Xtend has announced the launch of a world-class AI-first retargeting engine and opened its global headquarters in Singapore. The company hosted its top existing e-commerce partners, Tokopedia and Lazada, at a global preview on April 20. Xtend’s dynamic team of industry stalwarts will support these companies to reach, convert and re-engage their users.
Built on a large-scale AI model, Xtend provides an algorithm that predicts based on typical user profiles instead of usual marketing funnels. It allows us to anticipate a user’s next preferred engagement with a brand – whether via discovery, product comparisons or a flash deal.
Xtend will also incorporate a large section of owned and operated contextual e-commerce inventory, tagged as “SHOPit”, to create a more native environment for users to interact with e-commerce offers outside of their core platforms. Through SHOPit, a platform-agnostic plug-and-play solution, Xtend can accurately pinpoint lapses in the user journey and effectively help businesses retarget using unique and customised user scenarios and AI Generated Content (AIGC) native creations.
Xtend’s launch event featured an open discussion between key industry leaders on the future of marketing and the ability to identify and serve users with meaningful communications without cookies and app user IDs, all expected to be deprecated by 2024.
Led by industry veterans and young-blooded executives from companies such as RTB House, Criteo, Tencent and others, Xtend’s star-studded team has more than ten years of experience in AI and ad tech. Xtend was officially soft-launched earlier this year and will be gradually rolled out globally across Asia, EMEA, CIS, LatAm and the U.S. across Q2 and Q3 2023.
“Industries like e-commerce, fintech, and food delivery apps acquired huge volumes of users during the pandemic. These users, many of whom were forced to come online faster than they may have, are behaving in unique ways, posing challenges to typical user models in the adtech industry. Xtend is a pioneering innovation made by a global team with rich retargeting experience to meet the needs of our partners. It incorporates best practices of marketing technology solutions across both owned & operated and programmatic inventory” says Karam Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer, Xtend. “ We are excited to debut amid a new AI generation, given every part of our engine and workflow is heavily integrated with AI, bringing efficiencies onto the table.”
“The adtech industry is going through a major transformation. By 2024, cookies and Ad IDs of big tech companies will become irrelevant. Meanwhile, shopping behaviours are evolving at a rapid pace. In Indonesia, there is close to US$4 billion spent every year yet less than 10% happens in-platform which signals an opportunity.” says Rajeev Bala, Digital Marketing Head, Gojek-Tokopedia (GoTo). “85% of in-platform searches are based on category rather than brands, and such transactional data is highly valuable as it allows us to target the middle funnel effectively. Working with Xtend is opening the opportunities for us to leverage on better quality data and advanced AI technology, reactivating a significant portion of our users and boosting our overall revenue.”
Xtend is a massive performance marketing engine that can help marketers find the right signal amidst the noise. As a branch of SHAREit Group, Xtend will help companies and marketers retarget their app users by providing a one-stop shop for them to run campaigns delivering the most effective ROI inside and outside of SHAREit’s ecosystem, as required.
