Skai, a technology leader in the performance advertising industry, announced today the market launch of its omnichannel platform. Eliminating the friction of fragmentation and limits to growth, Skai’s omnichannel platform creates unique efficiencies of scale and unified program views, increasing agility for marketing teams. Equipped with new, AI-supported capabilities and bundled solutions for both executives and practitioners, organizations can connect advertising to meaningful business impact leveraging unprecedented reach and scale, more intelligent planning, and stronger activation. Unlocking access to all channels within the platform for a subscription fee, the platform also introduces a SaaS pricing model to the world of variable-cost ad tech.
As digital advertising continues to dominate marketing budgets and solve for signal loss in a challenged macroeconomic environment, brands are increasing investment in performance channels, particularly retail media, paid search, paid social and app stores, due to their effectiveness and measurability. These channels are dominated by publishers referred to as “walled gardens,” and marketers are tasked with connecting insights and execution across them in an automated and holistic manner—a laborious and error-prone undertaking.
With the new platform experience, Skai is providing every advertiser access to all of the publishers it supports, across channels, which count major consumer media such as Amazon Ads, Google, Microsoft, Apple Search Ads, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Walmart Connect, LinkedIn and many others—an historic move in an industry built on single-channel point solutions.
Recent research shows that more than 73 percent of CMOs have increased the number of channels used to reach customers in the last three years, causing additional complexity in maintaining speed and consistency of experience, and many cite delivering greater ROI from marketing investments and data as a top challenge.
To address this new reality, the Skai platform access will include powerful new capabilities including:
- Omnichannel Marketing Orchestration: A unified, holistic view of media performance for the executive accountable to several or all digital channels
- Omnichannel Media Planning: Continuous forecasting and budget planning intelligence based on data and insights relevant to your business
- Intelligent Creative Management: One-stop-shop asset management and AI-driven analysis for insights on what’s working, what to adjust and why
- Generative AI Recommendations: ChatGPT-powered recommendations for opportunistic keywords and search terms on Google
- Accessible Data Visualization: Curatable views tailored to the individual and multi-functional stakeholder access to marketing data
- Additional Integrations and Partnerships: Customizable ecosystem integrations plus off-the-shelf access to new Skai partners and their broader offerings including Amazon Marketing Cloud, Analytic Index and an expanded integration with Profitero for shelf intelligent media
A New Commercial Model for Today’s Needs
The performance ad tech industry has traditionally offered variable pricing based on a percentage of media spend, a model that historically prohibits program growth, disincentivizes experimentation, and to many marketers, feels like an added tax. In contrast, and in response to today’s uncertain economy where increased value and controllable expenses are top of mind for every brand, the Skai Omnichannel Platform is sold at a flat annual rate, tiered by program scale and specific needs such as custom data needs or transitional managed services. By offering transparent, predictable pricing, Skai intends to eliminate the relentless sales and legal cycles advertisers have resigned themselves to while enabling clients to take fuller advantage of its offerings, harnessing the maximum speed and power of the platform.
“As marketers, we have to start thinking more omni. We are looking at broader ‘performance roles’—you can still have experts in search and social, but they need to be able to do everything,” said Rafael Sosa-Krall, global media director at Microsoft. “We need technology that can support this fluidity across the team, facilitate collaboration, and respect consumer privacy while helping us compensate for signal loss.”
“Gone are the days of thinking about retail and other digital media in isolation or echo chambers. The reality is, that’s not how consumers shop,” said Gemma Spence, global vice president, transformation at WPP-owned VMLY&R Commerce. “Where I see the market going, and where we are being pushed by clients, is the need for connectivity around, within and between retailers. The ability to drive switching and deeper engagement is something that the market is demanding and the adtech world needs to answer. Skai has set a high bar.”
“Helping our clients understand and react to consumer patterns across the walled gardens is a major focus for us,” said John T. Shea, chief executive of Amazon consultancy Momentum Commerce. “We’ve built an incredible window into consumer behavior and we use those insights to drive client performance. However, we know retail media ad performance doesn’t happen in a vacuum so we’re thrilled to partner with Skai on their new platform to help our shared customers drive insights and performance across Amazon, Google, Facebook and beyond.”
“Brands are underachieving relative to their potential today. For years, we have seen them struggle to keep pace with consumers across the various channels for shopping and information-seeking,” said Yoav Izhar-Prato, Skai chief executive and co-founder. “Working closely with each of our industry-leading partners, it became very apparent that the gap lies in what brands can achieve running channel-siloed go-to-market programs. Taking a customer-centric approach is the only way forward for marketers and with Skai, brands can finally speak the same language as their audiences with omnichannel interaction and value exchange online. Early programs on the platform show massive performance improvement and better efficiency, resulting in smarter decisions and higher quality engagement. I have no doubt this will set the standard for how brands bring their offerings to market moving forward.”
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