Álvaro de Gracia (CEO and founder of APPcelerate and Abacus Consulting), Macarena Estévez and Laureano Turienzo (board members).
The CEO of APPcelerate has been interviewed in the newspaper PublicidAD. Here is the full interview.
PublicidAD Periódico | Editorial staff
The founder and CEO of Appcelerate, Álvaro de Gracia, answers questions about his company as well as about the reality of the digital advertising industry. A changing environment in terms of privacy and formats and where every day is a challenge for this type of companies.
How does a business consulting firm enter the world of digital advertising?
“I see it as an evolution after many years analyzing the business models of many companies, but without getting into the activation part of these audiences. In a context of great uncertainty such as the disappearance of cookies, I saw it as an opportunity to connect both worlds, in search of precision and efficiency of clients’ advertising investments based on deep insights.”
Alvaro, your career has been a constant evolutionary process directly related to data management. Tell us, how did this passion come about?
“It was born during my university career. I started working in an American bank in London, consolidating financial statements and preparing reports. Those were the early days of Business Intelligence, where a mixed technical and business profile was required. I fit very well in this role and, fortunately, I had a great recognition. Once launched into entrepreneurship with Abacus, it has always been a constant search to add value through data. With Appcelerate we close a circle of consumer knowledge through data and its application for the activation of advertising campaigns”.
What is APPcelerate?
“We are a Full Ad Stack, which implies having a multiple solution to offer a complete service from a single market interlocutor. We rely on a deep knowledge of people’s behavior thanks to our own Data Lake where we integrate multiple layers of information about consumers and their behavior, and we transfer this knowledge to the activation of campaigns without the need for cookies, which we already know will soon disappear”.
What is a GeoAudience, a term used by APPcelerate?
“It is an anonymous Audience, contextualized with geographic data and with consent on their part to be impacted based on their location. When I explain it to clients I like to talk about there being a fair exchange between a user and a brand that provides information of value to the user based on their behavior.
It’s the same principle why we customers don’t mind sharing our location with a cab service app: how can we not if I want to be picked up as close as possible to where I am?
A geo-audience follows the same principle, how can I care about receiving advertising from a supermarket if I visit one three times a week? The other way around… I want to know about offers, opportunities…”.
In the world of advertising planning, the end of cookies will change the paradigm. What is the APPcelerate alternative?
“We propose to the market to maintain in the new context, the same effectiveness that is obtained today, but without the need to use cookies. With our vision and approach, brands will be able to fine-tune their advertising strategies as much or more than now, but from a more respectful approach than today. We won’t need sensitive information from a terminal to be very precise and achieve even higher CTRs than today’s benchmarks”.
He talks about signals in decline and others that are becoming key. What will be the key players in the short term?
“With the end of cookies, there will be widespread consumer demand for greater respect for their privacy, so we think geo-audiences are here to stay. The consumer has nothing to object as long as there is a fair exchange….”.
In the past you have worked for large accounts, to what extent do you think the client has matured towards understanding this type of technology?
“A brand also wants to be very respectful of the privacy of the recipients of their campaigns and this is becoming an obligation, so they are one of the agents of change, or rather the end of cookies. And they also want their campaigns to remain effective in the new context, which is why we are getting such a good reception.
Where will the company be in five years and what is the future of APPcelerate?
“Our platform is ready to scale to other markets in the future, so I envision a multinational scenario, incorporating Appcelerate to markets with very similar needs to the Spanish one and increasingly mature technologically, which for a company with AI origins is great news.”
In its staff, it recognizes notable profiles such as that of Macarena Estévez. What importance do you attach to a highly specialized independent consultant?
“For a start-up company it is very important to rely on people like Macarena who have a great recognition of solvency in the market. I’m sure we wouldn’t have counted on her in the role of advisor if she didn’t firmly believe in the reliability of our data and our audience measurement models… and in what we can do for agencies and brands.”
From your first campaigns, can you tell me how they are going?
“We have good cases that for now I can’t comment much on due to confidentiality issues, but I can share with you that we are going to have a paper from Deloitte that validates our vision and shows very good results both in terms of CTR, multiplying it almost by five, and in terms of the increase in up lift that the client we have worked with in this case has achieved.
Tell us about Temple. How has it also reached the field of outdoor advertising?
“This is a natural evolution when working with mobile data and signals. Outdoor is an increasingly relevant market where it is essential to rely on existing technology to deliver measurement with the power that this data can offer, there is no point in an approach to measurement that does not take advantage of the current state of the art. From a digital activation point of view, there was work to be done and we have already connected with some of the key players in the industry and are in the process of connecting with the rest of the industry.”
I want to be your client: What can you offer me as a brand, media agency or exclusivist?
“A relevant innovation that is already adapted to the post cookie reality, respecting the privacy of users, while maintaining or increasing the current standards of campaign conversion.
“With our vision and approach, brands will be able to fine-tune their advertising strategies as much or more than they do now, but from a more respectful approach than the current one.”
Álvaro de Gracia, CEO and founder of Abacus Consulting and APPcelerate.
Presentation by Laureano Turienzo