Liqui Design

Data ‘Wildcatting’

Data ‘Wildcatting’ explores how publishers can treat data as a valuable, speculative asset, similar to oil prospecting. Noah Jessop, head of data at Liquid, outlines the data landscape—mapping users across emails, cookies, and device IDs; ad targeting; and panel data—as pathways to value for digital advertisers. The piece cites a high-profile example: Facebook’s acquisition of a VPN firm with access to 5 million users’ mobile usage patterns, illustrating how data assets enable deeper monitoring and engagement. It advises publishers to begin wildcatting by auditing what they can collect, what is already accessible, and what they can compute. It highlights DMPs Krux, Lotame, and Oracle’s BlueKai as providers of first-party data segments for sale and argues that data has zero marginal cost to sell, making unique data the differentiator in an increasingly commodity-like market. The column concludes that the data markets remain the wild west of drilling for data.

Publishers Clearing House Has Ad Tech On The Mind With Command IQ Acquisition

Publishers Clearing House (PCH) and its digital arm Liquid have expanded their ad tech footprint by acquiring CommandIQ, adding marketing automation, segmentation, predictive analytics, reporting and attribution. Terms were not disclosed. The deal complements PCH’s existing stack — a homegrown data-management platform and ad-serving plus a demand-side platform via the Plethora acquisition — with integrations to AppNexus, LiveRamp and Datalogix. PCH says its first-party ecommerce and social data underpin customer profiles representing about 43% of US adults (roughly 100 million profiles) and more than 16 million unique monthly visitors. Former CommandIQ CEO Noah Jessop has joined Liquid as head of data and will lead a new San Francisco office; about 10 CommandIQ employees joined the deal, with Jessop the only one staying, an acqui-hire vibe. Advertisers and agencies working with PCH include OMD, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Machine Zone.