In this weekly segment, ExchangeWire sums up key industry updates on ad tech from around the Asia Pacific region – in this edition: Smaato’s New 'NextGen SDK' Built From the Ground Up by App Developers; CastingAsia Launches CPA and CPC Capabilities for Influencer Marketing; and Blockchain provider Aqilliz unveils first digital marketing products.

Smaato’s New “NextGen SDK” Built From the Ground Up by App Developers

Smaato, the global in-app advertising platform, has officially announced a new software development kit (SDK) for Android and iOS that includes key features to help today’s mobile publishers and app developers maximize their revenue. The Smaato NextGen SDK was built by a team of former app developers, who have a deep understanding of the problems many publishers face when integrating an advertising SDK. With support for Open Measurement and an in-app header bidding solution, the Smaato NextGen SDK will significantly impact the in-app advertising experience for both publishers and their users.

“Our development teams have been hard at work to bring publishers a truly next-generation SDK and we’re excited to finally open this product up to mobile publishers around the world,” said Arndt Groth, CEO at Smaato. “We believe the NextGen SDK will drive increased publisher earnings while attracting additional premium advertisers to the Smaato platform.”

CastingAsia Launches CPA and CPC Capabilities for Influencer Marketing

CastingAsia, an influencer marketing technology solutions provider and part of AnyMind Group, has announced the launch of cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and cost-per-click (CPC) capabilities on the CastingAsia platform, in a bid to provide a way for marketers to better address the impact that influencer marketing can have on a business.

Through the platform, marketers can now activate, manage, track and payout CPA- and CPC-modeled influencer marketing campaigns, in addition to or alongside other existing influencer marketing campaign models including costing by posts, likes, views, shares, comments or number of followers. Marketers can also set a maximum campaign budget to ensure full cost transparency into their influencer marketing activities.

On the announcement, Kosuke Sogo, CEO and co-founder of AnyMind Group said: “Influencer marketing has always been seen as an upper-funnel marketing tactic, but with the right data, influencer supply, campaign measurement and payment metrics, influencer marketing can be effectively used to drive audience behavior and action – from conversations to conversions.”

Blockchain provider Aqilliz unveils first digital marketing products

Aqilliz, a blockchain solutions provider, has launched its first three products for the digital marketing industry, dubbed Proton, Neutron and Electron. These products aim to address supply chain optimisation, verification, risk mitigation and cost reduction.

Announcing the products at ad:tech London, Aqilliz CEO Gowthaman ‘G-Man’ Ragothaman said, “Today, numerous technologies continue to focus on siloed solutions that have led to a largely fragmented martech ecosystem, resulting in a very bloated administrative layer. These existing solutions have thus far only addressed some parts of the problem, but fail to address them holistically. This has resulted in poor price discovery and liquidity along with a lack of trust across the marketplace. Brands, platforms, and consumers all are at the heart of Aqilliz and our mission is to restore balance, liquidity, and authentic value to this flawed system”.