Rakuten Marketing Powers Programmatic Prospecting Ad Solution with New Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technology

By STS News Desk On Jul 24, 2018

AI Helps Brands Discover New, Previously Untapped Customers Who Are Ready to Buy

Rakuten Marketing has released a new edition of its high-performing programmatic Prospecting product, taking online advertising to an all new level of performance by connecting brands with relevant, in-market audiences they wouldn’t have otherwise found. This new, market-leading edition of Rakuten Marketing Prospecting is powered by proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technology, and unique Rakuten ecosystem data. It successfully helps brands acquire high-value consumers that will drive long-term growth through loyalty and repeat purchases.

“Advertising is a pillar of the Rakuten global business, with over 100 data scientists and data engineers dedicated to advertising innovation,” according to Rakuten Marketing CTO, Dr. Neal Richter. “Rakuten Marketing technology and products are the result of this investment, and our tech stack is designed to use marketing dollars where they can drive the most value in conversions and sales. AI and machine learning, combined with a strong data strategy, is the key to bringing the relevance and authenticity to advertising that consumers want and value. We’re committed to strategically activating our technology and data to deliver these high-performing ad experiences at scale.”

In today’s highly competitive ecommerce arena, programmatic advertising is shaping the way digital media inventories are managed and delivered to online consumers. Rakuten Marketing Prospecting is a proprietary and innovative custom audience-acquisition product that increases advertising performance by helping digital marketers find people whose interests align with their brand, who demonstrate a propensity to purchase online, and who are likely to connect with the brand’s core values to become loyal customers. The Rakuten Marketing AI and ML algorithms learn from consumer signals (further enhanced by CRM data or DMP integration), to create more dynamic audiences than those that simply mirror existing customers; it predicts and targets potential customers that aren’t already on a brand’s targeting radar. This has two key benefits:

People are more able to discover new brands that connect with their needs and interests.
Marketers can discover audiences they wouldn’t otherwise have found, at scale, driving profitable business growth.

Dr. Neal Richter continued, “Rakuten Marketing Prospecting allows brands to go beyond standard look-a-like modeling and deliver ads based on predictive intelligence and data. Our AI and ML-driven technology means marketers can dynamically adjust to be relevant to the specific needs and interests of potential customers, which increases the overall quality and effectiveness of their online experience. With this technology, digital marketers have a greater ability to find audiences that are relevant, in-market and potentially loyal consumers.”

How Rakuten Marketing Prospecting Works

Rakuten Marketing Prospecting is built on four core technology and data components:

Audience Amplifier, a proprietary audience-creation platform, designed through shared expertise and algorithms of Rakuten Marketing and the Rakuten Institute of Technology (RIT).
The proprietary Rakuten Marketing demand-side platform, DSP.
Rakuten ecosystem data, representing the most brand-relevant and purchase-ready consumers from a data pool of over 1.2 billion memberships across Rakuten businesses worldwide.
Partner Enriched Audiences, complementing Rakuten ecosystem data to find even more interested consumers, and drive incremental performance at an even greater scale.

In concert, these components fuel AI and ML algorithms that leverage various signals from consumers, including sites browsed, products viewed and purchases made. That data is combined with ad placement data, which the predictive model utilizes to determine the right ad and price to pay for specific consumers based on their propensity to purchase – weeding out fraudulent bot traffic in the process. Engaging and visually rich Prospecting ads deliver site visitors, already identified by AI and ML, who are likely to engage and convert. The result is ads that are relevant, helpful and authentic, delivering a positive shopping experience that leads to a sale.

How Rakuten Marketing Prospecting Benefits Brands

Rakuten Marketing Prospecting eliminates wasteful ad spend by identifying shoppers most likely to purchase advertised products, services or experiences. There are three classes of traffic brands see online – robots, online browsers who don’t convert (lookie-loos), and in-market shoppers. Rakuten Marketing Prospecting uses AI and ML to build models that: differentiate each group; prioritize marketing investment to reach in-market audiences; predict the content most relevant to in-market consumers; deliver ad experiences that are useful to consumers; and drive meaningful return on investment.

Prospecting is a key component to a broader digital marketing strategy that should be holistically applied. When paired with Rakuten Marketing Retargeting – used by more than 400 brands today – brands can effectively influence consumers through a variety of ads, spanning devices and publishers, and bring purchase-ready consumers to their site.

Prospecting is the latest in the Rakuten Marketing suite of products that leverage AI, ML and data to improve marketing experiences and client performance across its core services: Affiliate, Display and Search. It’s built on core technology components that were designed collaboratively with the Rakuten Institute of Technology (RIT) – the dedicated research and development organization of Rakuten, Inc., which aims to predict the direction of future services based on state-of-the-art AI technologies.