“The CTV environment is particularly challenging”: Samba TV’s Jay Fowdar on Omni-channel Effectiveness

We meet with Jay Fowdar, VP of customer success at Samba TV, in this interview to discuss ongoing challenges in omni-channel planning. 

Jay also shares insights into how first-party data that leverages TV viewership data and postcodes is an innovation that provides more holistic planning and better omni-channel targeting. 

What complicates omni-channel planning for advertisers?

Omni-channel is inherently fragmentated - screens, devices, platforms, and media channels are created in isolation and exist in silos. It reminds me of the old days of mobile, where apps in an ecosystem don’t speak to each other. Many advertisers still aim to conduct 1:1 targeting across media channels and the reality is they are not designed to work that way. The CTV environment is particularly challenging, while other media channels such as TV, DOOH, radio, and cinema reach broad audiences at scale, but are not designed to provide the level of tracking and precision we expect from digital. Inconsistent identifiers are a real problem - we rely on cookies across browsers, device IDs across devices, and IPs across households. These identifiers don’t even exist for traditional media channels like OOH, radio, and cinema, but they are part of an omni-channel plan. 

How do we solve this problem?

The opportunity I see lies in geo data - specifically first-party viewership data analysed at a postcode level that work as a common denominator across media channels. In the last 18 months we’ve developed and rolled out geo data that relies on location-based identifiers instead of digital identifiers like cookies, MAIDs or other IDs. We’re able to bring TV data and postcodes together to identify TV viewership consumption, behaviour, and ad exposure at a granular household level. Advertisers can identify areas of under-exposed audiences and optimise media investments accordingly to achieve optimal frequency and incremental reach. This approach can also inform planning on other media channels, enabling advertisers to effectively target TV audiences across CTV, DOOH, and other walled gardens like YouTube, Meta, and TikTok. A simple example is using geo data to understand where your TV ad is under-performing to upweight DOOH spend in those areas to enhance your overall brand reach. 

Will TV/CTV continue to be the focal point of omni-channel efforts?

TV is still the cornerstone of media plans for most advertisers, and CTV represents the attention shift and where the growth opportunity lies. There’s no doubt it’s an extremely effective medium, but what’s next? For me it’s how TV data is unlocking deeper insights. We’re seeing high adoption of first-party TV data from our automatic content recognition (ACR) technology work with geo data to give advertisers a new lens to interpret omni-channel performance and drive effectiveness. While the concept of geo is by no means new, as the industry has long relied on demographic data from the likes of YouGove or Experian to tie together consumer info to locations, our application of first-party TV data from ACR technology is unique to the market. This strategy is no longer confined to agencies and AV teams; it’s sparking interest among publishers, platforms, and measurement companies.