Roku on Wednesday introduced Audience Marketplace, which will allow advertising buyers and sellers to target audiences on the Roku platform in the U.S.
The new ad exchange will offer Roku’s first-party data and proprietary ad technology to let publishers sell targeted audiences on the Roku platform to advertisers. Roku said Audience Marketplace will offer both programmatic or traditional direct selling methods.
“The business of streaming is winning—both in the minds of consumers and advertisers,” said Seth Walters, VP, Demand Partnerships, Roku. “As the industry’s leading TV streaming platform, we’re well-positioned to empower our publishers to unlock the full potential of OTT advertising and help them to meet the needs of brands and consumers.”
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Initial publishers participating in Audience Marketplace include Fox, Turner, and Viacom, who are the founding members of cross-audience, targeted advertising platform OpenAP.
“Over-the-top distribution has been a key audience driver for Turner’s portfolio of premium content, with Roku being one of the preeminent partner platforms,” said Larry Allen, vice president of Ad Innovation and Programmatic Solutions at Turner, in a statement. “Participating in Roku’s Audience Marketplace gives us access to rich insights and enhanced audience targeting capabilities, extending the ability for ad buyers to reach and engage with streaming viewing audiences that are critical to grow their business.”
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“Roku’s ability to precisely message luxury auto-intenders in premium TV programming unlocks great value for our clients,” said Garrett Winkler, director of Connected TV Lead for Modi Media. “It helps significantly reduce waste and delivers a more relevant viewing experience. We see this as a huge step towards unifying targeting for connected TV campaigns.”
Earlier this year, Roku released a new suite of metrics that allow marketers to quantify unique campaign reach by demographic segments across linear TV, OTT, desktop and mobile; TV networks and content owners to measure the effectiveness of content promotions they run across linear TV, OTT, desktop and mobile; marketers to target and measure campaigns delivered to Roku users who don’t have traditional pay TV subscriptions; and marketers to gather real-time feedback and demographic insights with short on-device surveys.