iHeartMedia Is Acquiring an Ad-Tech Startup to Expand Programmatic Audio Advertising

Jelli is coming in-house

iHeartMedia is acquiring the programmatic advertising startup Jelli to help it expand its digital advertising capabilities.

The acquisition, which the company announced today, builds on the past two years of testing since iHeart first began using Jelli’s platform in 2016. The technology allows iHeart to use consumer data to target listeners across 250 platforms and 2,000 devices while also adding attribution capabilities. According to iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman, Jelli lets advertisers create impression-based media buys. Pittman said the company has been disrupted by Facebook and Google, but Jelli’s platform will help it and its more than 850 stations better compete.

“Rather than trying to convince the advertisers, ‘no, no, no, no, don’t do that,’ we said if that [kind of service is] of value, we have to build that same capability for our advertisers,” Pittman told Adweek.

Indeed, audio consumption and the complexity of audio advertising is growing across some of the largest streaming...

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