Streaming in the U.S. has seen major shifts over the past five years, fueled in part by consumer behavior. As the landscape expands, publishers need the flexibility to endure this constant change. Here are three opportunities for publishers to diversify their approach, fortify their business strategy, and increase the value of their content.
1. Leverage Programmatic for Live Sports
U.S. publishers leverage a mix of transaction types across live and video on demand (VOD) content. While programmatic grew by 15% in the first half of 2024, publishers still heavily use non-programmatic as the primary way to transact in the streaming environment.1
For sports programming, there is a lot at stake during live games due to the high numbers of simultaneous viewers. For this reason, many live sports publishers prefer direct sold because of the predictability of the business agreements with their long-held advertiser clients.
However, publishers should consider using programmatic transactions in these live environments to expand advertiser diversification while maintaining frequency capping and industry separation. In 2024, NBCUniversal illustrated strategic use of programmatic during the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, resulting in a 90% increase in advertisers involved in the Games.2
Overall, the benefits of diversifying transaction types for live sports can have a positive effect on the viewer experience for avid sports fans. As more sports publishers transact programmatically, viewers will start to see more well-positioned ads relevant to the sport being viewed, and with minimal repetition throughout a game.3
2. Enhance Programmatic Metadata
Programmatic metadata is information that populates in a bid request to define the available inventory coming from the publisher. It ensures buyers have insight into the opportunity and can make informed decisions on whether and how much to bid.
As programmatic continues to expand, robust metadata becomes more valuable. Connected TV (CTV) and set-top-box devices pose particular challenges, as inventory across these device types commonly has incomplete information and/or a lack of standardization.
With CTV usage growing by double digits (+14%) in the U.S, there is a significant opportunity for publishers to focus efforts on enhancing programmatic metadata to better reflect the inventory being made available to buyers.1 By increasing the accuracy and richness of metadata passed to DSPs in a bid request, publishers can highlight the value of their inventory in the eyes of buyers, thereby increasing potential for better programmatic monetization.
3. Invest in a First-Party Audience Strategy
Addressability is a growing topic for live and VOD content across all genres. According to FreeWheel’s 1H 2024 Video Marketplace Report, ad views using audience targeting rose by 39% in the United States during the first half of 2024 as publishers increasingly leverage audience targeting capabilities.1 U.S. publishers leverage both behavioral targeting (57%) and demographic targeting (43%), which create a cost-effective approach to reach a mix of potential and existing customers across the marketing funnel.1
Publishers should consider building their own first-party data strategy to enhance audience capabilities and decrease reliance on third parties. Prior to Google’s announcement that third-party cookies will remain in place, the potential for deprecation caused many publishers to evaluate their audience targeting approach and build a plan that better utilizes first-party data.
Since first-party data is collected via a direct relationship between the publisher and the user, it provides unique and reliable insights into user behavior and preferences.4 Building a strategy that uses first-party, second-party, and third-party data in combination can contribute to a robust approach to addressability as viewer fragmentation and proliferated identifiers across devices present growing challenges.
A strategic approach to addressability can help publishers better connect buyers to potential customers while providing a premium viewer experience and improving omnichannel advertising for companies and consumers.
Looking Ahead
As the streaming ecosystem continues to expand, there are numerous opportunities for publishers to strategically advance their businesses. By employing a range of strategies, publishers will be able to better adapt to ongoing shifts in consumer behavior and industry dynamics.
Sources:
- FreeWheel. “1H 2024 Video Marketplace Report: The Expansion of Streaming.” 2024.
- Comcast. “FreeWheel and NBCU’s Programmatic Partnership for Paris 2024 Contributes to Record-Breaking Streaming Event for Advertisers.” September 12, 2024.
- FreeWheel. “As Sports Move to Streaming, Viewer Experience Matters More Than Ever.” Cameron, Brittany. 2024.
- FreeWheel. “Expanding the Addressable Universe: Publisher First-Party Data.” Smith, Lauren. 2024.
