Roku’s new Activation Insights tool targets viewers who have shifted to streaming

In a bid to entice digital TV marketers with more value and advertising opportunities, Roku introduced a new tool this week dubbed Activation Insights. The tool is designed to compare linear TV ads with potential OTT campaigns, giving advertisers visibility into the potential audiences they could be reaching on the streaming platform.

“Smart marketers are significantly increasing investments in OTT to reflect the dramatic shift to streaming,” said Scott Rosenberg,  SVP and GM of Roku’s Platform business. “By adding the ability to tie advertising performance on linear with a specific audience that advertisers can gain on OTT, we are addressing a long-standing industry challenge for OTT media planning.”

Why we should care

With the streaming landscape becoming increasingly fragmented as OTT platforms strive to keep pace with linear TV, digital marketing budgets are getting caught in the crossfire. Rosenberg said, “We believe it’s no longer a question of when advertising budgets will shift to streaming but how much.”

Tools that can help measure the reach and ROI of OTT campaigns are becoming more essential to marketers as they build out their media strategies and assign ad dollars.

Roku’s continued investment in its ad product underscores the race against competing platforms (like Amazon’s), but it’s important for advertisers to consider the long-term investment impact and health of the platform before taking the plunge. Factors like subscriber rates, screen share, viewing time and incremental revenue growth should be taken into account to determine the right amount of ad spend for the right type of streaming platform.

More on the news

• Activation Insights uses Roku’s first-party data from a reported 29.1 million active accounts to supply media planners with insights that can be helpful in allocating TV budgets and building campaigns.
• The tool lives under the larger umbrella of the Roku Ad Insights – an analytics suite meant to help advertisers identify and optimize campaign reach across linear TV and OTT.