Kenshoo Skai Shortlisted for the ‘Innovation Award’ by the UK Digital Growth Awards 2024

The team at Kenshoo Skai is honoured to be named a finalist for the ‘Innovation Award’ by the UK Digital Growth Awards 2024.

After anticipating and adapting to market dynamics by producing best-in-class technology solutions for advertising on Search, Social, Apps, and Retail Media throughout the company’s 18-year history, it’s particularly gratifying to be recognised for our most groundbreaking innovation to date. Our first-of-its-kind omnichannel advertising platform allows marketers to consolidate media planning, measurement, performance management, and decisioning for increased revenue and efficiency across walled gardens.

Simon Piper, VP Sales & Client Success EMEA, at Kenshoo Skai, shared his thoughts on this honor: 

“Having the Kenshoo Skai omnichannel platform shortlisted by the UK Digital Growth Awards in the Innovation category is a much-appreciated acknowledgment of the innovative work done by our team — as well as the innovative approach we provide our clients.”

Setting the Stage for Our Innovation

With third-party cookies deprecating and retail media exploding in popularity (hitting £2.6B in ad spend in 2023 and projected to reach £6.3B by 2027, per eMarketer), 83% of all digital ad budgets are expected to shift to walled gardens in the next three years. 

In this environment, both brands and consumers demand omnichannel experiences. But due to the siloed and black-box nature of these walled gardens, marketers are overwhelmed by trying to fully understand where their ad programs need to run, when and where to add incremental budget, and how each of their efforts across media channels impacts their results. 

In addition, the fragmentation caused by the surge in ad formats, channels, and data sources has made it challenging for marketing leaders in particular to attain a holistic understanding of their media’s performance, preventing the speedy and nimble decision-making that today’s dynamic media ecosystem demands.

Against this backdrop, the Kenshoo Skai team understood that traditional approaches to media management – built on point solutions for individual channels – were no longer suitable. 

And with our history of innovation, we were confident that we could evolve our platform to meet the new realities of digital marketing and the current and future needs of omnichannel marketers, from brands to agencies to retailers and other publishers.

As Noa Reikhav, VP of Product at Kenshoo Skai, succinctly put it:

“When there isn’t a solution, we create and build one.”

Addressing the Challenges Faced By Marketers

Sure, marketers can use publishers’ native platforms – but those cannot offer cross-channel reporting demanded by omnichannel marketers. Meanwhile, other third-party media management platforms are channel-specific, not omnichannel. 

By contrast, Kenshoo Skai’s omnichannel platform is absolutely unique in enabling the comprehensive management of media programs across 100+ walled-garden publishers and retailers — including retail media, search, social, and app-store powerhouses such as Amazon Ads, Google, Meta, and Apple Search Ads – all from within a single login. No similar solution built for enterprise scale exists.

Our innovative platform includes:

• Automated, AI-powered bid and budget optimisations based on a marketer’s campaign goals.
• Comprehensive channel management of 100+ search, social, app, and retail media publishers.
• Customisable reporting beyond publishers’ standard advertising data so marketers can curate the metrics most compelling to them.
• For retail media publishers, full-funnel management of display advertising and media outside retail websites, including tools for viewing performance insights, enhancing audience targeting, and understanding of creative performance.
• Unique data visualisations for marketers that explain their channel landscape, identify where ads may be under-serving, and provide insights about their competition.
• Delivery of non-advertising signals (such as where a brand’s product is available online and how customers discover it) to marketers to guide their optimisations, ensuring that organic and paid advertising efforts effectively work together.
• Skai Decision Pro (launched early 2024), the first solution built specifically for media executives to oversee and orchestrate advertising programs across channels and publishers.

What Agencies & Analysts Say About Our Innovative Capabilities

Gemma Spence, Global VP of Transformation at VMLY&R Commerce, noted:

 “Clients are increasingly demanding connectivity across publishers, with the ability to drive switching and deeper engagement. Kenshoo Skai has set a high bar in meeting these demands.”

Market intelligence firm IDC singled us out in its Worldwide Demand-Side Platforms Vendor Assessment: 

“Kenshoo Skai is uniquely positioned to help brands extend performance objectives across multiple exclusive channels through one central platform [with] intelligent planning, more efficient campaign execution, and unprecedented reach and scale.”

More About Kenshoo Skai

Kenshoo Skai is an omnichannel advertising platform, uniquely enabling brands and agencies to run data-driven programs across walled garden media. We empower both media leaders and activation teams to drive impactful results from their advertising program with AI-powered decisioning, activation, and optimization solutions. Our partners include Google, Amazon Ads, Microsoft, Walmart Connect, Apple Search Ads, Instacart, Criteo, Epsilon Retail Media, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, Meta, and more.

For over a decade, Kenshoo Skai has earned the trust of notable brands such as HP, Groupe SEB, Sony, Philips, and L’Oreal. Renowned for innovation and a values-driven culture, we have offices in 10 cities, including London.

Visit skai.io for more information, follow us on LinkedIn, and check out our video interviews with industry leaders at their favourite pubs.