences, and buying habits vary widely from city to city across the country. This makes it crucial for advertisers to be able to optimize audiences to local needs and deliver customized creatives to different locations.

By using unstructured data rather than segments, Simpli.fi is able to deliver personalization at a far more granular level than other programmatic platforms. Our clients get the freedom to target dynamic audiences with pinpoint precision, right down to the exact mix of desired individual data points, along with the ability to create and customize their campaigns at scale. This, coupled with automated processes for campaign entry, management, optimization and reporting, enables us to deliver performance on high volumes of localized campaigns for companies of all sizes, including large multi-location national brands.

THE MIDDLE YEARS: LEADING THE WAY IN LOCATION-BASED MARKETING

As the original pioneers of localized programmatic, it is no surprise that Simpli.fi has paved the way for location-based marketing throughout the years. In the past, advertisers had no choice but to use broader, more generalized audience-targeting strategies (e.g. DMA, zip codes, etc.). Today, we can get exponentially more granular and personalized with our digital ad campaigns thanks to Simpli.fi’s advanced location-based marketing solutions.

Geo-Fencing
Powered by latitude and longitude data to target specific geographic areas with custom shapes, Simpli.fi’s Geo-Fencing technology is the most accurate and advanced location-based mobile advertising solution on the market. Our Geo-Fencing solution allows advertisers to serve digital ads to mobile users seen within a predefined geographic area that is relevant to their business. And what’s more? Advertisers can track online-to-offline conversions using Simpli.fi’s advanced Conversion Zone technology and Geo-Conversion Lift reporting. To this day, Geo-Fencing remains one of the best ways for advertisers to effectively reach a local audience.

Addressable Geo-Fencing
Simpli.fi’s advanced Addressable Geo-Fencing solution allows advertisers to target specific households and businesses with digital advertising. By using GPS and plat line data, rather than IP-based targeting, geo-fences are drawn around a specific physical address allowing marketers to target all devices seen within the targeted household or business. This is an ideal way to leverage your own first-party data from CRMs and other sources. And if you don’t have access to your own data, Simpli.fi can curate lists for you using our new Addressable Audience Curation tool. Thanks to Simpli.fi, marketers can now reach anywhere from one to 126 million U.S. households with mobile, video, and OTT/CTV ads.

2020: THE OTT/CTV REVOLUTION

Today, Simpli.fi continues to be at the forefront of programmatic with our cutting-edge OTT/CTV advertising solution. With unstructured data as our foundation, we are proud to help our advertisers seize the massive OTT/CTV advertising opportunity that the industry is currently experiencing.

To ensure that our clients get the best in OTT/CTV advertising, Simpli.fi offers three distinct methods of audience targeting so that OTT/CTV ads reach the right users.

1. Addressable – Bringing the best in location-based targeting technology to OTT/CTV advertising, this method represents granularity in audience targeting down to the individual household-level. By using Simpli.fi’s Addressable Programmatic solutions described above, you can effectively target OTT/CTV devices seen within certain households, including the big screen in the living room!
2. Behavioral – This method gives advertisers the ability to bring the precision of digital targeting to OTT/CTV by targeting users based on keywords, context, and other online behaviors. Behavioral targeting bridges the gap between OTT/CTV and other online behaviors, reaching across devices using our cross-device matching capabilities.
3. Demographic – This method takes advantage of numerous combinations of demographic variables to find and target the right audience, at scale, with the highest degree of precision in the industry. And with over 500 categories of household demographic, political, and economic variables to choose from, advertisers can target more than 126 million households.

WE OWE OUR SUCCESS TO YOU!

We’ve accomplished a lot for our advertisers over the past decade and owe it all to you. Without you, these milestones would not be possible.

“The success we have seen over the past decade would not have been possible without our customers, employees and financial partners. We are grateful to have hired smart individuals early on who have in turn built out and retained high-performing teams. Additionally, we have had wonderful financial partners over the years that have supported our efforts and visions. Without them, none of this would have been possible. Lastly, and most importantly, we owe our success to our customers. The advancements we have made in localized programmatic would not be possible without your partnership. We look forward to continued success in the years ahead.”

-Frost Prioleau, CEO and Co-Founder

 
To learn more about our industry-leading programmatic solutions, reach out to us at hi@simpli.fi.