In this weekly segment, ExchangeWire sums up key industry updates on ad tech from around the European region – in this edition: Near raises USD$100m (£80.1m) to fuel expansion; Marin Software releases State of Digital Advertising 2019 report; majority of marketers want to spend more on programmatic audio; and Peach launches new product to clients.
Near raises USD$100m (£80.1m) to fuel expansion
Near, a platform that uses AI to make real-world data actionable, announced that it has raised USD$100m (£80.1m) in a new round of funding. The investment comes from London-headquartered private equity firm Greater Pacific Capital (GPC). With this fresh investment, Near has raised a total of USD$134m (£107.4m) to date, including from Sequoia Capital and JP Morgan.
Brands, enterprises and publishers can use location, transaction and other unique real-world signals from over 1.6 billion users in the platform for data enrichment and marketing, in a privacy-led environment.
“We are humbled that we were able to close one of the largest rounds in our industry. It is a testament to our offering backed by unique data-sets and powerful science,” says Anil Mathews, Founder & CEO, Near. “With the new funds, we will be launching a suite of new data products, powered by the core platform. Further, the funds will not just help us strengthen our position in the existing markets, but also to open up key strategic markets.”
Majority of marketers want to spend more on programmatic audio
Investment in programmatic audio is set to rise, with the majority (60%) of buy-side respondents looking to increase their programmatic audio spend over the next 18 months.
According to new research from Xaxis, the outcome-media company, conducted in association with IAB Europe, the full potential of audio is not being realised within Europe. Although 59% are already utilising the capabilities of programmatic audio to some extent, spend is low – over three quarters (79%) invest less than 10% of total ad spend on audio, and two-fifths (41%) allocate no budget to programmatic audio.
Surprisingly, confidence is low, with only a small proportion of buy-side marketers (15%) feeling confident in their understanding of programmatic audio. However, when speaking to the sell side, this is doubled with 30% stating confidence in programmatic audio understanding.
Despite the fact that marketers are conservative in their approach to allocating significant budgets to audio, the top three drivers for investing in audio advertising are recognised as complementing the media mix (63%), reaching specific audiences (59%), and raising brand awareness (58%). The majority of respondents agreed that to reach audiences, device choice is important, with mobile ranking top (88%) followed by laptop/desktop (61%), in-car (59%) and tablet (46%).
For marketers, the key drivers for investment in programmatic audio are achieving targeting efficiencies (63%) and taking advantage of data insights (44%). However, two strong barriers to exploring audio investment are having a clear understanding of the impact of programmatic audio trading on total revenue (49%) and the availability of technology (44%).
