Netflix and Disney aren’t the one streamers flexing their programmatic muscle groups.
On Monday, Paramount introduced a brand new advert product known as Conduit, which is a direct integration layer between supply-side platforms (SSPs) and EyeQ, Paramount’s CTV advert promoting platform that aggregates Paramount+ and Pluto TV stock.
Direct integrations with SSPs assist programmers resolve which adverts to place wherein pods, mentioned Todd Bender, SVP of promoting platforms at Paramount.
Paramount has been engaged on Conduit since 2020, when it launched EyeQ. The brand new product is at present accessible in a number of main SSPs, together with Magnite and Google Advert Supervisor.
Connecting the dots
Advertisers have been demanding larger interoperability from their broadcaster companions.
However during the last 12 months or so, there’s been an “even larger push from entrepreneurs” for programmers to help advert shopping for from an array of SSPs, mentioned Leo O’Connor, SVP of promoting at Paramount.
Paramount’s stock was already accessible through SSPs, however there’s a distinction between promoting by means of an SSP and integrating straight so there’s a connection into the advert server.
In any other case, “programmers should string [bids] collectively from totally different companions in a really guide manner,” Bender mentioned. That guide course of is a time suck that additionally ends in streaming pet peeves like advert repetition.
Integration station
Paramount makes use of FreeWheel as its main advert server, however fragmentation points come up when advertisers wish to purchase stock by means of a provide path it doesn’t work with straight.
Having to manually piece bid responses collectively from a number of sellers means programmers usually don’t have all the knowledge they want, comparable to a model’s identify, vertical, bid worth and inventive size. When programmers don’t get this data in a well timed method, they will’t handle advert frequency and aggressive separation of their pods.
If, for instance, a model buys the identical stock through 4 totally different provide paths, however with out direct integrations into these 4 sellers, programmers can’t see that occuring. And a scarcity of knowledge transparency results in subpar advert experiences and suboptimal stock yield, Bender mentioned.
Now, if a purchaser is utilizing an SSP that wasn’t related to FreeWheel, it nonetheless has a direct pathway to CTV stock from Paramount by means of Conduit.
Conduit is Paramount’s manner of claiming: “We have to know who the model is in an public sale, and what’s the actual worth of its bids,” O’Connor mentioned.
To supply that information, Conduit gathers bid responses from a number of SSPs straight into FreeWheel in time for Paramount to create an advert pod for a business break.
Paramount declined to share precisely how a lot time Conduit saves in processing bid responses, however Bender mentioned the product is a “large profit” to Paramount’s advert tech stack as a result of it cuts out further hops between platforms that usually “double or triple the timeframe” of an advert resolution.
And time saved may result in cash earned.
O’Connor mentioned that Paramount expects Conduit to assist appeal to extra programmatic demand from a wider array of businesses within the coming 12 months.
