Here’s How Xandr’s TV Ad Tool Will Work After Clypd Acquisition
Deal with RTL-owned SpotX will enhance inventory supply in 2020
AT&T-owned Xandr confirmed its takeover of Clypd today, marking the unit’s second major ad-tech purchase under CEO Brian Lesser.
The deal also involves merging certain interests with online video advertising platform SpotX, which is owned by Europe’s biggest broadcaster RTL.
In the purchase of Clypd, Xandr will acquire a company that had significant investment from RTL, thus enhancing its ability to deliver more relevant advertising to audiences on linear television.
While financial details were not publicly disclosed, sources placed the value of the deal in the tens of millions of dollars. Massachusetts-based startup Clypd has raised $30.8 million since its founding in 2012, with $19.4million coming from RTL.
Clypd offers media buyers the option of purchasing inventory on open and private marketplaces, with managed and self-serve optimization tools for advertisers soon to be added to Xandr’s premium marketplace Community.
Xandr’s Community offers digital ad inventory from the media properties it acquired through its $80 billion purchase of Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) as well as several inventory partners, including AMC Networks, Bloomberg and Hearts.
All of this enhances the Xandr Monetize platform, a suite of ad-tech tools AT&T acquired through its first technology purchase under Lesser’s leadership when it bought AppNexus for $1.6 billion.
Xandr Monetize is the primary supply-side platform on the Community marketplace, although today’s announcement also contains details of a further tie-up between the AT&T unit and RTL-owned SpotX.
This tie-up will give media buyers access to even more global video inventory from media owners such as Discovery, Electronic Arts, Roku, Samba TV and Sling by bringing onboard SpotX as the exclusive third-party server-side platform for Community in 2020.
Additionally, this relationship will also see SpotX-owned Yospace used by Xandr to improve ad insertion on WarnerMedia properties. Yospace uses technology that allows for the removal of ads contained within television broadcasts, replacing them with more targeted insertions in subsequent content streaming sessions—technology commonly referred to as server-side dynamic ad insertion.
Several sources consulted by Adweek on the matter noted how Xandr’s purchase of Clypd would complement its earlier ad-tech investments, given that AppNexus did not launch a fully fledged video advertising product until 2016.
