Blis announced today the rollout of its new patent-pending omnichannel measurement solution, Smart Holdout Groups. Developed to address the complexities in today’s traditional campaign measurement, Smart Holdout Groups represents the future of privacy-first, omnichannel advertising effectiveness.

“With multi-channel advertising becoming increasingly common and the well-known limitations of cookies and addressability, it’s become difficult for marketers to measure the impact of their campaigns. Many fall back to only advertising on the shrinking pool of identifiable media or resort to siloed, channel-specific reports,” said Aaron McKee, Chief Technology Officer, Blis. “We’ve built Smart Holdout Groups to allow marketers to target and measure their whole audience across every channel, without relying on cookies or IDs.”

How Smart Holdout Groups works

Powered by patent-pending technology, Smart Holdout Groups allows advertisers to directly link campaign spending to core outcome indicators, including brand lift, store visit lift, sales lift, and custom reporting based on key business goals.

Once the target audience is defined, Smart Holdout Groups’ machine learning technology automatically generates statistically balanced targeted and control (A/B) audience groups based on seven independent data points, including demographics, household characteristics, and income. Each audience area is scored, and the algorithm matches pairs of similar areas, with one designated for the control group and one for the targeted group.

The technology also uses Blis’ movement data to understand how people move between different areas, creating buffer zones to minimize the risk of cross-pollination between control and exposed groups from human patterns like commuting. This helps ensure a more robust, precise and measurable outcome.

Real-world omnichannel results

The offering is now available in the US and was recently used by DC Lottery and FuseIdeas, working in partnership with Taoti. Promoting a multiplier instant scratch game, the omnichannel campaign utilized Smart Holdout Groups to understand brand and footfall lift across DC Lottery’s unified audience. The full-funnel initiative drove a total store visit uplift of 67% and a 160% increase in likelihood to buy across all campaign channels.

“As a longtime partner of Blis, we knew they would be integral in driving DC Lottery’s goals of awareness and store visits for their Multiplier instant scratch game. Blis provides the full funnel offering, from powerful audience insights to precise reach at scale to their market-leading omnichannel measurement offering,” said Tracie Chinetti, Vice President of Integrated Media at FuseIdeas. “They’re showing us – and our client – the true business impact of our campaigns, as opposed to siloed results. This isn’t being done elsewhere.”

“We’re interested in understanding real business outcomes that move the needle for our brand beyond just proxy metrics,” said Jayre Reaves, Director of Marketing and Communications, DC Office of Lottery and Gaming. “Previously, there hasn’t been an offering that connects all of our campaign channels to provide holistic insight in a privacy-first way – until now.”