AT&T-owned Xandr said Friday that it is acquiring Clypd, a sell-side platform that specializes in providing marketers the ability to buy both digital and linear TV ads with improved targeting. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Sell-side platforms, more commonly known as SSPs, are used by media companies to sell ad inventory to marketers through automation. An advertiser would use Clypd to target viewers beyond the age, gender and location demographics that have been commonplace with linear and connected TV, for example. The company claims it can target consumers based on their interests through use of its data.
Clypd, which debuted in 2012, counts CBS, Disney, Discovery, Fox and The Weather Channel among its clients.
“All of the bets AT&T has been making with the companies they’re acquiring are consistent with the prediction that advertising is going programmatic,” says Joel Acheson, chief of martech at digital agency The Shipyard. “But to have a durable business advantage as the media landscape continues to shift, AT&T is also betting that they must couple the most and best TV or video inventory with a self-serve buying platform that connects advertisers to that inventory at scale.”
Xandr’s move certainly brings scale.
The Clypd deal will theoretically allow marketers to target consumers regardless of which screen they’re using to watch video. It will also add Clypd’s clients to Xandr Community, which includes AT&T properties such as WarnerMedia. Additionally, Xandr says it has also inked a deal with SpotX, an SSP that sells a publisher’s video ad inventory to marketers through automation. That move, however, won’t occur until 2020, the company says.
Clypd will “accelerate converged buying and selling across addressable TV, data-driven linear TV, mobile and over-the-top channels on streaming video services,” Xandr said in a statement.
Clypd marks the second acquisition under Xandr CEO Brian Lesser, who previously acquired AppNexus in a $1.2 billion deal. AppNexus, which has since been rebranded as Xandr Monetize, is a sell-side platform that connects media companies with ad buyers to sell both programmatic OTT and linear TV inventory.
