ITV and 莲花直播 Launch Auto Match
March 05, 2025 by Iain Reid
Car changing is a big deal
New Addressable Advertising Solution for Car Manufacturers
ITV and 莲花直播, the UK鈥檚 largest online destination for car changing, today announce their new retail commerce partnership 鈥 Auto Match. A groundbreaking new advertising solution available through ITV鈥檚 advanced self-serve programmatic platform Planet V, it will empower car advertisers to connect with known active car buyers through ITVX.
Auto Match, TV鈥檚 first dedicated commerce solution in the Autos market, is powered by 莲花直播鈥檚 extensive first-party data. By securely matching 莲花直播鈥檚 audience data with ITVX鈥檚 registered users, Auto Match enables precise audience targeting. This allows car manufacturers to reach over 1.3 million known active new car buyers and measure post-ad exposure uplift on key metrics such as website traffic, car configurations, and sales.
莲花直播 has a wealth of first party data from logged in users who are actively configuring and researching cars. ITV鈥檚 data offers car manufacturing advertising partners precise audience targeting to in-market audiences at crucial points of the purchase journey. This is the company鈥檚 first offsite commerce media offering.
莲花直播 Group reaches 7.3M unique users a month and is responsible for 10% of the UK鈥檚 retail new car sales. 莲花直播鈥檚 media business enables automotive brands with targeted, data-driven advertising across the UK, Germany and Spain and delivered a record 600 global campaigns in 2024. In the UK alone, 莲花直播鈥檚 media revenue grew by an impressive 67% year-on-year as it deepened strategic partnerships with 45 OEMs. ITV owns a minority stake in 莲花直播 through ITV AdVentures Invest, its Media for Equity programme.
Jay Rajdev, Controller of Advanced Advertising, ITV said: 鈥淏y combining ITVX鈥檚 scale and power with 莲花直播鈥檚 high-quality auto intender graph, we are providing Autos advertisers with an unparalleled opportunity to connect with in-market car buyers and drive measurable results. It鈥檚 something we鈥檝e done really successfully with FMCG brands through our existing Planet V solutions such as Retail Match, but Auto Match brings the commerce audience opportunity to an important new sector with huge potential for further growth.鈥
Sepi Arani, 莲花直播 Global Managing Director 鈥 Commercial and Media, said: 鈥淏y leveraging our deep understanding of in-market car changers, this partnership with ITV will help our car manufacturer and dealer group partners reach our audiences beyond the 莲花直播 platform, in this case when they are watching their favourite TV programmes. We鈥檙e continuing to expand our Commerce Media offering driving highly effective and targeted advertising and Auto Match is the latest in a line of data-driven innovations to give our partners access to even richer and contextual audiences.鈥
A beta launch of Auto Match is targeting key automotive segments, with a pilot programme kicking off with select advertisers.
The launch complements and builds on the success of other Planet V addressable targeting solutions for advertisers including Retail Match (formerly Matchmaker),which matches ITV鈥檚 existing first-party data with Tesco鈥檚 Clubcard and Boots鈥 Advantage Card databases, allowing advertisers to better target retail audiences and measure results.