NBC Universal and RTL Join Forces for an International Inventory Agreement
NBCUniversal (NBCU) and RTL Group, two media and entertainment businesses, have formed an international agreement to provide access to their TV and digital ad inventory.
The partnership will run via RTL AdConnect, RTL Group’s international sales agency, which aims to reach over 165 million potential customers across Europe each day by providing advertisers with access to video inventory. Over 150 TV networks, including ITV, RTL, Videoland, and 6Play, as well as 300 digital platforms and 40 radio stations, are included in the arrangement, which spans 12 nations.
The agreement will strive to provide advertisers and agencies in the United States, Europe, and Asia with access to RTL’s Total Video European portfolio, while NBCU will represent RTL’s Total Video European portfolio to its Chinese and U.S. clients. RTL AdConnect’s European media partners include France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
KC Sullivan, President and Managing Director of NBCUniversal, said –
“We want NBCUniversal to be the number one choice for marketers globally. RTL strengthens our advertising offering in Continental Europe as we strive to deepen our presence across the region.”
NBCU Media’s EVP, Max Raven, and VP of international partnerships, Mark Rogers, will oversee the relationship, reporting to KC Sullivan, president of global advertising and partnerships. As marketers strive for worldwide expansion, it will also try to improve NBCU’s One Platform while expanding its advertising brand’s presence in important areas outside of the United States.
The effort will also strive to strengthen RTL AdConnect’s European offering while also expanding its inventory outside of Europe to assist advertisers looking to expand their brands in the United States and China.
Nazara Acquires 55% Shares in Global Adtech Firm, Datawrkz!
Nazara Technologies, a leading gaming company in India, has agreed to acquire a 55 percent share in Datawrkz, a programmatic advertising and monetization firm, for up to Rs 124 crore, putting the valuation of the company at Rs 225 crore (about $30 million) based on its CY22 EBITDA performance.
Nazara Technologies is a well-known mobile game developer and sports media platform, with offers spanning interactive gaming, eSports, and gamified early learning environments in growing and developed global markets such as Africa and North America.
Datawrkz is a worldwide advertising technology startup focusing on driving user and revenue development for customers through highly optimized digital advertising, launched in 2013 by Senthil Govindan, an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus.
Interesting Read: US and India-Based ZEDO’s Assets Acquired By Discovery
Nazara and Datawrkz: What does this acquisition mean?
Nazara Technologies’ in-house capabilities for optimizing client acquisition expenses as well as increasing ad monetization yields will be enhanced by Datawrkz’s tech solutions. Many of the firms in the ‘Friends of Nazara’ network are anticipated to benefit from this ad-revenue monetization.
Furthermore, there is a growing organic link between gaming firms and ad tech companies throughout the world, since the two may add value to one other’s businesses.
Datawrkz hopes to position itself as a major participant in the gaming industry with this deal, which will cover both demand and supply-side solutions for the gaming ecosystem in the United States and India.
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AppLovin Closes Acquisition of Twitter’s MoPub Business For $1.05 Billion
MoPub, Twitter’s mobile monetization platform, is officially sold to mobile application developer and technology platform AppLovin. The deal, announced last October, closed on Monday.
The transaction was worth $1.05 billion in cash, and the MoPub platform, which includes advanced bidding, MoPub Marketplace, and network mediation, will sunset on March 31. Its dashboard and reporting will remain online until April 8.
In addition to MoPub’s core features, MAX further accelerates growth and improves efficiencies for app publishers while providing advertisers with greater reach and cost-effective pricing. By 2023, unified platforms are expected to process over $15 billion in annualized advertiser spend. Sen Sun, Vice President of Ads at Scopely, an AppLovin partner said,
The integration of MoPub and MAX will be a positive benefit for publishers and players alike.
Interesting Read: Ogury and The Trade Desk Partner To Offer Programmatic Mobile Advertising
Over 45,000 mobile apps were using MoPub to monetize last October, reaching some 1.5 billion users worldwide, while over 150 demand-side providers representing thousands of brands and agencies had direct access to the AppLovin Exchange. Adam Foroughi, AppLovin’s Co-founder and CEO said,
Developers benefit from more features to help drive higher monetization opportunities and streamline workflows, leading to increased revenue for their businesses. We believe the power of this unified platform will be unparalleled in today’s market.
With MoPub’s suite of demand and supply-side features, MAX’s already robust capabilities and extensive buyer and bidder database will be improved. The SDK 11 release is due out on January 6 and includes new features such as Universal Creative Reporting, Ad Review, Native Ad Format Support, and Built-In GDPR Consent Flow, which is available on the company’s blog.
Interesting Read: Digital Powerhouse Deal: Vox Media Announces Merger With Group Nine
Bruce Falck, GM of Revenue Products, Twitter said in a statement,
With the sale of MoPub completed, we continue to concentrate our efforts on enhancing ads across our platform. Our goal is to deliver faster growth in key areas and accelerate our product development.
Additionally, Twitter noted that publishers could migrate off MoPub in a 90-day transition period after the close. Customers will be able to directly receive assistance from AppLovin for their migration to AppLovin MAX.
Read More: Clean Rooms Explained: How Marketers Can Prepare For Cookieless World
AT&T Agrees to Microsoft Acquisition of Ad Marketplace Xandr
Microsoft has agreed to acquire AT&T’s worldwide programmatic advertising platform, Xandr. The arrangement expands on a decade of collaboration between Xandr and Microsoft, including its predecessor firms, to provide global digital media solutions for marketers.
Microsoft and Xandr can redefine the digital ad industry as the internet deals cookie apocalyptic world. Mikhail Parakhin, President of Web Experiences at Microsoft said-
“With Xandr’s talent and technology, Microsoft can accelerate the delivery of its digital advertising and retail media solutions, shaping tomorrow’s digital ad marketplace into one that respects consumer privacy preferences, understands publishers’ relationships with consumers and helps advertisers meet their goals”.
Interesting Read: Xandr Launches Monetize Tv To Provide “Granular Targeting” On TV
Microsoft and Xandr: A Golden Acquisition?
This acquisition brings an end to AppNexus, the once-dominant programmatic company, which was renamed Xandr but never found a place within AT&T.
By merging Microsoft’s audience intelligence, technology, and global advertising client base with Xandr’s scalable, data-driven platform, Xandr’s technology will assist expedite the delivery of digital advertising and retail media solutions for the open web.
Microsoft also has a lot of ad tech and media features where AppNexus may help. Examples include the Bing Search engine, Edge Browser, and the Windows Apps store; and according to inside sources, these are already a part of the AppNexus account.
Xandr’s EVP and GM Mike Welch commented-
“Microsoft’s shared vision of empowering a free and open web and championing an open industry alternative via a global advertising marketplace makes it a great fit for Xandr.”
Welch also added that the company is looking forward to employing its unique technology to assist Microsoft to advance its “digital advertising and retail media capabilities.”
Also Read: A Look Ahead: Convergence Of Linear TV And Digital TV Advertising
Outbrain Launches New Native Advertising Header Bidding Capability
Outbrain, a recommendation platform, has announced the global launch of a new Native Advertising Header Bidding technology, which allows Outbrain to serve advertising on any ad placement, enabling media partners to enhance their monetization strategy.
Outbrain Native Ads are served via Native Header Bidding, which allows the Outbrain advertising network to programmatically bid into display and video ad units.
Interesting Read: Outbrain Expands Video Offering With A Swiss Start-Up Acquisition
According to the company, this strategic shift is intended to assist Outbrain media partners to optimize income from standard ad units while also giving Outbrain advertisers additional possibilities to broadcast their advertising and engage customers with Outbrain Native Ads.
Outbrain joins the Header Bidding market by harnessing its extensive integration with media partners, which gives unparalleled access to contextual performance and behavioral interest signals, allowing for more efficient bidding. As a consequence, consumers will have a more personalized and relevant ad experience, while advertisers will achieve optimum success.
Interesting Read: At $1.25B Valuation For News Link Recommendations, Outbrain Raises $160M
Ayal Steiner, Outbrain VP of Advertising said –
“Up until now, Outbrain ads were only shown in our recommendation feed but with Native Header Bidding, we now show ads also on display and video ad placements.”
Steiner added –
“The expected result is that users will experience more relevant ads served through native ad experiences that are much more user friendly, and Outbrain advertisers will benefit from more ad inventory which creates new opportunities to engage potential customers on the open web.”
Also Read: Samsung Ads Enables First Party-Data For Smart TV Ad Campaigns
Digital Powerhouse Deal: Vox Media Announces Merger With Group Nine
Vox Media is set to merge with Group Nine, the parent company of NowThis, PopSugar, and Thrillist brands. Vox Media and Group Nine Media will combine to form “the fastest-growing company of scale in media.”
Why this deal
The merger will create a digital media powerhouse. Before the merger, both companies acquired major digital brands to enhance their scale. This deal will officially take Group Nine out of the start-up mode.
Details
Jim Bankoff, who founded Vox Media, will be the CEO and chairman of the new combined company. CEO Ben Lerer, who built Group Nine Media from a newsletter to a leading digital publisher, will join the Board of Directors and advise on key strategic initiatives
The stock deal will grant Vox 75% of the company’s ownership, while Group Nine will retain 25%. The deal is on pace to close in early 2022, subject to regulatory approvals.
As quoted by Axios, Lerer said,
“I think that doing a stock deal like this signifies that we can be the acquirer of choice. My willingness and our willingness to do a stock deal speaks to a belief that there is real value in this stock.”
In a memo to the staff, CEO Jim Bankoff said,
The business rationale behind this merger is to grow revenue, increase scale, and combine these incredibly powerful and complementary portfolios.
– Together we will be an even stronger, more financially sustainable company that can invest more in our products and our people.
– Our combined company will be the clear leader in modern media, reaching audiences at scale everywhere, from podcasts to streaming services, from YouTube to TikTok, from websites to print.
– Group Nine Media does not have any paywalls and their revenue is largely driven by advertising, a studio operation, affiliate commerce, and licensing agreements.
– A team from both companies will start outlining a considerate plan to integrate functions where it is required. Also, none of the existing editorial offerings or services will change due to the acquisition.
The numbers
As reported by Axios, the companies are expected to bring in combined revenues north of $700 million in 2022. Earlier this year, it was reported Group Nine was expected to make at least $200 million in revenue this year.
The quick catch
Group Nine Media announced last year that it was forming a SPAC that could take another company public.
In his note, Bankoff said,
[W]e have no immediate plans to go public, although we’ll always continue to evaluate opportunities that are in the best interest of all of our stakeholders, including our employees.
The company’s official deal announcement states that the deal is not within the Group Nine SPAC (Group Nine Acquisition Corp.), “which is a completely separate entity”.
The Big picture
The transaction comes during a period of intense consolidation within the digital media sector as digital giants battle it out with internet giants like Google and Facebook.
Some of the recent deals include Dotdash acquiring Meredith Corp, BuzzFeed acquiring Complex, and Axel Springer purchasing Politico.
With third-party cookies deprecated, digital publishers have been rushing to consolidate to reach larger audiences. This will allow them to compete better for advertising budgets against social media platforms and increase the size of their first-party databases.
The Bottom Line
The combined company will include:
- Unrivaled Brand Portfolio- Award-winning, established, and popular brands can appeal to key demographics across all major consumer groups.
- Full suite of advertising solutions– The platform will offer clients comprehensive advertising solutions, including video, audio, branded content, social, events, newsletters, commerce, and programmatic.
- Commerce and licensing– Both companies are recognized for successfully bringing their brands to life through commercial licensing, affiliate partnerships, and collaborations.
- Audio- Vox Media Podcast Network offers the largest and most diverse collection of premium podcasts.
- Studios– Group Nine and Vox Media have established entertainment production studios, leveraging the popular brands of their companies with distribution partners
- Experiential– Crossing together the two companies will create a strong conference and event business known for Code Conference, Vulture Festival, PopSugar Play/Ground, NowThis Next, and Pivot MIA, the first-ever conference in the Midwest.
As Bankoff said in a statement to Axios,
Scale matters. Scale for scale’s sake is not what’s important but quality combined with scale, which is what this story is about, is going to be an advantage in the marketplace.
Criteo Plans to Acquire IPONWEB In a Striking $380M Deal!
Criteo announced its intentions to acquire IPONWEB for $380 million yesterday, a move that might be essential to the company’s planned shift away from ad retargeting and into retail media.
The deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2022, subject to regulatory clearances, and will likely consist of $305 million in cash and the rest in Criteo shares.
Criteo’s CEO Megan Clarken called the agreement a pivotal moment in Criteo’s transition as the company wants to drive sustainable development and, more crucially, “revenue diversification” with the acquisition, which comes soon after the company’s purchase of Mabaya in May. In the press release, Clarken said –
Criteo’s customers would benefit from enhanced full-funnel capabilities with even more flexible self-service tools while continuing to leverage Criteo’s unique commerce data for targeting, measurement, and superior outcomes.
Criteo is one of the most well-known names in digital advertising as a publicly listed firm with a market valuation easily above $2 billion. Criteo’s need to migrate away from a past dependence on third-party cookies to power its main ad retargeting business is a familiar one, with the company’s stock price plummeting anytime Apple or Google impose new ad targeting limits on their platforms.
Interesting Read: Clean Rooms Explained: How Marketers Can Prepare For Cookieless World
Criteo and IPONWEB: What’s The Deal?
By integrating IPONWEB’s well-established DSP and SSP technology, Criteo advances its Commerce Media Platform ambition and delivers better control to its enterprise marketers – and their agency partners.
The agreement also extends revenue potential for media owners and provides important first-party data management services throughout the network. Criteo, in collaboration with IPONWEB, will establish itself as the open internet’s preferred commerce media partner in the post-third-party cookie and identifier era.
IPONWEB’s open technology and ethos are ideally matched with Criteo’s mission to promote a fair and open internet where technology empowers consumers, advertisers, and media owners to discover, innovate, and choose.
Both firms have a deep technical culture that allows them to develop and tackle hard challenges at scale. They are also global with European origins, with privacy-conscious, sophisticated datasets and AI at their core.
Interesting Read: US and India-Based ZEDO’s Assets Acquired By Discovery
Furthermore, Criteo will soon have access to the whole suite of IPONWEB services, including BidSwitch, BidCore, and The MediaGrid, all of which are expected to generate additional revenue.
Criteo will have a product in BidSwitch, a marketplace that facilitates trades between more than 100 demand-side and sell-side ad tech providers, that will assist expand the addressable market for its first-party data offering. This will make “first-party data activation, interoperability, and measurement more seamless in the post-third-party cookie world,” according to the business.
In summary, the IPONWEB ad stack will provide Criteo with a full array of ad tech capabilities, allowing it to curate deals in a way that is less dependent on the soon-to-be-extinct third-party cookie.
Also Read: A Look Ahead: Convergence Of Linear TV And Digital TV Advertising
Project Agora And Exit Bee Join Hands To Reimagine Advertising In MEA
With “Exit Ads,” Project Agora and Exit Bee have formed an unparalleled agreement to bring “micro moment” advertising to the MEA region. The format uses behavioral technology to detect when users are growing distracted, providing advertisers and publishers with distinct advantages.
Project Agora and Exit Bee: A Revolutionary Partnership
This exclusive partnership between Exist Bee and Project Agora is in itself a huge step in reimagining advertising in MEA. How?
Well, on one hand, we have Exit Bee which leverages pattern recognition and machine learning to recognize when users are disengaging from a website’s content and send a contextually suitable ad to re-engage them.
Outcome?
Exit Ads are served only when a person has disengaged from the content and is quitting the website, and they do not distract interested users.
Interesting Read: Trade Desk Partners With Choueiri Group For Better Programmatic Access In MENA
Now, on the other hand, we have Project Agora. Project Agora’s digital competence, agency connections, and direct integrations with over 400+ quality local publishers have cemented the company’s position throughout the Middle East and Africa.
Outcome?
By bringing Exit Bee’s ‘micro moment’ advertising, not only with Project Agora reinvent advertising in the region; but also produce impressive outcomes for brands and advertisers.
Join your hands together, and voila! – you now have Exit Ads that will establish a new, upscale advertising space that can offer tens of times the performance of traditional display ads.
Dimitris Tsoukalas, Regional Director MEA for Project Agora said that they were thrilled about this partnership with Exit Bees. He added –
“Their ( Exit Bee) pattern recognition and machine learning technology is a gamechanger: it analyzes users’ behaviour in order to identify the “exit” or “in-between” moments. Exit Ads leverage this to further enhance the monetization services we offer publishers, as well as providing another high-performing, creative ad-experience for advertisers.”
Interesting Read: TikTok MENA Newsroom: An Opportunity For The Region’s Finest Creators!
Of Advertisers And Publishers
Exit Advertisements provide advertisers with a brand-safe, sophisticated, and tailored ad experience, with 100% viewability and engagement rates 20 times greater than traditional banner ads.
Exit Ads provide publishers with a completely new monetization alternative that will minimize any disruption to engaged visitors. Exit Ads generate premium and long-term CPMs by generating high Engagement Rates. Publishers may promote content, increase subscriptions, perform surveys, and much more by re-engaging “lost” visitors.
Pretty amazing, ain’t it?
Pavlov Linos, CEO of Exit Bee went on record to say –
“Combining our premium offering with Project Agora’s strong relationships in the region makes us very enthusiastic for the future of this partnership and the results it will yield for local publishers and advertisers.”
Also Read: Connected TV Explained: The Essential Glossary Of CTV
Snapchat Advertising: New Multi-format Ad Delivery To Increase Reach
Snapchat globally rolls out an industry-first offering, ‘Multi-format delivery’, enabling advertisers to buy multiple ad formats in a single integrated ad set. It allows advertisers to optimize their campaigns toward their key objectives.
Multi-Format delivery supports all types of video ads, including Collection Ads, Commercials, and Snap Ads, and Story Ads. Snap plans on introducing self-serve augmented reality formats by the second quarter of 2022 for multi-format delivery. By doing so, it will help Snap introduce augmented reality advertising to more marketers.
Interesting Read: Mediabrands and Snap Inc Collaborates For A Mobile Video Measurement
Embrace The Machine Learning System
This multi-format delivery option is intended to help advertisers be more flexible with campaign setup, so Snap’s Auctions can handle the optimization-related work. As part of a set, Snap determines the best inventory to deliver across all formats.
As quoted by Adexchanger, Peter Naylor, Snap VP of sales for America said,
“When we allow machine learning to do its thing, we’re opening the aperture of possible inventory where an ad can run. It might be somewhere a brand hadn’t even conceived of before.”
Advertisers should not resist giving up manual control over the bidding and embrace the system to see the outcome for effective pricing.
Interesting Read: Snapchat Sees a 20% Plummet In Revenue Due To Apple’s Privacy Changes!
How Does It Work?
Within Snap Ads’ set up, a new ‘Multiple Formats Ad Set’ option will enable advertisers to bundle various creative options for placement across Snap’s suite of apps. It will enable advertisers to evaluate the efficiency of each format and assess its contribution to the success of their campaign.
A Snap ad set with multi-format delivery closely resembles a Facebook ad set: a collection of ads with similar settings for how, when, and where to show them. It will bring something new to the table, though when Snap will begin offering AR formats ad sets next year.
As reported by Adexchanger, Naylor said,
“This is going to unlock augmented reality for advertisers and show them that they can use it to accelerate their results in combination with everything else.”
He further added,
“Once we let machine learning reveal where the best inventory is against their goals, target or bids, they can focus more on the creative itself.”
Also Read: The Ultimate A-Z Glossary Of Digital Advertising!
Tremor International Partners With Double Verify For Authentic Brand Suitability
Tremor International expands its partnership with Double Verify (DV), a leading software platform for digital measurement, data, and analytics for Authentic Brand Suitability Solution. Tremor is a leader in video and Connected TV (“CTV”) advertising. The company offers advertisers and publishers a comprehensive technology platform that combines Tremor Video and Unruly SSPs to reach relevant audiences and maximize the yield on digital advertising inventory.
How Does Authentic Brand Suitability Help?
Tremor International (Tremor) aims to provide the most robust programmatic brand safety solutions in the market. Authentic Brand Suitability helps to achieve this objective by offering advanced brand safety, suitability, and fraud solutions to support advertiser campaign performance across devices, including CTV.
Tremor Video and Unruly’s advertising clients can leverage this pre-bid targeting solution to implement centralized brand safety/suitability and fraud controls across all campaigns and devices. Further, advertisers within the platform will now have access to enhanced security levels, leading to increased operating efficiency and improved campaign performance.
Interesting Read: Taboola And Double Verify Partners For Brand Safety
Steven Woolway, EVP of Business Development at DoubleVerify said,
“Driving better advertiser outcomes, whether across CTV, desktop or mobile video, starts with ensuring that inventory is optimized per the marketer’s specific suitability demands.”
He further commented.
“Authentic Brand Suitability helps accomplish this objective, by offering the most advanced brand safety, suitability, and fraud solution available in the market today. DV’s enhanced integration with Tremor International reinforces our commitment to help advertisers ensure the protection of their brand equity, wherever and however they buy digital media.”
Interesting Read: Connected TV Explained: The Essential Glossary Of CTV
Key Benefits Of Authentic Brand Suitability
In the past, advertisers have used adblocking but that only protected advertisers from having their ads appear in unsuitable environments, and however, nonetheless, this incurs costs.
Authentic Brand Suitability drives better advertiser outcomes and this is how it does,
- The alignment of pre-and post-bid settings drastically reduces the wasted cost of media through the avoidance of pre-bid scenarios.
- DV data suggest a 26% lower block rate for programmatic media properties supporting Authentic Brand Suitability, which safeguards their brand equity from safety and suitability violations.
Other significant benefits for the Tremor and Unruly advertising clients include:
Customizable Controls: A complete set of customization options enable users to build a single targeting profile that combines 90+ brand safety and suitability categories (the broadest available), keyword avoidances, language avoidances, site/app IVT threshold avoidances, and custom-built brand categories.
Operational Efficiency: Using the industry’s first unified service and analytics reporting platform, DV PinnacleR, to ensure consistent, automatic updates to post-bid measurement settings and pre-bid targeting across numerous DSPs.
In this announcement, DV and Tremor International are expanding on their existing partnership. Recently, Tremor Video and Unruly were awarded DV’s CTV Targeting Certification, demonstrating their ability to avoid fraud on CTV devices with DV’s pre-bid app.
Jessica La Rosa, Vice President, Partnerships & Data Operations at Tremor International said,
“As long-time leaders in the video space, we pride ourselves on the ability to empower our clients with innovative solutions, helping them maximize the effectiveness of their advertising initiatives.”
Interesting Read: DoubleVerify MRC Accreditation: How Can CTV Advertisers Benefit?