datafuelX launches predictive analytics for media selling and buying

datafuelX Launches To Help Media Buyers And Sellers Engineer Better Outcomes

NEW YORK, NY — datafuelX, which provides reusable decision support products for the forecasting and optimization of advertising audience and outcome deliveries, has launched.

Founded by media industry veterans, the company’s first two predictive analytics solutions, specifically designed for media selling and buying, help media, agencies and brands extract greater value from their media spend and converge linear reach and digital targeting through the power of advanced analytics.

datafuelX is headed by Jay Amato, President, the former General Manager of OpenAP; Howard Shimmel, Head of Strategy, President of Janus Strategy and Insights and former Chief Research Officer at Turner Broadcasting; and Spencer Lambert, Manager, Product and Partnership Success, formerly with Horizon Media, along with a data science & engineering team with years of media industry experience.

Michael Strober, Founder and President of The Topwater Advisory Group Inc. and Dan Aversano, SVP, Data, Analytics and Advanced Advertising for Univision Communications, along with Howard Shimmel serve as Directors for datafuelX.

“When it comes to application of data for buying and selling, the industry is largely stuck in a ‘what happened’ and ‘why’ mode,” says Amato. “This approach leads to a strategy that assumes the past is an accurate predictor of the future. The datafuelX vision is to use predictive and prescriptive analytics that take the trends and variables of the future into account. This capability is crucial as the complexity of the marketplace increases. We now have sufficient measurement data, datafuelX will provide the necessary analytics to solve for this growing complexity.”

At launch, datafuelX is offering two predictive analytics solutions:

• precisionX is a dynamic reach and frequency tool that creates best-in-class exposure models of linear audiences, which can be used to converge the traditionally siloed channels of linear, addressable and digital. precisionX supports a world where cross-platform reach and frequency becomes a trading currency between publishers and brands. By modeling individual viewership characteristics and incorporating real-time ad exposure data, precisionX dynamically exports consumer ID files grouped by exposure levels for further targeting outside the linear spend. Powered by predictive analytics and individual-level forecasts, the data-agnostic precisionX model serves as a convergence tool for video advertising, providing a more holistic view of the consumer.
• outcomeX is a predictive analytics model that powers the evolution of consumer behavior metrics from measurement and attribution to forecasting and optimization. outcomeX takes aggregated outcome data sets and tethers them to audience compositions across the linear TV landscape to build forward looking estimates of outcome behavior by selling rotation for specific publishers. This allows publishers and marketers to construct campaigns focused on outcomes driven by optimized schedules. Using outcomeX, the industry can evolve its understanding of linear channels from simple awareness reads to consideration and decision signifiers.

Univision Communications Inc., and Mediahub, in partnership with EDO, Inc. are the first to use precisionX. The companies are leveraging proprietary consumer behavior data for prediction of engagement performance of advertiser campaigns across Univision’s linear networks.

“The media industry is at a major crossroads. The alternative currency wars will bring far better datasets to the TV and cross-platform world than we’ve had before. At the same time, the challenges that publishers face with media selling and agencies face with effective planning and buying are growing,” says Shimmel. “We are leveraging the significant expertise of those who make up datafuelX to develop predictive analytics solutions specifically for planning, buying and selling. These are reusable decision support models that can be implemented easily and rapidly and that help buyers and sellers engineer the outcomes they want. These support models will be crucial as the complexity of the media ecosystem grows.”