Sky partners with TVSquared for ad effectiveness tracking tech

Sky has announced a partnership with ad measurement firm TVSquared to create a solution which will give advertisers a better idea of whether their investment has led to sales and website visits.

Ad revenue has been particularly heavily hit across the board amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with uncertainty over conversion rates leading many companies to reduce their level of spend. This is not a new problem for advertisers but has been especially pronounced over the past few months.

In an effort to combat this, Comcast-owned Sky will launch a new viewing panel within its Sky Analytics reporting tool which links to an advertiser’s online analytics. This will provide brands with ‘full assurance’ of who has visited an app or website after seeing a TV advert.

The companies said that this “enables brands to measure mid-funnel consideration and intent goals, link TV exposure to online response and directly understand the customer journey”.

The solution – dubbed Direct Web Attribution – is powered by TVSquared and will be available across linear, on-demand and addressable TV campaigns. Tracking of sponsorship campaigns is promised to be added in the coming months.

Dev Sangani, director of Strategy and Capability, Sky Media, said: “TV continues to remain the most trusted and impactful way for brands to engage current and future customers, illustrated by the growing number of digital-native brands turning to TV. Being able to directly measure the impact TV has on driving web traffic and the resulting sales will be an immensely powerful tool. It’s really exciting to see the results for these campaigns come through. Our emerging insights show that there is a 50-100% increase in web visits attributed to TV versus traditional models. Clearly that means TV’s impact on advertising performance has been wildly underestimated.”

Calum Smeaton, CEO and founder, TVSquared, said: “Sky Media has always been at the forefront of providing advanced technology offerings to its advertisers, and this partnership continues that path of innovation.

“TV can be measured and optimised with a focus on business outcomes – and Sky Media and TVSquared are enabling that for thousands of advertisers at scale today. This is an impactful and transformative change that is moving the TV ad market forward, not only in the UK, but worldwide.”