Google took center stage at the IAB NewFronts in New York City, pitching advertisers on their evolving streaming ad offerings.
The big idea: With streaming continuing to fragment audiences across various platforms and services, ad giants are competing to offer marketers unified solutions for reaching those viewers.
Why we care: This new means of doing programmatic will allow advertisers to manage video campaigns much more quickly through an already familiar platform.
State of play: Google introduced a plan to “rethink programmatic TV” by having advertisers centralize their streaming ad buys through its web-focused demand-side platform, Display & Video 360 (DV360).
The company touted DV360’s ability to stitch together fragmented streaming inventory sources, reaching 92% of U.S. connected TV households, according to Sean Downey, Google’s president of Americas and global partners.
In one cited case study, SAP used DV360 to reach 29 million unique viewers, with 5.6 million incremental.
Between the lines: Google is replicating its strategy of using YouTube as the foundational driver for ad sales across streaming TV, leveraging DV360’s direct access to the platform’s dominant viewership.
Google is adding new measurement capabilities like cross-device conversion reporting for connected TV campaigns.
Bottom line: The connected TV ad market is rapidly evolving and highly fragmented. Google is staking its claim as a unified solution, but it remains a wide-open field.
Google’s announcement. Display & Video 360 updates from Google NewFront
