Sky Media is enabling advertisers to use its Adsmart addressable advertising platform to target audiences based on specific online search behaviours, including frequency and intent. It will allow brands to address households that are actively searching for products and services online, selectively inserting adverts in live and on-demand programmes across millions of Sky, Virgin and Now homes.
Search behaviour targeting identifies people at every stage of their purchase journey, from initial research, through to adding items to their online basket.
Seven search behaviour categories will be available at launch: Home and Garden, Travel, News, Job and Education, Arts and Entertainment, Games, and Pets and Animals.
Search behaviour habits can be combined with any of over 1000 other existing AdSmart attributes to refine campaigns. This could include postcodes, lifestage, consumer segments, or an advertiser’s own data.
For example, a custom campaign could see a holiday or insurance company target those who are actively searching for holidays or flights. This could be further refined or creative adapted to those looking at beach, sightseeing or ski holidays in a specific area of the country.
The search behaviour targeting capability has been developed in conjunction with Captify, who are the largest independent holder of search data, tracking over a billion searches every day globally on over 6 million web sites.
“TV remains the most effective and engaging platform for brands,” said Ruth Cartwright of Sky Media. “Being able to embrace the best capabilities of digital but in the brand safe, big screen, world of TV, makes campaigns more relevant and impactful. That’s what we’re hearing from brands and agencies, so that’s where we’re focusing our innovations.”
AdSmart launched nearly ten years ago and was the first addressable advertising platform for television. Launched a few years later, Sky AdVance opened-up digital targeting based on TV viewing and soon Creative Optimisation will help brands programmatically adapt their adverts to optimise response.