The Future of the TV Analytics Market

By Pierre Figeat On Aug 29, 2019

Do you ever find that choosing the right solutions to maximise the output of your TV ad campaign is unnecessarily complicated? How do solutions align, do any overlap? When getting down to the nitty gritty of TV analytics, it can seem a little confusing. So, let’s break it down.

When we talk about TV analytics today, with so many innovative analytics solutions available, it’s important to understand the difference between TV Buying Targeting Analysis and TV Business Impact Analysis.

TV Business Impact Analysis

TV Business Impact Analysis uses audience outputs to measure how efficient a TV advertising campaign is. Audience online activity is cross-referenced with real-time TV advertising spots, identifying when an online visit is prompted by a TV spot. This user-centric analysis enables the measurement of directly related offline and online activity as a result of viewing a linear TV ad. Major providers for this category of analytics are TVSquared, Admo.tv and Adalyser.

TV Buying Targeting Analysis

TV Buying Targeting Analysis, at its core, is best used for buying TV advertising spots based on viewers, as it gives you (delivery data) from a targeted audience. This works with addressable TV, and is based on data gathered from selected households – bearing in mind the possibility that one household can contain people of various age/gender/interests. Here, competitive solutions are offered by Sky AdSmart-Analytics and Samba TV, among others.

The Pros and Cons of both

Though different, both solutions are complementary in a marketer’s toolbox. TV Buying Targeting Analysis aims to measure delivery, repetition and audience centred on specific TV programs. This can be geo-targeted, or focused on assumed personal interests. On the other hand, TV Business Impact Analysis aims to optimize TV ad buying choices, informed by business KPIs. These can be framed by number of conversions, visits, spots and channels, as well as user-centric profiling.

Deterministic versus Probabilistic – What’s the difference?

For both options, data insights can be extracted via two approaches. Deterministic Marketing relies on known facts relating to a user. That’s to say their online footprint can be traced if they log in on multiple devices: are they regular visitors of Facebook, online shopping sites? However, while extremely accurate, deterministic insights are difficult to scale.

Probabilistic Marketing aggregates and analyses anonymized user data, gathered from distinct behavioral patterns. Using this information, it is possible to create an informed demographic assumption about a consumer or household, based for example on residential location. Though less accurate due to the assumptive nature of the data, Probabilistic Marketing is easily scalable.

Depending on a marketer’s objectives, either – or both – of these approaches will benefit TV Buying Targeting Analysis and TV Business Impact Analysis.

Conclusions

Jargon aside, it’s important to understand the difference between these two types of TV analytics solutions, and the possible methods to gather data insights. This way, marketers can truly optimise their campaign, which will then help deliver the maximum ROI.

Information-gathering, at the beginning, middle and end of the campaign, will prove invaluable in tailoring TV ad placements for the best results. When it comes to TV advertising, results can (through these technologies) be measured by more than just reach, they can be measured by conversions as well. That is, if the technology you adopt matches the needs of your campaign.