How ACR Data Helps Samsung Clients Get A Better Grasp Of Their Target Audience

This interview is an excerpt from TVREV’s new report Getting Granular: How ACR Data Is Winning The TV Measurement Game. Download your copy today to read the full report.

With over 42 million opted in TVs, Samsung Ads has the largest ACR data set in the U.S. That data allows them to provide better targeting, which in turn helps advertisers and their agencies to plan AVOD buys.

“Our customers are using that data to find the viewers they are missing on linear,” notes Justin Evans, Global Head of Analytics & Insights at Samsung Ads. “Given how viewing has shifted, we are advising brands to follow what we call the ‘Rule of 40’—allocating 40% of their TV ad spend to AVOD. Our ACR data can help them track how well they are doing against their targets and our new Samsung Onboarding Partner Program allows them to directly import their first- and third-party data into our system and match it against our data. That makes it even easier for them to reach their target.”

ALAN WOLK (AW): How many opted-in viewers do you have for Samsung’s ACR data?

JUSTIN EVANS (JE): We have 42 million opted-in Smart TVs, which makes us almost two and a half times the size of the next largest ACR provider. We also have a sizable footprint globally, where we have over 200 million opted-in users.

AW: What are some of the benefits Samsung Ads clients derive from the fact that you own your own data and that you own both the hardware and the software?

JE: Clients really want to understand how their target audience spends time in the streaming ecosystem. And we provide them with data about what genres those audiences prefer, what dayparts they watch, how many hours per day they spend with each daypart, how many apps they launch—pretty much a window into how that group streams, whoever they are. Having that sort of data helps clients when they are looking to plan their AVOD buys. And planning AVOD buys is the hot topic right now for advertisers. 

There’s also targeting—we help our clients target based on their desired audience's TV behaviors. So we might be telling an advertiser or programmer, “Your target prefers these programs and these genres at these times, on these days.” That makes it easier for them to more effectively locate and target an audience.

We also look at other TV-related behavior like gaming. So we can help clients to understand a particular audience’s gaming behavior—what games they play, what types of games they like, how often they play and when. 

Once you get past targeting and planning, the main benefit we can provide is by focusing on reach analysis. We’ll look at how well the client did in terms of reaching their target audience both in linear and in streaming TV. That's an important one—the classic “only, only, both” analysis. (How much reach did my linear achieve by itself, how much did the AVOD achieve by itself, how much did they achieve together.) We're finding clients are really hungry for that deduplicated view of traditional and streaming television. 

The next piece we can provide is incremental reach analysis. So the clients want to measure what their streaming TV campaign added when it comes to reach versus their linear campaign. 

AW: Attribution seems to be a big benefit to ACR data. Are you doing anything around that and what does it look like?

JE: Attribution analysis is one of the more exciting areas we are involved in. We use ACR data to measure how a client's linear TV campaign drove conversions and then how the streaming campaign also drove conversions and how they work together and ultimately, drive even more conversions.

To do that, we will blend our data about ad exposure with the client’s data about conversion or even a third party’s data about conversion.  Client data tends to be around signups or website conversion, whereas third party data could be, for instance, about offline sales or a location visit. What we do is we combine those datasets in order to provide insights about attribution.

One of the consistent trends we’re seeing is that clients are not reaching enough light linear viewers and no-linear viewers. And we can see through the conversion data that those audiences buy. They almost always have higher buy rates than heavy linear watchers. So reaching that untapped streaming audience is a big sales opportunity. 

AW: I’ve heard ACR data called the smart TV OEM’s own first party data. Do you agree with that description? 

JE: 100%. This is our proprietary data. And we only make our data available to advertisers who work with us. It is not modeled or sold elsewhere. This is important because when we provide those insights to the client, it is based on us controlling the entire tech stack. And that allows us to ensure security, ensure consumer privacy, and keep our eye on our ultimate goal, which is to build a better world for consumers and advertisers.

AW: How does having your own data improve the value of Samsung TV Plus ad inventory?

JE: When a client comes to us, even before they're running any ad inventory, our AVOD planning allows them to see where they can reach their audience within Samsung TV Plus inventory. This targeting allows them to see which of those people are the right ones, for instance, to enhance their reach. And that's not “enhance their reach” full stop—it’s also “enhance their reach” in regards to linear, which is incremental reach.

The reach analysis and incremental reach analysis we do afterward are our way of asking how well we did in delivering the reach they were looking for, and the attribution analysis allows the client to see how well or how much advertising on Samsung TV Plus impacts their business goals.

AW: Why do you think ACR is going to be the key measurement source of the future? What makes it so uniquely suited for that task?

JE: ACR is one of the few places where you can access a single source view of television where you have one data set that covers linear and streaming. And given that audiences have adopted streaming so quickly, we believe clients have to be allocating 40% of their TV dollars to streaming. So, ACR is already one of the only ways, maybe the only way, that an advertiser can understand their whole TV buy across streaming and linear. We think it’s going to be an integral part of the way every advertiser manages TV in the future. Linear and streaming will coexist, so you’ll need a single-source data set.