Netflix says it has closed its upfront advertising deal-making for the 2024-25 TV season at a “150% plus increase” in dollar volume versus last year's ad revenue commitments, according to Amy Reinhard, president of advertising, in a company press release.
Reinhard says results were "in line with our expectations." She did not disclose any traditional financial upfront details such as average cost-per-thousand viewers (CPM) or total advertising dollar revenue.
Late last year, Emarketer projected Netflix would reach $1.03 billion U.S. advertising revenue in 2024 and $1.14 billion in 2025.
More recently, Morgan Stanley estimated Netflix would take in $3.1 billion in global ad revenue by 2027.
With the massive influx of new connected TV/streaming TV ad inventory, thanks to Amazon Prime Video starting up an ad-supported option in January of this year, one report says CPM pricing among all premium video businesses has softened.
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For Netflix, it declined to around $28-$32 CPMs from around $40-$45 a year ago, according to agency media-buying executives.
Netflix says upfront deals for the new TV season came from all key categories -- consumer packaged goods, technology, entertainment, automotive, quick service restaurants, and retail.
Looking at specific programming, the company says major deals have been made for upcoming films (such as “Happy Gilmore 2”) and current ongoing popular TV series including “Squid Game,” “Wednesday,” “Outer Banks,” “Ginny & Georgia” and “Love is Blind” as well as live events and sports including “WWE Raw” and Netflix upcoming Christmas Day NFL games.
For Season Three of its popular TV drama “Bridgerton,” it inked title sponsorships deals with L’Oreal, Pure Leaf, Amazon Audible, Puig, Booking.com, Stella Artois and Hilton.
For another season of “Emily in Paris,” Netflix struck deals with LVMH, COTY Gucci, Kaiku Caffee Latte, Aeromexico, L’Oreal, Google and Rakuten.
Netflix also expanded its private-market advertising programmatic demand-side platform efforts for this TV season with The Trade Desk, Google’s Display & Video 360, and Xandr.
In November, it will extend programmatic guarantees for different types of media buys.
In October, Netflix will start impression verification with Google’s Campaign Manager and Innovid. Addressing fraud and viewability issues, it has extended its existing DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science deals into its programmatic channels.
When it comes to new third-party measurement, later this fall it will add NielsenOne, Lucid (or Cint), EDO Inc., NCSolutions, Kantar and Affinity Solutions.
For U.K. advertisers, Netflix’s ad-supported plan will be available in Barb's Advance Campaign Hub (ACH) in September.
As previously announced, Netflix will launch its in-house ad-tech platform later this season -- to be tested in Canada in November and launched globally in 2025.