The relationship between advertisers and publishers in the advertising industry is facing unprecedented challenges. With the disappearance of advertising identifiers and data signals, the ecosystem of this industry has become increasingly complex. Aly Nurmohamed, former General Manager of Global Publisher Partnerships at Criteo, is deeply concerned about this issue. After leaving Criteo in 2020, he joined Permutive as General Manager and Chief Operating Officer, focusing on the online advertising sector.
After more than a year of development, Nurmohamed recently launched Nodals AI, a custom algorithm advertising company based in London. The company has raised €2 million (approximately $2.1 million) from European venture capital firm Stride and several angel investors in the ad tech space.
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The core idea of Nodals AI is to replace traditional Demand-Side Platforms (DSP), Supply-Side Platforms (SSP), and ad exchanges, creating a more transparent advertising network. Nurmohamed states that Nodals is not just an ordinary ad network; it connects directly with publishers to create customized identities and audience signals for advertisers. Unlike advertisers who rely on third-party technology, Nodals' clients can directly leverage publishers' first-party data for their campaigns.
Nodals is currently collaborating with several leading UK publishers and a few large advertisers to validate its business model. The goal is to attract advertisers who go beyond simple clicks and post-sale metrics to start conducting incremental tests. By analyzing the results of these tests, Nodals can help advertisers identify which potential customers to focus on and which media channels to promote through.
However, establishing direct relationships with publishers also presents significant challenges. Although advertisers are Nodals' core clients, the company still needs to invest considerable effort in building a partnership network with publishers. Unlike traditional SSP models, Nodals prefers to work with a select group of high-quality publishers rather than hundreds.
In the future, Nodals may consider integrating with third-party DSPs, SSPs, or other ad tech companies. However, this will only occur after validating its use case of building custom bidding algorithms through direct publisher transactions. Nurmohamed emphasizes that the company chose to build its infrastructure from scratch in the early stages, focusing on solving the new problems faced by the current advertising industry.
