22 February 2023
MTS acquires Buzzoola to boost AdTech development
MTS announces the acquisition of a 67% stake in Buzzoola Group (Buzzoola Internet Technologies LLC and Buzzoola Advertising Technologies LLC), one of the leaders of the AdTech market in Russia and the CIS, in order to accelerate the development of its own AdTech business.
The parties signed a binding agreement that enables MTS to purchase the remaining 33% stake in 2024. Buzzoola will operate as a separate independent company as part of Stream LLC, a subsidiary of MTS. The company’s operational management will be carried out by the current team of founders and executives.
The acquisition of Buzzoola will enable MTS to accelerate the development of its AdTech business and increase its share of the advertising market. MTS will also be able to include Buzzoola’s advertising exchange (AdEx) and SSP platform, which will complement the Company’s proprietary DSP and DMP solutions (developing under the umbrella brand MTS Marketer), in its AdTech business.
“Combining both companies’ advertising technologies will enable large clients and agencies to effectively manage their advertising costs, will make it possible to track the entire customer journey and ad conversion, and will make ad inventory quality and cost metrics more transparent—including through proprietary anti-fraud solutions. Since 2007, MTS has been successfully developing AdTech and MarTech products based on data from the MTS digital ecosystem, Big Data and AI algorithms, as well as cloud technologies. Now in Russia there is a great deal of demand for import-substituting technologies that can perform at the same level as solutions made by global players such as Google, Criteo, RTR House and others. This requires investments in infrastructure and the combined strengths of key market players. Our main product is the MTS Marketer advertising platform, whose revenue in January 2023 increased by 37% year-over-year. We are growing and solidifying our position in the Russian advertising market,” said Elena Melnikova, Director of Advertising Technologies at MTS.
“The future of digital advertising lies in effective performance tools, machine learning technologies and the creation of closed ecosystems based on unique data. As a result of the merger of Buzzoola platform and the MTS advertising stack, we introduce a new key player to the market with the largest own network of platforms in Russia and the widest possible range of advertising tools for both clients and publishers. The goal of the merger is to achieve the highest quality standards for advertising campaigns on the market and provide a high level of income and service for Buzzoola SSP partners. We are sure that the combination of our technologies, a unique portfolio of formats, MTS Big Data algorithms and end-to-end control of the entire advertising purchases chain will enable to achieve a significant increase in the quality and efficiency of the joint product. It is important for us that, after joining MTS, we will maintain our autonomy and the atmosphere that our employees are accustomed to,” said Natalia Solodukhova, co-founder and President of Buzzoola.
About Buzzoola
Buzzoola is one of the leaders in the Russian and CIS AdTech market with a full range of proprietary advertising technologies - DSP, AdExchange, SSP. The largest Russian and international brands are among the platform clients. The Buzzoola network unites all major Runet websites, as well as the traffic of key Russian SSPs. The network coverage is more than 70 million unique monthly users, and monthly traffic volume is 450 billion advertising requests. Both standard media formats and unique infeed tools are available for purchase at Buzzoola SSP.
About MTS Marketer
MTS Marketer is an advertising platform based on Big Data collected by MTS that enables advertisers to independently place ads aimed at 250 audience segments based on interests and sociodemographic characteristics. Some 260 dedicated employees in the Big Data Department and over 20 employees in the AI Division are responsible for analyzing data and determining the segments used by the platform. More than 150 staff from of the IT Unit, account managers and representatives of the sales team ensure the stability of the service. Since 2017, MTS Marketer has been used to launch more than 133,000 ad campaigns, and over 4 billion text messages have been sent.
The parties signed a binding agreement that enables MTS to purchase the remaining 33% stake in 2024. Buzzoola will operate as a separate independent company as part of Stream LLC, a subsidiary of MTS. The company’s operational management will be carried out by the current team of founders and executives.
The acquisition of Buzzoola will enable MTS to accelerate the development of its AdTech business and increase its share of the advertising market. MTS will also be able to include Buzzoola’s advertising exchange (AdEx) and SSP platform, which will complement the Company’s proprietary DSP and DMP solutions (developing under the umbrella brand MTS Marketer), in its AdTech business.
“Combining both companies’ advertising technologies will enable large clients and agencies to effectively manage their advertising costs, will make it possible to track the entire customer journey and ad conversion, and will make ad inventory quality and cost metrics more transparent—including through proprietary anti-fraud solutions. Since 2007, MTS has been successfully developing AdTech and MarTech products based on data from the MTS digital ecosystem, Big Data and AI algorithms, as well as cloud technologies. Now in Russia there is a great deal of demand for import-substituting technologies that can perform at the same level as solutions made by global players such as Google, Criteo, RTR House and others. This requires investments in infrastructure and the combined strengths of key market players. Our main product is the MTS Marketer advertising platform, whose revenue in January 2023 increased by 37% year-over-year. We are growing and solidifying our position in the Russian advertising market,” said Elena Melnikova, Director of Advertising Technologies at MTS.
“The future of digital advertising lies in effective performance tools, machine learning technologies and the creation of closed ecosystems based on unique data. As a result of the merger of Buzzoola platform and the MTS advertising stack, we introduce a new key player to the market with the largest own network of platforms in Russia and the widest possible range of advertising tools for both clients and publishers. The goal of the merger is to achieve the highest quality standards for advertising campaigns on the market and provide a high level of income and service for Buzzoola SSP partners. We are sure that the combination of our technologies, a unique portfolio of formats, MTS Big Data algorithms and end-to-end control of the entire advertising purchases chain will enable to achieve a significant increase in the quality and efficiency of the joint product. It is important for us that, after joining MTS, we will maintain our autonomy and the atmosphere that our employees are accustomed to,” said Natalia Solodukhova, co-founder and President of Buzzoola.
About Buzzoola
Buzzoola is one of the leaders in the Russian and CIS AdTech market with a full range of proprietary advertising technologies - DSP, AdExchange, SSP. The largest Russian and international brands are among the platform clients. The Buzzoola network unites all major Runet websites, as well as the traffic of key Russian SSPs. The network coverage is more than 70 million unique monthly users, and monthly traffic volume is 450 billion advertising requests. Both standard media formats and unique infeed tools are available for purchase at Buzzoola SSP.
About MTS Marketer
MTS Marketer is an advertising platform based on Big Data collected by MTS that enables advertisers to independently place ads aimed at 250 audience segments based on interests and sociodemographic characteristics. Some 260 dedicated employees in the Big Data Department and over 20 employees in the AI Division are responsible for analyzing data and determining the segments used by the platform. More than 150 staff from of the IT Unit, account managers and representatives of the sales team ensure the stability of the service. Since 2017, MTS Marketer has been used to launch more than 133,000 ad campaigns, and over 4 billion text messages have been sent.
