Addressable TV poised for breakout in 2024

Traditional TV advertisers are hesitant to try addressable products because they’re expensive and hard to scale.

But programmatic TV ad buying is making addressable more accessible, said Sara Wallace, FreeWheel’s senior director of product management, speaking at an event on Wednesday hosted by the industry-initiative-turned-nonprofit Go Addressable.

Most programmatic TV dollars go to streaming, but this year pay-TV and satellite distributors made concerted efforts to increase addressable supply for programmatic channels. Dish made one-to-one linear targeting available earlier this year, for example, and AMC Networks made its addressable inventory biddable in October.

Nielsen is also factoring addressable into its TV measurement solutions.

Next fall, Nielsen will roll out a new product that provides ratings for every spot in a program, rather than just the average commercial time over three or seven days.

Translation: Nielsen clients will be able to compare the performance of their addressable campaigns with the rest of their national TV buys for the first time, according to Angela Girardin Cahill, SVP of product sales at Nielsen ONE Ads, who was also speaking at the event.

The Plus Plus Plan
Peacock, NBCUniversal’s subscription streaming service, will now be free for Instacart+ customers.

The Instacart subscription program costs $9.99 per month, so that’s a pretty solid added value. Peacock with ads – the tier that will come with Instacart+ – typically costs $5.99 per month.

And, of course, it’s the ad-supported tier being included. Because this partnership is not a standard media bundle. Rather, it’s a data-driven fusion that is directly tied to the value of Peacock’s ad supply.

Amazon already proved this concept by becoming a Hollywood studio giant. And, last year, Walmart+, the retailer’s $12.95 per month membership program, started including a free subscription to the Paramount+ Essential plan, which is $5.99 per month and comes with ads.

Roku, meanwhile, doesn’t have the same subscription-based partnerships, and so has opted for closed loop attribution integrations with retailers like Kroger and Walmart Connect.

What does it all mean? Where there are large, logged-in or subscription-based audiences, platforms will continue linking up services without adding to overall bundle costs.

Not So ’Ad After All
US ad revenue jumped 8.1% in Q3 – much better than the 1.6% and 4.6% upticks in Q1 and Q2, according to Brian Wieser of Madison and Wall.

In September, Wieser predicted just 6% ad revenue growth for Q3. Now, based on the surprisingly strong third quarter, he’s increasing his Q4 ad forecast from 8% to 9% and raising 2024 expectations from 4.3% to 5.2%.

Digital media soared 14.6%, excluding political advertising, with search (+8.7%), commerce media (+22.8%) and social media (+13.8%) as standouts. Although it must be noted that commerce media is a much smaller total, its percentage growth rate is higher than other, more established channels.

The US ad market is “generally much healthier than most people appreciate,” Wieser tells AdExchanger. Even on the off-chance of a recession, “the economy is only one element supporting growth in advertising.”

Other factors, such as the rise of ecommerce, new non-advertising businesses launching data-driven marketing services and AI-driven ad tools (think PMax and Advantage+) “are probably driving the outperformance we are seeing right now,” Wieser says. AdExchanger