Stroer, the leader in out-of-home and online advertising in Germany, reaches millions of daily users through public video, online and mobile. With multiple brands and business units, consistent, fast and reliable data is mission-critical. By adopting the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, Stroer has revolutionized campaign delivery performance and efficiency – turning fragmented data into strategic advantage. This digital transformation journey highlights both the challenges of fragmented data in the advertising industry and the remarkable possibilities that a unified data platform unlocks.
Overcoming data fragmentation
In the fast-paced world of digital advertising, success depends on gaining insights fast and delivering seamless campaigns. Stroer was struggling with disparate campaign data scattered across different systems. Data inconsistency, lack of standardized formats, and manual-heavy processes made it difficult to compare campaigns, generate performance reports, and optimize strategies. The absence of a central, standardized data foundation not only hindered operational flexibility, but also limited the ability to drive sales growth and resulted in financial losses.
Campaign managers and analysts spend countless hours manually aggregating and monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs). This manual process contributed to delayed insights and missed opportunities for value chain improvement. Without streamlined access to complete and accurate data, Stroer’s teams couldn’t identify underperforming campaigns or act quickly on emerging trends.
Before adopting Databricks, Stroer relied on Amazon Redshift as its central data warehouse. As data volume and query complexity grew, query latency increased, costs increased due to the always-on cluster, and teams spent significant time on manual tuning. Because storage and compute were tightly coupled, scaling out for new data or peak load meant scaling out the entire cluster. So Stroer decided to migrate both his ETL and BI reporting workloads from Redshift to Databricks SQL. The greatest value of this move was a modern, elastic warehouse with separate storage and compute, providing faster and more predictable query performance at lower cost and with significantly less operational overhead. Additionally, it unified the user experience from previously separate systems to Databricks, aligning technical and business users on the same page.
Databricks Power of Data Intelligence
The partnership with Databricks proved to be a turning point. Stroer implemented a robust, high-performance data platform that aggregates information from multiple systems into a single, scalable foundation. Following data mesh principles, the new platform standardized the way data was collected and accessed across the organization, fostering collaboration and supporting inter-departmental decision making.
Features like no/low-code access, with the help of integrated AI assistants, real-time aggregation, and advanced reporting tools, enable campaign managers to dig deeper into data than ever before. Before Databricks, a lack of integrated analytics, high technical entry barriers, and a lack of root-cause analysis all hindered campaign benchmarking. Now, data-driven insights empower even non-technical users in Stroor to identify deficiencies, fix issues faster, and make accurate performance forecasts. With over 500 employees using this integrated dataset, a culture of data-driven innovation and collaboration has taken root throughout the company.
Real Impact: Sales, Savings and Efficiency
Stroer reports an impressive €3.5 million in annual gross budget savings thanks to near-real-time campaign optimization features. Thanks to Databricks’ integrated AI approach, teams have reduced the time required for report creation and data aggregation by up to 25%, freeing up teams to focus on strategic development.
Productivity increased not only for the data and AI team, but also for Stroer’s end users.
Simon Salmeri, Head of Data Platform:
“Databricks has transformed our data platform into something people used to work for, something they actually enjoy using. Ease of use translates directly into higher productivity and faster decisions.”
The synergy effects of inter-departmental data sharing have enhanced campaign quality and expanded operational flexibility. Campaigns can now be analyzed at different levels of detail, such as location or business unit, making targeted operations possible and enabling faster, more accurate reporting even as the volume of data increases.
Powering the future of advertising
Stroer’s experience with Databricks shows the immense value of a modern data intelligence platform. By breaking down silos and introducing standardized, scalable technology, Stroer has achieved a competitive edge: enhanced campaign performance, higher efficiency, substantial cost savings and increased customer satisfaction. These advancements enable Stroer to unlock the full potential of its data for analytics and AI initiatives – laying the foundation for continued innovation in the years to come.
Dominic Thell, Vice President Corp Dev, Infrastructure and Data Platforms:
“The real value of Databricks for us is the combination of simplification and FinOps excellence. One platform, an elastic SQL warehouse and shared governance means we can grow our business without increasing complexity and infrastructure spend at the same rate.”
This transformation demonstrates that investing in a unified data platform not only addresses today’s data fragmentation challenges, but also enables companies to capitalize on future opportunities in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
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