Crackle Plus is expanding its relationship with video supply-side platform SpotX to help monetize new distribution across a variety of free ad-supported streaming TV (“FAST”) services, the companies announced this morning. Crackle Plus is now available on 29 devices and services and has announced deals with fuboTV, Philo, VIDAA, VIZIO and Xumo which it estimates will expose Crackle Plus networks to over 60 million new viewers in 2021.

Mike Laband, SpotX’s SVP of Platform told me that it has been working with Crackle since the second quarter last year and today’s announcement is an expansion of their relationship as Crackle moves beyond consumption solely on its owned and operated properties to embrace third party distribution.

In particular, Crackle Plus will use SpotX’s header bidding solution Total Connect+, which is the result of a collaboration with SpringServe (SpotX invested in SpringServe in July, 2020). Mike said approximately 40 media companies are currently using Total Connect+ which have experienced 30%-60% increases in yield since deployment. Total Connect+ is a suite of advanced integrations that provide more intelligent ad decisioning. Crackle Plus will use Total Connect+ to route its inventory across third-party distributors and programmatically enable this inventory.

Crackle Plus will also use SpotX’s Audience Management Engine (AME) to enhance its inventory with third-party data and create programmatic guaranteed campaigns with specific market segments. Mike said AME has proven appealing to buyers who want to use third-party data. AME is integrated  with around a dozen data management platforms.