TripleLift on October 13, 2026 said it had been selected as the first partner for Uber Advertising's offsite audience expansion in the United States, a deal that packages Uber's first-party signals about how people ride, order and shop into private marketplace deals running across TripleLift's open-web display, native and online video inventory.

In Short

Uber knows a lot about where its customers go and what they order, and until now advertisers could mostly use that knowledge only for ads shown inside the Uber and Uber Eats apps. TripleLift, a company that sells ad space on thousands of websites and apps, can now package Uber's audience groups so advertisers can reach the same people on those outside sites. The arrangement covers the US only, runs through pre-arranged deals that advertisers buy in their usual buying software, and leaves out details such as cost, streaming TV and how sales results will be counted.

What the two companies agreed

The announcement was distributed from New York on October 13, 2026 at 08:00 ET. According to TripleLift, which calls itself "the Creative SSP powered by TL Spark," the company "has been selected as the first partner for Uber Advertising's offsite audience expansion in the US." The release frames the arrangement as a first: "For the first time, advertisers can extend Uber's high-intent consumer signals - derived from how people move, order, and shop - beyond Uber's owned apps and across TripleLift's premium open internet."

The mechanics are narrower than the framing. According to TripleLift, advertisers "can now activate Uber audiences via Private Marketplace (PMP) deal curation." In a private marketplace, a seller restricts an auction to selected buyers, who bid through a deal identifier on terms agreed in advance. Here, the deal carries two things at once: Uber's audience definition and TripleLift's inventory. A buyer does not need a separate data contract with Uber, at least as the release describes it. The audiences arrive bundled inside the deal.

At launch, according to TripleLift, activation covers four ad categories:

  • High-impact display
  • Native
  • Standard display
  • Online video (OLV)

Those formats run "across web and mobile app environments," the release says. Buying happens "within preferred DSP workflows using streamlined PMP deal curation," which means an agency can pick up the deal in whichever demand-side platform it already uses rather than logging in to an Uber or TripleLift interface.

The release lists three benefits under the heading of what the two companies "enable advertisers to" do. They are described as targeting "with real-world precision" using "signals built on real-world movement and purchasing behavior"; scaling "beyond owned surfaces" to reach Uber audiences across "premium open-web environments wherever they spend time online, unlocking incremental reach"; and activating "with flexibility" inside existing DSP workflows. No performance figures accompany any of the three.

The two statements

Dave Helmreich, chief executive of TripleLift, set out the argument in commerce terms. "Commerce media shouldn't stop at the edge of an app. Some of the highest-intent audience signals in advertising live inside commerce environments, but until now, advertisers couldn't expand those signals into the open internet," he said. "This partnership removes that boundary. By bringing Uber's real-world insights to TripleLift's inventory and creative formats, we are giving buyers a practical path to turn commerce signals into clear omni-channel campaign performance."

Josh Butler, Global Head of Advertising at Uber, described the deal from the data owner's side. "Uber Advertising has built a clear picture of consumer behavior based on how people move, eat, and shop every day, and expanding offsite lets advertisers put those insights to work in more places," he said. "By partnering with TripleLift, we can extend that reach across premium inventory and formats, helping brands connect with consumers before and after their Uber rides or deliveries."

Butler's last phrase is the most specific claim in either statement. "Before and after" a ride or delivery implies timing, not just audience membership: reaching someone on a news site before dinner is ordered, or after a trip ends. Whether the TripleLift deals use any time-based signal, or simply static segments built from past behavior, is not explained.

"First" - with a qualification

The claim that advertisers can extend Uber's signals beyond its own apps "for the first time" needs context. On June 15, 2026, Uber introduced Offsite Ads alongside ride offers and new Uber Eats formats. That product extends Uber's first-party signals to Meta and Google Shopping in a managed format, with outcomes traced back to Uber Eats orders and store visits. It was in a pilot with a select group of advertisers at the time, and Uber said then that it would add channels over time.

So Uber audiences had already left Uber's apps in a limited way before October. What appears to be new in the TripleLift deal is the destination: the independent open web and mobile apps, sold through a supply-side platform, rather than two of the largest walled gardens. The release itself is precise on this when read closely. TripleLift is the first partner for the "offsite audience expansion in the US," and the "first time" sentence refers to TripleLift's "premium open internet." The word "first" also implies that others may follow. Neither company said whether TripleLift holds any period of exclusivity.

What the release leaves out

Several questions that buyers would put to any data partnership are not addressed.

Pricing. No data fee, CPM premium or revenue share is disclosed. In curation deals, data and curation costs are typically embedded in the deal price, and the release does not say how Uber and TripleLift split the proceeds.

Connected TV. TripleLift's own boilerplate describes a system that works "across the open internet, retail media, and CTV." The launch list - high-impact display, native, standard display and OLV - does not include connected TV. The release does not say whether CTV will be added.

Measurement. The June Offsite Ads product was built around tracing exposure back to Uber Eats orders and store visits. Helmreich speaks of "clear omni-channel campaign performance," but the release does not say whether TripleLift campaigns will be measured against actual Uber orders, through a clean room, or by any other method.

Audience construction and privacy. The release refers to "Uber's rich first-party data" and "high-intent consumer signals," but it does not describe how Uber users are matched to TripleLift's inventory, which identifiers are used, or what aggregation thresholds apply. For comparison, Uber's clean-room product, Uber Intelligence, works with aggregated results and a typical minimum of about 1,000 users per group, according to PPC Land's earlier reporting.

Segments. No audience categories are named - not airport travelers, not frequent Uber Eats customers, not commuters - and no audience sizes are given.

Uber's numbers

The Uber Advertising boilerplate in the release describes "more than 200M monthly active users" across Uber and Uber Eats. That is a global figure, not a US one, and the TripleLift deal covers only the United States. No US audience size was supplied.

The figure has risen through the year in Uber's own advertising materials. In September 2025, when Uber launched JourneyTV Presents with publishing partners, it cited more than 150 million monthly active platform consumers globally. By June 2026, when Uber merged rides and delivery advertising into Uber Marketing Manager, the cited number was nearly 200 million monthly active users, from Uber's third-quarter 2025 earnings. A separate release from Kenshoo Skai, published the same day as TripleLift's, put the number at more than 208 million monthly active consumers. Neither release dates the figure or names its source period.

Two Uber deals on one day

TripleLift's announcement was not Uber Advertising's only partnership disclosure on October 13. Kenshoo Skai said the same day that it had built a direct integration letting brands and agencies plan and run Uber campaigns inside its platform in Canada, Mexico, Chile, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Taiwan and Australia. The United States was not on that list.

The two deals point in opposite directions. Skai brings Uber's own inventory into a third-party management tool, outside the US. TripleLift takes Uber's audience data out to third-party inventory, inside the US. Taken together, they show Uber Advertising opening its business to outside companies on several fronts at once, with different partners and different geographies for each.

That pattern has been building for more than two years. In June 2024, Uber opened Journey Ads to programmatic buying through programmatic guaranteed deals in Google's Display & Video 360, The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP. A year later it extended Journey Ads to programmatic buyers in ten European markets. In December 2025 came Uber Intelligence, built on LiveRamp's clean room and available only in the US at launch; at that point Uber had publicly targeted $1 billion in annual advertising revenue. June 2026 brought the Ads APIs for third-party developers, Offsite Ads and Uber Marketing Manager in quick succession. In early October, Uber published US restaurant incrementality figures for Sponsored Listings.

Each of those steps moved Uber inventory or data closer to the tools advertisers already use. The TripleLift deal is the first in that sequence, as far as the release indicates, in which Uber's audience data is sold on inventory Uber does not own, through an independent sell-side platform.

TripleLift's position

For TripleLift, the deal fits a strategy visible in its announcements across 2026. In April, the company and Criteo combined Criteo's Commerce Audiences with TripleLift's supply and creative formats, packaging retailer purchase signals into deal IDs that buyers access through their existing DSPs. The structure was almost identical to the Uber arrangement: a commerce company's first-party audiences, TripleLift's inventory and formats, delivered as a curated deal. The difference is the data source. Criteo's audiences come from SKU-level product views and purchases across retail partners; Uber's come from movement and food orders.

A few days later, on April 21, TripleLift presented TL Spark, an intelligence layer coordinating curation, creative, audiences, measurement and optimization. TripleLift then cited more than 5,000 publishers in its network and more than one trillion ad transactions a month. The Uber release refers to the same idea under the name "impact orchestration" - "connecting rich first-party data, high-impact creative, and curated supply to deliver clear outcomes," according to TripleLift. The release also says that "as commerce media moves offsite, TripleLift helps platforms extend the reach of their data."

The company has been through considerable change to get here. TripleLift, majority-owned by Vista Equity Partners, cut a double-digit percentage of its workforce in July 2025, months after Helmreich took over as chief executive in February 2025. That followed a cut of roughly 20% of staff in February 2023 under his predecessor, Dave Clark.

Why it matters for buyers and sellers

The deal lands in the middle of an argument about where audience data should be applied in programmatic advertising. Supply-side platforms have spent 2025 and 2026 packaging inventory and data into curated deals, while buy-side platforms have questioned the fees embedded in those packages. A large, recognizable first-party data source such as Uber gives a sell-side platform something buyers cannot easily reproduce on their own DSP. That is a commercial advantage for TripleLift, and a reason the "first partner" label matters to it.

For commerce media networks, the arrangement is another example of offsite extension: using data gathered inside a store, app or marketplace to target people elsewhere. Retailers such as Amazon, Walmart and Criteo's partners have done this for years. Mobility and delivery platforms have been slower. Uber's June pilot sent its data to Meta and Google Shopping; the TripleLift deal sends it to the open web. DoorDash, which PPC Land noted in June had also added global offsite reach, is pursuing a similar path.

For publishers in TripleLift's network, the practical effect is that some of their inventory may now be sold inside Uber audience deals rather than only in the open auction. The release does not say which publishers are included, or whether publishers can decline to have their inventory packaged with Uber data.

For advertisers, the open questions remain the ones the release does not answer: what the audiences cost, how they are built, and whether results can be tied back to real Uber orders the way Uber's own offsite pilot promised. Will Uber publish offsite results the way it did for Sponsored Listings? Without those details, the announcement establishes a channel, not a track record.

Timeline

Summary

Who: TripleLift, a supply-side platform majority-owned by Vista Equity Partners and led by chief executive Dave Helmreich, and Uber Advertising, represented by Global Head of Advertising Josh Butler.

What: TripleLift was named the first partner for Uber Advertising's offsite audience expansion in the US, letting advertisers buy Uber audiences built from ride, delivery and shopping behavior across TripleLift's open-web inventory through private marketplace deals, in high-impact display, native, standard display and online video, on web and mobile apps.

When: The announcement was made on October 13, 2026, the same day Kenshoo Skai disclosed a separate Uber Advertising integration covering eight markets outside the US.

Where: The United States only, on websites and mobile apps in TripleLift's network, bought through advertisers' existing demand-side platforms.

Why: Uber is moving its first-party data and inventory into outside buying channels on several fronts, after piloting offsite ads on Meta and Google Shopping in June 2026, while TripleLift is building a business around curated deals that combine commerce data with its own supply. Pricing, CTV availability, measurement against Uber orders and the method of audience matching were not disclosed.