TV data company Alphonso has debuted Alphonso Insights, which provides advertisers and agencies with real-time analysis of TV ads along with closed loop attribution. The benefit for buyers is to better understand the performance of their ads and how well they stand up to those of competitors. Over 2,500 end users from 200 different advertisers and agencies have been using Alphonso Insights during its beta period.

A basic version of Alphonso Insights is freely available, which allows the user to first set a date range and specify a brand. A report is instantly generated that shows total spend and airings of ads for the brand, along with which networks and shows they aired against, specific spending levels and share of voice. The individual ads themselves are also displayed for viewing. (See below example for a search I did for Nike)

The paid subscription SaaS version of Alphonso Insights offers the closed loop online and offline attribution, so buyers can see resulting product purchases, customer acquisition and foot traffic. Current attribution data partners include SafeGraph, IRI and MasterCard.

Alphonso collects its data by monitoring over 200 broadcast and cable TV networks. Its automatic content recognition (ACR) software is now embedded in 40 million viewing devices, which the company believes represents over 30 million households. The company has historically used this data to target and re-target ads on mobile devices.

Alphonso Insights is another example of the kinds of tools enabling TV buyers to be smarter about their ad spending and performance. This in turn helps TV networks, which themselves are investing heavily in data in order to compete more effectively with digital platforms like Google and Facebook that offer extensive reach and precise user data.