San Francisco — As more and more people are having DVRs, Google TV Ads has embarked upon shadowing the devices. On Thursday, Google TV Ads, the search giant TV advertising platform, said it has made an alliance with MediaBank, a distributor of technology solutions intended to help better manage the end-to-end media buying process, will soon begin to provide its TV advertisers with data on whether DVR users fast forward through their ads or not.
Google asserts that the data gives clients with deep insight into how and when viewers see their commercials in playback, adding five new slots of programming to its live data and divides impressions into: “live,” “live + same day,” “live + 1 day,” “live + 3 day,” and “live + 7 day” categories.
The data comes courtesy of collaboration with MediaBank that gives users’ direct access to Google TV Ads, allowing them to view response metrics and enhance their campaigns in order to increase return on investment, by entirely using the same system on which they purchase all other media.
“MediaBank’s dedication to maintaining connectivity with the whole ecosystem of media buying and planning tools is again proving to be a key differentiator,” said Brad Keywell, co-founder of MediaBank. “Our incorporation with Google TV Ads not only advances the adoption of its digital platform, but improves the ability to examine programs, which is more important than ever. As advertisers increasingly demand more precise metrics, this integration will help MediaBank clients make better business decisions.”
A post on Google’s Let’s Take It Offline blog explains: “Today, the Google TV Ads team is excited to announce the introduction of time-shifted viewer-ship data, which offers you with insight into how and when viewers see your ads during DVR playback of recorded content.”
Google says it collects information from its arrangement with Dish Network, where it gets data from millions of set-top box data. Unlike other TV research companies, Google says the breadth of data from its millions of set-top boxes help secures a more accurate sample of DVR viewer-ship, which can be very fragmented.
“As with many methods of metrics in your Google TV Ads reports, time-shifted impressions reflect the viewer-ship of your specific TV commercial, not just general program viewer-ship.”
Google sells TV advertising time on Dish Network, as well as for some of the selected and emerging NBC Universal’s cable networks, Hallmark Channel and Bloomberg, among cable channels.
As it analyzes DVR data, Google stated that its preliminary findings show that niche programming tends to get a disproportionate percentage of its viewing through time-shifting.
“Without DVR, smaller networks would have a more limited audience,” Google said. “For advertisers, insight into the time-shifted viewer-ship of your ads will help you better understand the full value of the networks and programs you’ve targeted in your campaign.”
And, what is more, this information will be available to Google Adwords TV advertisers free of charge, wrote Yaroslav Volovich, software engineer for Google TV Ads in a blog posting, shedding light on how frequently specific ads are actually played back or skipped over by DVR users.
In effect, advertisers could utilize such data to establish which creative spots are less prone to fast-forwarding. According to Volovich, time-shifting data may yield insight into which networks perform better for certain brands.