Kijiji director of ad ops Chris Quinn
Kijiji, as part of eBay Canada Group, has access to some of the most valuable consumer behaviour and purchase intent data in the country. But the site itself doesn’t have any video ad placements, which limits Kijiji’s attractiveness to big brands looking to use that data to target consumers with high-quality web video.
The solution: sell Kijiji’s audience on other publishers’ sites, those that do run premium video.
Announced Monday, Kijiji’s video audience extension program lets advertisers target video ads across the desktop and mobile web using audience data collected on the e-tailer’s network of sites. Brand clients can opt in to the managed service, and have Kijiji’s ad sales team buy premium video ads on their behalf using proprietary targeting data and TubeMogul‘s programmatic video buying platform.
“It enables us to deliver on the connection through sight, sound and emotion,” said Kijiji ad sales manager Karla Stuewe. “That’s something we weren’t previously tapping into.”
Chris Quinn, head of ad operations for Kijiji, said they chose TubeMogul for its experience in the video buying market. “We wanted to go with someone who had a position in market – who was strong enough, who knew an industry that we’ve never touched,” he said.
He said that TubeMogul’s programmatic buying tools, including its data sets, optimization engine and Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings measurement will bolster Kijiji’s audience targeting capabilities. As a team, the two companies say they can offer a much more accurate and efficient way to reach Kijiji’s audience with video.
TubeMogul’s Canadian president, Grant Le Riche, said the deal is the first of its kind that his company has made, and that the most important aspect of the deal was the quality of Kijiji’s data in a market where quality data is still somewhat scarce. Third-party data – audience data supplied by wholesalers like BlueKai or Acxiom – is a far less-developed market in Canada than in the U.S., and many ad buyers question its integrity.
Kijiji, by contrast, offers first-party data] that it has collected directly and can stand behind. “EBay and Kijiji own so much first-party data. And these people are so deep in the purchase funnel, they can offer legitimate purchase intent,” said Le Riche. “This is a really compelling offering for Kijiji, that only they can offer in the marketplace.”
He added that with TubeMogul planning to get into programmatic linear TV in the near future, Kijiji will be able to leverage its data to target its audience with traditional broadcast TV spots.
Recently, Digiday reported that many major publishers have set up internal programmatic ad buying teams to offer managed audience extension to clients. Among those with internal ad buying teams are BuzzFeed, Vox Media and The Atlantic.
In Canada, publishers like Torstar and Yellow Pages Group have set up their own programmatic buying subsidiaries to both represent their online inventory and assist advertisers in finding larger audiences around the web.
For publishers with a trove of valuable consumer insights, managed extension is an opportunity to monetize data without giving up ownership. Although many companies with a large supply of first-party consumer data choose to sell it directly to advertisers (or to third-party data wholesalers) those data suppliers don’t usually have knowledge or control of how that data will be used. It might end up in the hands of competitors, or it might be used to bombard their audience with low-quality ads.
Quinn said that with audience extension, Kijiji keeps its data secure and in-house, and can protect its audience and its advertisers from data abuse.
“We spend so much time focusing on the user experience on Kijiji, that we didn’t want to lose that when we ventured off for the first time,” he said. “It’s not just keeping the end user in mind, but keeping our advertisers in mind. We want to keep their messaging safe. So we’re happy to keep that in-house, and find a self-serve platform like TubeMogul to do it with.”
“We have built trust with our clients,” said Stuewe. “There’s a lot of talk in the market about brand safety, and it is a top priority for us that we do maintain those controls, so advertisers can be confident knowing where their messaging is going to be online.”
