Strata Launches Next Generation of Its Buyside Technology Platform Built to Unify the Media Ecosystem

The new solutions revolutionize digital media stewardship while transforming traditional media planning and buying to be transacted more like digital

The Strata platform processes nearly $24B in media spend annually across 800 media agencies

FreeWheel, the global technology platform for the television advertising industry, today announced the official launch of Strata’s next-generation digital module, built for the media ecosystem of the future, focused on digital media stewardship for advertising planners and buyers. The newly launched capabilities are designed to address the needs of media buyers in today’s increasingly automated and addressable landscape.

The Strata platform, first launched in 1983, was acquired by Comcast in 2005 and is now part of FreeWheel’s suite of advertising technology solutions. Today, the Strata platform processes nearly $24B in media spend annually, while its comprehensive tools and capabilities are used by nearly 7,300 individual users, across over 800 media agencies for cross-media campaign planning, activation, optimization, and financial management, all in one system.

“For nearly 40 years, agencies and marketers of all sizes have trusted Strata to ease operational inefficiencies and reduce friction in the media planning and buying process,” says Rich Baudo, Head of Strata Revenue, FreeWheel. “We are thrilled to be able to deliver an innovative, future-proof technology that enables more efficiency, flexibility, and interoperability in an easy-to-use platform that helps them solve the core challenges they face in an increasingly converged ecosystem.”

With Strata’s newest technology capabilities, FreeWheel has designed an open, modular platform aimed to deliver interconnectivity across all media and finance systems – underpinned by a global master data structure. Its digital-first foundation will also help enable a faster, more streamlined user experience to help clients scale their growth and drive higher performance for their digital business. This next generation of Strata technology brings together the best of assets backed by Comcast and FreeWheel’s track record of innovation and unique expertise in the TV and premium video space.

The new capabilities deliver innovation across four core areas:

• Planning & Buying: Redefined planning & buying workflows for a significantly more intuitive and frictionless user experience across the campaign lifecycle.
• Reporting & Analytics: Comprehensive tools giving users full oversight into business & campaign performance across all media – built natively within the platform.
• Media Finance: New functionality to streamline financial order management, client billing, and vendor invoicing with seamless connectivity to an agency’s media and financial systems to automate complex financial workflows.
• Administration & Master Data Management: New self-serve admin functionality and global master data structures to enable greater platform customization and scalability.

“As media planning and buying becomes more converged across traditional and digital media types, agencies and marketers need access to solutions that can support unified media stewardship at scale,” said Katy Loria, Chief Revenue Officer, FreeWheel. “We know that planners and buyers across the ecosystem rely on Strata every day to plan and manage their media buying, and understanding the challenges they are facing as media continues to shift was the impetus behind creating these next-generation solutions. As media evolves, and our clients look to fuel their digital growth, our digital-first tools, backed by FreeWheel’s expertise in premium video, will help them thrive.”

“As long-time Strata users, we have relied on their tools to efficiently manage our media buying. As consumer media engagement evolves, so has our approach to effectively reach them while maximizing campaign performance for our clients,” said Tracie Chinetti, Vice President, Integrated Media, Fuseideas. “These new digital solutions provide the innovation we need, and the smooth migration, thanks to FreeWheel’s exceptional support, made the transition seamless and minimally disruptive. The new capabilities will help us navigate the changing landscape with ease.”

To learn more about the new solutions, visit here.

About FreeWheel
FreeWheel empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit freewheel.com, and follow us on X and LinkedIn.