KOELNMESSE'S STORY
Taking Ownership of Digital Advertising: How Koelnmesse Is Building Toward Self-Service with AdButler
One of Europe's major trade fair organizers is developing a more connected advertising operation. With AdButler, Koelnmesse has brought campaign management in-house, integrated ad serving with its publishing systems, and begun exploring new advertising possibilities, with self-service as its long-term vision.
Quick Overview
Industry
International trade fairs and exhibitions
Audience
Exhibitors, trade professionals, and consumer audiences across multiple industries
Global Scale
Around 2.5 million visitors and 43,800 exhibiting companies across Koelnmesse's events in 2025, including DMEXCO (Digital Marketing Exposition & Conference)
Ad Model
In-house digital advertising across trade fair websites and mobile apps
Inventory Details
Properties
Trade fair websites and mobile apps, including German and English placements
Ad Formats
Display ads, homepage billboards, and custom HTML creatives
Platform Setup
AdButler connected to Koelnmesse's CMS, with inventory organized by trade fair
Advertisers
Exhibitors and brands seeking visibility with relevant event audiences
What's Next?
A self-service buying experience where advertisers select placements, upload creative, and submit campaigns for approval before automated publication
A Global Stage, With a Digital Opportunity to Match
Koelnmesse brings businesses and audiences together on an international scale. In 2025, its events attracted around 2.5 million visitors from 214 countries and 43,800 exhibiting companies from 120 nations. Its portfolio includes globally recognized events such as gamescom and DMEXCO, alongside major food and other industry exhibitions.
Its websites and apps extend those connections beyond the exhibition floor. They give exhibitors additional opportunities to reach people interested in their industries, products, and services.
Across that portfolio, advertising needs to accommodate different events, audiences, languages, websites, and apps. Bringing the operation in-house meant finding a platform that could support those requirements and connect with Koelnmesse's existing systems.
Koelnmesse chose AdButler to establish that foundation. Today, it manages advertising internally through an API-connected workflow, with direct access to campaign reporting and greater flexibility over its inventory. Its longer-term vision is self-service: giving exhibitors a simpler way to buy advertising while retaining control over approval and publication.
From Outsourced Advertising to In-House Ownership
Koelnmesse previously worked with an external supplier to manage advertising. Bringing the operation in-house offered a way to build expertise within the organization, take a more active role in campaign management, and pursue lower operating costs.
The team needed technology that could support the immediate transition while leaving room for further development. AdButler's enterprise advertising platform gave Koelnmesse the tools to manage campaigns directly and organize inventory around its trade fair portfolio.
"We found AdButler was the best solution on the market for us."
Sebastian Rühl
Project Manager, Koelnmesse GmbH
With the platform in place, Koelnmesse could develop its own advertising workflows and take ownership of how campaigns were set up, delivered, and measured.
Connecting Campaign Setup to Publication
One of the first priorities was connecting AdButler to Koelnmesse's content management system.
The team initially considered configuring campaigns in AdButler and manually transferring zone IDs into the CMS. After reviewing the API with developers, it chose to connect the systems instead.
Now, the team creates ads in AdButler and selects their placements through the CMS, with the integration handling the connection between them. This avoids the manual transfer of placement identifiers envisioned in the original approach and makes ad delivery part of a connected publishing workflow.
The developers also highlighted the breadth of the API, including the ability to create ads programmatically. That gives Koelnmesse further possibilities to explore as it works toward greater automation.
The connection between ad serving and publishing is already in place—an important step toward the organization's longer-term self-service vision.
An Inventory Structure That Reflects the Business
Koelnmesse organizes each trade fair as a publisher within AdButler. Under each publisher sit the relevant advertising zones, including German and English homepage billboards and placements across web and app environments.
This gives each event a defined structure within the same platform. The team can accommodate the differences between trade fairs while keeping their inventory organized.
As the setup developed, Koelnmesse needed more publishers and zones than its original package allowed. Expanding the package removed those constraints and allowed the team to keep its trade fairs configured, rather than repeatedly activating and deactivating them.
For an organization managing a diverse event portfolio, that flexibility made the platform easier to fit around the business.
Discovering More Ways to Advertise
Koelnmesse is also using AdButler to explore what its advertising offering could become.
Drawing inspiration from AdButler's ad gallery, the team has experimented with HTML-based creatives, custom positioning, and movement beyond its familiar billboard formats. These experiments have helped demonstrate internally that its offering can extend beyond a small set of standard sizes and placements.
The work now is turning those possibilities into opportunities for exhibitors. Different pages, creative treatments, and placements give Koelnmesse more options to consider as it develops its advertising packages.
AdButler is supporting both sides of that progress: connecting the workflows used to deliver advertising today and giving the team room to explore what it could sell next.
Bringing Campaign Performance Into View
Reporting has been another meaningful change.
Under the previous supplier arrangement, Koelnmesse did not receive the campaign reporting it now accesses through AdButler. The team can review impressions, clicks, and click-through rates, with reporting available across ads, advertisers, and publishers.
"With our previous supplier, we didn't receive reports. Now we can see clicks, impressions, and reporting across our ads, advertisers, and publishers. That's really valuable for us."
Sebastian Rühl
Project Manager, Koelnmesse GmbH
That visibility gives the organization a clearer understanding of campaign activity across its digital properties. It also provides a stronger basis for advertiser conversations and for evaluating new placements and creative approaches.
As Koelnmesse develops its advertising offering, the team can manage what runs and see how it performs within the same platform.
Enterprise Requirements, Supported by a Responsive Team
The transition involved technical coordination alongside contractual and GDPR-related reviews. Koelnmesse needed to work through its internal requirements while preparing to begin using the platform.
AdButler's team helped answer questions throughout the process, with contracting completed in time for the intended start. Communication, technical support, and documentation continued to play a role as the integration and inventory setup developed.
"The process was really good, and there was good communication between us."
Sebastian Rühl
Project Manager, Koelnmesse GmbH
Access to that support gave Koelnmesse a way to work through new requirements as they emerged. The organization could expand its setup, explore API capabilities, and experiment with creative formats as its experience grew.
The Long-Term Vision: Putting Advertising in Exhibitors' Hands
Koelnmesse's ambition is to give exhibitors a direct way to buy advertising across its digital properties. The organization envisions a self-service experience where advertisers can book placements through its shop, choose where their campaigns appear, and upload creative—all within one connected process.
An exhibitor could select a homepage placement, choose web, app, or both, and submit an image for review. Koelnmesse would retain control over creative approval, with approved campaigns flowing through AdButler and its CMS to publication.
"The big picture is complete self-service: advertisers book through our shop, choose where their ads appear, and upload an image. We review it, and once approved, it flows automatically through AdButler and our CMS to the website or app."
Sebastian Rühl
Project Manager, Koelnmesse GmbH
For an organization connecting thousands of exhibiting companies with audiences across a diverse event portfolio, this represents an opportunity to make digital advertising a more accessible part of the exhibitor experience. It would also reduce the manual coordination involved in moving each booking from purchase to publication.
Alongside the technical development, Koelnmesse is working internally to turn these possibilities into clear advertising packages and encourage more exhibitors to use them. The ambition is to make advertising easier to buy while giving exhibitors compelling reasons to participate.
The AdButler integration already in place gives Koelnmesse a foundation to build toward that vision. With self-service as the long-term goal, the next stage is bringing booking, approval, and delivery together—making it easier for exhibitors to buy and for Koelnmesse to manage a growing advertising offering.
Greater Control Today, More Possibilities Ahead
Koelnmesse has already changed how it operates digital advertising. Campaign management is in-house, AdButler is connected to its CMS, inventory is organized around individual trade fairs, and performance reporting is available directly to the team.
The progress so far includes:
Internal ownership of advertising operations previously managed by a supplier.
API-connected ad placement that avoids manually transferring zone IDs between systems.
Flexible inventory management for different events, languages, and placements.
Direct access to campaign reporting to support ongoing management.
Creative experimentation using AdButler's templates and ad gallery to explore a broader advertising offering.
A foundation for self-service advertising, with booking and approval automation forming the long-term vision.
For Koelnmesse, this creates room to build on an established strength: connecting businesses with relevant audiences. With AdButler supporting its advertising operation, the organization has greater control over the campaigns it delivers today and the flexibility to develop how exhibitors will buy advertising in the future.
