iSpot was named a preferred third-party measurement partner for Roku, providing metrics for campaigns including unique reach, frequency, verified ad exposures and outcomes.
iSpot will also be integrating Roku’s Advertising Watermark to validate the authenticity of ad inventory originating on the Roku platform.
As part of the deal, iSpot will gain access to Roku’s exclusive, authenticated audience information, which will buttress iSpot Data Connect, a next-generation audience measurement infrastructure for currency and outcome measurement.
The announcement was expected to be part of Roku's NewFront presentation Tuesday.
“CTV advertising has undoubtedly made a huge leap forward with this partnership between Roku and iSpot, two of the leaders in the industry,” GroupM executive director of investment innovation Mike Fisher said.
“Roku’s vast audience combined with the measurement capabilities of iSpot will allow our brand partners to optimize their advertising with confidence in our accuracy,” Fisher said.
Roku has been basing guarantees for streaming ads on Nielsen since 2015. In 2016, Roku bought addressable ad insertion technology from Nielsen. As part of tie deal, Roku was able to integrate Nielsen data in to the Roku OneView ad buying platform.
Roku data has also been a factor in Nielsen’s Total Ad Ratings cross-platform measurement product. Data from Roku also are included in Nielsen’s big-data national ratings service.
“This is a game-changer for the industry — not just for iSpot or Roku, but for the entire advertising ecosystem looking to harness the scale and power of the leading TV streaming platform and capitalize on the most robust streaming measurement,” iSpot founder and CEO Sean Muller said. “It’s also critical marketers have the most reliable and actionable audience measurement to base decisions on as they shift budgets from traditional TV to streaming.”
With audiences from Roku eventually applied across all of iSpot’s measurement products, the broader streaming TV marketplace — including agencies, brands and media sellers — will benefit from precise, streaming-centric measurement to capitalize on the opportunity that exists for CTV, the companies said.
“Roku wants to use its unique assets built on the foundation of its massive streaming footprint of 81 million-plus streaming households to further the measurement across all streaming channels and linear TV to help solve for the problem of fragmentation in the industry,” Louqman Parampath, VP of Product management at Roku said. “Together with iSpot, we believe improving measurement for the entire ecosystem will help drive better results for advertisers, but also drive more yield for publishers.”
