ITV and Carwow have announced a new retail commerce partnership, Auto Match, a first-of-its-kind advertising solution for the automotive sector. Available through ITV’s self-serve programmatic platform Planet V, Auto Match allows car advertisers to connect with known active car buyers watching ITVX.
Powered by Carwow’s extensive first-party data, Auto Match securely matches Carwow’s audience data with ITVX’s registered users. This enables precise targeting of more than 1.3 million in-market car buyers and allows advertisers to measure post-ad exposure uplift on key metrics such as website traffic, car configurations, and sales.
Carwow’s logged-in users provide rich first-party data, offering car manufacturers insight into consumers actively researching and configuring vehicles. ITV’s audience data enhances this by allowing advertisers to engage with these in-market buyers at key points in their purchase journey. Auto Match marks Carwow’s first offsite commerce media offering.
Jay Rajdev, controller of advanced advertising at ITV, said: “By combining ITVX’s scale and power with Carwow’s 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’s something we’ve 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.”
Sepi Arani, Carwow global managing director – commercial and media, said: “By 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 Carwow platform, in this case when they are watching their favourite TV programmes. We’re 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.”
Carwow reaches 7.3 million unique users per month and accounts for 10% of the UK’s retail new car sales. Its media division delivered a record 600 global campaigns in 2024, with UK media revenue increasing 67% year-on-year. ITV holds a minority stake in Carwow through its Media for Equity programme, ITV AdVentures Invest.
A beta launch of Auto Match is targeting key automotive segments, with a pilot programme already underway with select advertisers.
