OAKLAND, CA – If a tree falls in a forest and market research is not in place to observe whether audiences saw it, did it really make a sound?

Across advertising, brands and buyers are getting excited about the new possibility to deliver targeted, engaging TV campaigns through internet-connected viewing screens, connected TV (CTV).

But, just as every new technology seems also to throw up new challenges, the world of CTV also appears beset by relative lack of visibility into effectiveness.

So Survata is amongst the companies attempting to come up with a solution.

Network approach

The marketing analytics firm just launched a software platform that lets ad buyers measure the results driven by targeted CTV ad campaigns.

“We’re giving a dashboard with metrics to brands and agencies and publishers to show who was actually reached on the campaign,” says CEO Chris Kelly in this video interview with Beet.TV.

The new launch comes after the company saw a 500% annual jump in measurement requests for CTV platforms from its existing platform customers.

The new platform leverages Survata’s Digital Network, a network of digital publishers and service providers that allow Survata to interview their audiences in exchange for content or services like free Wi-Fi.

The company says it has doubled the size of that network to enable the measurement.

We’re excited to announce our enhanced CTV Measurement capabilities, and roll out Targeting Verification! https://t.co/0Y5u88HQW8

— Survata (@Survata) August 5, 2020

Answering questions

“CTV is exploding,” Kelly says. “The question is, how do CMOs and, frankly, CFOs justify this increase investment they’re making in CTV? We think the missing link is measurement – how do you verify that you’re actually reaching who you’re supposed to reach?”

Kelly says CTV is great because it offers advertisers two benefits – enhanced targetability compared with TV and greater immersion than digital.

“It’s time, I believe, for the measurement community to step up and answer both of those questions for CTV advertisers,” he says.

“CTV is a great brand building vehicle. So that means that you have to understand how you’re moving consumers down the brand funnel, not only whether someone turned off the TV and went and bought a product.”

Science problem

Kelly acknowledges tracking what ad a person watched and then figuring out what action they took is “a very hard data science problem”.

“We have to know what CTV ads you saw, what linear ads you saw, what digital video ad you saw … (and) consumers’ attitudinal data,” he says.

So Survata is partnering with several other platforms and media companies to gain ad exposure data.

Kelly says figuring out performance of CTV ads is a different ball game from doing so for linear ads.