US telecoms giant AT&T has announced the launch of Xandr Monetize from it’s recently opened advertising venture Xandr and procurement of AppNexus for an estimated $1.6 billion.
Xandr Monetize offers a suite of ad-tech tools that contain enhanced solutions for the automated trading of television ad space. Its primary focus is delivering an open-source approach to help media owners and publishers sell their OTT inventory. This is achieved through Prebid – an open-source project co-founded by AppNexus and Rubicon Project in 2017.
Furthermore, the platform includes improved inventory management tools for online display ad sales across multiple devices via its premium ad marketplace called Community. Xandr states that the toolset has “differentiated sources of buyer demand” with access to Community’s ad inventory restricted to its buy-side toolset called Xandr Invest.
AT&T’s ad-tech arm is also promising enhanced forecasting and analytics capabilities to both buy-side and sell-side players in a bid to bolster media owners’ monetisation options.
With this open-source approach to better aid the company’s OTT inventory, both AT&T and Xandr are welcoming these tools to publishers and media owners so they can focus more on content creation while easing the pressure around concerns of using other ad tech platforms that may have conflicting interests.
“Now, with the size, scale and resources of AT&T, we are uniquely positioned to offer the scaled, streamlined selling platform the industry needs,” Ryan Christensen, SVP of product at Xandr, said in a statement.
“With the launch of Xandr Monetize, our future is primed for collaboration that expands and enriches what media companies offer their advertisers and consumers.”