Skai Takes On Walled Garden Media

Skai (formerly Kenshoo) has launched an omnichannel platform aimed at increasing agility for marketing teams by creating unique efficiencies of scale and unified program views, according to a recent media release.

Recognizing marketers today are currently tasked with breaking through “walled garden media” to connect insights and execute ad campaigns, Skai aims to address advertisers’ concerns, including brand safety, by shifting shopping behavior and signal loss from data deprecation across the “walls,” in a single, unified solution.

Skai says organizations can use its platform — which is equipped with AI-powered capabilities and bundled solutions for both executives and practitioners — to connect advertising to business impact leveraging reach and scale, more intelligent planning and stronger activation.

For a subscription fee, advertisers gain access to all channels within the platform, which also includes a SaaS pricing model to the “variable-cost ad tech” space, per the release.

As digital advertising continues to dominate marketing budgets, brands are increasing investments in performance touchpoints, particularly retail media, paid search, paid social and app stores.

The new platform experience provides advertisers access to all the publishers Skai supports, across touchpoints, including the likes of Amazon Ads, Google, Microsoft, Apple Search Ads, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Walmart Connect and LinkedIn, among others.

Recent research from Deloitte shows that more than 73% of chief marketing officers have increased the number of channels used to reach customers in the last three years. Many CMOs also cited delivering greater ROI from marketing investments and data as a top challenge.

To address these complexities, Skai’s new platform capabilities include:

• 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 specific businesses.
• Intelligent Creative Management: One-stop-shop asset management and AI-powered 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: Curated views tailored to the individual and multi-functional stakeholder access to marketing data.
• Additional Integrations and Partnerships: Customizable ecosystem integrations as well as 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.

The performance ad tech industry has traditionally offered variable pricing based on a percentage of media spend, a model that Skai says historically prohibits program growth, disincentivizes experimentation and feels like an added tax to many marketers. The Skai Omnichannel Platform is sold at a flat annual rate, tiered by program scale and specific needs such as custom data or transitional managed services.

What Skai Clients are saying:

"As marketers, we have to start thinking more omni,” Rafael Sosa-Krall, global media director at Microsoft, said in the release. “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. 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,” said Gemma Spence, global vice president, transformation at WPP-owned VMLY&R Commerce. “The reality is that's not how consumers shop. 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."