RTL AdAlliance taps The Trade Desk to expand programmatic buying in Europe

RTL’s media sales house RTL AdAlliance has teamed up with advertising technology specialist The Trade Desk to expand the programmatic buying infrastructure for linear TV advertising across Europe.

In what they describe as a first step towards integrated programmatic TV buying, the pair will enable the programmatic buying of addressable TV spot replacements and in-programme L-shape ads – adverts that appear on the left-hand side and bottom of the TV screen during a show – within linear broadcast TV across Germany, Spain, France, and Austria in addition to connected TV streaming environments.

RTL AdAlliance said that advertisers can now reach over 30 million unique households on major European TV channels from RTL AdAlliance’s addressable TV inventory, including channels from RTL Deutschland, Atresmedia in Spain, and M6 in France.

The detailed plans for the new programmatic infrastructure will be revealed by Tim Sims, chief revenue officer at The Trade Desk, Stéphane Coruble, CEO of RTL AdAlliance and Oliver Vesper, Deputy CEO and chief digital officer at RTL AdAlliance at the Cannes Lions event tomorrow.

The pair will initially enable international advertisers to programmatically book targeted addressable TV banner ads within the programme of broadcast TV channels and replace linear spots. Through programmatic ad break booking, individual spots can then be placed into predefined positions within the linear ad break digitally — expanding TV advertising with targeting options to deliver messages to defined audiences in Germany, Spain, France, and Austria. Additional European countries will be added shortly.

Target audiences can be defined based on location, viewing behaviour per device, exposure, ad sequencing, or cross-device retargeting to other devices within the same household.

The technical framework and targeting for all ads using addressable TV via HbbTV is based on the capabilities of smartx — the ad serving, and server-side platform solution of smartclip, the ad-tech unit of RTL Group.

Sims said: “At The Trade Desk, we believe in a future where all TV advertising will be data-driven and addressable. While more consumers are shifting to streaming TV content, there is also an opportunity to make linear TV addressable. Our partnership with RTL AdAlliance enables us to drive this change by giving advertisers the tools to buy even more addressable TV inventory including CTV in Europe. We’re excited to see how this partnership opens up more opportunities for everyone in the ecosystem as the TV marketplace continues to evolve.”

Vesper said: “This is the next level towards a more integrated European TV advertising ecosystem, that serves the needs of advertisers and keeps broadcasters in control of their own data. Broadcast TV remains an integral part of the European media landscape.”

He cited research that showed 70% of Europeans watch linear broadcast TV daily and that they spend over 50% more time watching broadcast TV than US viewers.