Ad Platforms to Use Comscore Demos For CTV Ad Targeting Via IFAs

Comscore has teamed with advertising platforms Adobe Audience Manager, Google Display & Video 360, and Oracle Data Cloud to make its age and gender demographics available for audience targeting within connected TV (CTV). 

Comscore is applying the audience data directly to a CTV IFA (Identifier for Advertising), in line with the IAB Tech Lab’s IFA guidelines for OTT platforms.  

The IAB guidelines provide best practices for using IFAs to deliver targeted ads. 

CTV, like mobile, is a cookie-less environment, which presents ad-targeting challenges — particularly in CTV, where a large number of smart TV, OTT and other connected devices and platforms are involved. Some targeting solutions employ TV device IP (internet protocol) address workarounds, but those can present privacy issues — and one of the biggest platforms, Roku, has taken steps to prevent advertisers from collecting IP addresses. 

Without consistent standards for audience management, use of frequency capping can be problematic, sometimes resulting in over-serving or redundant serving of ads to viewers. Use of third-party data for targeting can also be challenging. 

The IFA is a solution for these targeting challenges. One of the key benefits of an IFA-based approach is the ability to independently measure multiple CTV devices in a single household, which is the key to serving differing, tailored ads to various individuals using different devices.

IAB created IFA guidelines for mobile in 2012, and released the version for the more complicated OTT environment last year. 

In addition to enabling frequency management, personalization and other marketing capabilities, IFAs (unlike IPs) give consumers the ability to fully opt out of ad tracking and targeting at the individual-device level.

“Implementing the IAB Tech Lab OTT IFA guidelines will help advertisers gain improved audience visibility, measurement, and ad frequency capping in this cookie-less environment — and will enable them to do all of this in a privacy-friendly manner,” sums up Dennis Buchheim, executive vice president and general manager of the IAB Tech Lab. 

The guidelines represent “a much-needed first step” by “aligning industry players,” and “promise to level the playing field for advanced video targeting,” noted a post in a blog by Telaria, a video management platform for publishers. 

“We’re making it easier for advertisers to use data in their CTV buys,” says Rachel Gantz, general manager of activation at Comscore. “Until now, it’s been left to the platforms to solve this, but it needs to be a focus for data vendors, as well. Putting all of the pieces together can still be a cumbersome process, which is why we’re leading the way for data providers by applying audience data directly to a CTV IFA, in accordance with the IAB IFA guidelines. By assigning our demographic data to a CTV IFA, we’re simplifying the process, improving accuracy for the media buyer and increasing privacy for the end user.”  

Comscore, which already supplies audience and contextual data segments for mobile and desktop ad targeting, plans to extend its CTV offering beyond age and gender, to include OTT consumption and other advanced data — likely within the next two quarters, Gantz reports.

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