IAS Acquires Publica For $220M To “Help Advertisers”

Integral Ad Science (IAS) has invested $220 million in a cash and stock transaction to acquire Publica, a connected TV advertising platform. Every month, Publica serves approximately three billion adverts on CTV. 

IAS is advancing its approach in this market with this acquisition, which aims to assist publishers market their video programs better across CTV platforms while also developing new solutions to provide advertisers visibility into the quality of this inventory.

With this acquisition, Ben Antier, co-founder and CEO of Publica, will now report to IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider. Furthermore, the Publica brand will be added to IAS’ product line.

IAS’s decision seems strategic and logical as Publica helps boost publisher yield by connecting supply-side platforms to unique CTV inventory. 

Publica’s unified auction, over-the-top (OTT) header bidding for programmatic purchasing, audience management, campaign management, server-side ad insertion (SSAI), ad pod automation, and sophisticated analytics would all be added to IAS’s CTV capabilities as a result of the deal. 

Utzschneider, CEO, IAS commented on the acquisition – 

Advanced data and technology will fuel the future of addressable CTV advertising. Now video publishers can increase their revenue, and in the future, we will help advertisers with a trusted way to measure the results of their growing CTV budgets

IAS’s current CTV technologies, which include the industry’s first CTV verification solution for worldwide invalid traffic (IVT) and viewability across programmatic and direct buying on all applications and providers, will be expanded with this acquisition. 

Moreover, in the next months, IAS aims to provide a brand safety and appropriateness solution for CTV advertisers and publishers, backed by Publica’s platform and CTV content analytics.

CTV advertising is on the rise, and according to eMarketer, advertisers will spend more than $13.4 billion on CTV this year, with that figure expected to rise to $24.7 billion by 2024.