Illuma - Introduction and Spokespeople
Published:
Read Time: 4 mins
What is Illuma?
Illuma is a British AI company pioneering contextual solutions for enterprise since 2014. 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.
How does Illuma work?
Illuma works during live campaigns, identifying the contexts where the campaign is performing best across platforms.
Using AI, it then expands in real time to target similar new contexts, and similar audiences, bringing scale and relevance to campaigns across the open web and CTV.
Illuma delivers across a range of KPIs, from brand-based metrics such as reach, awareness and brand uplift, right through to performance targets such as form fills and sales.
How is Illuma different?
Illuma targets contextually, but it is powered by live audience behaviour.
Most contextual targeting is steered towards keywords or other parameters such as topic and sentiment, established and set before a campaign goes live.
But Illuma understands that brands working within set parameters will only ever reach their expected audiences, and can miss out on many unexpected opportunities.
So Illuma learns from the quality contexts that are performing best while a campaign is live, irrespective of topic. Using AI, and human-trained algorithms for accuracy, it then expands in real-time to find similar new contexts, and similar new audiences, at scale.
This success is continually optimised while the campaign is running, giving brands a privacy-friendly way to respond to live audience behaviour.
Illuma also works on bespoke projects with media owners to categorise their inventory for commercial activation.
How does Illuma target in CTV?
Illuma's cross-platform tool, Compass, launched in 2022. It takes intelligence about a brand's contextual performance on the open web, where data is rich, and uses this information to make targeting decisions in CTV.
With Illuma Compass, brands can buy CTV live and dynamically as part of their wider programmatic campaign, and use cookieless insights to bring addressability, intelligence and scale.
How can Illuma help with my first-party data?
Brands can learn a lot about their customers from the contextual behaviour of their first-party audiences - i.e. what they are reading or viewing online.
Many contextual companies are including these insights in their campaigns; taking a snapshot of user behaviour before a campaign starts and using it to inform targeting.
Illuma does this too, but it keeps pace with first-party users throughout the campaign - not just in that one moment in time. It then perpetually learns, changes, updates and re-targets on the fly as audience interests change during the campaign. In this way, Illuma uses and optimises all first-party information available during a campaign.
How does Illuma improve the brand-user experience?
Illuma understands that the future health of the open web relies upon positive interactions between brands and audiences. By taking powerful new steps to improve the accuracy and delivery of contextual ad targeting, and by prioritising user-privacy and quality signals in quality environments, Illuma aims to create a more engaging and responsible brand-audience experience.
With Illuma, ads are placed in relevant content based on the highest-quality contextual data – the live consumption signals from a brand’s known audiences, which are unique to each campaign. Paired with near-100% contextual accuracy through its publisher agreements, illuma’s advertising becomes more suitable, more relevant to the consumer, attracts greater attention, and thereby drives superior results.
Why are people talking about Illuma?
Illuma is a privacy-friendly way to target based on audience behaviour without using cookies or personal data.
Illuma offers solutions to several key discussion points facing the online advertising industry, including:
- How to find relevant audiences without using cookies or identifiers
- How to build an effective first-party data strategy
- How to target CTV using audience behavioural signals
- How to improve the brand-user experience online
- How publishers can monetise their full range of content and protect their intellectual property.
For a selection of thought leadership articles, see our press gallery.
Who is using Illuma?
Illuma is used by the world's leading brands and agencies, including Procter and Gamble, Microsoft, and American Express. It is also integrated into major DSPs and publisher platforms.
Who is behind Illuma? Who can I speak to?
Illuma was established in 2014 by Peter Mason and computer scientists from Cambridge University, UCL and Imperial College. Illuma is headquartered in London with offices in New York and Madrid.
- Founder and CEO, Peter Mason
- Chief Strategy Officer, Ryan McBride
- Head of Data and Technology, Dr Yu Liu
- Head of Operations, Sonia Pham
Ends
Editors notes
illuma is a British AI company, pioneering contextual solutions for enterprise since 2014. 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 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.
