European Media Marketplace aims to grow budget share for trusted media
The European Media Marketplace, which launched earlier this week, promises a single point of entry to European ‘open web’ audiences using vast swathes of first-party data from companies like Experian, lastminute.com and Vinted.
The aim is to make it as easy to buy on the ‘open web’ as it is to spend on social media and video-sharing platforms like YouTube. The marketplace wants to compete with global tech on reach and scale – including the data it makes available, easily, for targeting.
The self-serve platform is designed to overcome the fragmentation of open web trusted media and data. It will help agencies run multi-market campaigns in Europe, initially covering the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Global advertisers will start running live omnichannel campaigns through the marketplace from September.
Inventory spans connected TV (including BVOD), other digital video, display, native and retail media.
A foundational pillar is access to deterministic first-party data from telcos, retailers and other data providers that stems from trusted consumer relationships.
The founding members of the European Media Marketplace include T Advertising Solutions (part of Deutsche Telekom), Experian, lastminute.com, leboncoin and Kleinanzeigen (both part of Adevinta), Orange Advertising (Orange France), Vinted, Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone.
In total, data from 100m European consumers is already available, and more companies are expected to sign up. This data is now accessible in one place.
Outperform global tech platforms
The first-party data is one of the reasons the European Media Marketplace believes it can outperform global tech platforms for campaign efficiency and performance.
Equativ, a well-known digital and programmatic adtech provider, is another founding member.
Equativ provides and manages the technology which the collaborative and open marketplace relies on. It provides access to European publishing inventory and plugs into demand from leading DSPs.
Arnaud Créput, CEO at Equativ (pictured), says: “For too long, buying media across Europe has required navigating dozens of disconnected platforms, fragmented data sources and complex activation paths.
“The European Media Marketplace creates a new way forward. By bringing together premium media, trusted data and AI-powered activation within a single framework, we are unlocking the true scale and value of Europe’s open web.”
He believes European open web media – including premium streaming providers – can compete harder for budget that currently goes to the likes of Meta and Google, but it needs a more unified audience, data and activation story.
It also needs to increase the amount of working media. After that, he believes, its superior content and attention levels will shine more brightly.
“We know of buyers who immediately allocate 60% of their European buy to social media and YouTube, and 25% to search, then ask their agencies to spend the remaining 15% and handle the complexity of the open web,” Créput reveals.
He believes it is realistic that this kind of buyer could double their allocation to open web media.
“Our ambition is to make the open web so simple it becomes impossible to ignore,” Créput declares. “There is plenty of room to rebalance budgets if the open web offers more scale and simplicity.”
The European Media Marketplace is not a publisher alliance or data alliance. It is an interoperable technology framework that supports a collaborative marketplace for connecting the media, first-party data and activations.
Buyers are promised transparent and streamlined supply paths, “reducing unnecessary intermediaries and creating more direct connections between advertisers and audiences.”
They will also benefit from faster and smarter campaign activation plus AI-powered optimisation through an agentic programmatic solution suite, the marketplace supporters promise.
Trusted, GDPR-aligned data
A key part of the messaging from European Media Marketplace is that the data is trusted, consent-based and GDPR-aligned.
The marketplace relies on authenticated identity, including through telecom consent frameworks such as Utiq.
The first-party data signals are aggregated by Equativ into standardised macro-segments on an IAB-aligned taxonomy, with these segments combining audiences from several data providers.
Advertisers can buy these segments as part of their planning. Data providers receive a revenue share based on the usage of their data.
The European Media Marketplace is presented as a publisher-friendly collaboration where partners retain full control over inventory, data and commercial strategy.
“Today, a large portion of Europe’s media and data value creation flows through just a handful of global platforms. We want a stronger, more sustainable future for Europe’s open web,” a spokesperson said at launch.
Supporters are keen that this marketplace should boost what they call European sovereign advertising infrastructure. Créput goes further and links European media strength to geopolitical tech strategy and independence.
He believes that because digital advertising revenue funds AI investments as well as control over data and other tech infrastructure, the destination of these revenues has greater significance than it once did.
Keeping more ad budget in Europe is one way to strengthen European tech sovereignty generally, he believes.
T Advertising Solutions highlights European sovereignty too, albeit focusing on data processes and regulation.
Its CEO Stephan Jäckel says: “Our contribution to the European Media Marketplace is privacy-by-design: consented profiles, processed and stored strictly within Europe.
Data processed in Europe
“We are committed to a trustworthy European foundation for digital advertising – one where data is processed locally and consumer protection is the default, not the exception.
“High-performance advertising and data privacy don’t clash – they are a unique European strength. This initiative is a massive win for many aspects of digital sovereignty.”
One of the data partners, Kleinanzeigen, is an online marketplace in Germany servicing 32m people every month.
Anna-Lena Mikoteit-Zerb, director of advertising monetisation at the company, declares: “Every day, we see more than 1m searches from people with a clear intention to buy, creating one of Europe’s richest sources of real commercial intent.
“Bringing that first-party demand signal into the European Media Marketplace means advertisers can reach consumers not just based on who they are, but on what they’re actively looking to purchase.
“That’s a powerful step towards a stronger, more competitive European advertising ecosystem.”
Satya Vinnakota, business director of ads at Vinted, says: “Every day, millions of people across 25 markets in Europe use Vinted to buy and sell second-hand fashion and consumer goods.
“This gives us a unique understanding of our members and their needs across Europe.”
Colin Grieves, managing director, marketing services at Experian UK&I, declares: “The future of advertising in Europe will be defined by those who can connect trusted data, identity and premium media at scale.
“As a founding member of the European Media Marketplace, we’re proud to help shape an open, scalable framework that strengthens the competitiveness of the European digital economy and unlocks greater value for advertisers, publishers and consumers alike.”
Trusted ecosystems are future
According to Stéphane Bourse, CEO of Orange Advertising at Orange France: “The future of digital advertising depends on trusted ecosystems that respect users’ data privacy.
“By joining the European Media Marketplace, we are contributing to the creation of a sovereign European alternative that gives advertisers simple access to premium audiences at scale.
“This also creates sustainable value for European media and the broader digital ecosystem.”
Nikos Vlachopoulos, Vodafone’s group commercial functions director, calls the European Media Marketplace a first-of-its-kind framework that “will enable brands to control and activate smarter campaigns across Europe’s premium digital ecosystem with the scale, transparency, and performance they need.”
Photo credit: Raimar von Wienskowski