AudienceXpress, a TV audience-buying platform and division of early addressable TV tech company Visible World, has named its first buy-side programmatic video partner: the newly public TubeMogul.
As a result of the deal, media buyers using TubeMogul for digital video campaigns can now access select linear spots from AudienceXpress’s cable MSO and multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) inventory supply.
AudienceXpress is one among only a handful of companies with coveted access to linear TV inventory and has forged relationships with more than 100 ad-insertable cable networks.
Because of viewer fragmentation, television planners, who expect guaranteed delivery and GRP-comparable measurements, demand comprehensive tools to access and apply data against their target audience.
“There are a number of DSPs (demand-side platforms) in the space, both digital video and display, who want to move into television who are starting to integrate with our platform,” said Walt Horstman, president of AudienceXpress. “People want to execute multichannel campaigns using a common data set – whether it’s NCS (Nielsen Catalina Solutions) or a Neustar – and measure reach, frequency and audience composition across all media.”
And TubeMogul’s brand advertiser clients are requesting TV-like planning, buying and reporting tools, which spurred the roll-out of BrandPoint last June.
“BrandPoint is a product that that allows a TV buyer who wants to complement their TV buy with a digital video buy to do so in the same language, planning, and measuring in Nielsen GRPs,” said Keith Eadie, TubeMogul’s CMO. “As we extend that product, it’s a matter of putting more inventory behind it that meets the needs of TV buyers and expands their addressable audience and applies the data we’re used to applying in the digital world in the offline world.”
Hasan Rahim, SVP and head of sales at AudienceXpress, added: “At any given moment, we could have 55-65 million local cable homes aggregated up with network cable inventory as well. We have a reporting dashboard that populates impressions by networks, day parts or ad-ID and it’s an automated system in which clients can launch impressions and make adjustments based on additional data in real time.”
The two companies will continue tests into Q4 in order to develop ways of adding linear inventory to digital buys, particularly as marketers look to follow the digital audience offline.
Traditional TV and programmatic video supply are converging. Earlier this summer, software company Clypd claimed it had developed a first-in-class API to allow digital ad tech companies to access commercial TV spots. Additionally, AOL bought advanced TV targeting technology company Precision Demand to augment programmatic video campaigns running on Adap.tv.
