Comcast’s AudienceXpress unit will test iSpot.tv data to use as part of its syndicated TV audience measurement currency, plus a range of outcomes data, to better prove TV and connected TV ads lead to sales lifts for brands. 

The deal comes as advertisers large and small, as well as retailers and investors, show growing interest in using TV and CTV as performance media. Even big brands seeking to maximize reach are asking more for performance data on how their advertising affects sales, as evidenced by Procter & Gamble Co. Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard’s call made last week for better, faster, cheaper ways to show how its media spending affects sales.

“Packaged goods marketers are always interested in leaning in” on outcomes measurement, and pharmaceutical and auto marketers are also likely to be interested in better measurement of how TV ads drive sales and other outcomes, said Katy Loria, chief revenue officer of both AudienceXpress and FreeWheel.

“When Marc Pritchard talks, people listen,” Loria said. “So I think it’s always of interest what P&G sees as the next frontier.”

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The move also comes as more marketers, retailers and measurement platforms are vying to link TV advertising to sales data and outcomes for a wider array of advertisers.

Amazon’s launch last year of a Sponsored TV platform, largely for its third-party marketplace sellers to buy connected TV ads based on sales data, and Walmart’s pending acquisition of TV manufacturer Vizio, including its data and operating system, are seen by some as facilitating a move to pull more CTV dollars from advertisers big and small. Martin Sorrell gave the performance CTV space an endorsement with a recent investment in CTV buying platform tvScientific.

NBCU executives last week pointed to 40% of their advertisers being new to its networks in the past year, most of those small and medium-sized businesses.

Besides evaluating iSpot’s national TV ratings, AudienceXpress will work with its DRMetrix direct-response TV reporting and 605 units, acquisitions iSpot made in 2021 and 2023, respectively, largely to help build its outcomes measurement business.

Along with bigger national advertisers, the iSpot data should help direct-to-consumer, small, medium-size and local advertisers get better visibility into how TV and CTV can work for them as performance media, said Stuart Schwartzapfel, executive VP of media partnerships at iSpot. And part of what this collaboration offers in the coming upfront season, he said, is the ability to do outcomes measurement in a variety of shapes and sizes.

“What I’m hearing consistently this upfront and NewFronts season is that outcomes are back in a big way,” said Schwartzapfel. “But they’re back in a different way. Campaign-based attribution is very mature, but the notion of doing attribution at scale in a lightweight manner that can be applied to a broader range of campaigns rather than just the fancy ones that have the biggest budget, that’s new. And I think there’s an appetite from a lot of the large media companies to offer that.”