As Oath chief plans exit, company consolidates ad tech

As Oath CEO Tim Armstrong plots his exit, the Verizon subsidiary is bringing its various ad tech platforms under one consolidated brand.

Oath Ad Platforms combines the assets from BrightRoll, ONE by AOL and Yahoo Gemini into a set of solutions that utilize all of Oath’s data, inventory, ad experience capabilities and programmatic algorithms. The company said the platform will also offer new native and connected TV inventory and unique ad formats, with new features and functionality rolling out on an ongoing basis.

“We’ve combined the best assets from our trusted platforms with new functionality to drive meaningful results for advertisers and publishers. Oath Ad Platforms is another example of our longstanding commitment to innovation, providing a solution to today’s digital advertising challenges,” Armstrong said in a statement.

Oath has built its machine learning optimization engine AdLearn, which runs on demand and supply data along predictive performance algorithms, into its demand-side platform. The company said doing so has resulted in a 48% increase in conversion and a 38% decrease in cost-per-click.

Oath is also offering an ad platform for publishers, with a focus on working with omnichannel, video and broadcast publishers and app developers.

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Oath’s efforts to strengthen its advertising business appear against the backdrop of Armstrong’s exit from the company. The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that discussions are ongoing and that Armstrong could depart as soon as next month.

After acquiring both AOL and Yahoo and combining their assets into Oath, Verizon hoped to have a significant advertising and media business. But Verizon and Oath executives have reportedly butted heads over how to use Verizon wireless subscriber data toward targeting advertising.

Meanwhile, Verizon’s primary wireless competitor AT&T has built an advertising and analytics business segment and is promising to combine Turner’s ad inventory and AT&T’s direct customer relations into an advanced, targeted advertising behemoth capable of fighting off digital giants like Facebook and Google.