FreeWheel launches new audience-based TV ad buying technology

FreeWheel Launches New Audience-Based TV Buying Technology to Enable Unified Planning Across Premium Linear and Connected TV

NEW YORK — Today, FreeWheel announced that it is bringing new self-service capabilities to TV buyers that enable unified audience-based planning on premium Connected TV (CTV) inventory, with deduplicated reach in relation to linear TV. This new technology also allows advertisers to build and create custom audience segments and activate CTV campaigns with streamlined access to FreeWheel’s premium publisher partners.

Today’s launch is one of several emerging technology initiatives launching this year from FreeWheel that optimize the way buyers and sellers work with each other in today’s advertising ecosystem.

FreeWheel’s new audience-based TV buying technology is the only solution in market to incorporate segments based on aggregated Comcast viewership data from millions of homes to equivalize audiences across linear and CTV. With this, advertisers can expect a unified planning approach that ensures incremental reach on CTV campaigns relative to their existing linear campaigns. And, because FreeWheel’s technology is designed to enable buyers and sellers to understand each other’s desired outcomes, users of the technology will better secure their target audiences and reduce intermediaries from transactions – to add value to their buys.

“Advertisers who understand the benefits of targeted premium video are adding CTV to their linear TV plans to increase reach and improve consumer engagement,” said Jon Whitticom, Chief Product Officer, FreeWheel. “The problem historically has been that the two channels were working in siloes, so accessing the right inventory was complicated and opaque. Not anymore; our solution unifies linear and CTV so that advertisers can easily maximize reach across screens with limited waste. This capability represents a huge step forward in better connecting buyers and sellers – something FreeWheel is known for in the industry and that improves the consumers’ experience.”

Political TV buyers using FreeWheel’s Strata technology are now able to curate and activate custom CTV audience segments using both first and third party data sets. And, because the new solutions are fully integrated with FreeWheel’s broader technology, buyers can also export their existing linear campaigns to build complementary, highly-targeted incremental CTV schedules across premium supply in the US. FreeWheel has partnered with Effectv to get these new tools directly into the hands of political advertisers using the Strata platform.

“As a result of fragmentation, audience-focused, multi-screen campaign planning is more important than ever,” said Dan Sinagoga, Head of Political Sales, Effectv. “These new tools are just what our clients had been waiting – and asking – for. With this launch, we are bringing to bear many strategic assets across Comcast Advertising to address these challenges, and we’re excited to support the initial deployments with political advertisers. Nearly $9 billion will be spent by political campaigns in 2022, and this technology will make each dollar spent more efficient.”

“TV content is available on more screens and platforms than ever before, making it harder for political advertisers to reach their target audience in all the places they are consuming media,” said Janet Katowitz, President and Founder of Sage Media Planning & Placement. “As political buyers, we are always looking for smart tools to help us build layered media plans, so we are particularly excited to be working with FreeWheel. Their new audience-based TV buying technology should allow us to execute targeted streaming video schedules to either complement or supplement our linear schedules. This unified approach between linear and digital TV means we’re reaching the right audience, while minimizing waste, allowing us to execute an integrated media strategy across screens, without worrying about wasted impressions.”

FreeWheel will be offering this solution to political advertisers this year and look to expand access to other business sectors in the future.