How DPG Media made its linear addressable TV more attractive to buyers
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DPG Media has made it more likely that advertisers will buy its live and linear addressable TV inventory — including sports — by implementing the Open Measurement Software Development Kit (OM SDK) standard that enables third-party viewability and verification measurement for ads served to web video, mobile and connected TV.
DPG Media implemented OM SDK for server-side ad insertion (SSAI) with web and mobile in Q4/24 and for CTV this year.
The media owner operates in Belgium and the Netherlands with brands including VTM (linear channels), the VTM Go broadcaster VOD service and RTL Play.
During a webcast last month hosted by The Media Leader, Maarten Schoonvliet, DPG’s video adtech manager, stated his confidence that OM SDK will boost both direct and programmatic sales opportunities.
DPG already used OM SDK for its VOD inventory, which uses client-side ad insertion. The webcast focused on the introduction of OM SDK for live/linear, which uses SSAI.
The company presents itself as part of the “trusted web”, harnessing its direct, privacy-compliant relationship with viewers, so it wanted to offer the increased transparency that came with OM SDK in linear too.
Before OM SDK was implemented for live/linear SSAI, the media owner offered basic reporting metrics to the buy side, such as impressions and completion quartiles. But it wanted to provide the kinds of insights buyers are familiar with through the Media Rating Council (MRC) standards, including proof that ads were on screen and that they were not playing when the TV screen is off.
Schoonvliet said DPG wanted to provide the ability for buyers to optimise against more metrics in real time, such as viewability and, later, attention.
“Our customers will only invest if they know what they are investing in. Before OM SDK, our measurement [for live/linear SSAI] was slightly ‘black box’, so we had to do lots of explaining to media buyers for the live environment.
“It is hard explaining that this is really good inventory but, sorry, you cannot measure it the way you measure VOD.”
OM SDK provides more signals
Schoonvliet continued: “OM SDK gives you so many more signals, with MRC viewability and a standardised way of doing things. Now the proof is automatic, which means less effort for our sales team. The big win for media buyers is a better understanding [of ad delivery] and more trust.”
He listed the next steps for DPG in advertising and you can hear these on the webcast. Some are related to the performance marketing opportunity for TV and related use of retail data.
One of the next steps is a greater focus on attention measurement — another reason it was important to improve the viewability metrics by harnessing OM SDK in live/linear.
“In programmatic, platforms will optimise budgets against multiple metrics and viewability is one of them. Beyond increasing trust, we expect to attract more budget,” Schoonvliet declared.
Christophe Kind, global partnerships and market development at CastLabs, explained how OM SDK communicates directly with a video player and sends measurement signals to the Open Measurement Interface Definition (OMID) application programming interface, with measurement providers using tags to collect the signals.
Signals can include ad container geometry, playback events and much more.
DPG uses the PRESTOads measurement and tracking player-agnostic client SDK (which is OMID-certified) with its own video player and AWS Elemental MediaTailor’s SSAI solution.
“One of the benefits of OM SDK is that it removes the need for multiple unique integrations of proprietary measurement SDKs, which used to be the case,” said Kind. “There is no need for VPAID [Video Player Ad Interface Definition] because OMID replaces that. OM SDK ensures compliance with the latest advertising measurement standards.”
Marija Masalskis, research director at Caretta Research, outlined opportunities for growth among broadcasters and streamers as the connected TV market moves from inventory scarcity to oversupply.
She urged media owners to look beyond brand-building to capture an increased share of performance budget, before describing the role that retail media data and new addressable ad formats can play.
Masalskis described the power of closed-loop attribution that links ad exposure to business outcomes, such as online and offline sales. “If you marry the immersive experience of TV and the tech capabilities of addressable, media owners will be able to tap a new source of adspend.
“There will be new budget — you are not only moving budgets from traditional TV.”
Performance measurement expectations
Masalskis observed that performance marketers have their own high expectations on reporting and measurement, focused on immediate results.
“They will judge each of their channels against the benchmark set by digital-first platforms, whether it is features, ease of use or reporting,” she declared.
“Performance advertisers will want to integrate TV measurement with attribution and optimisation, but this does not replace the metrics we already have. Existing metrics must be robust so we can build on top of them. You will need to offer multiple levers that advertisers can optimise against. Viewability and [proof that something is not] fraud will be essential.”
Phil Harrison, senior product manager at AWS Elemental, outlined the benefits of SSAI, as used at DPG Media. He also listed the benefits of server-guided ad insertion (SGAI) — an increasingly important approach to ad insertion that he calls “the nirvana state of ad insertion”.
You can hear some of the benefits of SGAI on the webcast, including the way it improves monetisation potential in DVR windows when a viewer has rewound content and is catching up with live.
Harrison explained how OM SDK provides SSAI with client-side reporting. This is made easier thanks to the pre-integration of MediaTailor with the CastLabs OM SDK solution.
He also provided insights into the market opportunities for premium media owners. Like Masalskis, he highlighted the growing interest around interactive and shoppable ads.
“There is a huge piece around moving from simple addressable TV into the world of interactive advertising,” he continued. “That can include allowing viewers to click to add a product to their shopping cart from the TV screen. That intersects with the performance buying from agencies.”
The one-hour webcast provides more details on the implementation at DPG and there is a discussion about the intersection of TV and retail media.
Masalskis offers advice to media owners about how they become key (and equal) stakeholders as retail media comes to the TV screen and it enables new performance capabilities.
Watch the full webcast, “Boosting addressable TV monetisation with OMID-certified inventory”, here.