Julie Anson, associate director of partner innovation for advanced TV at Magna Global, estimates advanced TV targeting spending for 2018 will total $500 million across all advertisers and TV networks—equivalent to 0.7% of total US TV advertising spend.
Despite the initial low ad spend, there’s a solid realization that advanced TV targeting has been set in motion and is likely to stay in motion, given the ultimate rewards for advertisers and the potential for the TV industry to maintain vitality.
Media agencies and TV networks are in agreement on the value of advanced TV targeting, but the road to implementation appears to be in need of standardization.
“It's a marketplace that, on one hand, knows that it wants to go in a particular direction, and on the other hand, it's a leap of faith for everybody to move that way because of the lack of standardized data plumbing,” said Jonathan Steuer, chief research officer at Omnicom Media Group.
Given the amount of time and resources required for advertisers and media agencies to address standardization issues and sort through myriad advanced TV targeting offerings, progress is likely to be gradual, said eMarketer’s Broussard.
“On the sell side, TV networks will need to re-engineer their inventory yield management systems that were built for age and gender transactions,” he said.
Subscribers to eMarketer PRO can click here to access the full report, "Television Update Spring 2018: Advanced TV Targeting and Cross-Platform Deals at the Upfronts/NewFronts."