The digital advertising team at telecomms firm BT has selected global exchange for advertising, Rubicon Project, to extend its digital advertising proposition to thousands of potential advertisers via Rubicon Project’s exchange.

BT Digital Advertising is the online advertising and creative solutions team within BT’s Consumer business and works with advertisers to create and deliver data-driven, engaging campaigns to over 10 million unique users across BT.com, BT Sport.com and the BT Sport and BT Wi-Fi apps.

Under the agreement, BT will use Rubicon Project’s technology to internally manage its programmatic sales across mobile in-app, mobile web, video and desktop inventory in open and private marketplace environments. Ad2One, the digital sales house, will continue to sell BT’s guaranteed inventory and creative solutions campaigns.

Steve Wing, MD for UK, Ireland & Nordics at Rubicon Project, said: “Rubicon Project is thrilled to have been selected by BT Digital Advertising as a technology partner as they establish a bigger presence in the digital space, and open up their premium inventory to the thousands of brands, agencies and advertisers live on our exchange. We will look to maximise BT’s potential for programmatic transactions at scale, whilst giving buyers access to engaging advertising formats across premium sites on mobile, video and desktop.”

Stuart Keith, head of digital advertising sales & partnerships at BT, said: “We are expanding our digital advertising team and looking to work with new partners who can help us provide great performance for our buyers and drive incremental growth to our expanding digital assets. As we continue to develop and invest in digital advertising, we are confident Rubicon Project is the right choice for BT as the next platform to partner with.”

eMarketer predicts that programmatic will account for 75% of the digital display advertising market this year, through the various channels of RTB, private marketplaces, direct deals and automated guaranteed. This is being driven by the growth of mobile advertising, which will command a 79% slice of the programmatic display pie in 2017.