• by Tyler Loechner , June 18, 2015

After raising $18.5 million last month, cross-screen marketing tech provider Tapad said it intended to use a portion of the funds to add linear TV measurement to its product.

It didn’t take long for that vision to come to life.

The company on Thursday announced the launch of TV Pulse, a cross-device measurement platform that includes linear TV data. Tapad claims the data comes from a first-party data supplier. The name of the supplier was not disclosed.

“Television has long lived in its own ecosystem," stated Tapad founder and CEO, Are Traasdahl. He said the TV Pulse platform helps change that, as it allows marketers to draw links between digital ad campaigns and TV campaigns, and vice versa.

Tapad says that after a television campaign is launched, its tech can detect additional devices (i.e. smartphones) used by the same consumer exposed to the TV ad with over 90% accuracy. The company then tracks actions taken on those other devices -- such as an app download following a TV ad -- to measure effectiveness.

Alternatively, Tapad says it can also determine whether a digital campaign drives users to TV screens -- if that was the campaign’s purpose.

Mediahub, the media planning and buying arm of Mullen Lowe that signed Tapad as an ad tech partner earlier this month, will be the first to use the new TV-inclusive measurement product.

“Television advertising is a crucial portion of the marketing mix for our clients,” stated Laurel Boyd, VP, group digital media director at Mediahub. “The ability to leverage cross-device insights through linear TV data is a huge value-add in understanding the effectiveness of campaigns.”