Xandr has announced the renewal of a global contract with Microsoft which sees the extension of existing technology solutions, the introduction of new ventures and continues more than ten years of partnership.
Microsoft is extending its use of Xandr’s sell-side platform, Xandr Monetize, and its Global Supply Evangelism relationship with Xandr, as Microsoft expands and diversifies its monetisation strategy, focusing on increasing Microsoft’s unique audiences for advertisers across premium display, video and native supply in more than 100 countries.
Concurrently, Microsoft is increasing its marketing spend that runs through Xandr’s Invest demand-side platform (DSP) and extending the Microsoft Audience Network demand platform to bid in the Xandr Marketplace.
"We always seek to align our partnership opportunities to serve the best interests of and to directly benefit the marketers and agencies looking to drive growth through our unique Microsoft audience," Microsoft VP, global partner sales Kya Sainsbury-Carter says.
"Our renewal with Xandr, after ten successful years of partnership, extends globally scaled programmatic access to Microsoft’s audience that marketers rely on today."
Xandr senior vice president, North America commercial and global partnerships, Dave Osborn says the relationship with Microsoft is "entrenched" in innovation and collaboration.
“We deeply value their continued trust in our platform and team to support formats that are so critical to the future of our advertising business,” Osborn says.
“Microsoft’s international growth on Xandr, across the buy- and sell-sides, and across leading formats like video and native, are critical components of our global marketplace as Xandr builds to support campaigns that span screens.”
With multiple consumer properties, including Microsoft News, MSN and Outlook.com, Microsoft has leveraged Xandr’s global technology solutions to connect its audiences programmatically to advertisers through both video and omnichannel demand at scale.
As digital advertising budgets shift to video, Microsoft ramped up video monetisation efforts supported by Xandr’s video technology solutions and video demand.
Initially, Microsoft launched on Xandr Monetize with a single video ad format in one market and quickly expanded to three formats and into over 60 global markets.
Those three video ad formats include instream pre-roll, outstream in-article and “BannerStream” which enables multiple media types to participate in a single unified auction.
Most recently, Microsoft was an early adopter of Xandr’s simplified server-side header bidding solution, Prebid Server Premium.
With the technology, Microsoft consolidates its demand for video and native through the tools on Xandr Monetize, allowing for efficient private marketplace (PMP) buying and providing advertisers a unified path to access Microsoft supply.
On the buy-side, Microsoft has augmented its media spend through Xandr’s Invest DSP as one of its primary DSPs for marketing campaigns.
In 2020, Xandr joined the Microsoft Audience Network, which serves “Microsoft Audience Ads,” the only native advertising solution built by its search platform, Microsoft Bing.
Xandr has integrated premium third-party supply in the network, giving buyers the ability to target Microsoft unique audiences at scale across premium international native supply through Xandr Monetize.
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