How dentsu used household data to shift Mastercard from reach to relevance across KSA and UAE.
Client: Mastercard ·
Markets: KSA and UAE ·
Agency: dentsu, with PubMatic ·
Vertical: Financial Services / Payments
Executive Summary
Mastercard wanted to connect with high-value travelers and shoppers across KSA and UAE during the peak summer season, when media clutter and broad targeting often dilute effectiveness. Traditional demographic and interest-based approaches delivered reach but lacked the precision to identify real, in-market audiences.
Dentsu used semantic matching to refine its audience intelligence clusters into Digiseg’s privacy-safe, household-level segments, then tested them head-to-head against standard interest-based audiences across premium PubMatic display and video inventory. The Digiseg test group delivered breakthrough uplifts: up to 520% higher CTR on Display in KSA, 88% higher CTR on Display in UAE, and 13.6% higher attention than the campaign average, all without cookies or personal identifiers.
Digiseg’s household-level data was used to refine audience clusters into privacy-safe segments and tested in a controlled A/B framework against standard targeting.
Campaign Goal / KPI
The goal was to increase audience relevance and attention quality for Mastercard’s high-value travel and shopping audiences in KSA and UAE, while maintaining Mastercard’s strict data privacy standards throughout.
The Challenge
Mastercard wanted to connect with high-value travelers and shoppers across KSA and UAE during the peak summer season, a time when media clutter and broad targeting often dilute effectiveness.
Traditional demographic and interest-based approaches weren’t enough to identify real, in-market audiences demonstrating genuine purchase and travel intent. Traditional targeting methods delivered reach but lacked precision.
The challenge was clear: how could dentsu increase audience relevance and attention quality while maintaining Mastercard’s strict data privacy standards?
The Solution
Dentsu applied its audience intelligence framework to identify key consumer clusters, including Travel Seekers, Frequent Shoppers, and Tech Enthusiasts. Through semantic matching, dentsu then used Digiseg’s household-level data to refine these cohorts into privacy-safe, addressable segments, activated across programmatic display and video in both KSA and UAE.
To secure high-quality, transparent supply, dentsu activated the campaign across premium inventory accessed through PubMatic, ensuring consistent reach and brand-safe delivery. To measure impact objectively, dentsu implemented a controlled A/B testing framework across Display and Video in both markets, comparing a control group of standard interest-based audiences against a test group of Digiseg audiences across key lifestyle categories.
Activated Digiseg audiences:
- Travel: Seeking Luxury Travel & Vacation, Family Travel Indulgers, Business Class Travelers
- Shopping: Frequent Shoppers
- Technology: Internet & Computing Enthusiasts
All activations adhered to Mastercard’s 70% viewability benchmark, ensuring a consistent and measurable test environment.
“The future of audience data lies in decoding human motivations, not accumulating more identifiers. Through semantic intelligence and strong cookieless partners, we delivered precise targeting while staying fully privacy-safe.”
Saadeddine Nahas, Head of Product & Partnerships — dentsu Media
Results
Dentsu’s use of Digiseg data achieved breakthrough performance uplifts across key engagement metrics:
- +520% higher CTR on Display in KSA
- +88% higher CTR on Display in UAE
- +9–12% higher VCR on Video across both KSA and UAE
- +13.6% higher attention than campaign average, validating that relevance drives attention
- Luxury Travel and Tech Enthusiast audiences recorded the highest engagement and completion rates, confirming superior message resonance
- All results were achieved without cookies or personal identifiers, ensuring 100% privacy compliance
By unifying dentsu’s audience intelligence, Digiseg’s cookieless household data, and PubMatic’s premium programmatic supply, the campaign shifted Mastercard from a reach-driven approach to a relevance-led one. The result: measurable attention, meaningful engagement, and a more efficient media investment, all within a fully privacy-compliant framework.
“This Mastercard campaign is a great example of how trusted partners can come together to deliver precision at scale. Through dentsu’s strategic audience intelligence and Digiseg’s privacy-safe data, we were able to activate on PubMatic’s platform with exceptional efficiency and measurable impact, proving that premium data, smart strategy, and transparent technology can drive real business outcomes.”
Amélie Grenier-Bolay, Country Manager Italy, MENA — PubMatic