With strong sales of smart TVs come new opportunities for brands and advertisers to communicate with a growing and engaged audience. But to monetize a channel, we need reliable measurements for reach, ad performance and engagement. At Germany’s dmexco, one of the most important global conferences of the digital economy, we’ll be discussing our passive monitoring approach to tracking content and ads across all devices, including the smart TV, at an individual level.
A growing opportunity to reach consumers
Smart devices are dominating sales in the TV market. Let’s take Germany, where four in ten households have a smart TV, as an example. In the first six months of 2016, 61.5% of all sets sold in Germany had smart TV functionality. Although TV isn’t a new technology, the new features of smart TVs and ultra-high-definition TVs (4k) are driving sales in the market (in addition to important sporting events, such as the Euro Cup this year).
There’s clearly a growing opportunity for brands, retailers and content providers to reach consumers through smart TVs and, in particular, through apps on smart TVs. The key question is: can smart TV apps be monetized through advertising? If this is to happen, two aspects are critical.
Monetization and measurement
Monetization will only work if apps are used. And apps will only be used if user experience and content are meeting consumers’ needs. We now know that you can’t simply transfer content from your website to mobile and have it appeal to visitors. It needs to be adapted. The same is true of smart TV apps.
As we’ve seen with other new technology, advertising spend on a new media channel will only reach a critical mass once advertisers can measure the medium and thus understand the ROI of that spend. That’s why we’re investing in tools to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising on smart TV apps.
In my session at dmexco, I’ll share how to develop successful smart TV apps, and how we plan to passively measure the reach of smart TV apps for those who want to build brands, sell advertising, serve content and sell direct to viewers.
