Hakuhodo DY ONE Realizes Meticulous Data Coordination to Form a Basis for AI Adoption with a PoC on Google’s “Buyer Direct”
〜Promoting infrastructure building for the age of agentic advertising〜

Tokyo, June 2, 2026 – We are pleased to announce that Hakuhodo DY ONE Inc. has implemented a Proof of Concept (PoC) on behalf of major Japanese brands with “Buyer Direct,” a new-generation advertising transaction model promoted in collaboration with Google^*1. The PoC effectively demonstrated reduced intermediate costs and improved efficiency in data transmission over existing programmatic transactions.

Background

Marked by supply chains fragmented by type of advertising – reservation, programmatic or performance – the digital advertising market today faces structural challenges including the rise in opaque intermediate costs and the dissociation of data and infrastructure. Moreover, going through multiple systems affects the freshness and accuracy of data, making it harder to build quality data infrastructure that will be critical for optimizing ad delivery and promoting AI adoption going forward.

Hakuhodo DY ONE has been searching for solutions to such issues, focusing on the possibilities of ensuring transparency/refinement and autonomy by building the shortest path for advertising transactions with Buyer Direct. In short, the present PoC verified the effectiveness in controlling intermediate costs, further refining data coordination and improving ad delivery performance by actually distributing ads for major Japanese brands.

 Outline of the PoC

The present PoC leveraged Buyer Direct to connect AudienceOne®, one of the largest DMPs in Japan owned by Hakuhodo DY ONE, with Google’s Google Ad Manager by the shortest path for ad delivery to premium media channels.

 Result 1: Verification for Isetan Mitsukoshi Ltd.

We compared the performance of private marketplace (PMP) ad delivery with the existing DSP with that of ad delivery through Buyer Direct on the website of a major newspaper company.

The results showed that Buyer Direct improved the click-through rate (CTR) by 21.7% over the ads served through the PMP. It also reduced the cost per click (CPC) by 66.3%. This effectively proves that the delivery design, which eliminates the intervention of multiple intermediaries, improved the transparency and cost efficiency of advertising transactions. It is also likely that minimizing the distance required for data coordination helped improve the accuracy of targeting.

Result 2: Ad delivery for YANASE & CO., LTD.

We compared the performance of delivery through Buyer Direct and pure advertisements on two business websites and the website of a major newspaper company.

As a result, ad delivery through Buyer Direct showed a 12.4% improvement in reach to new consumers over pure advertising, controlling overlaps in contact across the three websites. It also improved the targeting rate by 18% and CTR by 8%. Moreover, the average engagement rate of the website viewers redirected through Buyer Direct showed a 34% improvement vs. pure advertising. The results reveal that delivery control and data sharing across the websites effectively widened the touchpoints with highly interested prospective users.

The PoC highlighted the following merits of Buyer Direct for advertisers.

1. High cost performance and transparency
   By eliminating the complexities involving intermediaries and making direct contact with consumers through Google Ad Manager, advertisers can expect to reduce technical fees and intermediary costs, which tend to be less transparent. Companies can thus make highly transparent investments in premium media with more efficient use of their advertising budget.
2. Meticulous data coordination to support AI adoption
   Connecting ad servers by the shortest routes makes it easier to preserve the freshness and accuracy of data. By transmitting the insights of AudienceOne® to media without any degradation, advertisers can expect to develop quality data infrastructure that will support AI adoption going forward, in addition to optimizing campaign performance.
3. Sustainable ad delivery with less environmental burden
   Shortening supply chain paths effectively reduces unnecessary data processing and server hopping. Advertisers can thus expect to realize advertising operations with less environmental burden while maintaining the level of ad delivery performance.

Technical review to implement agentic advertising

The value of Buyer Direct is not solely improved transparency in advertising transactions and meticulous data coordination. It is also expected to serve as infrastructure to support autonomous advertising transactions powered by AI agents in the future.

In coordination with Google, Hakuhodo DY ONE is currently working on a technical review as part of HCAI Professionals, a team of AI professionals from across the Hakuhodo DY Group. High-grade data connections with minimal noise are required for AI to correctly understand the intention of the advertiser and the value of each media channel for real-time adjustment and optimization. We consider that effective data coordination, confirmed in the present PoC, is a valuable outcome including for infrastructure development for AI adoption going forward.

Next steps

Building on the insight gained through the PoC, Hakuhodo DY ONE will continue to work with Google for building next-generation advertising transaction infrastructure driven by Buyer Direct. We remain committed to developing an advertising ecosystem for the next generation, so that marketers may focus on more sophisticated brand strategy planning and value creation for sei-katsu-sha*2.

*1 March 24, 2026, News Release: Hakuhodo DY ONE Officially Launches Verification Test as a Google Buyer Direct Partner

https://global.hakuhodody-one.co.jp/en/news/news-releases_202603245748/

*2 “Sei-katsu-sha” is a term we use to describe people not simply as consumers, but as fully rounded individuals with their own
lifestyles, aspirations and dreams.