Roku Partners With Adobe, Opens Up First-Party Data to Programmatic Buying

Roku has announced a new advanced advertising partnership with Adobe, which the companies say, eliminates the problem of OTT viewers having to sit through the same ad over and over again.

Under the agreement, announced at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, marketers using Adobe Advertising Cloud, Adobe Audience Manager and Adobe Analytics can now target Roku viewers with over-the-top programmatic ads using their own first-party data.

“With the shift to streaming, marketers have an unprecedented opportunity to reach consumers in a targeted, relevant way on TV,” said Scott Rosenberg, GM of platform business for Roku. “Roku has a direct, first-party relationship with its consumers and the most advanced ad capabilities in OTT. This partnership gives Adobe clients a seamless way to activate their data and reach customers who’ve moved their TV viewing to Roku devices.”

Roku says this is the first time it’s opened up its own first-party data for advertisers for brands to use in programmatic buys. The deal will allow Adobe’s Fortune 500 brands to match their own data with Roku sign-up data, which includes such things as customer email address, credit card number and device IDs. This will in turn allow these brands to make targeted ad buys through automation.

"They need to partner with a company like Roku to do that," Seth Walters, VP of demand partnerships for Roku, told AdAge. "And this is our first partnership of this kind.”

The ability to match first-party data sets, the companies say, allows them to limit the frequency of the same ad being shown to viewers, which has been a key issue with OTT consumer experience.

You couldn't do that before and so there were no frequency caps,” Keith Eadie, VP and general manager of Adobe Advertising Cloud, also told AdAge "We are matching customer data to Roku data, and if a customer has seen an ad three times, we'll stop serving them. It's another big problem we're solving.”

Daniel Frankel

Daniel Frankel is the managing editor of Next TV, an internet publishing vertical focused on the business of video streaming. A Los Angeles-based writer and editor who has covered the media and technology industries for more than two decades, Daniel has worked on staff for publications including E! Online, Electronic Media, Mediaweek, Variety, paidContent and GigaOm. You can start living a healthier life with greater wealth and prosperity by following Daniel on Twitter today!