MarTech Interview with Brand Metric’s Robby Kraai

Bringing effectiveness measurement to the world of CTV

Recently appointed Head of CTV at Brand Metrics, Robby Kraai, talks to us about his career path and his mandate to evolve the company’s product for the CTV landscape.

Hello Robby. Can you tell us about your adtech journey so far?

It stemmed from a gaming and game design background. I was a professional gamer while studying game development at university.

In terms of adtech, I started out as a Partner Integration Manager at Widespace, mostly focused on mobile-rich environments and app integrations with different kinds of publishers. I then joined video ad platform SpotX, as a Solutions Engineer, before becoming a Sales Engineer, so I sat on both sides of the fence.

And then for six years, I headed up adtech at XITE. Here, we partnered with Brand Metrics on a CTV project and from there, the opportunity arose for me to spearhead the company’s launch into this new channel as their Head of CTV.

What attracted you to Brand Metrics?

Call me biased, but even before I joined, I could see just how great the Brand Metrics product was. I’d never met a team so invested in what they were building – and I could see immediately that what they were offering in terms of campaign measurement and insight presented a great opportunity for expansion into the CTV market.

What is your day-to-day role?

Essentially, my role is to make sure that our product – which we already know is successful across multiple channels – will work on CTV. Again, it’s sitting between the sales and the tech, so a combination of product work and talking with publishers to understand their needs. By having those conversations and finding out what technology they are using, I can drive any necessary development and identify where we need to prioritise our solutions to deliver across the CTV space.

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And what is the current landscape for CTV?

In terms of geographical markets, the US has been huge for some time, and in Canada, viewership is also high, with ad spend steadily catching up to close the current gap and drive growth. Globally, CTV is certainly booming, with much more growth to come.

In Europe, we see Germany with very high viewership numbers, and the UK is showing significant digitisation spend, which, in turn, should convert to increased viewing numbers. But there is certainly room for growth in this region as traditional TV channels become less popular and adoption of Smart TVs and streaming devices continues to increase. As of mid-2023, advertisers were spending 2.5 times less per consumer in Europe than their American counterparts, but we expect the gap to become narrower in 2024.

We’re currently working alongside Paramount Australia on a CTV brand uplift study based on viewers in the region, where viewership is already very healthy. So the expansion and popularity of CTV – and therefore the opportunity for advertisers – really is global.

The measurement of CTV advertising, though, is a different story. The technology being adopted by publishers is still fragmented, with no established standards, despite some initial efforts (such as IAB’s VAST 4 and SIMID). It will be interesting to see if the pressure mounts enough for that to change, given that there is a massive push for more transparency when it comes to CTV.

What is the significance of Brand Metrics pivoting into CTV?

We know the product works well across mobile, video, etc. The challenge of CTV is measuring beyond clicks, as that just isn’t possible with streamed TV content. This is a huge area of opportunity for advertisers and therefore a perfect fit for the work we do in clarifying the impact of digital advertising on a brand through surveying consumers who we know have been exposed to specific ads.

As publishers generate more revenue from their CTV activity, they allocate more revenue to that channel, and so on. At Brand Metrics, we are well positioned to help ensure this spend delivers results by assessing consumer sentiment in real time.

What types of publishers are looking to move into CTV?

We are seeing interest from publishers of all kinds, but especially news outlets, streamers and aggregators. These are the types of conversations we are having right now, with a view to expanding our reach, and in doing so, providing all these potential clients with meaningful data on campaign performance. There is so much scope for expansion; it’s a very exciting time to be working in this space and I am really enjoying having the chance to be at the forefront of that.

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