Comcast Advertising’s AudienceXpress unit said it is integrating data from Epsilon to bolster its audience-based convergent television capabilities.

Epsilon’s first-party data will give AudienceXpress more information about transactions and consumer behavior, enabling it to create more precise connected TV audience segments for clients.

“The TV ad marketplace continues to grow, evolve and shift constantly and dynamically, and so we recognized the need to provide a way for advertisers to find and connect with their audiences when, where and how they want to consume media,” said Katy Loria, chief revenue officer of AudienceXpress and FreeWheel, Comcast’s ad tech company. “This new partnership brings together some of the core strengths and assets of two key industry players to deliver a much needed way for advertisers to navigate and thrive in today’s TV ad ecosystem.”

Also Read: Comcast’s AudienceXpress Launches Analytics Tool for Cross-Platform Campaigns

For Epsilon, the arrangement gives its clients access to AudienceXpress’s reach, scale and expertise in CTV to buy, execute and measure campaigns with more accuracy.

“As we began to search for a partner that offered the scale and ability to reach the specific audiences and data insights we needed, we were impressed by AudienceXpress’s vast network of aggregated premium video inventory,” Dennis Self, GM of Data Solutions, Epsilon, said. “Through this mutually beneficial partnership, we are able to move forward with an innovative approach that allows us to quickly scale this important partnership.” 

Samsung Ads said it is working with Epsilon to offer brands advanced TV audience reach, precision activation and measurement.

Brands can combine their own first-party data with Epsilon’s demographic and transaction data for activation across Samsung’s smart TV, connected TV and mobile inventory.

“Samsung Ads’s platform, device ecosystem and media assets, including Samsung TV Plus, are critical to reaching consumers across CTV,” Courtney Howell, head of agency development at Samsung Ads, said. “Through our direct integration with Epsilon, brands can leverage the Samsung TV universe and engaged audience to make CTV campaigns even more powerful.

“This partnership represents a milestone for Samsung Ads’ ongoing relationship with Epsilon to give even more brands and agencies the ability to immediately activate against our Smart TV footprint with improved measurement and attribution solutions,” Howell said. “Our partnership with Epsilon also means that any brands working with Samsung Ads can expect a faster, more seamless execution, combined with the ability to leverage our leading TV data and scale to power CTV campaigns that drive significant performance.”

Epsilon’s database contains insights into 250 million U.S. consumers, enabling brands to recognize and reach each person with the right message across channels and to measure campaign performance.

“Epsilon’s partnership with Samsung Ads provides a seamless experience for marketers who are looking to activate Epsilon’s audiences and their first-party data in CTV environments,” Epsilon general manager of data solutions Dennis Self said. “Our unique audiences provide marketers with confidence that they’ll reach the right people at the right time with messages that matter, removing barriers to activation while simultaneously creating increased demand for CTV campaigns.”

Apple TV Plus has given a May 5 premiere date for its upcoming drama series Silo, starring Rebecca Ferguson.

The 10-episode series, based on Hugh Howey’s best-selling trilogy of dystopian novels, follows the last 10,000 people on earth who are living in a mile-deep space protecting them from the toxic and deadly world outside, according to the streaming service. No one knows when or why the silo was built, and anyone who tries to find out faces fatal consequences.

The series stars Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, David Oyelowo, Rashida Jones and Tim Robbins.

Silo is executive produced by Ferguson, Graham Yost, Morten Tyldum, Hugh Howey, Nina Jack, Fred Golan, Remi Aubuchon and Ingrid Escajeda. Apple TV Plus will debut the first two episodes May 5, followed by one new episode weekly, according to the service. ■ 

TransUnion said it made a deal to make data from Epsilon available via the TruAudience Data Marketplace for advertisers looking to target consumers streaming on connected TV, smart speakers and gaming consoles.

Brands and media agencies can access insights about 250 million consumers from Epsilon mapped across TransUnion’s identity graph which covers 80 million connected homes.

"As mobile IDs and cookies continue to deprecate, having the ability to leverage audiences from Epsilon in an ID-agnostic way across our leading activation partners will enable greater scale and reach,” said Michelle Swanston, VP of media and entertainment and head of data marketplace at TransUnion. “This relationship will help meet the ever-increasing demand for advanced audience targeting across streaming media.”

Epsilon hosts one of the largest cooperative transactional database in the U.S. with more than 3,000 contributing brands in B2C and B2B categories. Epsilon data covers demographics, lifestyles, financials, market indicators, healthcare, automotive, propensity models/market trends, and opted-in survey data.

"Marketers must have data that’s protected, relevant and actionable. Most importantly, it has to be connectable across devices and channels,” said Kyle Antoian, managing director of data at Epsilon. “Our partnership with TransUnion gives marketers the ability to tap into high-fidelity audiences and reach people across connected TV and streaming audio in the moments they are most receptive.” ■

iSpot said it can now  provide media buyers and advertisers with the age and sex demographic information used for transactions in addition to its measurement of cross-screen audiences and business outcomes.

Co-viewing information is also part of iSpot’s new capabilities.

While media planners are increasing building campaigns based on specific target audiences--such as truck buyers--most deals are still done based on which age bracket the viewers are in and whether they’re male or female.

Related: iSpot Measuring Addressable ads under Project OAR Specs

Being able to apply the same age and demo information used for buying linear to the fast-growing connected TV ad market should help media buyers shift dollars to CTV, according to iSpot CEO Sean Muller.

Related: Nielsen Sets Major Changes in Program, Ad Measurement

Ratings leader Nielsen this week announced its plan to offer a unified ratings system called Nielsen One that offers cross-platform ratings for content and impress-level date for individual commercials. Nielsen will roll out its product in the fourth quarter of 2022.

iSpot gets household viewing information from a large-scale panel of millions of Vizio smart sets. It’s using data from Epsilon to identify who is in particular households and is working with TVision to figure out which member of the household is watching programming on a particular device.

As more consumers stream video content, the ad industry is looking for comparable ways to measure over-the-top viewing and traditional linear TV. 

“We’ve been doing unified cross-screen measurement for years,” said Muller. “Really what’s new right now is the introduction of person level measurement across both linear and streaming.”

Muller noted that ads on both linear TV and streaming are still bought based on age and gender demographics. 

“What the industry needs is one simple system that can count all that across linear and streaming using the traditional age and gender system, but then connecting it to outcomes,” he said. “That’s what iSpot’s able to do that nobody else can do today.”

Most of the spending on connected TV and streaming is coming from TV budgets and TV buyers and not from digital ad budgets. With linear ratings down, advertisers are looking to follow consumers to streaming platforms. “That is why this release is so critical for dollars to flow between linear and CTV,” Muller said.

The person-level reporting is integrated into iSpot’s measurement offering inside the platforms of measurement partners such as The Trade Desk, which brands can purchase with campaigns on a cost per thousand (CPM) basis to verify the incremental reach provided by CTV investments across TTD’s portfolio. The measurement capability also is powering TV ad insights for Neustar, Oracle’s Moat, OpenAP and  Cox Media’s Gamut. 

Related: Apollo's Gamut to Use iSpot Unified Measurement

“Because we were using measurements that spanned OTT and linear, we could analyze how responses compared side-by-side,” said Diana Boyles, VP of marketing at HomeAdvisor, which has used iSpot's new capabilities. “We learned that when someone sees a linear and OTT ad, there is a greater likelihood of responding. Moreover, we saw that people exposed only to OTT ads were very likely to convert. We were able to prove that we were reaching a net new audience for our brand that was performing very well. Last year we tested seven new streaming partners using iSpot Unified Measurement, and ended up more than doubling our spend on streaming.”