IAS to Acquire CTV and Publica Platform with $220 million
Integral Ad Science, an ad-verification firm is ready to acquire Publica LLC, a connected TV advertising platform focused on internet-connected TV in a $220 million cash and 25% stock transaction. IAS intends to improve its connected TV strategy with the deal, and help content publishers to monetize their video programming better. This will be done across CTV devices.
IAS also intends to build new tools to enable advertisers to access better transparency and provide them with transparency in their inventory quality. The company believes advanced technology and data is the future of CTV advertising, and that by acquiring Publica, they have hastened the growth offered to publishers by offering them more tools to enable them to monetize opportunities as they come up.
Integral Ad Science firmly believes that with its new acquisition, publishers of video content can make more revenue. Future advertisers will also have a means of gauging the results of their CTV efforts that they can trust.
Publica LLC
Publica is a technology company based in Silicon Valley, whose mission is to facilitate the new generation of advertisements on the big screen. The platform offers a comprehensive solution for publishers that wish to improve their Connected TV advertising revenue. Publica also helps publishers create a TV-level experience for users.
Publica has worked with Fox Corp, streaming TV company Philo Inc, ViacomCBS and other media companies.
Publica creates and delivers more than 3 billion ads to Connected TV per month, and also facilitates ads for audiences that stream. It also connects supply-side platforms to CTV inventory to improve the revenue of the publishers. Publica’s technology platform and proprietary data assets are market-leading. The company reports that users of its technology platform record about a 30% increase in revenue for their connected TV content.
IAS
IAS is a company based in New York that was acquired by Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm in 2018. IAS mostly works to help advertisers and show them that digital advertisements are viewable. They also help optimize ads and ensure ads are showing on websites with commensurate content.
What the Acquisition means for IAS
With the acquisition, IAS’s catalogue of CTV offerings will now feature Publica’s over-the-top header bidding. This OTT header from Publica is used for programmatic buying, campaign management, ad pod automation, advanced analytics, and server-side ad insertion (SSAI).
With IAS’s acquisition of Publica, the company’s CTV capabilities have been effectively expanded. It also includes the first industry CTV verification for global invalid traffic. It also impacts various programmes and purchases across different providers and apps.
The deal is in line with IAS’s drive to diversify its portfolio and access products that publishers care about and yearn for. These tools are the ones that support connected-TV advertising, an area where marketers have become increasingly interested in recently.
IAS was listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market only two months ago, and with this new deal, the company will be able to expand its relationship with video publishers.
