AT&T’s data-enabled advertising
platform Xandr is launching Monetize TV, a self-serve audience-based selling platform.
Through direct integration with Xandr’s advanced buying platform, Invest TV, Monetize TV allows
buyers to execute audience-based, cross-seller buys in data-driven linear (DDL) TV with some of the largest premium networks, to more easily reach target audiences at scale, according to Xandr.
In the future, it will also incorporate buying of other advanced-TV platforms, Xandr says.
For sellers, Monetize TV provides comprehensive monetization tools and demand enablement.
A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Crown Media Family Networks, Discovery, Disney Ad Sales, and AT&T’s WarnerMedia are already using the platform for audience-based sales, reports
Xandr.
Built on the Clypd platform acquired by AT&T in 2019, Monetize TV’s features, per the company, include an automated user interface with features to plan, optimize, and measure
advanced TV campaigns and efficiently generate proposals; and seamless building and activation of advanced audiences with Nielsen, Xandr or matched first-party data sets,
for forecasting target impressions across selling titles.
It also forecasts viewership to generate optimized proposals across networks, dayparts and selling titles to maximize
reach or impressions against target audiences, and generates automated premium demand from Invest TV.
Although Xandr reported accelerated growth in the first half of 2021 — with video
spend doubling year-over-year and CTV growth exceeding 200% — AT&T reportedly continues to try to sell the unit.
Xandr sale rumors have persisted for some time.
Most
recently, on July 20, Axios reported that AT&T was in talks to sell it to Indian ad-tech
company InMobi.
Sources said Xandr is “losing tens of millions a year and has been grossly mismanaged by AT&T,” Axios said.