Dive Brief:
- German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom is planning to keep its data and programmatic ad platform in house.
- The firm spent two years building a technology stack that will use its first party user data on mobile and broadband customers to programmatically run campaigns through a private media trading desk.
- Programmatic ads are big business, topping $10 billion and accounting for 20% of overall ad revenues in 2014 according an IAB report.
Dive Insight:
Similar to Verizon after its recent acquisition of AOL and its accompanying ad platform, German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom is not sharing its first party user data and will use that to power its own programmatic ad platform.
“We want to take charge of our own digital advertising ecosystem, therefore must take charge of the technology that powers it,” Gerhard Louw, Deutsche Telekom’s senior manager of international media management, told Digiday. “We want to be the leading European telecoms company in Europe and the leader in data-driven marketing and sales. So it’s necessary for us to build this ecosystem ourselves … we want to own the data, we don’t want agencies to own it, or only the publisher to have it.”
Louw added that transparency issues with how agencies handle both roles in programmatic ad buys have made marketers more interested in cutting back some of the chain by dealing directly with companies where it’s easier to track the flow of spending in digital advertising. Deutsche Telekom wanted to “take back that control of data and the flow of money,” said Louw.