Pixability, founded as a tech company exclusively focused on YouTube advertising optimization, serves brands and agencies dealing with YouTube’s massive content volume.

As both the CMO and a college professor teaching courses on YouTube, Matt Duffy, Chief Marketing Officer at Pixability, says YouTube has undergone significant changes over time, one of the most significant being, “It has become the most interesting platform in advertising.”

According to Matt, Pixability recognized an opportunity in the market where advertisers lacked the tools to effectively target audiences across hundreds of thousands of YouTube channels without wasting significant portions of their budgets on unsuitable or underperforming content.

“Our mission is to make every impression matter on YouTube. We use our tech and data solutions to reduce waste for advertisers and to maximize outcomes,” Matt says.

He notes that YouTube isn’t just the largest video platform globally but is now the biggest connected TV platform, surpassing Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and Disney+ in reach. With YouTube Shorts, it rivals TikTok in short-form social video content while progressing from a brand awareness platform to a full funnel solution driving clicks, conversions, and sales.

“YouTube is more exciting than ever and has more options than ever, but it’s also become more complex than ever,” Matt explains, highlighting both the opportunities and challenges.

Targeting Precision on YouTube

Matt touches on the scale of content on YouTube: “YouTube creates a Netflix worth of content every hour. There’s a Netflix created every hour on YouTube in terms of content volume.” This content production, he adds, creates three primary challenges for advertisers:

1. Complexity in determining how to approach YouTube – whether as CTV, social media, video platform, or demand generation channel
2. Waste from unsuitable impressions, including content that’s inappropriate or misaligned with audience targets
3. Difficulty driving genuine audience engagement even when on suitable content

Matt notes that traditional advertising approaches simply can’t address these challenges at YouTube’s scale. “A typical ad campaign will run on hundreds of thousands of channels on YouTube,” he explains. “How does a human pick hundreds of thousands of channels on which a campaign will run? Well, they can’t, and they’re not.”

As a consequence, Matt reveals that advertisers waste up to 45% of their YouTube ad spend on unsuitable channels or ineffective impressions. This complexity and shortfall is precisely what Pixability aims to solve.

How Does Gen AI Contextual Targeting Work

Pixability’s solution to these challenges is its Gen AI Contextual Targeting (GCS) platform. Unlike standard contextual targeting tools, which might provide a limited list of suitable channels, Pixability’s approach starts with a data advantage.

“We ingest 30,000 times as much data as an advertiser could access,” Matt reveals. “That’s just the ability to continually update what’s happening on YouTube in real time on hundreds of thousands of channels.”

This database is then enhanced through several components:

1. Brand Shield Technology: Pixability’s proprietary system scores content based on suitability metrics and categorizes videos by their topics (sports, beauty, health, etc.) and characteristics (made for kids, premium content).
   
2. Historical Performance Data: Drawing on past campaign performance across channels, Pixability adds performance prediction signals.
   
3. Strategic Data Partnerships: The platform incorporates external data through partnerships. “We have a partnership with Ad Fontes, which gives us data on which news channels are reliable and which aren’t,” Matt explains.
   
4. Inclusive Media Initiative: A proprietary program that allows creators to self-identify as representing diverse groups. “We’re the only one in the world that can tell you that these are the channels that have self-identified as being black creators or Hispanic creators or LGBTQA+ creators,” Matt notes.

The Gen AI component then processes all these signals to curate channel lists optimized for each advertiser’s specific needs. As Matt describes, “We take that giant volume of content and then create our contextually tagged version of it. And then you need to have Gen AI to look at that and curate it based on what an advertiser wants.”

For advertisers, the implementation process is straightforward: they share their audience targets, topics of relevance, areas to avoid, and campaign goals. Pixability’s platform then generates a customized, highly relevant list of contextually targeted suitable channels.

The service can be accessed in two ways: either Pixability manages the entire campaign using their GCS platform, or they provide the curated inventory for advertisers who want to manage campaigns themselves.

GCS Success Story and Applications

Though recently launched, GCS is already delivering measurable improvements. Matt shares that a case study of a major alcohol brand implemented the solution and saw a nearly 50% increase in performance efficiency.

“Alcohol brands are a good example of a company that has challenges in behavioral targeting because they want to target adults only,” Matt explains. “They wanted to avoid made-for-kids content. They wanted a highly curated list, and by using this, they increased their performance efficiency by 49%.”

As Matt notes, the solution can be particularly valuable for specific industries, such as financial and healthcare (due to regulatory restrictions limiting behavioral targeting, these industries benefit from advanced contextual targeting), food and beverage, and consumer brands.

Democratizing YouTube’s Revenue Ecosystem

Matt explains how Pixability’s technology benefits creators across YouTube’s ecosystem, particularly mid-sized creators who might otherwise be overlooked by major advertisers.

“Let’s say you’re a creator with a hundred thousand followers and you have a cooking channel but you’re not known, you’re not famous, you’re not Gordon Ramsay,” he illustrates. “Most of the advertisers that come to us, they have their ideas of what channels they want to run on and they’re in their list of famous channels.”

The GCS solution can identify these high-quality but less famous creators and include them in suitable inventory pools when they’re relevant to an advertiser’s needs. “We can then curate a list of thousands of mid-sized creators that might not have been on their list before,” Matt explains. “It’s great for both creators and advertisers. It brings them together in a way that they both want.”

This democratization extends beyond connecting advertisers with creators—it’s part of what Matt finds most enticing about YouTube’s role in the creator economy. “YouTube doesn’t pay for anything unless it’s successful. If you create content on YouTube that’s not engaging, you won’t make money. If you create engaging YouTube content, you will make money.”

Skepticism on Gen AI

Despite its benefits, some advertisers are skeptical of Gen AI. Matt distinguishes between problematic Gen AI applications and Pixability’s targeting solution.

“One general reason Gen AI can be seen in a bad light specifically on YouTube is that there are some channels on YouTube that are completely Gen AI created channels that are created just to be made for advertising channels,” Matt explains, adding that these low-quality, algorithmically-generated channels often lack engaging content and exist primarily to serve ads.

Pixability’s solution helps brands avoid such channels while using AI technology to improve targeting. Key differentiators that address common concerns include:

• Transparency: “It’s not a situation where we press a button and walk away while it keeps doing things for the brand we’re not going to see. We see all of it. It’s completely transparent,” Matt emphasizes.
  
• Data quality: “You can’t just plop Gen AI on anywhere and it will work. You need to put it in an environment with the right data,” Matt notes, adding that Pixability’s data foundation enables effective AI application.
  
• Privacy compliance: “The great news about this solution is that because it’s contextual, there are zero data privacy issues; it’s completely 100% privacy safe,” Matt states, explaining why industries with strict regulations find the solution particularly valuable.

Elevating Creator Economy Advertising

Pixability continues to grow with its GCS solution driving business expansion. “We’re growing faster than we’ve ever grown now,” Matt shares. “This GCS solution has really been a great new thing for us.”

Matt envisions AI-powered curation becoming essential across all advertising platforms. “I just think for every platform, curation is going to be key,” he states. His vision extends beyond YouTube to the entire connected TV ecosystem – potentially unifying targeting across YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, BBC, and other video platforms.

What fascinates Matt most about the creator economy’s future is how platforms like YouTube have democratized content creation and distribution. “That’s the coolest thing happening right now. Anyone can be successful. It’s the same with music on Spotify and YouTube. Anyone can create music now and put it on Spotify and YouTube; you just never know where it will go.”