‘From arts to arts and science’: Netflix becomes ‘programmatic-native’ as it expands ad tier into 15 new territories
Netflix is expanding its advertising tier to 15 new markets amid further innovations to its programmatic capabilities and an expansion of ad inventory into video podcasts and vertical video, the streaming giant announced at its upfront event yesterday.
Beginning next year, the ad tier will be available in Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and Thailand.
Damien Bernet, Netflix’s advertising VP for EMEA, told The Media Leader he expects the rollout, which includes nine European markets, to be “smoother” than when the ad tier first launched. “We’ve got the playbook,” he said. “We know what advertisers are looking for, not only on a global basis but also from a local standpoint.”
Netflix’s ads tier now reaches 250m monthly active users globally, of which the streaming giant claims 80% are active on a weekly basis.
60% of new Netflix subscribers are currently choosing the cheaper ads plan, Bernet said, calling this “the right balance” at the present. “We see the ads revenue growing really fast, so we believe we are getting the right volume of members there.”
Netflix currently counts 4,000 unique advertisers, up 70% year-on-year. The company has forecast $3bn in ad revenue in 2026, equivalent to double what it earned last year.
During the upfront, Amy Reinhard, Netflix’s president of advertising, described that Netflix is moving into a more mature phase of its ad model.
“If the last couple of years were about proving we’re a durable player, this year is about establishing ourselves as a formidable one,” she declared. “We have cutting-edge technology, great entertainment across shows, movies, podcasts and live events, and the most engaged and attentive audience. We’ve proven we are effective, and now we’re expanding ads to more places.”
Ads on video podcasts, short-form video to come
One of those places is its aforementioned slate of video podcasts, which includes The Breakfast Club, The Pete Davidson Show, The Bill Simmons Show, and official podcasts about Netflix programmes like Bridgerton: The Official Podcast.
According to TV audience and analytics company Samba TV, Netflix launched 46 podcast titles in Q1, 39 of which are licensed from external publishers. Samba TV estimated that 13% of Netflix-viewing households watched a Netflix podcast in Q1. This is compared to 21% of households who watched KPop Demon Hunters within 30 days of release, and 47% who watched the Stranger Things 5 premiere.
Notably, The Breakfast Club, hosted by Charlamagne tha God, Angela Yee and DJ Envy, was estimated to have accounted for 40% of all podcast views on Netflix in Q1, suggesting the company’s podcast slate is top-heavy even as a subset of viewers are open to embracing the format.
Netflix’s first UK-focused podcast launches this summer. In partnership with Goalhanger, the streamer is bringing The Rest is Football to its subscribers during the World Cup, and Bernet shared Netflix already has an advertiser inked to sponsor the show.
Goalhanger reaches milestone as Netflix continues to test the podcast waters
“The really exciting thing for me is we see incremental money coming,” Bernet added. Declining to divulge the advertiser in question, Bernet described the client as “not someone we would have gotten on our scripted and unscripted shows”. He further noted that podcasts’ quick production cycles, relative to lengthy scripted programming, make the format more appealing to different types of advertisers than a TV company may traditionally target.
Apart from podcasts, ads are also coming to Netflix’s vertical video feed, which launched in April on its mobile app in the US, UK, Australia and other markets. The feed, dubbed “Clips”, shows users short-form clips of shows, movies and other content available in long-form on Netflix.
The new ad inventory against both podcasts and short-form video will be available at an unspecified date in 2027.
However, Bernet insisted Netflix’s desire to get into podcasting and short-form video is “not primarily an ads play”, but rather it is because the company sees the formats at value-additive to subscribers.
“Where we see engagement and joy [from subscribers], we know from our recent experience in the ads space that you will bring advertisers.”
‘We are programmatic-native now’
Netflix also announced a number of new programmatic capabilities, including the ability to buy its pause ads and live ads formats programmatically using dynamic ad insertion technology. This option will be available to advertisers in the US and Canada this summer, before being rolled out globally before the end of the year.
The company is further enabling programmatic audience targeting through third-party DSPs this year, including Amazon DSP on 1 June and Yahoo DSP in “the months to follow”.
Bernet described Netflix as “programmatic-native now”, outlining that his team’s focus over the past six to 12 months has been “moving from being the nice-to-have brand-building solutions to being the must-have”, with more opportunities for advertisers to engage with lower- and mid-funnel activations.
That requires moving from “being ‘arts’ to being ‘arts and science'”, Bernet explained. The streamer is thus focused on rolling out new data and tech solutions, new measurement solutions inclusive of first-party data, and “using AI in advertising to bring more solutions, more proof points for advertisers.”
While Bernet’s near-term priority is to grow spend from large advertisers, he told The Media Leader he has also directed a subset of his team to focus on expanding the total number of advertisers considering Netflix for their campaigns, noting the importance of appealing to “emerging advertisers” as part of Netflix’s long-term growth strategy.
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