FreeWheel, Comcast’s ad tech company, said it is launching an audience identity initiative aimed at connecting first-party and third-party IDs in order to optimize reach and frequency for television advertising.
Participating in the initiative are Blockgraph, Experian, LiveRamp and TransUnion. By connecting with those platforms, FreeWheel will be able to match up the ID most often used for targeting TV advertising.
The initiative will support ID systems from Blockgraph, Experian, LiveRamp, Merkel, OpenAP and TransUnion, as well as device identifiers, mobile IDs and CTV IDs, FreeWheel said.
FreeWheel is piloting this new solution currently. It plans to release its new identity capabilities later this year.
“We are doing this to simplify workflows and create scale by driving interoperability across many of today’s leading ID solutions,” said Mark McKee, general manager, FreeWheel. “The industry is growing more complex – from data points to endpoints, and everything in between. As an ecosystem connector, we hope to make the premium video space more seamless, efficient, and ultimately, more effective for both media buyers and sellers alike.”
With more data becoming interoperable among publishers, operators and carriers, marketers will be able to better plan, target pace and measure campaigns.
“With cookie deprecations on the horizon and privacy regulation evolving at a rapid pace, companies are leaning into first-party data solutions, often built on proprietary identifiers. As a result, the identity landscape has become highly fragmented,” said Jon Whitticom, chief product officer of FreeWheel.
“FreeWheel helps solve for this by creating interoperability across various industry ID solutions, as well as traditional device IDs, utilizing advanced privacy methodologies and minimizing data leakage. This enables a buyer or seller to build a segment in nearly any ID space and execute using FreeWheel technology to provide the connective tissue across the television industry enabling them to better reach their audience accurately, and at scale,” Whitticom said. ■
