Samsung Ads released Tuesday its new TV measurement solution designed to help advertisers to measure the combined impact of linear and streaming TV ad campaigns, as opposed to viewing the data in different silos.
General Motors is the first advertiser to use the tool as part of a pilot program, which includes an integration with Polk Automotive Solutions by IHS Markit. The auto manufacturer intends to measure the effectiveness of linear and streaming to drive vehicle sales and optimize campaigns.
“What we’re seeing broadly … is that clients really need linear and streaming to work together in order to achieve the best results,” said Justin Evans, global head of analytics and insights at Samsung Ads. “There are some key advantages to having a single-source data set. In these type of measurement opportunities, you’re able to take the insights that you’re observing and immediately turn around and activate on them and convert those insights into targetable campaigns.”
Evans said that Samsung Ads began its pilot launch with GM because automotive is one of the largest areas of TV advertising – and the one most affected by the shift toward streaming.
“It is also one of the toughest categories to measure, since vehicle sales represent an important decision for the customer – they happen offline and are considered to have relatively long decision cycles,” he said. “We saw this as the right time to take on that challenge with great partners.”
Samsung Ads is in talks with additional pilot clients, and the measurement tool is slated to be rolled out on additional advertising verticals in early 2021. Evans said that Samsung is also looking at making the tool available in the finance, retail, telecom and QSR spaces.
“We’re looking broadly,” he said. “Our intention is to do those in phases.”
The measurement tool comes at a time when TV makers – including giants Samsung and Vizio – are racing to capture a larger share of the streaming ad market dominated by established players such as Roku and Amazon. In 2020, CTV ad spending in the United States will total $8.1 billion and increase to $11.4 billion in 2021, according to eMarketer, and the COVID-19 pandemic has fueled the shift to streaming.
Samsung Ads claims to be the largest source of TV data across more than 50 million smart TVs and 200 million connected devices, representing 60% of the ACR footprint in the United States.
The measurement solution uses Samsung Ads’ proprietary Automatic Content Recognition data as well as custom integrations with third-party data sources to understand the link between TV exposure and offline sales.
Polk’s vehicle sales data lets Samsung Ads provide insight on ad viewership and incremental reach, or how ads drove sales, for both linear and streaming advertising.
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Auto advertisers using Samsung Ads’ measurement will get a clearer picture of what’s working by audience type and optimization recommendations to improve performance for KPIs such as cars sold, in-target reach, in-target rate, effective frequency and buy rate.
Very few media and data partners have the ability to measure linear and streaming combined, Melissa Grady, CMO at Cadillac, said in a statement, and Evans acknowledged that the new solution would better position Samsung to capture a larger share of CTV ad spend dollars.
“This sort of innovation will likely bring more dollars into the space but we need this type of innovation so advertisers know best how to spend their money and drive results, especially now in this changing environment,” said Andy Fisher, head of Merkury advanced TV at Merkle, which represents GM. “There isn’t a vertical that doesn’t want this – every advertiser wants to know more about how their dollars get spent. It would be really, really great if we could go across more streaming solutions.”
Fisher said that Samsung Measurement can be incorporated into other TV measurements across ad buys.
“If I know the measurement gives me a lot of information about how my Samsung campaign interacts with linear campaigns and how my Samsung campaign drives ROI, that same thinking can be applied to all types of streaming TV,” he said.
When it comes to assuaging advertisers around transparency, Evans said that Samsung’s metrics “are really simple and straightforward.”
Samsung Ads isn’t the only company trying to combine streaming and linear measurement. In December, Nielsen laid out its plan to overhaul its currency by 2024 to accommodate all viewing types. While Evans did not say whether Samsung Ads would contribute to Nielsen’s efforts, he acknowledged the sense of urgency advertisers are feeling about managing the linear and streaming ecosystems.
“It’s the challenge of the moment,” he said. “I’m not surprised to see a lot of energy and demand in the marketplace for ways to solve those challenges.”
The measurement solution is the latest development as Samsung Ads bolsters its offering. It launched its own DSP in September and earlier this year, it made its CTV video inventory available programmatically for the first time to buyers, via the supply-side platform SpotX.
