Microsoft Advertising this month extended LinkedIn profile targeting into connected TV campaigns, opening a third buy-side activation path for a supply architecture that already runs through Microsoft Monetize, Microsoft's sell-side platform. The update gives advertisers the option of buying LinkedIn-fused CTV inventory directly inside Microsoft Advertising, in addition to the two demand-side platforms – Amazon DSP and The Trade Desk – that LinkedIn formally enabled one week earlier.
The announcement was made by Product Liaison Navah Hopkins during the SEM Stories event on May 14, 2026. According to Hopkins, advertisers can now target connected TV audiences using LinkedIn profile attributes tied to a user's profession, including industry, job function, company category, and other professional identity signals.
Hopkins framed the feature as a way to build “really meaningful” audience lists that are less dependent on click-based intent signals, repeatedly emphasizing during the session the convergence of brand and performance marketing.
The architecture being extended is not new in its core mechanics. It is the same supply pipeline that LinkedIn detailed in its May 7, 2026 Pressroom announcement, with one critical addition: Microsoft Advertising itself now sits alongside Amazon DSP and The Trade Desk as a buy-side activation point. The piece that does not change is Microsoft Monetize, which functions as the structural pivot of the entire arrangement.
Microsoft Monetize is the pivot, not the DSPs
The targeting is not built on IP address matching or device-level household graph identifiers in the manner of some CTV vendors. According to LinkedIn's Help Center documentation on CTV Ads via DSP, the company has partnered with Microsoft's Monetize Supply-Side Platform to provide access to buying through external DSPs. Microsoft Monetize – originally built as AppNexus SSP before AT&T rebranded it as Xandr Monetize in 2019, then absorbed into Microsoft…