Media spending is bouncing back, though advertisers are shifting their budgets to digital platforms like connected TV (CTV) that have seen strong viewership growth in the past year. The pandemic led to record cancellations of pay-TV services, cementing a longer-term trend away from traditional linear TV.
“The shift from linear to digital is happening, and that just continues to happen at a rapid pace,” David George, CEO of video ad-tech startup Pixability, said in this interview with Beet.TV. “Last year really accelerated that shift. CTV has picked up as the dominant way for folks to consume content, which makes it attractive to brands.”
Media buyers use his company’s PixabilityONE platform to improve the targeting of their ads on YouTube, the Google-owned video site whose ad revenue surged 31% to $19.8 billion last year. However, the company is expanding to CTV services including Amazon Fire and Roku as their viewership grows.
“YouTube on TV has been a dominant platform for advertisers to reach their audiences,” George said. “We were the first company to actually execute YouTube on TV campaigns as a third party with YouTube.”
Pixability’s platform is integrated with YouTube, giving it access to application program interface (API) data as part of the YouTube Measurement Program. Pixability provides data analysis tools to help brands and their agencies with targeting, both as a self-service platform and with managed services — or a hybrid of the two.
“Some of the largest clients on YouTube actually leverage us as their YouTube partner,” George said. “Our clients are getting more sophisticated around video advertising, which is fantastic. There’s a keen interest around connected TV, which we’re at the forefront with our clients as well.”
With many people spending more time at home during the pandemic, YouTube’s usage and adoption grew — especially on CTV devices like smart TVs. YouTube is the dominant ad-based video on demand (AVOD) service for 18- to 54-year-olds, George said.
“Brands, as they’ve learned more about its reach into the living room are looking at it much more as a strategic, if not the most strategic platform to reach their audiences,” he said. “In the coming 12 to 18 months, you’re going to see a lot of innovation around that. For Pixability in particular, you will some new product innovations coming out over the coming year. In addition to that, some relevant partnerships that will help accelerate the whole industry and be extremely valuable for our customers.”
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