This opinion has less to do with Scibids, and more to do with the conflict of interest bred by this acquisition. Here's the punchline: the very company you're trusting to verify the quality of your ad impressions - DoubleVerify - it shouldn't be whispering in your ear about who to target or which impressions to cast your bids on.
Quality measurement, which in layman's terms is the chance of having your ads appear in front of a breathing, brand-conscious human, will always be at odds with technology that's got its foot on the accelerator, revved up to yield a veneer of performance hidden underneath higher impression volumes.
DoubleVerify and lead competitor IAS, both going full throttle in the "impression targeting" race, indicates that the old-school verification sphere is nearing a plateau. How does one spur growth in this scenario, you ask? High five to you if you said launching more out-of-the-box targeting solutions via DSP's.
Scibids, and its self-proclaimed leadership position in the DSP "bring your own algorithm" game sits perched on the edge of an intriguing, integration-less segment of the market. All it asks for is access to a DSP's API, a feature the customer can easily activate, bypassing the need for any custom integration. Clearly a smoother path than the ones taken by verification companies in the past.
I urge marketers to tread carefully. Merging quality measurement with campaign targeting can unleash a Pandora's box of unintended consequences, many of which will likely fly under the radar of an untrained eye. Consider yourself warned.
Ad verification firm DoubleVerify plans to buy AI-powered adtech company Scibids for $125m, intending to optimise ad campaigns. Scibids' technology assists in ad auction bidding and campaign budget allocation, enhancing ad performance.
The technology significantly improved user attention and ad auction wins, said DoubleVerify CEO Mark Zagorski. The AI in adtech aligns with the industry's shift from traditional identifiers.
The acquisition will see all of Scibids' staff, including AI engineers and data scientists, move to DoubleVerify, potentially reinvigorating the adtech M&A landscape.