Freewheel

Basis Tech-FreeWheel Partner for Direct Access to Premium CTV Inventory

Basis Technologies, a supplier of global programmatic advertising and media automation solutions, has announced an interface with FreeWheel. Through the partnership, advertisers will have direct access to the best-connected TV (CTV) ad inventory. FreeWheel and Basis Technologies have been partners for a long time. According to this association, Basis platform customers will have access to programmatic assured buying capabilities on video inventory across publishers in the ad ecosystem. This is thanks to FreeWheel, an international technology network for TV ad businesses.

The interconnected apps that make up the Basis platform automate manual tasks, standardize company procedures, and enhance marketing and advertising effectiveness. Ad purchasing options include programmatic, vendor-direct, search, and social. Addressable TV advertising is powered by its BasisTV+ system with 1,000 targeting parameters and 80 trackable indicators.

Read More: Disney+ Hotstar Amp Brand Outreach With CTV Targeting

Important Elements of Integration

This novel partnership and its attendant capabilities stand out for providing advertisers with guaranteed, upfront-style premium CTV ad inventory obligations. They will be on an even playing field with rivals with bigger ad spend budgets. Furthermore, Basis and FreeWheel are extending CTV advertising’s supply, progress, and capability to a wider range of advertisers. For this, they are streamlining and facilitating access to this kind of ad inventory by making it more direct.

With this agreement, Basis will hold a distinct place among programmatic ad tech companies. The majority of ad space for high-quality CTV programming is now only accessible through direct channels. Deals that have been agreed upon with publishers and processed through IOs, or those that have been brought about via programmatic guaranteed or private marketplace buying, are included. Basis and FreeWheel hope to increase the number of brands that can use CTV advertising by providing additional integrated possibilities.

The CTV Landscape

Streaming services are becoming more and more popular among TV viewers, which has increased the demand for connected TV advertising. In June, CTV advertising made an unprecedented $1 billion in spending. In addition, more programmatic businesses are considering collaborations with CTV-focused businesses as a safeguard against the changing market. Additionally, CTV is anticipated to increase by over 13 percent globally to 25.9 billion in 2023, according to projections made by GroupM. With internet-connected televisions and streaming devices, brand advertisers have the chance to interact with highly engaged and targeted audiences. CTV, as opposed to regular TV, enables more exact behavioral and demographic targeting. This implies that marketers can target users who are engaged with material with tailored messages. Furthermore, it offers advertisers a simpler method for more accurate campaign performance measurement, allowing them to optimize their plans for maximum impact.

Read More: Google Ads Enhances CTV Advertising

Here’s what they said

Jon Mansell, U.S. Head of Marketplace Demand, FreeWheel stated,

When people think of ‘programmatic guaranteed,’ the first association or use case that may come to mind is the upfronts, but nowadays, the potential and opportunity for this medium have expanded beyond that. We’re excited to team up with Basis to democratize, simplify, and open up access to this inventory, as well as drive creative and innovative uses for it, among today’s buyers.

According to Tyler Kelly, President of Basis Technologies, Basis has overcome this difficulty by providing an omnichannel DSP that allows marketers to utilize premium advanced TV inventory in addition to media automation tools that facilitate direct dealmaking with publishers. He said, 

There is high demand among marketers trying to reach audiences on CTV today and as such, we’ve teamed up with FreeWheel to remove some of the barriers to growth and to further democratize this channel. FreeWheel is the right partner for this given its track record and commitment to simplifying and creating more direct supply paths to different pools of ad inventory. Our programmatic advertising and media automation platform has been delivering to FreeWheel a critical mass of regional and local advertising demand sourced from our agency and brand customers.

About Basis Technologies

Basis Technologies offers software and services for media automation and programmatic advertising to businesses all around the world. By integrating automated workflows, cross-channel campaign planning, programmatic and direct media buying, universal reporting, and business intelligence, the Basis platform enhances omnichannel marketing performance. It offers a thorough range of purchasing options across all platforms and gadgets, utilizing all significant creative sorts and formats. With a single system of record, seamless team collaboration, and actionable data-driven insights, Basis, whether delivered by a world-class media services team or via a SaaS model, reduces the complexity of digital media and boosts profitability. Basis Technologies, with offices in Chicago and offices serving North America, South America, and Europe, has won multiple awards for its dedication to its workforce and workplace culture.

About FreeWheel

FreeWheel strengthens all facets of The New TV Ecosystem. They are set up to offer the entire range of solutions the advertising sector requires to accomplish its objectives. In order to achieve the ultimate goal – results for marketers – they provide the technology, data enablement, and convergent marketplaces necessary to assure buyers and sellers are able to interact across all screens, data kinds, and sales channels. FreeWheel, a Comcast Company, has offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and other cities around the world. Through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video, it advocates for the entire industry.

Read More: Loop Media-Microsoft Advertising Forge New CTV OOH Inventory Category

Advertisers Perception Survey: Publishers Positive About Policy Changes

Some publishers are constantly criticizing the changes made in Google ad policies. Although, according to Advertisers Perception Survey of the SSPs, the new policies don’t hurt the publishers in any practical manner.

Image Credit – adexchanger

The report included more than 150 digital ad sales and operational professionals. These websites include approximately 3 million visitors per month.

With Google ad policies switching to the first-price auction, nearly 4% of publishers claim that they are negatively impacted. Around 47% states that they see a positive change in business with the change in policies. Whereas, 43% states that it won’t change anything.

Similarly, Google ad policies changed the rules for unified pricing recently. A similar ratio of 4% of publishers saw negative impacts on business. 30% of publishers found the change appealing and experienced growth. Rest of publishers felt that the change won’t affect their business.

Advertiser Perceptions President and Chief Strategy Officer Kevin Mannion said: “Publishers tend to view [Google] with a white hat.” Publishers trust Google due to its innovative approach, end-to-end integration, and for the constant updates/access provided to the Adx demand pool.

Google ad managers demand is continuously increasing among its user. The reports of the third quarter from last year show the strengthening hold and leap in the position of Google in the market.

“Google is more dominant here than in any other ad tech category,” said Mannion.

Google ad manager and Amazon Publisher services compared on the bases of their fondness.

Almost 60% of publishers preferred Google while only 12% were in favour of Amazon.

Image credit -adexchanger.

The other preferred top 10 SSPs like OpenX, SpotX and Verizon media managed with a share of 3% to 6% publishers who think these solutions are the best.

When it came to the user database, Google Ad manager share was the largest at 81%. Around 46% claimed to be using Amazon Publisher Service. The other 14 SSPs have a portion of nearly 11% to 35% of the publishers who were reviewed.

Google locks up its spot of being the finest due to its technological progression. As per 78% of publishers, they pick Google due to “superior technology position.”

Since last year Google’s stature has increased among its publishers. Now, 90% of publishers think that Google Ad manager is a better solution, as compared to 79% last year.

Preference of SSPs among large to medium publishers.

Publishers are differentiated among large, medium and small publishers based on their user database. Google Ad Manager and Amazon Publisher services are preferred among all scale of publishers.

Publishers get compared on the basis of large and medium publishers. The results of the survey made by Advertiser Perceptions of SSPs highlighted some important influential factors.

To understand the working of stacking, and ranking of SSPs based on their popularity, let us take an example of Index exchange.

Index Exchange ranked third among all users. Nearly, 44% of large publishers are using it. Being popular with 44% of large scale publishers is extremely wonderful. However, it’s less preferable among small publishers(14%).
This leads Index Exchange to the third position of the stack.

Verizon media was ranked seventh among the large publishers, whereas it was ranked fourth among the small publishers.

There are other factors that can decide the ranking of SSPs.

Small publishers are those who have less than 20 million unique visitors. Small publishers use nearly 4 SSPs. However, any large publisher with more than 20 million unique visitors uses 6 SSPs.

Image credit – adexchanger.

Rebranding product can cost the user database.

Rebranding the product is not easy, as brands develop with time slowly earning their status in the market.

An example of a brand losing its popularity with rebranding can be seen by observing the decision of Verizon Media. Verizon Media rebranding Oath Media cost a massive loss of user database.

Similarly, AppNexus rebranding itself to Xandr Monetize has seen a tremendous loss of publishers. From 43% it came down to 19%.

Mansion said, “Verizon media is on a rebound.” People perception towards it is improving. There is a net 10 to 20% increase in its market leadership and its technology vision respectively.

OpenX also fell 11 points for its technical superiority. This year OpenX has lost nearly half of its users who thought that it is a market leader. The percentage decreased to just 36%. OpenX is the third most likeable solution according to the report.

This has nothing to do with the factor of rebranding.

Pre-pandemic point of view.

This survey took place in February, which was the starting of COVID pandemic.

During the epidemic users demands from the SSPs for the innovation has increased. The market is reshaping itself, publishers are appealing to SSPs to step up and portray cleaner advertising.

Publishers want to SSPs to work on the following factors:

1. Bad ad troubleshooting – 64% of publishers view this as crucial.
2. Prevention of counter-fitted inventory via ads -64% considered this crucial.
3. Blocking of fraudulent traffic- 68% publisher demands it as a crucial step.

“Publishers tell us that they aim at zero tolerance for fraud and bad ads,” Mannion said. “They want their SSPs to be their trusted partners toward that end.”