Kargo, the AI-powered advertising platform, announced Thursday the general availability of Karlo, which the company describes as “a self-serve agentic media buying platform built for smaller teams and businesses.” Karlo opens up agentic media buying access for small businesses in fashion apparel and retail.
The company said Karlo gives smaller businesses access to the same creative and media technology Kargo has developed over two decades, but in a simplified and self-serve format.
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Under the hood, Karlo is powered by Kargo’s Creative Science and Media Intelligence platforms. The latter combines premium audience data with Kargo’s contextual signals, the company said, adding that smaller teams can use the platform “to plan, create and activate campaigns across the open web, CTV and social from one system.”
Smaller businesses can now run connected video campaigns that previously required larger, enterprise-scale budgets. Onboarding is fast with setup taking just minutes.
“Most of the agentic tools launching right now are built around bidding and targeting, functions that were already pretty well-automated,” said Harry Kargman, founder and CEO of Kargo, in a statement. “Creative usually sits outside that loop, untouched, even though it’s the biggest lever on performance. Karlo takes the creative a business already has and incorporates it into decision-making, scoring, and adjustments, alongside targeting and bidding, in real time.”
The CEO said smaller teams now get the same advantage “our biggest clients have had for years, without needing the budget or staff they’d normally need to get there.”
The company said Karlo was used in an Ad Council campaign. Karlo helped drive a 21 percent lift in ad recall and a 10 percent gain in aided awareness. Instead of setting up separate buys, often with multiple buyers, for CTV, social and the open web, the company said Karlo brings all three into one flow that is built around a single audience target. The platform evaluates performance data so campaigns can be improved upon when they are live.
DJ Perera, chief media officer at the Ad Council, said Karlo gave the organization “an innovative way to meaningfully engage an audience that can truly benefit from mental health messaging and resources.”
When asked about the challenges SMBs face when it comes to media buying, Kargman told Sourcing Journal that smaller businesses have the exact same problem as big advertisers. “Their customers are spread across more places, but they have fewer people and fewer resources to reach them.” He said. “We wanted to present a solution with Karlo. We have spent years building this technology for large advertisers, and Karlo makes it available to smaller teams without requiring separate buyers for CTV, social, and the open web or someone constantly watching the campaign.”
The CEO said the company is not giving smaller businesses a “watered-down version of what bigger advertisers have.” The company is just making the same capabilities much easier to use.
Regarding Karlo’s market position, Kargman said what sets Karlo apart “is we’re specifically offering the target to smaller teams. It gives them an opportunity to streamline their campaign content that previously required enterprise-scale budgets and staff.”
But the value proposition of Karlo goes even further. Creative and media are still optimized separately, and brands are forced to stitch together multiple platforms to execute campaigns, even as consumer behavior continues to shift across channels, the CEO said. “Karlo is built for that reality, bringing everything into one system that works together, drives performance and removes unnecessary complexity.”
Kargman said Karlo creates solutions “to eliminate fragmentation across platforms and channels, bringing creative and media together to drive stronger performance and reach audiences using real signals instead of outdated segments.”
