Semasio

Semasio is an advertising technology company founded in Hamburg, Germany, in 2010 by Kasper Skou and Thomas Rask Thomsen. Before co-founding Semasio, Skou was the Chief Product Officer at wunderloop, a European behavioral targeting firm, and CEO for a semantic search engine company called Speed of Mind, where he worked with Thomsen. This background in semantic search and behavioral targeting laid the groundwork for Semasio's approach to digital advertising.

The company provides a cloud-based platform that utilizes natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and semantic analysis to create detailed profiles of web pages and users. Instead of relying on predefined categories, Semasio's technology extracts significant terms and phrases from the content a user consumes to build dynamic user profiles. This allows for the creation of highly specific target audiences for advertisers. The business operates on a SaaS model, enabling clients to access its platform to build and activate these audiences. Its clientele includes global media agency groups, independent agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and emerging brands across various sectors like automotive and pharma.

Semasio offers a suite of targeting solutions, including Audience Targeting, Contextual Targeting, and Brand Fit Targeting, which can be used individually or in combination. A key feature is the ability to create 'Semantic Twins' or lookalike audiences by identifying users with similar content consumption patterns to a client's seed audience. The platform is designed to be privacy-forward, offering cookieless targeting solutions that are crucial as the industry moves away from third-party cookies. Recently, the company launched "Factory," a service allowing data owners to monetize their first-party or third-party data by using Semasio's platform to onboard, model, and distribute audience or contextual segments. In April 2022, Semasio was acquired by Fyllo, a compliance and data solutions provider, and was later acquired by Samba TV in October 2024 to enhance its AI-powered omniscreen advertising capabilities.

Keywords: contextual targeting, audience targeting, semantic analysis, programmatic advertising, adtech, natural language processing, brand safety, data monetization, lookalike modeling, cookieless targeting, digital marketing, SaaS, user profiling, media strategy, audience extension, behavioral targeting, first-party data, unified targeting, semantic targeting, page-level analysis