smartclip 2024 Year in Review

In 2024, we focused on innovation, collaboration, and growth, bringing new solutions to the market, strengthening and building partnerships with broadcasters, and expanding our initiatives to support product education and development. Reflecting on the past year, we are inspired by the collective achievements of our team, partners, and clients, all of whom played a vital role in shaping a successful and dynamic year for smartclip

Here’s a look back at some of the key moments and milestones…

We continued to advance our platform and products

We kept pushing boundaries in 2024, enhancing our technology stack with cutting-edge features and new products. Some of our highlights included:

• Invested serious time and resources in optimising our Privacy & Audience solutions — to help combat signal loss and ID fragmentation. We were especially excited to introduce features like Seller Defined Audiences (SDA), Publisher Account ID Support including frequency capping on different levels & modes, Multi-ID Lookup, smartTVT, and Tracking Prevention. We also integrated Industry Vendor IDs (NetID, Utiq, ID5). 
• Expanded our integration capabilities by adding SSP Orchestration to our smartx platform. This empowers media owners to streamline ad requests, manage inventory through a variety of third-party SSP partners, and optimise yield through a unified auction. 
• Implemented the partial line item share which makes campaign management and budget optimisation more flexible and efficient.
• Evolved our new reporting by introducing new enhancements, such as improved scheduled reports and line charts. 
• Optimised user workflows in various tools including the Screenshot Builder, Segment Builder (SEB), as well as our Domain Monitoring.
• Migrated from Moat to IAS – one of the most commonly used viewability tracking providers.
• Achieved our goal of adding ad podding support to our Header Bidding integrations, thus enabling ad podding across all integration types. We support the “Dynamic” ad pod approach defined by the openRTB 2.6 standard.

We joined forces with ProSiebenSat.1 to build and promote our #AdtechMadeInEurope initiative

In February, our parent company, RTL Deutschland agreed to cooperate with ProSiebenSat.1 on advertising technology under the banner ‘Adtech made in Europe’. Their goal has been to establish an end-to-end adtech stack for Europe as a genuine alternative to international tech providers, one that takes into account the individual specialisations of European markets. 

As a central contributor to this initiative, smartclip brings its advanced technology, expertise, as well as the capabilities of our subsidiary, Realytics, into the collaboration. Working alongside ProSiebenSat.1’s Virtual Minds, we are developing an open and transparent platform that unites digital and linear advertising with simple and clear booking options. 
With the successful completion of our first integration and the promotion of our initiative across Europe, we’ve started the year with strong momentum and a clear path forward.

We focused concertedly on growing our local expertise and offering in the French market 

In April, we hosted our annual French Broadcasters’ Breakfast — an event where we invited local broadcasters, telecom companies, and influential media figures to openly discuss how our technology and potential partnerships can benefit the French market.

In line with our commitment to the market, we established a local team of seasoned industry experts dedicated to serving the unique needs of our French clients. This team will not only streamline client interactions and processes but also support our strategic growth and presence within the region.

To round off the year with a big bang, we announced our partnership with M6 Publicité, the advertising arm of Groupe M6. This collaboration leverages our adtech to enhance M6’s digital advertising offerings, driving targeted, data-driven campaigns for advertisers bringing advanced streaming and addressable TV solutions to the French market. 

Each of these initiatives represents a critical step in our ongoing commitment to the French TV industry. By deepening our presence and engagement within the market, we are dedicated to empowering local broadcasters, connected TV providers, and telecom companies with innovative solutions that improve control, drive efficiency, and unlock new revenue opportunities.

We also partnered with ZDF and RTL Radio in Germany  

In February, we announced our partnership with RTL Radio, which has helped the broadcaster enhance its digital advertising across Germany. With this collaboration, 530 digital streams of national and regional radio stations will utilise our smartx platform to distribute audio advertisements.

Later in the year, we also announced our partnership with ZDF, a prominent German broadcaster. Through this collaboration, we have helped the broadcaster enhance its digital measurement and audience analysis capabilities.

We hosted our annual Product Advisory Board meeting in the Netherlands

We travelled to the Netherlands to host our client-focused Product Advisory Board (PAB) meeting. As with previous years, the two-day event served as a great opportunity to strategically align, offer company updates and network amongst key figures within the industry.

We grew our smartclip Academy resources and opened it up to clients

In 2023, we launched our internal learning platform, the smartclip Academy, but in 2024, we opened it up to our wider client base granting access to our learning management system’s catalogue of over 100 product documentations, 25 interactive courses, and 25 video tutorials.

We shared our hard won knowledge in 47 articles, 22 product documentations, and at 12 industry events

We continued to share our expertise and engage with the industry through online publications, panel discussions, and various events. In addition to hosting our tentpole client event, we maintained a strong presence at key industry events by sponsoring and speaking at major gatherings such as DMEXCO in Cologne, Videoweek Roadmap in London, Cannes Lion in France, ADZINE CONNECT in Hamburg, Egta 2024 CEOs’ & Top Executives’ Summit in London, d3con in Hamburg, RTL AdAlliance’s Living Room Club, and many others.

We won 4 awards for new brand identity and website

At the beginning of the year, we attended the German Design Awards gala and collected the two awards we won for our relaunched brand identity and website in person. And towards the end of the year, we received news that our redesigned brand identity and website won further accolades at the 2024 Creative Communication Awards. Our website won in the Websites / Online Media category and our brand identity won an honourable mention in the Brand Identity/Branding category.

Our subsidiary Realytics also won more acclaim

Our subsidiary, Realytics’ Brand Exposure Engagement (BEE) solution won yet another award at the Grand Prix de la Data Awards. In addition to BEE’s continued success, the company also released three different publications throughout the year, including their BEE Book, TV efficiency on digital marketing channels, and CTV White Paper.

We turned the spotlight on sustainability in adtech

Our PAB meeting in the Netherlands featured our first “Sustainability in Adtech” panel discussion, where leading adtech experts from Realytics, RTL Nederland, GroupM, RTL AdAlliance, and smartclip shared their ideas on how we can reduce our industry’s carbon footprint.
We kept the conversation going in a thought leadership piece where our Chief Technical Officer, Rene Wagner, further discussed the topic’s importance along with how we’re helping our parent company, Bertelsmann, achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.

We grew our team, our minds, and our muscles

We expanded our team in 2024, welcoming 20 new smartclippers, and were pleased to see our annual employee survey showing continuing high levels of satisfaction among the team following recent changes.

Our calendar was just as packed with internal employee-focused events and initiatives that allowed us to share our knowledge and strengthen team and company bonds. Some of our favourites included: 

• The smartclip yearbook: We wanted to re-write the narrative surrounding those cringe-worthy picturebooks of doom and created one for our employees that they’d actually want to show off. 
• Strategy Days: smartclippers met in person and virtually to receive the latest updates from around the company and RTL universe.  
• Our annual offsite: In between peer-lead sessions and team building, we explored all that the city of Magdeburg had to offer. 
• Our first Hackathon: We replaced this year’s smartweek with a hackathon where our smartclippers conceptualised, pitched, and developed innovative solutions for some of our most common daily product and process pain points. 
• Your Campus: We participated in Bertelsmann’s annual knowledge-sharing initiative, joining colleagues from across the conglomerate to share our expertise via virtual sessions. 
• Bertelsmann’s Football Cup: Some of our sportiest smartclippers took the field and represented us at the annual Bertelsmann Football Cup. 
• Social Days: some of our smartclippers gave back to their communities by volunteering with organisations Clean Up Your Alster and GreenKayak. 
• Employee anniversaries: Our smartclipper Dirk Wuttke, Senior Technical Product Manager, celebrated his 15th year at the company. To commemorate this achievement, we asked him a few questions about his impressive tenure.

Onwards!

As we reflect on 2024, we want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our incredible smartclippers, trusted partners, and loyal clients for your unwavering support and collaboration. Your dedication fuels our innovation and drives our success. Together, we’re shaping the future of adtech, and we can’t wait to see what 2025 brings!

Looking to partner with us in 2025? Contact us.

Want to become a smartclipper in 2025? Reach out to recruiting@smartclip.tv.