LOS ANGELES – TV audiences have more viewing choices than ever as technology transforms the media landscape, making measurement more challenging for advertisers. Verizon Media is taking steps to help marketers measure their omnichannel marketing efforts, most recently with the rollout of a service that provides more in-depth audience data to connect digital ads with TV viewing.
Advertisers and their agencies that use the Verizon Media demand-side platform can now attribute TV show tune-ins to ads that appear on mobile, connected TV, video, desktop and native platforms. The company recently started a collaboration with Inscape, a unit of electronics maker Vizio, to gather automatic content recognition (ACR) data about TV viewing.
” Marketers need to understand how media performs across all of the different channels,” Iván Markman, chief business officer at Verizon Media, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “The goal is help them really understand how to optimize their media across all the different channels they can invest in.”
Verizon Media’s TV tune-in attribution helps to measure ad exposure and engagement among different devices by matching ad behavior with ACR data collected from more than 15 million smart TVs. Consumers opt in to share their viewing data, which are anonymized to preserve their privacy.
Discovery Gets on Board
Discovery Communications, whose network brands include HGTV, Food Network and TLC, is one of the first companies to use Verizon Media’s TV tune-in attribution service. It helps to measure how non-TV inventory affects TV viewing to improve ad campaigns.
The media company’s networks, many of which focus home-based activities like cooking and renovating, have performed well as the coronavirus pandemic keeps many people stuck at home. The Food Network, as one example, boasted some of the highest ratings in years among audiences ages 25 to 54 during the early days of lockdowns, Adweek reported.
“Our demand-side products enable advertisers and agencies to do that planning and buying in an omnichannel fashion from different points of TV all the way through to digital and digital out-of-home,” Markman said. He also sees more opportunity for advertising and e-commerce to commingle, giving marketers a way to sell directly to consumers.
