Agencies, Clients Using Digital Data to Help Buy Linear TV: Study

Most media buyers are using digital data to make their linear TV buys, according to a survey conducted by VideoAmp.

VideoAmp’s first Buyer’s Survey found that 66% of buyers are leveraging digital data for linear buys and 57% are targeting TV viewers across digital screens and devices.

More than half of the buyer said they would try a cross-screen platform to buy ads on linear TV and digital video, with 58% saying they’re likely to increase their usage.

“Brands and agencies are tasked with planning, buying, and measuring precise audiences across linear TV, VOD, OTT, desktop, and mobile content,” said Jay Prasad, Chief Strategy Officer, VideoAmp. “Our research reveals that trying to meet cross-screen needs in well-orchestrated campaigns – against separate linear TV and digital video platforms – is broken. The time has come for the industry to catch-up with consumers’ media consumptions habits with entirely new data models and truly unified platforms.”

Related: Advertisers Say TV Has More Impact Than Other Media-Survey

The VideoAmp study was conducted by Industry Index. It found that 60% of buyers believe that campaign executed through a cross-screen platform outperform conventional, non-integrated campaign. In the survey 74% said using a cross-screen platform resulted in accuracy in planning and execution across both linear and digital video.

The survey also found that, to realize the benefits of CSPs, several major challenges must be addressed:

  • Lack of holistic audience data that, with consumer privacy protected, span all TV and video screens for frequency control, targeting, measurement, and attribution
  • Coordination across all TV and digital video planning and buying teams (which can be seated in different teams if not entirely separate agencies)
  • Clearly defined best practices, processes, and platforms

The greatest concern among brands was the credibility of third party audience targeting data with 31% ranking the credibility of data as their top concern. This was lower than noted among agencies (16%). Reliable attribution and planning/targeting were also relevant to brands, as was the potential price

Meanwhile, agencies considered reliable attribution, planning/targeting, and cross device measurement as the greatest barriers.

“Premium video, especially when delivered to a TV set, is TV -- and TV is the highest-impact, highest-velocity, and highest-cost opportunity in advertising,” said Jonathan Steuer, Chief Research Officer, Omnicom Media Group. “VideoAmp’s Buyer Survey illustrates the growing industry consensus around the importance of cross-screen platforms to aggregate TV viewership and digital video audience data, and thereby to enable the efficient planning, cost-effective buying and accurate measurement of TV and video advertising that are essential to brands’ successes.”

VideoAmp integrated TV operating system enables advertisers to plan, buy and measure campaign that reach linear TV, VOD, OTT and digital audiences.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.