Rakuten Group, Inc.

LONDON and SAN MATEO, Calif., March 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Rakuten Advertising, the leading global affiliate marketing network, and Similarweb, the leader in digital data and market intelligence, today announced a strategic collaboration to deliver the affiliate industry's most powerful and unique data capabilities that help brands better understand and optimize their presence within large language models (LLMs) and across digital marketing channels. As AI reshapes how consumers discover and engage with brands, this partnership is designed to help advertisers move beyond traditional metrics and better understand where and how decisions are increasingly being influenced.

As part of the agreement, Rakuten Advertising will integrate Similarweb's proprietary, best-in-class data into its analytics and reporting environment, offering brand advertisers deeper visibility into how their content and performance surface in emerging AI-driven discovery channels. Built on real user behavioral data at scale for topics and responses, Similarweb's insights provide a more comprehensive view of the digital ecosystem, enabling Rakuten Advertising clients to make more informed decisions, reach new customers, and build future-ready performance marketing strategies.

"As AI-driven platforms redefine digital discovery, brands need a new way to measure and compete for visibility," said Baruch Toledano, VP and General Manager Digital Marketing Solutions at Similarweb. "Similarweb is at the forefront of helping companies understand their presence in these environments, the synergies between performance channels, and together with Rakuten Advertising, we're bringing that intelligence directly into the workflows that drive performance."

The integration underscores Rakuten Advertising's continued investment in innovation to provide a competitive advantage to its clients in a rapidly evolving digital marketing environment. By incorporating Similarweb's proprietary data, the company is expanding its ability to help clients measure and improve visibility within generative AI platforms.

"This collaboration unlocks a new level of transparency that gives brands that work with us an edge in a rapidly changing landscape for brand discovery and engagement," said Nick Stamos, CEO of Rakuten Advertising. "With Similarweb's data, our clients will have insights that aren't available anywhere else, helping them better understand their level of visibility in AI-driven environments and turn it into performance."

The new capabilities will be available initially to a select group of Rakuten Advertising clients, with additional reporting features to be introduced soon. Participating brands will be able to better understand how they are represented within LLMs, access differentiated insights, and tie them more directly to performance.

Additional details, including expanded reporting capabilities and broader client availability, will be available in the coming months. For more information, visit rakutenadvertising.com.

About Rakuten Advertising

Rakuten Advertising delivers performance-driven, brand-driven, and people-driven ad solutions that help the world's top brands connect with unique, highly engaged audiences – from first impression to final sale. Backed by industry-leading technology, global media properties, and the largest, high-quality partner network, Rakuten Advertising taps into data and experience to develop the strategies and ad experiences that will drive engagement, sales, loyalty, and beyond.

A leader in the industry since its beginnings, Rakuten Advertising is a division of Rakuten Group, Inc. (4755: TOKYO), one of the world's leading internet service companies. The company is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices throughout EMEA, APAC, LATAM, and North America. Learn more at RakutenAdvertising.com.

About Similarweb

Similarweb powers businesses to win their markets with Digital Data. By providing essential web and app data, analytics, and insights, we empower our users to discover business opportunities, identify competitive threats, optimize strategy, acquire the right customers, and increase monetization. Similarweb products are integrated into users' workflow, powered by advanced technology, and based on leading comprehensive Digital Data.

Learn more: Similarweb | Similarweb Digital Data

Media Contacts:

Rakuten

Carol Lee

carol.lee@rakuten.com

Similarweb

David F. Carr

david.carr@similarweb.com

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SOURCE Rakuten Advertising

New AI hub in Rakuten Advertising's Insights & Analytics portal launches with AI Recommendations for advertisers and publishers

SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Rakuten Advertising, the leading global affiliate marketing network, today announced the launch of Innovation Labs — a product collaboration hub dedicated to accelerating the development and application of AI to generate greater ad spend efficiency to target and engage customers across Rakuten Advertising's world-leading affiliate publisher network. Now available in Rakuten Advertising's Insights & Analytics portal, Innovation Labs provides advertisers and publishers with a space to explore and collaborate on future-forward AI capabilities for advancing their businesses.

"Innovation Labs is the culmination of years of work growing our Affiliate Intelligence suite of AI-powered tools, bringing together data, AI, premium partnerships, and expert strategies," said Nick Stamos, CEO at Rakuten Advertising. "This initiative is a critical step in how Rakuten Advertising contributes to the broader Rakuten Group's 'Triple 20' commitment to using AI to drive 20% greater efficiency for our employees, our internal teams, and most importantly, our clients. Innovation Labs will shorten the build–measure–learn cycle of AI transformation, helping us fast-track future investment in capabilities that improve outcomes for our advertisers and publisher partners."

At launch, Innovation Labs brings advertisers and publishers new AI Recommendations.

• For Advertisers: AI Recommendations will holistically analyze multidimensional advertiser attributes to determine new types of publishers. This involves analyzing profiles, products, and other characteristics to identify publishers with demonstrated success in similar campaigns, and also identifying new categories of publishers that will maximize growth.
• For Publishers: AI-driven Product Recommendations reduces research time and enhances monetization for publishers by instantly identifying emerging trends from partnered and non-partnered advertisers, then curating them for a targeted audience and narrowing options with brand and category filters.

Rakuten Advertising's Data Science team will conduct rolling experiments within Innovation Labs, guided by client and partner feedback, leading to an always-on research and development space where new features will be added and updated on a regular basis.

"Innovation Labs delivers on our promise to continually innovate our products in a way that benefits every participant in the affiliate marketing universe, from brands, to publishers, and ultimately, consumers," said Adam Rostan, Chief Product Officer. "This will be a space where advertisers and publishers can experiment, collaborate, and scale new use cases with AI to deliver greater efficiency for everyone and accelerate the industry's growth."

About Rakuten Advertising

Rakuten Advertising delivers performance-driven, brand-driven, and people-driven ad solutions that help the world's top brands connect with unique, highly engaged audiences – from first impression to final sale. Backed by industry-leading technology, global media properties, and the largest, high-quality partner network, Rakuten Advertising taps into data and experience to develop the strategies and ad experiences that will drive engagement, sales, loyalty, and beyond.

A leader in the industry since its beginnings, Rakuten Advertising is a division of Rakuten Group, Inc. (4755: TOKYO), one of the world's leading internet service companies. The company is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices throughout EMEA, APAC, LATAM, and North America. Learn more at RakutenAdvertising.com.

Media Contact

Carol Lee

carol.lee@rakuten.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rakuten-advertising-unveils-innovation-labs-to-accelerate-ai-innovation-in-affiliate-marketing-302658835.html

SOURCE Rakuten Advertising