Maximizing Resonance: Driving Performance in Brand-Safe YouTube Inventory with Qortex

Advertiser Vertical: Travel & Tourism
Objective: Maximize Resonance Score - the combined measure of creative alignment, audience relevance, and premium environment, while ensuring brand safe and high-quality placements.

Background

A Travel & Tourism brand wanted to reach high-intent audiences on YouTube. Google interest-based targeting offered scale at low cost, but often placed ads on irrelevant or unsafe videos, undermining performance and brand integrity.

Qortex took a different approach: rather than buying broad audiences, it curated content environments where the brand’s ideal audience was actively engaged. The success of inventory is judged primarily through Resonance Score, a combined measure of:

• Creative Alignment: How well the content matches the brand’s messaging and tone
• Audience Targeting: Relevance of the viewers reached
• Premium Environment: Brand safety, content quality, and contextual alignment

Approach

Advanced Video Intelligence for Curated Segments
Qortex analyzed the campaign brief and creative to curate inventory that maximizes Resonance Score, balancing:

• Performance: High engagement and conversion potential
• Premium Environment: Brand-safe, high-quality, contextually aligned content
• Cost Efficiency: Optimized placements without compromising safety or quality

Head-to-Head Test Against Google Interest Targeting
Both approaches ran under identical conditions. Resonance Score was used as the primary measure to evaluate the effectiveness of each inventory source, with supporting metrics:

• Engagement Rate
• Conversion Rate
• Brand Safety Risk

Results

Resonance Score immediately highlighted the difference in inventory quality between Qortex-curated environments and traditional interest-based advertising.

Qortex delivered a Resonance Score of 98.9, compared to 62.7 for the traditional approach, reflecting stronger alignment across creative, audience, and environment. That higher resonance translated into clear performance gains:

• Higher content alignment (98.5%), ensuring ads appeared alongside relevant, high-quality video content
  
  
• Improved brand safety (99.8%), significantly reducing exposure to unsuitable environments
  
  
• Up to 3× higher engagement, driven by placement in high-resonance moments
  
  
• Up to 2× higher conversion rates, measured through downstream actions such as app submissions
  
  
• Reduced reliance on post-bid blocking, as suitability was built into inventory selection from the start
  
  

By using Resonance Score as the primary signal, advertisers were able to quickly identify higher-quality inventory, achieving stronger engagement and conversion performance while maintaining brand safety.

Key Insights

The Resonance Score immediately highlights the quality of inventory. Qortex’s curated segments delivered 3× the overall Resonance Score, reflecting stronger engagement, better conversions, and safer, premium placements.

Why Resonance Score Matters

• Quickly identifies the best inventory to run campaigns
• Balances multiple factors (creative, audience, environment) in a single, actionable metric
• Simplifies decision-making for advertisers: higher Resonance Score = better inventory

Conclusion

Using Resonance Score as the primary metric clearly demonstrates that Qortex-curated inventory outperforms broad interest-based targeting. This single measure allows brands to judge inventory at a glance, ensuring every placement is both high-performing and brand-safe.

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