Ad Networks
Business Wire | September 28, 2023
LiveRamp (NYSE: RAMP) and FreeWheel today announced that they have partnered to introduce a new solution that enables advertisers to buy a greater amount of addressable advertising inventory in the connected television sector.
This is a new global partnership. The core offering includes FreeWheel incorporating support for LiveRamp’s identifier, RampID, powered by LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution publisher partners into FreeWheel’s TV platform. The result is a new capability that allows marketers to more accurately reach and target audiences in the fast-growing CTV space using first-party data and addressable advertising.
For marketers, one of the solution’s main benefits is the enhanced personalization capabilities in a soon-to-be-cookieless age.
This partnership utilizes two LiveRamp solutions, which work in tandem with FreeWheel’s technology:
LiveRamp’sAuthenticated Traffic Solutionconnects first-party user data with LiveRamp’s RampID to enable advertising on authenticated inventory in a privacy-centric manner. One of ATS’s key benefits is the ability to unlock addressable inventory without third-party identifiers, enabling the ecosystem to build and plan sustainably. RampID covers every touchpoint in a customer’s journey, enabling brands to generate better insights into exposures and conversions when using RampID to track impressions. RampID also unlocks further benefits for brands in the data collaboration space, including measuring media buys, and powering collaboration and insights with other brands.
With the support of ATS and RampID, FreeWheel’s integration will soon allow 85+ RampID-enabled demand side platforms to directly transact on LiveRamp’s pseudonymous, people-based identity. The integration enables brands to onboard their audiences into FreeWheel‘s TV platform and transact direct deals with premium CTV publishers. Brands can now leverage their first-party data in conjunction with LiveRamp’s RampID and activate on FreeWheel’s premium video supply. One key benefit is that every impression can now be measured, resulting in better measurement and ROI for marketers.
“Premium addressable CTV inventory is the new must-have for every advertiser,” said Travis Clinger, SVP, Activations and Addressability, LiveRamp. “FreeWheel’s integration to support LiveRamp’s addressability will power more accurate, people-based marketing across some of the world’s leading streaming publishers, enabling marketers to drive the business outcomes they need.”
With third-party identifiers such as the cookie on the decline, we teamed up with LiveRamp to create a new solution for marketers to reach and engage with relevant audiences, said Matt Clark, VP, Strategic Partnerships, FreeWheel.
“The end result is a much needed new offering that combines the strength of LiveRamp’s identity framework, FreeWheel’s expertise and scale in premium video, and the benefits of addressable advertising. We’ve designed, built, and are introducing this new solution with a focus and commitment to privacy, so that advertisers can get ahead of and succeed in today’s evolving media landscape.”
“We are pleased to extend our longtime ATS implementation into the ad-supported version of AMC+ coming this October and this important new inventory,” said Scott Keating, VP, Audience and Data Platforms, AMC Networks. “This capability will drive our leadership position in delivering addressability for our partners while extending scale of high-quality audiences rooted in authentication.”
“Paramount Advertising is steadfast in delivering the most advanced and flexible offerings for marketers to reach their target audiences across our leading portfolio of networks and streaming services,” said Todd Bender, SVP, Ad Platforms, Paramount. “LiveRamp has been a longstanding partner as a key member of the Paramount Identity Framework, and this partnership with FreeWheel will enable us to further enrich bid requests and unlock even more powerful opportunities for advertisers across our EyeQ footprint of more than 90 million full-episode viewers.”
Through this global partnership, FreeWheel and LiveRamp are bringing a privacy-focused solution to CTV publishers, enabling publishers to create audience-based targeting for buy-side platforms on authenticated publisher inventory. LiveRamp’s ATS is the standard for post-signal connectivity and leads the way in interoperability with Google Display & Video 360’s PAIR, The Trade Desk’s UID 2.0, and Publicis’s CORE ID. Publishers working with LiveRamp and FreeWheel will now be able to benefit from increased demand and CPMs on their ATS inventory.
This new industry solution will be available in market beginning in Q4 2023.
About LiveRamp
LiveRamp is the data collaboration platform of choice for the world’s most innovative companies. A groundbreaking leader in consumer privacy, data ethics, and foundational identity, LiveRamp is setting the new standard for building a connected customer view with unmatched clarity and context while protecting precious brand and consumer trust. LiveRamp offers complete flexibility to collaborate wherever data lives to support the widest range of data collaboration use cases—within organizations, between brands, and across its premier global network of top-quality partners.
Hundreds of global innovators, from iconic consumer brands and tech giants to banks, retailers, and healthcare leaders turn to LiveRamp to build enduring brand and business value by deepening customer engagement and loyalty, activating new partnerships, and maximizing the value of their first-party data while staying on the forefront of rapidly evolving compliance and privacy requirements. LiveRamp is based in San Francisco, California with offices worldwide. Learn more at LiveRamp.com.
About FreeWheel
FreeWheel empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit freewheel.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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Advertiser Platforms
Acast | July 27, 2023
Veritonic, the industry’s comprehensive audio analytics and research platform, partnered with Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, to bring new data to market around the commonalities - and divergence - of audio creative on podcast ads served programmatically. In addition to identifying these global overlaps and points of difference, the goal of the research was also to help media buyers identify strong tactics and best practices in programmatic podcast advertising across three key media markets: the US, Australia and New Zealand, and EMEA.
Together, the companies sourced and analyzed podcast ads transacted programmatically with Acast and spanning various industry verticals including: automotive, tourism, retail, healthcare, entertainment, and more. They then identified the common threads and differences in the creative executions by region by examining themes like ad length, number of voiceovers, gender of voiceover, use of sound effects, call to action placements, and more.
“As an industry there is still a lot of myth-busting to do around programmatic ad buying. At Acast, we firmly believe that programmatic advertising should not be a rigid experience for the media buyer, podcast host, and certainly not the listener,” said Elli Dimitroulakos, Global Head of Ad Innovation at Acast. “Podcast advertising is effective because it’s a seamless part of the listening experience and that shouldn’t change based on how a transaction occurs. Programmatic ads can – and should – have creative elements that enhance the listener experience and brand relationship.”
According to the research, across all markets the majority of ads were a minimum of 30 seconds in length. This was most predominant in the US and EMEA regions which resulted in 80% and 73% of the examined ads, respectively. The Australia and New Zealand market trailed slightly behind with 56% of programmatic ads running at least 30 seconds long. The remaining 44% in the market were 15 seconds in length.
All three markets also reflected similarities in the use of single voices for the voiceover content. The US led the way with 86% of programmatic ads in the study using a single voice for the voiceover. EMEA and Australia and New Zealand were most similar with 66% and 68% of programmatic ads using a single voice for the voiceover, respectively.
However, when it came to gender detection in voiceover content, dissimilarities across the markets presented themselves. In the US, half of ads analyzed featured a female voiceover, 47% of ads featured a male voiceover, and the remaining 3% featuring both male and female voiceovers. Looking at ads that ran in Australia and New Zealand, 53% of the creatives featured a female voice over, but just 27% a male voice, and 20% contained both a female and a male voiceover.
In near equal numbers, the three regions all used sound effects in slightly less than the majority of programmatic ads, indicating that this may be a newly emerging trend in the space. According to the study, sound effects including birds chirping, phones ringing, engines revving, and more were used in 40% of programmatic ads from the US, 38% from Australia and New Zealand, and 33% in EMEA.
“Hope is not a strategy; it’s no longer enough for a brand to create an audio asset and simply hope it’ll move the needle,” said Scott Simonelli, CEO of Veritonic. “Having confidence that your marketing efforts and investments will pay off is crucial, especially in today’s economy. With audio reaching more than 214M adults in the U.S. monthly and having a 36% higher impact on memory than video, marketers need to be leveraging creative testing solutions like the Veritonic platform to ensure they are putting their best audio creative forward, regardless of how the ad itself is purchased or served.”
For more information on how you can make decisions in audio by leveraging the industry’s most comprehensive research and analytics solutions, contact marketing@veritonic.com. For more information on buying podcast ads programmatically, please contact automated@acast.com.
About Veritonic
World-renowned brands, agencies, publishers, and platforms rely on Veritonic’s comprehensive audio research and analytics platform to research, test, and measure the ROI of their audio assets and campaigns pre-market, in-market, and post-campaign. The resulting insight enables clients to gain confidence in their audio investment, mitigate risk through optimization, and increase their return as they engage consumers with compelling audio experiences. For more information, visit https://www.veritonic.com.
About Acast
Since 2014, Acast has been creating the world’s most valuable podcast marketplace, building the technology which connects podcast creators, advertisers and listeners. Its marketplace spans 92,000 podcasts, 2,300 advertisers and 430 million monthly listens. Crucially, those listens are monetized wherever they happen — across any podcasting app or other listening platform. The company operates worldwide and is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Acast is listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market (ACAST.ST).
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Display Advertising
businesswire | August 03, 2023
As the battle for customer loyalty and engagement rages, Valuedynamx, a leading global provider of curated, data-driven omnichannel purchase rewards, has announced its new “Pay with Points” solution that enables enterprises with points- or miles-based loyalty programs (such as airlines, banks or credit card issuers) to offer more robust reward options via Valuedynamx’s massive, ever-growing global network of merchant partners. The Pay with Points program offers loyalty program participants more choice to redeem their points for aspirational or everyday purchases from brands they love, and opportunities to use their points more often for smaller-dollar options.
Pay with Points empowers loyalty program members to redeem their points for currency (e.g., eGift cards) from hundreds of carefully curated, popular merchant and restaurant brands (e.g., fashion, technology, food and beverage, travel and experiences)—even if those brands are not the ones through which they have earned points. It also drives more frequent loyalty program participation and brand engagement along the way. The fully digital program delivers reward currency in real time for frictionless redemption and spending experiences in-store or online.
“Our new Pay with Points solution is a more robust redemption option for the loyalty industry, and delivers optimal value for consumers, our clients and our partners. Research continues to show that shoppers are actively seeking out deals—particularly loyalty points offers—to help offset inflation and other economic challenges, so this solution could not be more timely,” said Kelli Hobbs, VP, Head of US Business Development at Valuedynamx. “People value flexibility and choice in their rewards, and appreciate being able to use their rewards the way they want. Pay with Points optimizes loyalty program participation for consumers, and will help businesses capture and captivate their target audiences as brand loyalty wanes.”
Pay with Points solves for common pain points consumers often associate with reward programs because it enables loyalty program members to select their own rewards based on their personal preferences. The exchange and redemption process is quick and simple, and it includes lower redemption thresholds so members have more opportunities to earn and spend. For instance, it may take a long time for a consumer to earn enough points through an airline loyalty program for a free flight. But having the option to redeem those airline loyalty points for lower-cost options from other brands provides greater choice and delights customers.
Additionally, Pay with Points eliminates friction for reward program managers looking to drive engagement and program ROI within well-established or emerging programs that reach a broad customer base. The range of reward options fit a wide breadth of member preferences, and members can access their balance regularly from just about anywhere—cultivating relationships and reducing the risk of participation dormancy. The frequent engagement opportunities help drive brand affinity and customer lifetime value, broadening brand reach, driving incremental spend and opening up cross- and up-sell engagement opportunities.
Thanks to its extensive global network of retail and card provider partners, Valuedynamx offers real-time program functionality seamlessly delivered locally, regionally, nationally or internationally.
About Valuedynamx
Valuedynamx is a leading global provider of curated, data-driven omnichannel purchase rewards. Part of Collinson, a group acknowledged for delivering the world's most valued travel ecosystem, Valuedynamx combines its expertise across payments, card-linking, affiliate marketing, earning and redemption into a single entity that delivers relevant and engaging solutions for its clients. Valuedynamx enhances customer loyalty and drives transactional engagement for some of the world’s largest airlines, banks, financial institutions and hotel groups. Valuedynamx supports over 400 million consumers, maintains 50,000 retail and travel partners and provides more than 400,000 rewards in more than 180 countries.
Collinson has more than 30 years loyalty and customer engagement experience, and more than 10 years focused on delivering loyalty commerce solutions. The organization has been at the forefront of loyalty innovation, continually evolving and building capability to meet the changing needs of clients and their customers.
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Ad Networks, Advertiser Platforms
Business Wire | July 20, 2023
Today, Comcast Advertising announced the release of its annual Comcast Advertising Report, revealing data-based insights into how viewers are viewing, buyers are buying, and sellers are selling multiscreen TV advertising today. The study provides comprehensive insights on the newest engagement and consumption trends across streaming and linear TV advertising and provides actionable recommendations for the modern advertiser.
The Comcast Advertising Report is based on an in-depth analysis of billions of impressions from Comcast Cable’s ad sales division, Effectv, and from its ad technology platform, FreeWheel, as well as commissioned research into viewing and buying habits from research partners.
According to the report, despite economic uncertainty, 94% of advertisers anticipate maintaining or increasing their spending on premium streaming in the next 12 months (40% plan to increase their spend.) The findings demonstrate a significant preference among advertisers for premium, professionally produced video content, where, the report finds, viewers are 58% more likely to remember an ad as compared to within user-generated video.
“The industry continues to transform at break-neck speed toward a more data-driven, automated approach to buying and selling advertising,” said James Rooke, President, Comcast Advertising. “As this transformation accelerates, the value of trusted, transparent and engaging viewing environments has never been more important. The Comcast Advertising Report provides a unique and layered perspective into these environments and how buyers, sellers and viewers are navigating today’s complex media landscape.”
Key findings from the report include:
Traditional TV is still a core strategy in media plans, with 80% of advertisers planning to maintain or increase their spend on traditional TV in the coming year.
Across both TV and premium streaming, the “big screen” TV is still the preferred viewing spot for most consumers, accounting for 82% of ad views.
As free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) matures as a free alternative to linear TV, viewers are engaging with content in the same way they do with AVOD, and seeing the content as equally premium.
Both buyers and sellers are embracing programmatic as a way to unlock efficiencies in TV advertising. As a result, premium programmatic ad views have increased 12% compared to a year ago.
The share of live sports impressions transacted programmatically has increased 38% so far in 2023 compared to 2022, as sports programming moves to streaming and publishers turn to dynamic ad insertion and private marketplaces to capture increased revenue.
The report uncovers that buyers continue to face challenges in obtaining incremental reach, citing cost and frequency control as the biggest obstacles. The study analyzed billions of impressions to provide the following recommendations pertaining to maximizing reach and connection:
To get the most exposure, TV advertisers should allocate 20-30% of premium video budget towards streaming and the rest to traditional TV.
To maximize reach and impact against both in-market and future customers, advertisers should allocate 30% of impressions to highly targeted, addressable strategies and the remaining to broader, data-driven TV and streaming, while also spreading investment across networks, dayparts, and over months.
Advertisers should capitalize on the big screen, where unaided recall is 2.2x higher and purchase intent 1.3x higher as compared to the same ad in a mobile digital in-stream environment.
"In the face of unprecedented change in the way consumers are viewing premium video content, buyers and sellers alike are looking for tangible metrics on what works best within this new TV environment,” said Travis Flood, Executive Director of Insights, Comcast Advertising. “The goal of this report is to provide actionable advice on using all the tools and channels now available for advertisers to maximize audience reach and drive strong viewer connections. Fortunately, Comcast’s role in video distribution, media and ad tech affords us the purview to deliver upon this ambitious objective.”
The report concludes with several industry predictions for the year to come. Among the predictions is that linear will increasingly behave more like digital, that more streaming platforms will offer bundled subscription plans, collaboration between companies will further drive innovation, contextual targeting will continue to become more sophisticated, and advertising sustainability will be an important focus for U.S. advertisers and publishers.
About Comcast Advertising
Comcast Advertising is the advertising division of Comcast Cable. As a global leader in media, technology and advertising, Comcast Advertising fosters powerful connections between brands and their audiences as well as among publishers, distributors, MVPDs, agencies and other industry players. Effectv, its advertising sales division, helps local, regional and national advertisers connect with their audiences on every screen by using advanced data to drive targeting and measurement of their campaigns. FreeWheel, its media and technology arm, provides the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goals – results for marketers. Comcast Cable, along with NBCUniversal and Sky, is part of the Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA). Visit http://comcastadvertising.com/ to learn more.
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