Behind the Code at Madington

Meet Linus Forsell, Business Partner & Web Developer at Madington. With nearly a decade of experience at the company, Linus has played a key role in shaping the platform. In this Q&A, he shares his insights on Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), video streaming, and what excites him most about where the industry is headed.

How would you describe the core of the Madington product?

It’s a Creative Management Platform that simplifies the entire creative process, from production to distribution and analysis—all in one place. We offer integrated DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization) functionality, video streaming, and support for high-impact creative formats.

What sets the platform apart is its flexibility and versatility, making it relevant for anyone in the ad chain, from campaign planners to creative professionals, designers and developers alike to project stakeholders and media owners.

But for me, the real strength lies in the team behind the platform. We don’t just deliver the tech; we know how to leverage it and offer our experience and expertise as an added layer of design, production, and innovation. Our goal is simple: to be a creative performance partner, ensuring our clients get the most out of their budgets.

You mentioned Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), what does that mean?

Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) is about keeping your ads dynamic and relevant by tapping into data-driven creativity. With DCO, you can use our platform to adjust and optimize the message in ads during the campaign, based on factors like your target audience or external conditions.

This is usually done using external data sources, like product feeds or APIs. For example, you could adjust ads based on current weather or real-time product availability. Imagine a realtor feeding their evolving property listings into the creative, keeping it up to date and relevant. The realtor could even target specific geographical regions and display live bidding prices on specific objects in their ad creatives.

A great example of the strength of DCO is a campaign we ran with Yabie, a Swedish fintech company. Yabie partnered with a local bakery to create dynamic outdoor ads that updated in real-time. These ads were targeted to outdoor screens near the bakery and displayed discounted bakery items, along with the current number of pastries left in stock and the time remaining until the bakery closed. As items sold out, the ads updated instantly, showing what was still available, helping the bakery reduce food waste.

In addition to keeping creatives relevant, our platform optimizes them for best performance, reducing production time and allowing you to reuse assets while staying up to date —saving both time and cost which is especially relevant in a time we’re we are all trying to work smarter and more sustainable.

You also mentioned that the platform has integrated streaming, what does that mean?

Streaming is how we deliver and play video assets. At Madington, we began focusing on streaming when publishers started closely monitoring how and what was loaded on their sites, and browsers like Chrome introduced hard limits on how much data ads could load, both initially and in total. As a result, we trademarked our own streaming technology, Streamedby, in 2018.

In short, streaming solves this by breaking the video into smaller chunks, downloading only what the user actually views. For example, if the user scrolls past the ad, the full video isn’t downloaded which reduces data waste, bandwidth on the user's device as well as strain on the publishers site. This also improves performance of the ad, since the video will start loading faster, leading to more users actually seeing the ad.

Data waste is also something that directly correlates with CO2 emissions, and avoiding downloading full MP4 files, will lower our carbon footprint. But we also need to be mindful of how we handle and process all file types before delivery and we are constantly exploring smarter, more efficient ways to deliver files, including video, in a resource-conscious manner.

What trends are you most excited about as we move through this year and look ahead to 2025?

The big topics in our industry right now is both AI and sustainability, where AI sometimes is even portrayed as a silver bullet for sustainable solutions, yet it remains a resource-intensive technology. As this evolves, I believe we’ll see more discussion around how these two subjects connect—or at least, we need to.

At Madington, we’re continuously looking for smarter ways to integrate AI into our platform, while carefully considering its impact on emissions and sustainability. It’s all about finding that sweet spot—a balance between automation and responsibility.

For example, it wouldn’t make sense to develop an AI feature aimed at optimizing assets for sustainability if it turned out to be more resource-intensive than the savings it promised. However, there’s great potential if we remain mindful of how we integrate AI and enhance sustainability-focused functionality in the platform. This is something I’m personally excited about as we look ahead.

About

Linus has been an integral part of Madington for the past nine years, where he not only develops the platform but also enjoys working directly on client projects. With a deep passion for design and UX, he’s committed to ensuring that every product meets the highest standards and good user experience.

Outside of work, Linus loves spending time with his family, including his 4.5-year-old daughter, with emphasis on the 0.5! He enjoys cooking and dreams about living by the coast, gazing out over the sea. Creative at heart, Linus is passionate about writing—not just code—and has aspirations of becoming an author one day.