El Toro (IP targeting provider)

El Toro

Type	Private startup
Industry	Computer software
Founded	2013
Headquarters	Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Area served	United States
Products	IP Targeting New Movers Mobile Out of Home Reverse Append
Services	IP targeting of display advertising. Data onboarding.
Number of employees	35

El Toro is a technology company based in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, best known for their unique IP targeting platform. It specializes in delivering display advertisements to specific households based on IP address without the use of cookies.^[1]

Company history

El Toro was founded in July 2013 after raising a seed round of $400,000 from friends and family. The company initially began as a service to fight fraudulent internet transactions by matching incoming transactions with publicly available information, together with previously compiled information to gauge the likelihood of fraud.^[1]

In December 2015, El Toro received preliminary approval for state tax incentives up to $1 million from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority as part of a $2.1 million investment in the expansion of El Toro's Louisville headquarters and the planned creation of 60 jobs. In June 2016, El Toro relocated to new office space in downtown Louisville's historic Whiskey Row neighborhood. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin cited El Toro as an example of a company that recognized and capitalized on the advantages the commonwealth offers for tech companies. As of 2016, El Toro had approximately 35 employees.^[2]

Development

El Toro developed a series of technologies that allow their customers to precisely target individual households online using banner, display and video ads. Using data from third-party providers and clients, El Toro mapped millions of IP addresses.^[3] The company's patent-pending algorithm matches a household to an IP address with 95% accuracy.^[4] Since the system knows the IP address of specified households there is no need to use cookies for targeting.

El Toro's infrastructure is cloud-based and integrated with a demand-side platform to help users manage accounts by bidding on real-time inventory of ads.^[3]

Technology

With four patents pending,^[5] El Toro's core product allows advertisers to target individual homes based on their individual IP addresses and the demographic information of the people living there. The technology deduces the exact geolocation of a target by matching a physical mailing address to an IP address, enabling use in conjunction with direct mail or other direct marketing campaigns.

By pairing the IP address of the intended target along with other publicly collected data, the El Toro service is able to display digital ads, videos, and other advertisements at a household level on a one-to-one basis. The results are validated through post-campaign match-back analysis, which compares a list of targeted clients to sales made throughout the campaign.

El Toro offers targeting to prominent buildings and specific locations such as airports, stadiums or hospitals, where one can make some assumptions about the demography and purchasing intent of the people in the building.

El Toro does not keep confidential, sensitive or personal information on web users.

Customers

El Toro's customers include: Humana, Bonnaroo, Renewal by Andersen, Brown-Forman, non-profit organizations, churches, and public and private universities.^[6]

Political advertising made up less than 10 percent of El Toro's 2015 business,^[7] but the company is seeing significant demand from political campaigns and political action committees with the increase in political spending in 2016.^[8] El Toro's technology has been deployed by dozens of political candidates across several states. Candidates using El Toro won 78% of their races in the May 20, 2014 primaries. The technology was also instrumental in helping pass a ballot initiative banning genetically modified crops in southern Oregon, which received 66% of the vote.^[9]

References