Eyeview has integrated its video ad platform with WideOrbit’s WO Programmatic TV, so that Eyeview clients can programmatically buy and then measure and optimize ads on local broadcast TV. WO Programmatic TV, which is WideOrbit’s  supply-side platform, includes broadcasters covering 115 U.S. media markets, including 18 of the top 25, and 59% of U.S. households.

Oren Harnevo, Eyeview’s CEO and co-founder, told me that this is the company’s first programmatic TV partnership, which he sees as extending what Eyeview has been doing online. Eyeview personalizes ad creative so that thousands of different versions of the same underlying ad are generated for different viewers. These personalized ads are then programmatically targeted and bought based on multiple data inputs. The overarching goal is to drive improved campaign effectiveness and ROI.

Extending this approach to TV ads would be a significant step forward in terms of targeting granularity and buying efficiency vs. traditional GRP-based methods. An advertiser could use the same underlying ad but have it modified for particular local weather conditions or other events that would be targeted to particular audiences. Oren said one of the key benefits of working with WideOrbit is the ability to do this at scale, aggregating local ad inventory from WideOrbit into national campaigns to suit advertisers’ needs.

Oren noted that 1 to 1 individualized or household-level targeting is not the objective yet with programmatic TV. Rather, the goal is to personalize ads for far smaller clusters of target viewers compared to today’s market-wide campaigns to transition from primarily branding to performance. Proving in the ROI of programmatic TV will help drive adoption for both advertisers and TV stations/networks.

Implementing programmatic in TV is not nearly as seamless as doing so in digital, but the Eyeview-WideOrbit partnership is another example of how TV advertising is becoming more sophisticated and relevant to viewers.

To learn more about both programmatic video & TV, join us at the Dec. 1st SHIFT // 2015 Programmatic Video & TV Advertising Summit. Over 25 industry executives are already committed to speak, from industry leaders like ABC, American Express, Bloomberg, comScore, Havas, Horizon Media, MediaLink, MediaVest, Razorfish, Weather, Xaxis and many others.  

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