Comcast’s FreeWheel has new partnerships with Data Plus Math, Vizio’s Inscape data unit and Adobe to augment its attribution, consumer insights and programmatic offerings. In this interview with Beet.TV, FreeWheel Media’s Brian Wallach explains the three deals announced at the FreeWheel NOWFRONT event in Manhattan this week.
FreeWheel is teaming with Data Plus Math and other attribution solutions providers to deliver faster insights into campaign performance. “A lot of times, you get information about how your campaign’s doing, especially around attribution and it’s far too often six months or even longer after a campaign’s over. It doesn’t allow you to optimize a campaign or in any way shape or form improve the performance during the flight,” says Wallach, who is SVP/CRO, FreeWheel Media.
To further enlarge its audience viewing data beyond Comcast’s huge footprint, FreeWheel is adding Inscape’s data set for “even more robust reporting capability,” particularly in the streaming video space. Data from more than 10 million opt-in Vizio smart TVs will be available to better target specific demographic and audience segments in TV ad deals, as Advertising Age reports.
“Since Vizio does go outside of the Comcast footprint, we can now start to model incremental reach and other access to consumers outside of our footprint,” Wallach adds.
FreeWheel will work with Adobe to help overcome the complexities of programmatic transactions in premium video. Given that most demand-side platforms were built to handle display ads, “Now you bring them into the living room and it creates a different type of environment. We’re working closely with the DSPs to solve for this and we’re leveraging our Drive platform to be able to promote audiences to them through Deal IDs so they can transact programmatically,” Wallach says.
“The reality is most DSPs try to use data from their side. They have different data arrangements and then they try to find the audiences in that live movement when the bidder is working.”
FreeWheel will “package up that inventory on a pre-bid basis, based on our insight and our data set having access to the ad server and the information that’s coming from there,” thereby leveraging the capabilities of DSPs “to bid appropriately on that supply.”
The latest partnerships enhance FreeWheel’s ability to talk to customers holistically about video in all its forms, according to Wallach.
For buyers of linear TV who also need to find audiences on OTT and CTV, “we’re able to help guide them and put together the right solutions for them.” For digital pure-play buyers looking for more reach beyond FreeWheel’s digital supply, “we can start to package in TV if they’re looking for audiences and impressions in that environment as well.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of The FreeWheel NOWFRONT: Media Reimagined. For more coverage from the series, please visit this page.
