Ashley D. Su 
Catalyzing the shift of TV advertising dollars to streaming will require not only proof of how streaming performs, but also proof of what makes it perform. Which means streaming ad vendors like Roku will have to make more data available to advertisers. And that’s how.
Roku has entered into agreements with four marketing technology providers – Analytic Partners, Ipsos MMA, IRI and Nielsen – to provide more relevant data about its advertisements to inform marketing mix models than advertisers like CPG brands and retailers use to assess their advertising spend and plan how to allocate their budgets in the future.
Roku already provides impression-level data for marketing mix models that break down impression-level campaigns by designated market areas, i.e. groupings of US cities and ZIP codes like New York, Honolulu and Montgomery-Selma that TV and radio advertisers historically refer to when measuring campaigns. Now the company is expanding that data set.
“What we’re trying to provide is a bit more information about the type of creation, the timeslot, a more granular view of DMA so you can even drill down to zip code to provide a bit more granularity in these models for each of these measurement partners,” said Asaf Davidov, Head of Ads Measurement at Roku.
Data will be limited to advertisements sold by Roku, such as The Roku Channel and the portion of inventory in other companies’ Roku apps that the CTV Platform Owner is able to sell, including inventory purchased through Roku’s OneView shopping platform.
Roku expanding the data provided for marketing mix modeling seems to solve a problem with this form of analysis: it’s built around traditional media channels like TV. As Digiday reported, some advertisers are so attached to their historical marketing mix models that they limit the flow of advertising dollars from traditional TV to streaming and digital video. “They’re more of a blunt instrument,” one agency executive said of MMM.
Still, what these models show is that advertisers are giving up some of the efficiency of TV when they shift money to streaming, a second agency executive said. Advertisers can trade the wide reach of TV for the more targeted options of streaming, but streaming’s higher ad prices allow advertisers to reach fewer people for more money, which is a problem for brand advertisers. aimed at a wide audience.
Marketing mix models “are not stupid. They quickly catch up and say we took a really effective dollar [in TV] and made it ineffective [in streaming]said the second head of the agency.
Furthermore, marketing mix modeling remains an important tool and even seems to be gaining in importance. Not only is the television measurement system being overhauled, but digital measurement systems must account for the impending demise of third-party cookie and mobile app crackdowns by Apple and Google. These changes have spurred “a bit of a resurgence of this MMM measurement,” Davidov said.
Additionally, the collision of TV and streaming advertising may lead to streaming eventually overtaking traditional TV’s share of ad dollars, but the traditional TV ad buying model appears to be winning. , as ad buyers discussed at the TV Futures Week Town Hall on April 19. This will likely only enhance the role of marketing mix modeling in advertisers’ media planning processes.
“Marketing mix models will catch up, but the way we plan and buy TV today isn’t changing,” the agency’s chief executive said.
Opening up more data to MMM providers could at least help catalyze the flow of money to streaming by giving advertisers and agencies a better read of how their streaming ads are performing relative to TV and others. media channels so they can identify how to shore up any inefficiencies. .
With respect to creative type data, Roku will break down information by video advertising and display advertising, such as banner ads appearing on the home screen of the CTV Platform. Video-specific creative data will also include the duration of an ad so advertisers can gauge the impact of the traditional 15- and 30-second spots as well as the new six-second placement.
“Creative types are super important,” the agency’s chief executive said. “Nobody talks about the role of creation in all these conversations about efficiency. We know that 70% of the impact [an ad has] comes from the creation and the context in which it appears. So as long as they provide that information, that’s a good thing.
