• by Wayne Friedman , February 1, 2023

The effort is intended to help auto marketers that buy advertising time on Roku better understand how advertising in streaming TV impacts web browsing, vehicle sales, and more.

At the same time, it will also help retail media providers.

Cox Automotive's brands include Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book brands, reach two out of three online car shoppers when it comes to their research.

The deal looks to solve the problem of most measurement solutions for auto marketers which only capture basic sell-through metrics for new and used vehicle transactions. What is left out for brands is understanding how TV streaming impacts search, discovery and pre-purchase behavior.

The companies say the deal makes Roku the first TV streaming partner to offer and market Cox Automotive data for measurement in the TV streaming category.

Roku says Standard Media Index's December estimates show TV streaming ad spend in the automotive category growing by 35% year over year in 2022, this is up from a 7% rise in 2021.

At the same time, retail media platforms are rapidly growing as well -- and will see a 31.4% increase to $40.81 billion this year, according to eMarketer ---- representing an 18% share of all U.S. digital advertising spend.