We recently announced our collaboration with IRIS.TV to enable video-level contextual targeting for CTV through our comprehensive platform for ad inventory management. We sat down with Field Garthwaite, Co-Founder and CEO of IRIS.TV, to talk about what’s next.
Can you elaborate a bit more for us on the benefits publishers and advertisers can expect through this collaboration?
As TV buyers begin to shift investment into CTV, they want the contextual transparency they have come to expect in linear buying. Viewers are watching video content across vMVPD (multiple video programming distributor), FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV), EPG (electronic programming guides), DTC (direct to consumer), and streaming audio apps. This fragmentation and disintermediation makes it incredibly difficult for publishers to showcase their brand-safe inventory at the scale advertisers demand. With no page-level data to crawl, analyze, and segment, contextual intelligence and verification solutions need to access video-level data.
This integration with IRIS.TV allows SpringServe clients to directly provide advertisers with video-level contextual and brand-safety targeting across all screens. Prior to this collaboration, SpringServe clients would not have been able to provide contextual transparency to buyers for the type of programming their advertisement was running adjacent to.
For IRIS-enabled™ SpringServe customers this integration means they can more quickly unlock video-level contextual data giving them access to unique demand and driving increased revenue. For advertisers, contextual transparency means they can invest in CTV with confidence and purchase the right inventory at the right price.
How does contextual targeting in video help marketers maximize performance and ROI? What metrics should they be looking at?
Relevant ads resonate. When there are more relevant creative placements, brands build deeper connections with consumers which has been proven to increase in brand lift, purchase intent and ROAS.
Some key metrics that we’ve seen advertisers focus on when investing in contextual video advertising have been
- Video Completion Rate (VCR)
- Click Through Rate (CTR)
- Audio and Visible on Completion rate (AVOC)
With IRIS-enabled™ contextual PMPs activated with Magnite, we’ve seen the following results by KPI:
VCR: Government agency utilizing Oracle Advertising achieved 88% VCR, with their goal at 70%.
CTR: Gaming console brand utilizing Oracle Advertising achieved 75% increase in CTR.
AVOC: Global CPG brand utilizing GumGum Verity achieved 80% AVOC, with their goal at 35%.
How does IRIS.TV’s solution address brand safety for advertisers?
IRIS.TV is a video data platform that connects publisher’s video content data with advertiser-trusted contextual data partners to analyze, segment, and verify video. IRIS.TV’s growing list of data partners include Oracle Advertising, GumGum, Comscore, Advanced Contextual, Silverbullet 4D, and ZEFR specialize in contextual intelligence and are experts in brand safety and brand suitability.
They each have unique expertise in different flavors of AI/ML from natural language processing to computer vision. Two of our partners Kerv Interactive and Reticle specialize in product/brand and emotion/sentiment identification respectively.
Traditionally they have been only able to utilize their technology for display advertising and to a limited extent use page-level data (text on a web-page) as a proxy for video on the web. But as online video is a constant stream of playlisted content and CTV has no page-level data to crawl, access to the video content data has been virtually impossible. Through their integrations with IRIS.TV, these data partners can now provide their advertiser partners with video-level brand safety and suitability in online video and CTV.
Publishers can sometimes be hesitant to share content data. What would you say to those publishers and how does IRIS.TV ensure that publishers’ data is protected?
For publishers, relevant ad experiences not only keep audiences watching, but increase the value of inventory to advertisers.
Contextual targeting in video is very different than in display which makes it very complicated for publishers and marketers to transact at scale. Marketers have preferred data partners for targeting and verification to ensure safety and suitability. Publishers have limited product and dev resources to make custom integrations with these partners, let alone negotiate business and legal terms with all of them.
When a publisher becomes IRIS-enabled, they solve the technical, scale, and commercial bottlenecks by securely integrating through one point and one contract, making their video inventory immediately visible to the targeting and verification solutions that marketers trust. At the same time, they control what data is made available to be passed through the bid-stream via our IRIS ID and context macros.
What are your predictions for the future of contextual advertising in CTV? Are there certain factors that will become more important as the streaming landscape evolves?
Contextual advertising in the near term will be an “and” to people-based targeting but in the longer term will be a primary signal and table stakes for any media buy in CTV. Fragmentation is both a challenge and opportunity as viewers watch what they want where they want it. Video-level context is the one signal that can be leveraged across all buying channels and will be a part of all media plans, just as it is in search, display, and TV.
The key factor for success is ensuring that all connection points are aligned for this data to be easily accessed and transacted upon. Our work with SpringServe is a major step in that direction as it breaks down a significant technological barrier that has thus far prevented publishers and brands from more easily maximizing the value of their relationship.
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