Report: Jelli's New SpotPlan Connects Buyers, Sellers

Partnerships unveiled last year with iHeartMedia and Katz Radio Group brought Jelli-powered exchanges to broadcast radio sales. Yesterday’s SpotPlan for Advertisers announcement connects those ad exchanges with radio’s largest agency buyers. “You have the largest ad buyers partnering with the largest ad sellers,” Jelli CEO Mike Dougherty tells InsideRadio.

Significantly, the new demand-side platform includes a pair of digital agencies that are new to radio. Both IPG Mediabrands’ Cadreon agency and Varick Media have added broadcast radio to their programmatic solutions as participants in the platform’s Early Access Program. The ability to buy radio as quickly as a Facebook or Google ad, using similar targeting strategies, could help radio more meaningfully tap into digital budgets.

Mike Dougherty

Already there is evidence of programmatic bringing incremental dollars to radio. As part of SpotPlan’s launch, one of radio’s largest advertisers reallocated some of its digital budget to radio in what Dougherty called a “meaningful” campaign placed Thursday through the platform. He declined to name the client. “I think we’re going to see brands and marketers reconsidering radio, reallocating budgets and the notion of the media mix being rethought, where ROI is the focus now,” Dougherty says.

InsideRadio reports agency buyers, too, see an opportunity for radio to expand its client list. “The real opportunity is with the clients who may not be currently spending in traditional radio but do have a portion of their overall media buys in programmatic channels,” says Melissa Colon, VP, group account director, Havas Media. “This arrangement allows to potentially tap deeper into those budgets.”