AI Brings Scale and Relevance to CTV - Introducing Illuma Compass™

Illuma Technology today introduces a new cross-platform targeting tool, Illuma Compass™, which targets ads seamlessly across the open web and CTV, steered by cookieless signals from live audience behaviour.

Operated exclusively through Xandr Invest, Illuma Compass™ allows traders and marketers to programmatically target web and CTV inventory, using live cross-platform insights in real time, targeting in the same way that audiences consume content – fluidly and on-demand.

Illuma Compass™ works during live campaigns, learning from page-level, cookieless behaviour signals from the open web, where data is more available, and using this intelligence to make smarter targeting decisions in CTV. In the process, Illuma brings reliable behavioral data into CTV-buying for the first time, unlocking scale and relevance in unpredictable places.

Illuma co-founder and CEO, Peter Mason, said, “Newly powered by AI, contextual is opening up new frontiers in programmatic targeting, allowing brands to monitor and respond to audience interests as they move across platforms.

“Smart marketers make brilliant planning and buying decisions every day. But until now, targeting has struggled to keep pace with their creativity and ambition, and planning has remained largely disconnected, basic, and siloed. Now finally, tools are available which match their sophisticated understanding of audiences and their own desire to innovate.

“By adding Illuma Compass™ into their targeting, marketers can use contextual AI to do the impossible human task of responding to the rapidly changing interests of different, relevant audiences, across platforms. This blend of marketer inputs and machine-learning to create powerful AI, is an extraordinary combination and marks an exciting step forward as we embrace ways to find scale and relevance without cookies.”

Xandr VP product management, Sethuraman Balasubramanian, said, “In order to make the online ecosystem more connected and usable, the industry needs to unite around a single marketplace taxonomy. This is particularly urgent in CTV where publisher metadata still vary wildly, presenting huge challenges for anyone looking to scale.

“Illuma is a long-term partner of Xandr and one of the most effective cookieless tools in the market. With its cross-platform scoring system, powered by AI, Illuma Compass™ is a strong move in the right direction. We’re excited to be providing the infrastructure for this innovation on Xandr’s Invest DSP.”

Illuma is a British contextual AI-specialist which was founded in 2016 by data academics. The technology is now used by global brands and trading desks looking to boost qualified reach and campaign performance.

The technology learns from the contexts which are working best during a live campaign, and through its unique scoring system, expands in real time to find similar new contexts, and relevant new audiences, at scale across platforms. By reacting in real time, Illuma delivers unique contextual output for each campaign.

Illuma works without relying on cookies or identifiers and is a compliant alternative to cookie-based targeting.

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Editors notes

Illuma is a British company pioneering the use of contextual-AI in creating solutions for enterprise. Its real-time scaling technology is used by brands and agencies to boost the results of digital ad campaigns. Meanwhile, broadcasters, publishers and online platforms use illuma to organise, classify and categorise their inventory for commercial activation. 

Illuma is committed to sustaining the open web ecosystem through equitable collaborations between ad tech providers and media owners. The company is proudly building industry-first agreements that recognise media owners’ or sell-side intellectual property rights, and in turn, deliver better outcomes for brands and audiences.

Illuma was founded in 2014 by publishing experts and computer scientists from Imperial College, UCL and Cambridge University. The company is based in London with additional offices in New York.