Rakuten Viber taps AI, real-time feedback to measure ad impact beyond impressions

Messaging platform Rakuten Viber is pushing deeper into ad-tech, announcing a partnership with Happydemics to help brands measure how campaigns influence consumer perception, not just how many people see them.

The collaboration introduces a unified, real-time dashboard that tracks “brand lift” metrics on Viber, including ad recall and purchase intent. The system aims to give advertisers a clearer picture of which creative elements resonate with users, allowing them to refine campaigns across the marketing funnel.

The move comes as marketing teams face growing pressure to justify spending. With 84 percent of chief marketing officers prioritizing return on investment, demand has increased for tools that go beyond basic visibility metrics such as impressions and reach.

Under the partnership, Viber integrates a privacy-first measurement approach developed by Happydemics. Instead of relying on cookies or user tracking, the system gathers voluntary feedback from users who recall seeing an ad and compares it with those who do not. This is combined with probability-of-exposure modeling to generate cross-media insights that are comparable across formats and channels.

Artificial intelligence is used to benchmark campaign performance against industry standards and generate recommendations, allowing brands to adjust creatives and optimize spending in near real time.

“We aim to help brands build campaigns that truly resonate with people, and we see a growing appetite for insights that go beyond standard metrics,” said Jean-Marc Alomassor, vice president for advertising solutions at Rakuten Viber. “While reach and impressions are the foundation, this partnership adds the human layer. It shows brands how they are actually changing perceptions and driving decisions, not just how many screens they landed on.”

Happydemics chief marketing officer Virginie Chesnais said the partnership addresses a long-standing gap in digital advertising measurement.

“For too long, digital advertising performance has been reduced to visibility metrics. This partnership with Rakuten Viber enables brands to reconnect exposure with real impact, understanding how advertising shifts perception, intent, and preference,” she said. “By benchmarking performance across media and regions, and combining human insights with AI-powered optimization, brands can confidently optimize creative and investment decisions, at scale.”

The partnership signals a broader shift in digital advertising, where platforms are moving away from traditional tracking methods and toward privacy-focused, insight-driven tools that aim to measure real user impact rather than surface-level engagement.