DirecTV Forges Tighter Link With LiveRamp Outcome Data

The race to prove that business outcomes are being delivered is the advertising industry’s new gold rush.

Other measures, such as impressions, reach and frequency, attention, and content quality and context remain important factors, but the shiniest object going into this upfront market is results. That could be signups, subscriptions, download or sales, whatever best translates to revenue and profit.

Many data providers are looking to provide outcomes data that advertisers can use to plan and evaluate their marketing plans. 

Going into the upfront, DirecTV says it has expanded its relationship with the data company LiveRamp. As part of the new arrangement, DirecTV is integrating with Conversions API Hub on LiveRamp’s advertising platform. The integration makes DirecTV Advertising the first multichannel video programming with that type of direct link.

Connecting via the Hub enables secure, server-to-server data connections that reduce signal loss and provide more reliable measurement compared to browser-based tracking, the companies said. The benefit to advertisers is improved closed-loop measurement that connects exposure across DirecTV’s premium inventory to business outcomes.

“Advertisers are demanding faster, more accurate insights that drive real outcomes,” said Amy Leifer, chief advertising sales officer at DirecTV Advertising. “With this integration, we’re extending our measurement leadership beyond traditional TV and giving brands a more complete, real-time view of how our premium video inventory drives performance across our platform.”

DirecTV has been a pioneer in addressable advertising and measuring the increased effectiveness of data-targeted commercials. 

“Our longstanding relationship has helped marketers drive stronger outcomes through personalized activation and insights. This next phase empowers advertisers to further enhance media performance by using real-time event signals to measure and optimize while maintaining full transparency and control over their data,” said Anne Acker, senior VP of partnerships at LiveRamp. 

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In the competitive ad-tech world, Viant has found a new way to differentiate its programmatic advertising platform.

Viant agreed to acquire TVision for $40 million. Viant will use TVision’s unique audience data to give clients a better gauge of the value of the media they are buying.

Speaking on a conference call with analysts after the deal was announced on Wednesday, Viant CEO Tim Vanderhook said that TVision technology can determine whether or not there are people in front of the TV set when an ad airs, how many people are watching (co-viewing) and how much attention they’re paying to the screen. 

This is important because “when nobody is in the room, an ad delivers no value,” he said. “Optimizing for co-viewership enables advertisers to expand their reach without incurring additional cost. But above all else, advertisers seek undivided attention when making their pitch.”

Advertisers can take advantage of that data using Viant’s new proprietary valuation metric, the attention-adjusted CPM. 

As an example, he said media buyers currently pay a $22 cost per thousand viewers (CPM) for YouTube and a $30 CPM for HBO Max. But by taking TVision’s attention metric into account, advertisers pay 21% less per attentive view on HBO Max compared to YouTube. 

The TVision data will help Viant compete with the walled gardens like YouTube and Amazon. 

“While our competitors continue to measure themselves, Viant will have the ability to measure the effectiveness of the entire market, enabling advertisers to confidently direct spend toward the ad inventory that truly performs and delivers optimal outcomes,” Vanderhook said.

Viant plans to monetize the TVision data in two ways. Customers will sign up for an annual commitment of dollars for the new measurement capability, Vanderhook said. At the same time, “we see this improving our take rates.” 

In the past, TVision has licensed its data to other measurement companies. Viant plans to make the data exclusive to its platform and as contracts sharing the data expire, they will not be renewed, he said.

The TVision data is already available on the platform. “We actually did the legwork of integrating TVision data as prebid segments available in the DSP starting today. So that is live,” Vanderhook said.