Roku said it launched Roku Ads Manager, a self-service platform designed to attract performance marketers who use social media and search and enable them to buy connected TV.
Performance marketers will be able to create campaigns using shoppable ads linked to the Shopify accounts and interactive ads using Ads Manager.
With big companies putting more of their ad dollars into digital, major media companies have been creating self-service buying tools to attract newer, smaller and direct-to-consumer marketers.
Roku has been competing for big advertisers’ budgets, but now has built Ads Manager for advertisers used to the way digital media is bought, targeted and reported.
“We expect new entrants to be the primary user of this interface. We have had interest from advertisers of every kinds,” Peter Hamilton, senior director of Ad Innovation at Roku, told Broadcasting+Cable.
There is no minimum budget for Roku Ads Manager users.
"Roku Ads Manager made it incredibly easy for Criquet Shirts to enter the CTV space,” said Hobson Brown, co-founder, Criquet Shirts, which participated in the beta. “The platform’s intuitive setup and unique interactive ad formats allowed us to quickly create and launch campaigns, all while effectively reaching key geos and audiences on the big screen."
While most new advertisers using Ads Manager are mid-sized or direct-to-consumer companies, “we are also seeing marketers and advertisers that have pretty substantial budgets for buying search and social. They are familiar with that style of buying and want to translate that to CTV and execute it with a system that is optimizing on their behalf,” he said.
“Digital natives are starting to move into CTV, in droves. A platform like this is certainly designed to help them develop their strategy here, Hamilton said. “We're looking for the growth hackers of CTV to teach us the future of this channel.”
Hamilton said that advertisers will have the opportunity to buy inventory directly from Roku on Roku-owned channels as well as inventory Roku gets from ad-supported apps on the platform.
Buying direct means pricing is efficient, Hamilton said.
“We have lots of different waterfalls in ways that we expose our supply to different kinds of platforms and advertisers,” he said. “What's powerful about this is direct access to Roku. That means there is a great amount of price efficiency that comes with it.”
Roku Ads Manager has been in beta for about a year, tested by several hundred advertisers, Hamilton said.
“It's been fascinating learning from those advertisers and learning exactly what they need to be successful,” he said. “By opening up a solution like this, you have the opportunity to let marketers tell you what the product should be.”
During the beta test, Roku added features to Ads Manager, including an integration with Shopify that enables advertisers to make their ads shoppable and enable viewers to complete purchases using their Roku remote controls.
Ads Manager users can also include Action Ads” in their campaigns. Actions Ads enable viewers to press “OK” on their remotes and send themselves a text about the ad they just saw.
Hamilton said that Action Ads are one of Roku’s most popuar ad formats. He added that adding interactivity increases brand recall, purchase intent and ultimately sales.
Roku has also built an AI Upscaler tool that takes creative that a marketer has been using on social media and makes it television quality, improving the definition and clarity of images.
“I would highly recommend that markers take creative that's working well for them in other places and bring it to CTV,” he said.
“One of the most exciting things about self-service is that an advertiser can roll out 10, 20, 50 different campaigns and creatives and figure out what’s really resonating with audiences and what's not,” Hamilton said. “And it's not going to take quarters to figure out what's performing better. You know, it in days.”
