AI has already changed how advertisers identify, reach, and engage their most valuable prospects. But not all AI-powered audience targeting solutions work the same way.
Traditional audience segments and platform lookalikes can limit targeting to predefined categories, existing customer characteristics, or platform-specific signals. Dstillery takes a different approach, using multimodal AI and behavioral data to predict intent, rank devices, and help advertisers reach relevant audiences across digital channels.
By combining flexible data inputs, daily audience rescoring, and scalable activation, Dstillery helps advertisers and marketers move beyond static segments toward more precise, predictive audience targeting.
Here’s what makes Dstillery different.
1. Multimodal AI for precise audience targeting
Effective audience targeting starts with understanding which signals indicate a consumer’s likelihood of taking action.
Dstillery’s custom, patented AI models learn from multiple types of data to identify patterns associated with consumer intent. Rather than relying solely on predefined audience segments or demographic categories, our multimodal AI can use diverse inputs to build audiences aligned with specific campaign objectives.
Advertisers can start with CRM data, keywords, website signals, CTV exposure, or a written campaign brief. Our models use these inputs to identify relevant behavioral patterns and rank devices by modeled intent.
Dstillery brings three key capabilities together:
- Multimodal AI: Learn from diverse data types to uncover relevant audience signals.
- Device-level intent ranking: Prioritize devices based on modeled likelihood of taking action.
- Daily audience rescoring: Reassess audience relevance every 24 hours as signals evolve.
This combination creates a flexible approach to predictive audience targeting, helping advertisers identify prospects based on behavioral insights rather than relying exclusively on static segments.
2. Flexible audience building, with or without first-party data
First-party data can be a valuable starting point for digital advertising, but it isn’t always available in sufficient volume or detailed enough to define an entire target audience.
Dstillery supports audience building with or without an existing seed audience, giving advertisers greater flexibility in their targeting approach.
Campaign inputs can include:
- CRM lists and first-party customer data
- Keywords and search-related signals
- Websites and behavioral data
- CTV exposure
- Existing campaign audiences
- Written briefs describing campaign goals and desired audiences
When advertisers have an established audience, Dstillery can use it as a starting point. When they don’t, our AI can identify relevant prospects from other available signals. This flexibility is especially useful for reaching hard-to-define audiences that may not fit neatly into standard taxonomies.
3. Predictive targeting that balances precision and scale
A common challenge in programmatic advertising is balancing audience precision with reach. Narrow segments can constrain scale, while broadening an audience doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of the match.
Dstillery uses AI-driven device-level ranking to help advertisers identify relevant prospects at scale.
Instead of relying exclusively on fixed segment sizes, our models evaluate devices according to their predicted relevance to a campaign. This enables advertisers to build audiences around campaign-specific goals and scale activation according to their needs.
The objective is simple: help advertisers reach more of the people most likely to matter to their business, rather than maximizing audience size alone.
4. Cross-channel audience targeting without platform silos
Consumers move between websites, mobile apps, streaming environments, and other digital touchpoints. Advertisers need audience strategies that can support this fragmented media landscape. Yet many targeting solutions are tied to individual platforms, each with its own audience definitions, identifiers, and activation capabilities.
Dstillery helps marketers take a more unified approach to audience development. Our models can support activation across available DSP and partner channels, allowing advertisers to apply a consistent targeting strategy across eligible environments.
Depending on campaign requirements and activation capabilities, Dstillery also supports both ID-based and ID-free® targeting approaches. The result is greater flexibility in how advertisers develop and activate audiences across digital media and their campaigns.
5. Fresh audiences every 24 hours
Consumer interests and purchase intent change over time. An audience identified several weeks ago may not represent the same opportunity today.
That’s why audience freshness matters.
Dstillery rescores audiences every 24 hours, continually reassessing device-level relevance based on evolving behavioral signals. Rather than treating audience selection as a one-time exercise, our approach makes predictive targeting an ongoing process.
Daily rescoring helps advertisers work with fresher audience assessments and adapt to changing signals throughout their campaigns.
For marketers focused on improving targeting precision, this is a meaningful distinction from audience solutions that update less frequently or on varying schedules.
6. The data and technology behind Dstillery’s AI
Dstillery combines insights from observed consumer behavior with the scale of the open web to power predictive audience targeting.
Our patented models learn from an opt-in panel of approximately 2 million panelists, helping identify patterns across real-world consumer journeys. We apply those learnings across more than 400 million web and mobile devices to help advertisers find relevant prospects at scale.
The foundation of our approach includes:
- Approximately 2 million opted-in panelists provide insights into real-world consumer journeys.
- More than 400 million web and mobile devices offer opportunities to identify and reach relevant audiences.
- 24-hour audience rescoring to continually reassess device-level relevance.
- 25 U.S. patents protecting proprietary methods behind Dstillery’s AI technology.
7. AI advertising technology backed by proven results and real campaign metrics
The value of predictive AI audience targeting ultimately comes down to business outcomes. Dstillery has helped countless agencies and brands across different verticals improve campaign performance, from lowering acquisition costs to increasing engagement and conversion rates.
Examples of reported campaign results include:
- DIRECTV: 3.75x improvement in the reported performance metric and a 200% improvement in cost per subscriber.
- Tropical Smoothie Cafe: 70% lower display CPA and 75% lower video CPA.
- Southwest Airlines: 92% improvement in cost per booking.
These results illustrate the potential impact of more effective audience targeting when the strategy, campaign objectives, and activation approach are aligned. Actual outcomes vary by campaign.
Dstillery’s innovation has also been recognized by industry organizations, including Digiday’s Best Ad Tech Platform (2025), the Business Intelligence Group’s AI Excellence Award (2025 and 2026), and Adweek AI Power 50 (2026).
8. Flexible activation through DS-1 and managed services
AI audience targeting should fit the way media buying teams work. Dstillery offers different approaches to support you and your team’s unique needs.
Self-serve with DS-1
DS-1 is Dstillery’s agentic AI advertising platform. It helps media planning teams work through audience discovery and activation using a conversational interface, simplifying workflows that traditionally require multiple manual steps. No more juggling multiple tools or waiting days for your audiences. DS-1 is the best tool for media teams to use to collaborate, research, build, optimize, and activate audiences – all in one place.
Managed services
Advertisers can also partner with Dstillery’s team to develop and execute audience strategies tailored to their campaign objectives. Our experts help translate business goals into strategic audience solutions and support activation across available channels.
Whether teams prefer a self-serve platform or hands-on expertise, Dstillery offers flexible options to put predictive audience targeting into practice.
What to look for in an AI audience targeting solution
When evaluating AI-powered audience targeting solutions and platforms, marketers should look beyond claims of scale or automation alone. Consider whether a solution can:
- Learn from multiple types of data, rather than relying only on predefined audience categories.
- Use behavioral signals to prioritize audience relevance.
- Refresh audience assessments frequently as signals change.
- Support activation across relevant digital channels.
- Work with first-party data while offering alternatives when seed audiences are limited.
- Demonstrate measurable campaign outcomes.
These capabilities can help marketers distinguish between solutions that simply automate existing targeting approaches and those that use AI to fundamentally change how audiences are identified and prioritized.
A better approach to audience targeting
The future of programmatic advertising isn’t just about accessing more data. It’s about using data more intelligently to predict intent, identify relevant prospects, and support better campaign outcomes.
Dstillery combines multimodal AI, behavioral insights, daily audience rescoring, and flexible activation to help advertisers move beyond static audience segments and toward more predictive, intent-driven targeting.
See how Dstillery compares with your current audience targeting strategy. Run a head-to-head test to evaluate performance against your existing approach. Visit dstillery.com/contact to get started today.