New Member Q&A: Dable

On October 25, 2021

Every now and then we like to highlight a new IAB Australia member that we think our community will find interesting. Today we meet Dable


Tell us the name of your company and a bit more about it

Dable is the world’s leading native ad platform based on world-class big data processing and personalisation technology. The word Dable is a portmanteau of ‘data’ and ‘able’, which carries the meaning “we are able to do anything with data”. Dable collects and analyzes 22 billion media logs per month from 540 million unique users per month from over 3,000 partnered global media.

Dable provides the ‘Dable Native Ad’ which are tailored to blend in with the website’s design. It shows apparel ads to users who read fashion articles by analysing their reading behavior and consumed content in real-time. Dable’s ads obtain high performance through exposing ads that match the visitors’ interests without interrupting their browsing time.

Give us some historical background to the company

Dable, headquartered in South Korea, was founded by CEO, Chaehyun Lee and 3 other entrepreneurs in 2015, who developed the first personalised product recommendation platform from RecoPick (an in-house venture of SK Planet) in the country.

After 7 months into launching its service, Dable partnered with 600 media partners and became the most dominant platform in South Korea. In 2017, Dable appeared in the global market. After its successful launch in Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia, Dable continued to offer its services to Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong.

Currently Dable is the largest native ad platform in South Korea as well as in Taiwan, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Tell us the story about Dable’s CEO

Chaehyun Lee is the CEO and co-founder of Dable. He began his career as a research intern at NASA Ames Research Center (2007) and continued at LG Uplus (2008), Naver Corp (2010) and SK Planet (2011) as a software developer.

During his internship at NASA, he realized how long it would take for the technology to bring a positive impact on people’s lives, and was inspired to develop technology that could impact the lives of people instantly. With over 10 years of development experience in the IT industry, Lee co-founded the joint venture Dable.

Tell us a little bit about the company’s mission and vision?

Dable has a mission that aims ‘to connect users, media, and content’. Dable serves native ads that display advertisements with a design that matches the website’s organic contents. It contributes towards a clean environment, where users can use the Internet without experiencing the discomfort of disturbing ads. In addition, the media can create revenue through Dable native ads to provide high-quality content to readers and make users become more satisfied with the use of media.

Dable’s goal is to help more people use the Internet efficiently through technology. Hence, we plan to continuously expand our overseas market including Australia and Europe.

Does Dable have a ‘hero product’ that you are particularly proud of?

Last year Dable launched the bid-driven native ad exchange, a programmatic advertising marketplace, including its own DSP that conforms to IAB’s OpenRTB protocol. Through this Dable has proved its excellence in software technology and big data processing.

The Dable Native Ad Exchange is the largest in Asia for native ad demand. It secured 28 billion monthly impressions by itself and it is also linked to other ad exchanges such as Google Ad Exchange, MSN Ad Exchange, and Kakao Ad Exchange. Besides Dable’s DSP, Dable Native Ad Exchange allows other DSPs to participate in the auction such as Wider Planet, FreakOut, and Criteo.

Any media partnered with Dable can receive high-quality advertisements through the native ad exchange. Moreover, it helps media with monetisation by selling ad inventory at high prices through DSP competition and programmatic buying. This reflects our effort to provide a more reasonable service and our confidence in Dable’s technology.

What does Dable offer to society?

Dable aims to make a better world through technology. Dable changes the relationship among users, media, and content and comes in to play a vital role in this relationship by utilising its world-leading big data processing and machine-learning technology in an endeavor to provide service for all countries, companies and individuals without technological boundaries.

Dable is proud to serve as the bridge that connects technology with the world. We will progress to better the society and the lives of people through continuous technological innovation.

How has Dable established a dominant position than some of its competitors in its core markets?

Dable has excellent technology enough to win several tech competitions with the world’s top companies. Only a few places have the technology to provide a platform that combines machine learning, big data, and personalisation.

Dable not only has outstanding development capabilities, but also has more than 10 years of experience running a personalized recommendation platform. It has various skills to service excellent personalized recommendation solutions through numerous trials and errors and has also established a platform that can perform A/B tests at all times. This has enabled Dable to embed its position in the market.

What’s coming next?

Dable will continue to enhance its capabilities through firstly acquiring more global media partners and advertisers to provide high-quality news and native ads.

Secondly, it will accelerate its global expansion by opening more global offices and employing more competent members, including industry experts that range from development, management, media, and advertising.

Thirdly, it will support the growth of employees in terms of knowledge, career, background, and characteristics to produce successful results.

Lastly, Dable will launch new services. It is currently preparing to enter the DOOH market through enhanced AI and computer vision technology.

Why did Dable choose to become an IAB Australia member?

Dable joined IAB Australia because we consider it as a valuable partner. As key players in the digital ad industry, IAB and Dable share mutual interests of improving and developing the programmatic advertising ecosystem.

Dable is currently expanding its service area into Australia, and we hope that this partnership gives us an opportunity to network with industry experts and local agencies as well as gain deeper insights on the Australian advertising market.

Recommended