Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising & analytics company, today announced the launch of Xandr Monetize, a reimagined strategic selling platform built on the powerful foundation of AppNexus technology.

Xandr Monetize will enable media companies to unlock the full value of their premium content and improve the advertising experience for consumers.

As content consumption and viewer attention increasingly fragment, Xandr Monetize gives publishers and media owners full control to navigate the consumer journey and client relationships.

The platform offers content owners improved monetization, through better inventory management capabilities, data-driven yield optimization, and differentiated buyer demand. With these powerful tools, Xandr Monetize expands the ways in which publishers can package, sell, and measure the performance of their inventory across all screens and devices.

“Xandr is a trusted partner to media companies, attuned to their challenges and innovating in support of their growth. Now, with the size, scale, and resources of AT&T, we are uniquely positioned to offer the scaled, streamlined selling platform the industry needs,” said Xandr SVP of product Ryan Christensen (feature image).

“With the launch of Xandr Monetize, our future is primed for collaboration that expands and enriches what media companies offer their advertisers and consumers.”

Monetize Together

Xandr Monetize encompasses all the features of the former AppNexus seller products, including an ad server, supply-side platform (SSP), and yield analytics, and now lays the infrastructure for powerful TV capabilities. The platform unifies and simplifies operations across all inventory and transaction types, as well as demand channels. This allows publishers and media owners to focus on creating more content, innovating with advertising formats, and attracting interested consumers.

“Xandr has worked hand-in-hand with SMX and our constituent members through strategic consulting, joint thought leadership, and monetization analysis, so that we have a better understanding of our inventory value,” said Singapore Media Exchange CEO Hari Shankar.

“Excellent client support with a close collaborative mindset from Xandr has enabled us to build and strengthen our unique value proposition in a premium environment. We are looking keenly at Xandr Monetize to optimize our expansion across innovative formats that provide real value to brands, including video and rich media.”

“The reality for premium publishers in today’s market is that the major platforms are self-interested, yet Xandr’s goals have been consistently aligned with publishers on the open internet. By collaborating closely with us to differentiate our business and innovating to offer buying the way that advertisers want it, Xandr has enabled us to thrive outside of closed ecosystems. Through premium deals and holistic demand channel management, Xandr Monetize sets us up to strategically optimize global revenue,” said Axel Springer and Funke Mediengruppe chairman Carsten Schwecke.

Xandr Monetize rounds out Xandr’s platform offering of strategic buying and selling solutions. The direct path between Xandr Invest, the strategic buying platform, and Xandr Monetize facilitates scaled buying and unique demand from AT&T, maximizing working media dollars for buyers and direct sellers alike. Xandr Monetize also allows media companies to sell their inventory through Community, Xandr’s curated premium advertising marketplace, to achieve better yield on their premium multiplatform inventory. Buying access to Community is available solely through Xandr Invest.

Monetize for the Future

While building for the future of monetization, Xandr is already tackling the challenges that digital video buyers and sellers face today. The introduction of Programmatic OTT with Prebid brings programmatic demand to TV by enabling competitive separation across multiple SSPs, on Connected TV devices and other digital TV inventory. Xandr’s Programmatic OTT with Prebid offers greater control on par with TV norms, including brand safety and frequency capping, while supporting simultaneous competition for inventory by all programmatic demand. It is available through real-time bidding and deals.

“Developed with our sales needs in mind, Programmatic OTT with Prebid will be essential to better managing inventory within client campaigns and realising higher yield for our premium content. We have already tested it and are very excited to deploy this capability across the WarnerMedia digital portfolio,” said WarnerMedia Ad Sales EVP, head of revenue operations & ad products Amit Chaturvedi.

The launch of Xandr Monetize also introduces Prebid Server Premium, Xandr’s simplified server-side header bidding solution, for both SSP and ad server customers. As server-side header bidding opens new channels of header bidding demand and improves site performance, Prebid Server Premium simplifies setup and increases operational efficiency through reporting insights across formats and a single source of clearing across SSPs.

Xandr Monetize offers holistic inventory and demand channel management so media companies can capitalise on the convergence of direct-sold and programmatic campaigns and maximize the value of their inventory. In addition to robust deal capabilities, Xandr now offers Programmatic Guaranteed, allowing publishers to pre-agree with, and execute on, reserved delivery commitments with programmatic buyers without compromising control over how their inventory is monetized.

Foundational to Xandr Monetize are industry-leading forecasting analytics and data-driven yield optimization. Yield analytics, formerly Yieldex, brings a long history of forecasting insights development with unparalleled accuracy. This allows for planning, pacing, and decisioning for direct and programmatic selling throughout the Xandr Monetize product suite, including current and future TV solutions and the ad server.

“Microsoft relies on Xandr as a programmatic advertising partner that can operate at the massive global scale MSN, Outlook, Xbox, and our Windows App Developers require. Over the last ten years of working together, Xandr has been a thoughtful and flexible partner that has helped Microsoft be successful in our rapidly-changing marketplace and with our unique platform needs. The innovation we’ve seen in Xandr Monetize has augmented our programmatic revenue, while simplifying our ad stack. We look forward to continuing our strategic collaboration and pushing the envelope with the future of advertising,” said Microsoft GM of global partner services Kya Sainsbury-Carter.