Scibids is a company that develops customizable AI to make marketing more effective. And Scibids AI drives step-change performance and scale independently. It was created with a privacy-first approach and has never relied on third-party cookies, PII, or other digital identifiers to drive growth and successful business outcomes. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Eric Schwartz, Managing Director of North America at Scibids Technology.
Eric Schwartz’s Background
Schwartz has spent over ten years working in digital advertising. And Schwartz said:
“Prior to working at Scibids, I worked for MiQ for almost 6 years. I am at the forefront of the growth of AI in this industry, having been aware of its transformative power for a long time. This meant I jumped at the opportunity in 2020 to launch Scibids’ AI-based solution into the North American market.”
“As Managing Director of Scibids in North America, I report directly to its founders in Paris and am responsible for all operations and logistics across the region, including sales, marketing, and account services.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Schwartz’s favorite memory working for Scibids so far? Schwartz shared:
“When the first Fortune 500 brand trusted Scibids to power their entire biddable investment. It was a major milestone for Scibids but, more importantly, the first time we saw the industry fully embracing AI for demand side bidding.”
Challenges Faced
What are some of the challenges Schwartz faced in building the company? Schwartz acknowledged:
“Without question, the biggest challenge for myself and my team was launching Scibids in North America. Despite being a key and innovative player in Europe, establishing the France-based ad tech company here was no easy feat. As the largest and most sophisticated digital advertising ecosystem, the North American market is hard to break through – let alone establish the strong, competitive position we have.”
“We are incredibly proud to have been so successful in this, with Scibids’ AI now being considered a necessity for brands working to scale their digital advertising across the region. As of 2023, we work with a number of Fortune 500 brands, and this will not be slowing down.”
Core Products
What are Scibids’ core products and features? Schwartz explained:
“Scibids’ customizable AI technology substantially increases media/human efficiency and reduces acquisition costs relating to real-time bidding campaigns. We work directly with leading DSPs and major ad agencies, brands, and managed services to bring AI and customized bidding into campaigns. Our custom algorithms analyze each ad impression, using over 22 million variables to discern the optimum media planning and media buying decisions.”
“This technology integrates with existing DSPs to optimize results for individual brands without needing publisher data. This means that marketers can ensure that their campaigns are as successful as possible based on their own KPIs.”
Evolution Of Scibids’ Technology
How has Scibids’ technology evolved since launching? Schwartz noted:
“We have launched Scibids’ 3rd Party Optimization module, enabling external measurement data ingestion into the bidding algorithms using modeling, meaning Scibids can automatically optimize and scale up the business outcomes that matter to the client.”
“In addition, we have developed a module named Fitscore, which automates the analysis of campaign parameters that is required before activating AI on them. This is alongside Autoplug, which provides the ability to detect new campaigns in the DSP which meet some predefined criteria and connect the AI to campaigns, without the brand having to complete additional forms.”
“Our most recent launch was the Scibids AI Insights solution, which we launched in partnership with Tinuiti, which offers unprecedented transparency and control over the ad decisioning process. It provides media buyers with all of the information they may need to understand how the AI is making decisions, and to therefore make smarter decisions about their campaigns.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Scibids’ most significant milestones? Schwartz cited:
“Sustainability and protecting our environment is a significant issue, one that we are taking seriously and have been looking to support further. In fact, in April of this year, Scibids announced that it was partnering with IMPACT+ to reduce the environmental impact of digital campaigns purchased via programmatic DSPs. With digital services accounting for around 3.9% of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions worldwide, we are thrilled to be at the forefront of that change and plan to integrate with Scope3 soon.”
“Working with partners to optimize unique business outcomes has continually been another important step for us, and in June, we announced our partnership with DoubleVerify which allows us to do just that. The DV Algorithmic Optimizer combines DoubleVerify’s proprietary attention signals and Scibids’ AI-powered ad decisioning to identify the best-performing inventory, maximizing business outcomes and ROI without sacrificing on scale. To work with such a trusted brand was a great milestone for us, which ensures that we remain a trusted name for businesses across the world.”
Customer Success Stories
Upon asking Schwartz about customer success stories, he replied:
“Charlotte Tilbury is one that immediately comes to mind. We worked with the team there to implement our AI as a service solution, leveraging Google Display & Video 360’s custom bidding feature, which reduced customer acquisition costs by 29%. Within two months, Scibids was able to increase the conversion rate by 60%, and double viewable reach within budget limits by optimizing frequency.”
Revenue
After asking Schwartz about the company’s revenue metrics, he revealed:
“Since launching three years ago, Scibids has seen exponential growth in North America, processing hundreds of millions of dollars in the US alone. I am proud that my team is responsible for more than 60% of Scibids’ global revenue, generating 100% growth in 2022 for the third year in a row.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is Scibids pursuing? Schwartz assessed:
“Programmatic advertising has been growing at a steady pace in the last decade and is expected to continue to grow by double digits each year. According to eMarketer, US programmatic digital display ad spend (including social ads on Facebook/Twitter) is estimated at $129.48 billion in 2022, up 22.2% compared to 2021.”
“If we remove social media and focus on paid media through DSPs, our 2022 estimated total addressable market is roughly $33 billion in 2022. With programmatic direct (mainly driven by social platforms) largely dominating digital display ad spend, with 74.4% going to US programmatic, Scibids has the opportunity to optimize across Private Market Places (PMPs) at 15.1% and open web exchange at 10.5% each.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Scibids from its competition? Schwartz affirmed:
“Scibids’ AI is different to competitors as it adapts in real-time, leveraging both predictive and generative AI capabilities. It is able to generate privacy-friendly customizable algorithms using only 30-50 learning events, building over 100k models per week. In comparison, competitors require thousands of learning events over months to train their algorithms, then manually build and deploy effective models into DSPs, which Scibids AI builds and pushes multiple times a day.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Scibids’ future company goals? Schwartz told me:
“Goals for Scibids are to be continually innovating and putting our AI products in the market to bridge the gap between all platforms, measurement solutions and data sources.”
“In a groundbreaking collaboration announced this past June, Scibids joined forces with Tinuiti, a leading digital marketing agency, to introduce a game-changing product called Scibids AI Insights. This innovative offering in combination with Tinuiti’s internally-built suite of incrementality, measurement and optimization solutions, the agency worked in close collaboration with Scibids in product testing and is the first marketing agency to leverage at scale this new solution, which delivers automated and in-depth insights into how Scibids AI analyzes and weights ad variables in the bidding process according to their impact on performance. This includes identifying in real-time campaign elements like URLs, creative, location, and time of day and analyzing their individual and combined effect in driving the expected outcome.”
“Scibids’ mission is to build AI-based buying intelligence for the world’s largest advertisers, allowing them to meet and exceed their ROAS goals on performance and branding campaigns. As such, we are always looking for new ways to provide value to advertisers. This includes covering new use cases, integrating with leading partners and overall making sure we stay at the forefront of AI research & development. In H2 of this year, we will release a revamped reach & frequency optimization offering and will have more announcements to come that are focused on product development and partnerships.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Schwartz concluded:
“Scibids’ thought leadership in the field of AI-powered advertising decisioning is also widely recognized. Our articles on AI in digital advertising have revealed the transformative capabilities of AI for marketers and we have helped trade organizations like the 4As, IAB, WFA, and ANA get smarter about what they need to know when evaluating generative vs. predictive AI. At Scibids, we challenge the notion that AI was a trade-off between speed and control in programmatic media buying.”
“Conventional thinking holds that AI enables digital marketers to accelerate and scale media buying. Marketers can use the immense algorithmic computing power to execute more effective placements faster. This conventional thinking also suggests that marketers trade transparency and control for speed, scale, and performance. Indeed, many still view AI as a ‘black box,’ with an autopilot that cannot be overridden, even if it’s steering the plane in the wrong direction. But modern AI applications in media buying have upended the autopilot control/performance trade-off. Brands no longer have to rely on manual trading or pre-negotiated flat rates for media buys. Instead, AI enables dynamic ad bidding, enhancing flexibility and transparent decision-making control.”
