Comcast-owned ad tech firm FreeWheel is rolling out show-level reporting for advertisers using its ad buying platform, Purchaser Cloud (formerly Beeswax). The move addresses one of streaming advertising’s longest-standing complaints: buyers not knowing which shows their ads appear in when buying programmatically.
The show-level reporting will be available free of charge roughly two hours after ad impressions are delivered. However, the Video Content Report is limited to publishers that opt in to enable the disclosures. A+E Networks, Fuse, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Spectrum Reach, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Xumo have signed on so far.
Show-level reporting means advertisers will be able to see the names of the shows where their ads ran. While that may sound basic in a streaming ad market that already offers advanced targeting and measurement, context remains king in advertising.
“Contextual in streaming is far superior,” said Mike Treon, head of CTV and video strategy at PMG.
The level of granularity provided through FreeWheel’s show-level reporting is up to the publishers. In addition to the list of shows a campaign ran against, publishers can choose to share metrics including impression counts, date and time, device type, and spend amounts. Episode-level and network-level reporting is not currently available.
A+E Networks will be providing impression counts alongside show-level reporting. This means an advertiser could see, for example, that X number of impressions ran during “The First 48 Hours” and Y number ran during “Duck Dynasty.”
Show-level reporting has been standard in traditional television for decades. Fixed programming schedules make it easy for TV advertisers to see when an ad ran and cross-reference it with a network’s programming guide. Streaming’s on-demand nature, however, means data must be explicitly disclosed, which raises several concerns.
One concern is channel conflict. If an advertiser sees the full list of shows it ran in, it could overlook the campaign’s overall performance and instead focus on less desirable programs, potentially pushing for lower CPMs or cherry-picking only the most popular shows going forward.
There is also the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which bars companies from disclosing the titles of movies, TV shows, or videos that an individual watched in connection with that person’s identity. FreeWheel is not providing show-level reporting within the bid stream itself, but rather as part of post-bid reports, avoiding VPPA complications.
While this is a significant step forward, the transparency challenge is not fully solved. Ad buyers and sellers will need to agree on how show titles are formatted, and advertisers will need to determine how to best use this new data to inform their buying strategies.
