I get asked the question “Could You Describe Me Your DMP Capabilities?” often, so I decided to answer to it publicly. What we are today is combination of pioneering development in DMP’s in Finland and Globally for more than 6 years combined with extensive investments into technologies, tools and knowhow. The actual competencies and methods of work are best described through the journey we have taken to get here.
Our mission is to unleash the power of data through technology and analytics to give our clients competitive advantage and drive business results. DMP is one of the tools to help on the way.
I get asked often about our competencies in Data Management Platforms (DMP’s). The DMP being the center-point of many of the marketing technology discussions we have entered during the past year, this is only natural. To this end, I wanted to open our actual competencies a bit; and to do it publicly, as we have so far discussed these things only personally with our customers. (and lets shoot straight from the beginning, you still won’t be getting the whole story here, for that you must invite us over .
One of the best ways to describe our competencies with Data Management Platforms, I think, is to tell a bit about how we got here – from DMP’s perspective. All of the info is based on publicly available sources, believe it or not (so sorry to disappoint you dear industry spy), though some might be hard to find if not specifically googling with the exactly right search words. Still, I gathered that in this way I would not unwillingly be giving away any too sensitive trade secrets.
So, let’s approach our journey and current capabilities with DMP’s from two different routes: what was done in Finland and what was done globally.
We have been working with DMP’s for over 6 years in a full-fledged operations mode.
The short story behind Annalect Finland’s DMP capabilities
In Finland we have operated our own DMP already for 6 years (ie. from 2011). 6 years in DMP years is frankly a life time, giving us the self-given right to call us true pioneers in the front.
So why start something so ‘early’? It is a foray undertook due to nothing less than the great ambition to do digital marketing differently (than it was then done, an ambition that continues, but has evolved to much higher proportions). Given the scale in which we operate in digital media – the Omnicom Media Group agencies being the largest digital media buyers in Finland for their clients, the need for a data asset and tool-set unrivalled by any to fulfill the then (some might say) crazy ambition was a task not to be taken lightly.
To fulfill the huge ambition, we built a DMP from scratch already in a day when DMP’s were not the savvy digital marketers’ norm. Our platform, of course, has evolved a lot since those days. When we entered the Finnish market as Annalect publicly in May 2016 we were already operating three big data platforms for our clients and our agencies as we testified already in our launch video and press release.
Today we have the largest competence pool around data management platforms in Finland and in the Nordics.
The same evolution, or I might even be not so humble and say revolution, can be said of our competencies: since the establishment of Annalect in Finland, we have grown from a group of 10 people to a group of 40 experts combining developers, technology architects, data scientists, analysts, researchers and consultants all under one roof – reflecting the mass of talent we have to help our clients in their data-driven journeys. This skill set is, of course, significantly enhanced by the 20+ people we have operating our DMP daily as well as the rest of the 200 or so people spread across the Omnicom Media Group agencies.
Global Annalect launched the 1st agency owned global DMP solution and made the 1st ever global partnership with Salesforce.
The story behind Annalect’s Global DMP capabilities
Globally Annalect was established in 2010 as ‘the office’ to build marketing technology solutions for all Omnicom Agencies (Omnicom Media Group, TBWA, DDB, BBDO, to name a few).
The role of Annalect has evolved a lot since then and today Annalect already works with 22 companies out of the Fortune 50 and has dedicated hubs in 17 countries across the globe. What has remained the same though is our mission to unleash the power of data through technology and analytics to give our clients competitive advantage and drive business results. It is the tools that are needed to drive that mission that have evolved.
A huge step in global competencies was taken in 2013 as reported e.g. by media post and MRWeb with the launch of the first iteration of Annalect DMP, or the first agency owned global DMP as AdExchance called it (the original press release is here).
Another significant step was taken in 2014 with the public message on the importance of taking CRM data into the equation; you can read about this e.g. from AdExchange’s report on Annalect reaching for the Golden Nugget.
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The Annalect DMP has then evolved significantly to form the Annalect Data Cloud as you can see from these public reports in the adoption of Salesforce Cloud globally, or the first ever global partnership with Salesforce, or in this story about the data cloud in Campaign hinting about the current capabilities of the platform. (and remember that in Finland we started everything three years before…).
Given this history, I think I’m not too bold in saying that Annalect has been the pioneering force behind Data Management Platforms (DMP’s) globally and in Finland.
What we are and know about DMP’s today
= What we have built in Finland from 2010
+ Everything built globally since 2010
+ one year of intensive competence build up (since the official launch of Annalect in Finland)
+ by far the largest DMP operations competence pool in Finland (and in the Nordics, and I think also in EMEA)
+ little things like off-shore capabilities, martech and analytical innovation centres, etc. etc.
What we do today in the area of DMP’s?
This all means we take the potential convergence of data, technology, analytics and insights in marketing can have for our customers businesses very seriously.
How we approach the work with Data Management Platforms can be expanded to describe how we work with Madtech – or marketing and advertising technology – in general:
1. We consult our clients on the best approaches for them to improve their data and technology infrastructures. We do this technology agnostically utilizing the full benchmark and negotiation power of Global Annalect and OMG for our client’s behalf when this is desired.
2. We educate and train our customer’s teams so that they can increase their own capabilities in data driven marketing.
3. We develop and implement data and technology solutions, platforms and infrastructures for our clients use. The solutions can be owned by our clients or a hosted solution owned by us. We always go with the model that best suits our clients.
4. We enhance the capabilities in our clients own or hosted environments by our own DMP and data cloud capabilities – be it data, tech or analytical utilities.
5. We maintain and operate solutions, and together with ToinenPHD and OMD Finland, operate our own DMP for our clients, utilising their vast content creation and media capabilities to our clients benefit.
Our way of working
Sometimes we work in one-off projects, sometimes we sit in our customer’s offices as part of their teams, sometimes we rent or build hosted solutions, sometimes we are the outsource partner. There are many ways.
We like modular solutions, we like open source with no vendor locks.
One that remains the same is our mission: We aim to unleash the power of data through technology and analytics to give our clients competitive advantage and drive business results.
Some concrete examples of our endeavors in this area can be seen at the end of this presentation on ‘DMP Will Save Marketing – Myths, Truths and Best Practices’ held end of 2016 at an ASML seminar.
You can read more about how we approach data, technology, analytics, research or consulting in our offering section (in Finnish; for global offering go here).
