Advertisers, agencies and publishers who want to activate campaigns and connect across Europe’s premium open web have been given a significant boost with the launch of a major ad platform, which also aims to challenge to domination of US tech giants across the region.
The European Media Marketplace is being backed by a coalition of leading media owners, data companies, telcos, retailers, marketplaces and adtech partners.
It has been launched to address the most persistent challenges in European digital advertising: the fragmentation of media buying, audience data and activation across countries, channels and platforms and the power yielded by the likes of Meta and Google.
The founding members include T Advertising Solutions (part of Deutsche Telekom), Equativ, Experian, lastminute.com, leboncoin and Kleinanzeigen (part of Adevinta), Orange Advertising (Orange France), Vinted, Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone.
The alliance will initially launch across the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, with further expansion planned. Leading global advertisers who have registered their interest are already gearing up to launch omnichannel campaigns across Europe through the marketplace, starting in September 2026, although the alliance is tight-lipped about who they are.
However, the coalition is keen to stress that the marketplace is not a new platform, nor simply a traditional publisher or data alliance, insisting it is a new advertising infrastructure for Europe.
The collaborative marketplace is designed to connect premium media owners, trusted first-party data and AI-powered activation through a single interoperable framework. Built on sovereign technology already operating at scale, it is claimed it will unlock the collective strength of Europe’s open web while preserving the independence, control and value of every participating partner.
Today, a large portion of Europe’s media and data value creation flows through just a handful of global platforms. The European Media Marketplace consolidates European media offerings and privacy-compliant data sources into a single access point to ensure that more ad value stays with the European media houses, publishers, and data providers who actually generate it. For consumers, this ensures relevant ads keep funding the open web without turning users into transparent profiles.
Through a single access point, advertisers and agencies can activate campaigns across connected TV, video, display, native, and retail media, reaching audiences consistently across publishers, channels, devices and markets.
It is claimed that, for the first time, Europe’s premium media ecosystem becomes easier to access, easier to scale and more powerful to activate. It provides seamless, transparent access to regional reach on a legally secure, localised data foundation, reducing dependency on large gatekeepers.
Unlike closed ecosystems, the European Media Marketplace is designed to be collaborative, privacy-safe, interoperable and publisher-friendly. Partners retain full control over their inventory, data and commercial strategy, while advertisers benefit from streamlined activation, greater transparency and stronger campaign outcomes.
By reducing unnecessary intermediaries and creating more direct connections between advertisers and audiences, the marketplace is designed to return more value to Europe’s sovereign media and data ecosystem (including publishers, CTV platforms, broadcasters, telcos, retailers and data owners) while giving brands access to trusted audiences in premium environments across the open web.
Equativ chief executive Arnaud Créput said: “For too long, buying media across Europe has required navigating dozens of disconnected platforms, fragmented data sources and complex activation paths.
“The European Media Marketplace creates a new way forward. By bringing together premium media, trusted data and AI-powered activation within a single framework, we are unlocking the true scale and value of Europe’s open web. Our ambition is not simply to make media buying easier, but to make Europe’s premium digital ecosystem impossible to ignore.”
Experian Marketing Services UK&I managing director Colin Grieves said: “The future of advertising in Europe will be defined by those who can connect trusted data, identity and premium media at scale. At Experian, we play a critical role in enabling that connection – helping brands move seamlessly from deep consumer insight to real-world execution, delivering addressable and measurable outcomes across the ecosystem.
“As a founding member of the European Media Marketplace, we’re proud to help shape an open, scalable framework that strengthens the competitiveness of the European digital economy and unlocks greater value for advertisers, publishers and consumers alike.”
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