MarTech360 Interview With Nils Lind, Founder and CEO, Assertive Yield B.V.

“Revenue intelligence, as exemplified by our Yield Intelligence solution, enables publishers to make more informed business decisions and optimize their revenue streams in various ways.”

Nils, can you tell us about your professional background and your current role at Assertive Yield B.V.

My first company was already taking off while I was still in school. My career started as a publisher in the gaming industry, where I built one of the world’s largest communities for Minecraft and other computer games. I invested in domains and built online communities similar to Reddit, which we monetized afterward. I am the founder and CEO of Assertive Yield B.V., deeply involved in understanding our customers’ needs and the industry to deliver quality products.

What inspired you to start Assertive Yield, and what was the problem you were trying to solve?

The inspiration came from my previous experience with online communities, where we faced a significant revenue loss due to market shifts. We attempted to compensate by increasing ad placements, adversely affecting the user experience. This led to the decision to build a system to track revenue and user lifetime value across multiple revenue sources to better understand the effects of our optimizations.

Yield Management and optimization has been around for a while, what makes Assertive Yield unique, different, better from what’s already out there?

In essence, Assertive Yield excels by offering real-time analytics! Our platform distinguishes itself through the comprehensive granularity of our data, serving as a reliable single source of truth for all revenue streams. Our credibility is built upon robust data analysis, encompassing multiple dimensions such as revenue, user experience, and technical factors. Additionally, we empower you to personalize experiences for individual user segments and accurately assess the impact of each optimization and modification. All of this is achieved in real-time, supported by an extensive range of over 300 metrics.

What specific measures does Assertive Yield take to ensure brand safety and prevent fraud for its clients?

Assertive Yield provides accurate and reliable data, with automated mechanisms to handle discrepancies and issues. We have multiple integration and data layers tracking, ensuring consistency and accuracy. Our system is also designed to be resilient, spanning multiple regions and servers to maintain functionality despite potential outages.

Could you tell us the importance of real-time data in today’s programmatic ecosystem and how real-time data helps improve programmatic advertising?

Real-time data is crucial because it allows publishers to make faster, more informed decisions when optimizing, testing new vendors, and making adjustments. By having access to accurate, granular, real-time data, publishers can confidently make data-driven decisions and understand the impacts of their choices. The best part is that we allow them to do it based on AI predictions with 96-99% accuracy.

How does revenue intelligence enable publishers to make more informed business decisions and optimize their revenue streams?

Revenue intelligence, as exemplified by our Yield Intelligence solution, enables publishers to make more informed business decisions and optimize their revenue streams in various ways. Publishers gain valuable insights that drive informed decision-making by offering a comprehensive and real-time overview of all monetization efforts.

Our platform collects, cleans, and normalizes data from diverse sources like Prebid, Amazon, Programmatic, and Direct Sales and presents it with incredible granularity. This level of detail allows you to dive deep into your revenue data and analyze it across more than 300 dimensions and metrics. By understanding the nuances of your performance, you can identify trends, patterns, and opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Yield Intelligence also supports experimentation with different setups, A/B testing, and ad formats, enabling you to fine-tune your monetization strategies. Our highly accurate revenue predictions, based on your first-party data, provide valuable foresight to inform future strategies.

What emerging trends or technologies are shaping the future of yield management and optimization in the digital advertising industry?

Data-driven optimization and personalization are revolutionizing the publishing landscape as publishers progressively segment users and craft bespoke experiences. As technology advances, publishers gain access to an expanding array of tools that empower them to refine and personalize their advertising endeavors, keeping pace with larger competitors. Crucially, our Yield Manager suite consolidates 11 tools publishers typically rely on, streamlining the entire process and enhancing efficiency.

What is the biggest problem you or your team is solving this year?

The biggest issue our team is solving this year is teaching publishers how to adapt to a new paradigm in which they own their data through on-page trackers and can analyze their revenue streams in real-time. This requires creating a new operation playbook for their teams to effectively handle the disruption to the current conditions. At the same time, our enduring challenge is ensuring the accuracy, reliability, and scalability of the data we manage. As we add more clients and handle larger volumes of data, we strive to maintain the robustness of our systems and deliver the same high-quality service and insights our customers expect.

Is there anything that you’re currently reading, or any favorite books that you’d recommend?

Over the past two years, I haven’t had the opportunity to engage in many activities due to an increasingly busy schedule. However, one notable experience that I fondly recall was exploring the book “Never Split the Difference.”

What are your future plans for Assertive Yield, and how do you plan to evolve your solutions in response to the changing digital advertising landscape?

In response to the rapid changes in the digital advertising industry, Assertive Yield offers a significant value-add by enabling publishers to adapt to new standards and essential vendors quickly. We are committed to evolving solutions to meet the industry’s ever-changing needs. Our strategic plans involve expanding our suite of products and services to provide comprehensive insights and analytics and exploring integration opportunities with other platforms and technologies. Moreover, we will continue to invest in research and development to remain at the forefront of industry trends, ensuring our clients always have access to cutting-edge solutions. Ultimately, we aim to empower publishers and SSPs with the data and tools to optimize their revenue streams and make well-informed business decisions.

How does Assertive Yield ensure compliance with data privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA, while providing granular and real-time data to its clients?

Ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA, is of utmost importance to Assertive Yield. We are committed to providing granular and real-time data to our clients while adhering to these regulations.

To achieve this, we have implemented strict data handling policies and procedures that ensure the privacy and security of user data. We anonymize and aggregate data, ensuring no personally identifiable information (PII) is exposed or shared with unauthorized parties. Furthermore, we only collect and process data essential for delivering the services and optimizations our clients require.

Assertive Yield can provide clients with the granular, real-time insights they need to make informed business decisions while respecting user privacy and all applicable regulations by maintaining a strong focus on data privacy and security.

Thanks, Nils!