Q&A: Piero Pavone, CEO at Preciso

Piero Pavone, CEO at Preciso, fills us in on the rise of native advertising and some of the latest adtech innovations transforming this space

Q: Welcome Piero. Why are advertisers turning to native? 

It might seem obvious, but the simple answer is that they realise it is the best way to attract, and maintain, meaningful user interaction. If advertisers are going to invest their ad budgets in the digital space, then native is arguably one of the best programmatic channels for this.

Research has shown that consumers are more engaged through native ad placement. They look at native ads 53% more than traditional display ads, and respond with a substantial 18% increase in purchase intent. Our own data shows that we regularly deliver an engagement rate of over 70%, whereas previously, advertisers would often see a bounce rate of 70% from the display ad format. 

Trust is a huge part of the consumer-brand relationship and native actively promotes that, which is core to why it is so effective. Over the years, consumers have become increasingly annoyed by advertising banners, and this issue is mitigated by native because the creative is so subtly, yet holistically integrated into their online experience and what they’re browsing at the time. In addition to that, the direct relevance of the subject matter to the user’s area of interest actually makes them more informative, driving up a whole host of performance metrics (Attention Time, CTR etc) in the process.

Q: Tell us a bit about how you help advertisers navigate their native ad campaigns?

At Preciso, our mission has always been to bring more customers and more conversions for our client partners. With that in mind, we have been growing our team of expert programmers and developing and launching Ultima – a native advertising platform powered by machine learning.

The AI-enabled features allow advertisers to optimise the traffic that they buy, and at the same time, help them to create bespoke images and text to be used to promote their brands or products. It is an all-in-one programmatic advertising solution which draws on our own extensive experience and the work we have done alongside the AI Chip Centre at the Digital University of Kerala to bring our clients the most up-to-date and future-proofed technology for campaign delivery. 

Q: Why should advertisers adopt Ultima specifically? 

As I read recently, “customers now expect campaigns tailored to their needs. AI-powered marketing analytics bridges the gap between data abundance and actionable insights”. 

At Preciso, we are fully on board with embracing the huge competitive advantages that AI integration can bring to programmatic marketing, and are evolving our offering accordingly. Our Ultima platform is focused on removing the traffic with a high bounce rate, sending only that which delivers the very highest engagement rates instead, in line with the specific KPIs and goals of our clients. It means advertisers who work with us are no longer bidding on or buying any redundant media supply, so their budgets go further. As an added bonus, their carbon emissions are also vastly reduced, which supports sustainability efforts as a welcome by-product. 

The key thing that sets the plug-in apart is that it allows advertising teams to integrate Ultima into their website directly with just three clicks and then, through the platform, to set up their campaigns with optimised, refined real-time bidding and buying processes. What’s more, it can be used to create personalised banners and text. It is easy to navigate, very quick to implement, and highly efficient.

Q: What is next for Preciso and Ultima?

We have heavily invested in the AI space over the course of the past year or more, and for 2025 we are really excited to be launching the Ultima Shopify app, which will be live by Q3. 

One of the main reasons why advertisers use Shopify is the same as we’ve just described with our ad platform – it is simple and intuitive and allows them to expend their resources and energies in other business areas which require greater human intervention in order to be successful. 

Ultimately, integrating with Shopify is much easier than building one’s own website through HTML. We have found that around 50% of our clients are Shopifiers, so it is also immensely popular. 

All of this makes Ultima’s collaboration with Shopify a really exciting development for our team, and for our clients too.

Also published in: Mobile Marketing Magazine