Ubex: AI-based Ad Platform Using Neural Networks
I will be reviewing Ubex. Ubex is a new advertising platform that replaces traditional digital advertising platforms with AI-powered targeted advertising.
In the last 4 years the digital advertising industry has been growing tremendously and has surpassed the size of the television market in 2017. It is expected to grow even more in the coming years. Despite all these, the digital advertising industry still holds many problems such as low targeting efficientcy, non-transparent counterparty relationships and a high level of fraud. Ubex was made to solve this problems through two powerful but premature technologies, blockchain and neural networks.
Just know, that when we say neural networks, we are not talking about intelligent AI or an artificial computer brain. It is a lot more primitive than that. Like I said, these technologies have not matured. Think of the neural networks as a set of parameters that are optimized to give the least amount of errors as possible. In theory, it does work but it is not perfect...yet.
Their mission is To create a global advertising ecosystem with a high
level of mutual trust and maximum efficiency.
According to their website: Ubex is a global decentralized advertising exchange where
companies advertise effectively, while publishers profitably
tokenize ad slots on their resources.
Ubex claims to have 2 main advantages over other advertising exchanges, namely,
Neural networks maximize purchasing efficiency
Blockchain-based smart contracts minimize participants’ risks
Advertisers today face a lot of problems
Brokers charge high commission fees on advertisers
-There is no single instrument by which a large advertiser could easily filter out the most
effective websites for their advertising and remain certain that their media budget for digital
advertising would be spent efficiently.
-Ubex offers a solution in the form of smart contracts on blockchain. Thanks to the Ubex
purchasing system, the process of acquiring advertising slots and selecting the most
effective websites for placement is simplified to the maximum and transaction risks are
thereby reduced to a minimum because of the neural network algorithms, which select the
ad slots with the maximum potential targeting effect for the advertiser.
Risk of fraud
-There are various models of payment for digital advertising. In most cases, advertisers are
forced to accept the pay-per-click model, and thus carry the publisher’s risk of fraud.
Despite its convenience for publishers, the pay-per-click model often creates incentives
for fraud. Fraud, in this case, is an imitation of the actions of real
users, aimed at achieving KPIs set by the advertiser, thus inflating targeted actions artificially,
and, as a result, obtaining higher payments for no concrete feedback at the expense of the
advertiser. The amount of fraud in the programmatic segment has reached critical levels.
-With the help of smart contracts on blockchain, Ubex allows for the transition to the new COST
PER ACTION model of payment, eliminating fraud and the need for clicks. Say goodbye to clickbots.
Weak algorithms
-Current algorithms demonstrate advertising to users who are not part of the target
audience of the advertiser’s product. This reduces number of purchases.
-Using neural networks and accumulated data, the Ubex algorithm selects the most current advertising
offers relevant for certain visitors, maximizing the probability of obtaining the desired results.
Moreover, the Ubex neural network evaluates the probability of targeted user actions. By applying such
an approach, the Ubex algorithm estimates the economic efficiency of displaying various advertising
options to each particular user.
Ubex aims to alleviate the pain points of publishers too. As Publishers also face a lot of problems today.
Inefficient targeting
-Due to the imperfections of the targeting algorithms available on the market, with some rare
exceptions, advertisers are forced to adhere to the proverbial strategy of “shooting sparrows
from cannons”, trying to reach their target audience with a certain margin to spare.
-The Ubex neural networks solution increases the targeting of advertising, thereby
maximizing the likelihood of target actions being performed by the audience of interest
to the advertiser.
Lack of transparency on the part of advertisers
-Advertisers may conceal the fact of fulfillment of a targeted action by a user. Failure to pay for advertising for verified targeted actions by both the advertiser and publisher may lead to lawsuits. Late payment of advertising is more common than failure of payment but it will still harm the financial health of the publisher.
-When connecting to the Ubex advertising exchange, advertisers and publishers
install tracking services. It is possible to track user behavior at all stages of the conversion funnel with the help of such tracking services. Ubex solves the problem of late payments through the use of a crypto-financial platform allowing instant payments and verification of smart contracts on the one hand and keeping advertisers’ budgets in escrow on the other.
That is all good and all, but our concern is can they deliver. Because as much as this ICO is popular and highly rated, the feasibility of their project is questionable. Neural Networks require a lot of data and computing power to run. Furthermore it is built on the Ethereum blockchain, which as of today, has its limitations and may not be able to handle the network overload Ubex will provide.
To summarize everything Ubex is trying to improve the nature of the digital advertising industry by programming the platform to only display ads that would interest the specific user viewing the ads. Their 2 main technologies are blockchain and Neural networks. They will also aim for providing transparency in how ads performed not just know if they were clicked, creating better business opportunities for advertisers and publishers.