As part of one of our biggest releases to date, Pathmatics is reshaping our taxonomy (i.e. our data classification hierarchy) to offer a more granular and relevant view into digital advertising today.
Before the Change
Today each ad is taxonomized into a three-layer data hierarchy: category > advertiser > brand
Categories are the first layer in the hierarchy – the top-level Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) category that an advertiser falls into.
Advertisers are the second, representing the highest-level company – the parent company if a company has subsidiaries.
Brands are the third layer, representing brands or child companies that exist beneath the Advertiser. An advertiser may own multiple brands.
After the Change
Our transformed taxonomy will exceed today’s 3-layer hierarchy – with deeper layers of both brands and categories.
You will more easily be able to research specific brands / products, perform better apples-to-apples comparisons among brands, and drill down to more than a single layer of categories.
When changes will take place and the impact
We will deliver our transformed taxonomy in phases, enabling us to collect your feedback and iterate.
Changes impact all Pathmatics products: Explorer, Connect, Custom.
Our taxonomized categories
The following categories have been transformed:
- Consumer Packaged Goods
- Financial Services
- Food & Drink Services
- Gaming
- Health & Wellness
- Retail
- Travel & Tourism
Why our reimagined taxonomy is magical
It's the first of its kind!
- Like Pathmatics, our reimagined taxonomy is digital-first – the first data classification system designed by the modern marketer, for the modern marketer. Both informed by well-established tech giants and a direct response to feedback from our customers, our new taxonomy is customized to meet the needs of real, top digital media decision-makers today. Our approach to cleaning up legacy data classification systems has led us to a simpler, more accurate, and more relevant view of the digital advertising ecosystem. Changes will apply to all Pathmatics digital ad data dated January 1, 2019 and forward.
And better for you:
- More granular brands means seeing ad spend and placement for individual products in a brand family (e.g. Olay Daily Facials, Olay Body Bar, and Olay Total Effects uniquely reported within Olay). And showing more layers of brands hierarchically will enable spend, impression, and creative count totals to sum up more intuitively (e.g. each Olay product will be represented in the UI as belonging to the Olay brand family). (~Phase I).
- More granular categories means drilling down into specific categories and viewing the more granular brands within those categories (e.g. Olay's products will be classified as facial cleansers, body soaps, lotions, etc.). (~Phase II).
- Our reimagined taxonomy will enable you to more quickly and easily get the answers you need about individual brands, families of brands, and true competitive sets.