Tell me more about Preciso and what you offer.

Piero Pavone: We're a demand-side platform based in Italy, focused on helping advertisers improve their campaign effectiveness. The team's background is in working with advertisers, so we understand the buy side's needs. We also have first-hand experience of all the major Display-Side Platforms (DSPs), so we know their logic, how they work and how easy it is for advertisers to waste their money when using them. We've fed all our knowledge into developing our platform, so it removes the challenges advertisers face when using these buying tools.

So how are you helping advertisers?

PP: We ensure their campaigns deliver, and we're also committed to helping them save money in the process. That's why the technology only buys impressions that deliver results. Our Smart-Bid Platform uses customer journey data and deep learning to optimise the serving of dynamic creative ads. By predicting customer behaviours, it calculates the optimal value of placements in real-time bidding marketplaces.

That allows us to bring a different attitude to what we do. Most DSPs seek to spend an advertiser's total monthly budget. This often leads to a large amount of wastage on impressions that don't perform. Our approach is one of media cost reduction to tackle the issue of ad redundancy for advertisers.

We only bid on those opportunities that offer the best chance to convert, even if it means only spending 20-30% of an advertiser's budget. It's about smarter targeting and buying relevancy, not scale. By ensuring no impression is wasted, advertiser spend is reduced, but they still attain the same performance. It's a case of less is more.

What kind of advertisers are best placed to benefit from this kind of approach?

PP: We believe all advertisers should benefit from programmatic advertising and want to open the market to smaller brands, who can get started with just a few clicks. By setting up the platform to automatically optimise an advertiser's campaign, it avoids the need for them to have specialist teams to manage it.

Generally, if you have a contract with a DSP, it takes time to set up and requires a minimum investment. We've integrated with leading-commerce platforms like Shopify and Magento so merchants using the commerce platforms can quickly and easily get their campaigns live. And while some platforms want to avoid wasting time with small budgets, we have no minimum spend requirements, so the needs of both small and large advertisers can be supported.

With an advertiser-centric approach, does what you provide have benefits for consumers?

PP: The obvious benefit is that we focus on only serving the most relevant ads to the right audience at the right time, so they only see creatives that fit their interests. The platform is also set up to ensure users won't see a banner more than three times to reduce the advertising overload consumers often face.

It's also vital that advertising focuses on the user journey by tying this to those products consumers are interested in. This is where customisation is essential.

We can customise every element within an ad slot. This means we can show users a range of products across different ad windows. That might be the most recent product they were interested in; equally, it could be for the best-selling product in the range they're looking at.

And our product recommendation engine helps users discover new ideas by introducing them to complementary products to those they are interested in. For example, if they viewed a discounted red bag, the platform logic might show them a discounted purse matching the bag.

Relevancy is also delivered through dynamic banners. While many platforms struggle with this due to how their automation is set up, ours allow key events and seasonality to be reflected in the creative without additional client effort.

We want to make the best use of data and insights so advertisers can be more sophisticated in their marketing. And by more intelligent marketing, they're respecting the consumer and offering them an enhanced user experience.

You're looking to develop a broader presence in Europe. Why is now the right time?

PP: Today we're facing a cost-of-living crisis and rising inflation, which means advertising must work harder. While brand awareness is important, selling and making money is critical for brands in this challenging economic environment. Having tools that allow the most relevant products to be put in front of consumers and focusing on those most likely to buy has never been more necessary.

Our frugal approach to targeting and media spend reflects the needs of today's advertisers, making it the perfect time to develop our presence.