LAS VEGAS — The last couple of years were pretty big ones for digital video supply-side advertising platform and programmatic marketplace SpotX.
In July 2014, the big European broadcaster RTL Group acquired a controlling interest in the company. Then, last year, the outfit rebranded from its former name, SpotXchange, as it gained traction in Europe thanks to the RTL deal. At the end of 2015, SpotX also partnered with RTL Digital Hub stablemate Clypd to support optimized targeting of ads on TiVo set-top boxes in the US.
After a year of “thought leadership”, CEO and founder Mike Shehan says the company is now embarking on a 2016 that will be “the year of execution”, with some company announcements coming soon.
First, Shehan says SpotX will be revealing which broadcasters are using its Clypd relationship to buy TV ads programmatically
1. Programmatic TV
“We’ll be announcing our first clients”, he says. “Those will be broadcasters, media owners who will be managing media with a link solution that’s both digital and linear.”
“You’ll also see some announcements from us in Europe, with set-top box activity – advertising on TV through the set-top box.”
2. Asia launch
In addition to its UK office, SpotX also opened in Amsterdam and a German joint venture last year. Now another continent is on the roadmap, and soon.
“The same announcements you saw in Europe we’re going to be making in Asia … next week,” Shehan says.
Connected TV
Shehan says advertisers are getting excited about over-the-top TV devices: “We saw, just over the holidays, traffic triple from Apple TV. A lot more people are buying them. That inventory is really desired by the advertiser side.”
After the sale
Despite selling up to a big company, entrepreneur Shehan says he is not moving on from the mothership any time soon: “RTL allow me to run the business. Our executive team is still in place, we’re still motivated and we still have pretty big goals to achieve.
Our coverage of CES is presented by SpotX.