As More Advertisers Seek to Use TV as a Full Funnel Marketing Solution, Comcast Advertising Unveils Several Industry-First, Performance-Based Solutions Across Its Portfolio of Brands

Comcast Advertising partners with Mastercard to measure ad performance.

Universal Ads partners with digital marketing pioneer Marpipe to bring dynamic product insertion to streaming TV for the first time.

FreeWheel introduces new attribution tools and an enhanced partnership with PlaceIQ to fuel its buying technology.

Comcast Advertising, the advertising division of Comcast, today unveiled an array of new performance-driven offerings across its portfolio to equip brands of all sizes with advanced measurement and attribution tools that demonstrate the clear impact of TV advertising throughout the marketing funnel.

Television has long been used as an effective centerpiece of advertisers’ media strategies, but in the social media era of ‘last click’ attribution and immediate reporting, TV does not always get the credit it deserves for influencing action and driving sales. A new study from Comcast Advertising in partnership with AdExchanger shows that advertisers are 30% more likely to use TV to build awareness rather than to drive action. However, 63% of advertisers said they would increase spend if there was more attribution demonstrating uplift in consumer spend linked to TV ad exposure.

By introducing enhanced attribution solutions for national to regional advertisers, Comcast Advertising is demonstrating TV’s effectiveness at delivering lower funnel results, including sales and conversion data.

“At Comcast Advertising, our goal is to help advertisers unlock the full potential of TV by making it more measurable, actionable, and aligned with business outcomes,” says James Rooke, President of Comcast Advertising. “The truth is, TV is a results engine that connects top and bottom funnel in a way that no other medium can. Endless studies have shown this. However, we don’t make TV advertising as easy or seamless as social media platforms do. Our goal across Comcast Advertising is two-fold: make it easy and prove it works.”

In its continuing work to illustrate the connection between TV campaigns and business outcomes, Comcast Advertising is announcing three new innovations in performance, many of which are first to market:

Mastercard Partnership with Comcast Advertising Enables Accurate Campaign Measurement for Advertisers of All Sizes

• Comcast Advertising is partnering with Mastercard to increase the accuracy of campaign analysis by analyzing the effect ad campaigns have on geographically aggregated spend.
• The fidelity of Comcast’s data, paired with the broad scale and reach of Mastercard’s acceptance allows this Comcast Media Solution offering to be used not only by large national but also regional advertisers.
• With beta testing sales lift across key categories like automotive, retail, home services and furniture, advertisers can be confident their media spend is delivering the most impact, and change up the campaign, if it is not.
• For instance, a recent study of campaigns for five major Home Improvement & Furnishing brands revealed a 3x incremental return on ad spend as well as increases to store traffic, average order value and consumer spend.

Marpipe Partnership with Universal Ads Introduces Dynamic Product Ads Within Connected TV for the First Time

• Universal Ads, which enables brands of any size to seamlessly create, buy and measure ads across premium video, is launching a first-of-its- kind partnership with Marpipe, the world’s leading platform for catalog advertising, to bring dynamic product ads to connected TV for the first time. This integration enables brands to automatically generate personalized, shoppable ads for streaming from live product catalogs, bringing the performance marketing playbook to the biggest screen in the house.
• “This partnership brings the best of Marpipe’s creative automation to the most exciting frontier in advertising: Connected TV,” says Dan Pantelo, CEO of Marpipe. “Together with Universal Ads, we’re transforming TV from a brand-only channel into a scalable performance engine for ecommerce.”
• According to research from Meta and Marpipe, regular Dynamic Product Ads deliver 70% higher return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to standard image or video ads, while enriched product catalogs drive performance more than twice as effectively – insights now featured on our homepage.

Expansion of FreeWheel’s Attribution Capabilities for Advertisers

• Comcast’s FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the television advertising industry, is introducing enhanced partnerships and new tools to improve attribution and advertiser performance measurement across its buying technology.
• The streaming industry has faced unique challenges in delivering the robust outcome measurement that performance-based agencies and advertisers need to unlock the full potential of premium video advertising. To help solve these challenges, FreeWheel introduced the FreeWheel Identity Network, an industry leading identity resolution interoperability solution. Through its buying technology suite’s direct connection with the FreeWheel publisher suite, advertisers have seen over 8x increase in audience match rates compared to other in-market solutions, a key component to accurately measure attribution.
• To build on this strength and further enhance its advertiser attribution capabilities, FreeWheel is announcing a new partnership with PlaceIQ, a location-based audience targeting and measurement company, to drive better campaign performance and efficiency for advertisers.

As a result of these enhancements, FreeWheel’s buying technology now offers advertisers streamlined in-platform tools for retargeting and attribution:

• Location-based targeting and attribution metrics connecting advertising exposure to physical location foot traffic
• Enhanced reporting logs allowing users to easily analyze campaign insights and performance while protecting user privacy

“FreeWheel’s powerful combination of sophisticated programmatic buy-side capabilities, direct premium streaming supply access, and advanced identity resolution align seamlessly with our Open Intelligence vision – enabling more efficient campaign activation, fewer intermediaries, and a strong commitment to privacy,” says JiYoung Kim, Chief Operating Officer at WPP Media North America. “Together, we’re helping advertisers better understand and optimize their data across the full media strategy.”

As advertisers try to navigate the burgeoning TV ecosystem, Comcast Advertising is committed to providing the tools and solutions that enable a transparent and efficient media buying supply chain that benefits publishers, advertisers, and consumers.

About Comcast Advertising
Comcast Advertising is the advertising division of Comcast. As a global leader in media, technology and advertising, the company fosters powerful connections between brands and their audiences as well as among publishers, distributors, MVPDs, agencies and other industry players. Comcast Advertising’s Media Solutions team provides a streamlined way for advertisers to build brand relevancy and sustainable business outcomes through multiscreen TV advertising campaigns – powered by the media, data and technology assets of Comcast. FreeWheel, its media and technology arm, provides the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, data types and sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. And, Comcast Advertising’s Universal Ads enables brands of any size to seamlessly create, buy, and measure ads across premium video directly from top publishers with no fees. Comcast Advertising, along with NBCUniversal and Sky, is part of the Comcast Corporation.

About FreeWheel
FreeWheel empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit freewheel.com, and follow us on X and LinkedIn.

About Universal Ads
Universal Ads enables any brand, of any size, to seamlessly make and buy commercials across premium video reaching new qualified audiences at scale. Universal Ads combines premium and brand-safe video content directly from the most influential media companies with the ease and familiarity of social ad buying. It is your one-stop shop for high-quality video ads delivering unmatched scale. Universal Ads is a part of the Comcast Corporation, a global media and technology company that connects people to moments and experiences that matter.

About Mastercard
Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re building a resilient economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

About Marpipe
Since the Mad Men era, the process behind making and launching ad creative has remained stubbornly unchanged. The process of guessing and checking, or simply deferring to the opinion of the highest paid person in the room, no longer works in today’s competitive digital environment. Marpipe changes the creative workflow from the very beginning by letting brands take their designs and ideas, create and test all the potential creative possibilities within days, and have their audiences determine which creative executions to build out and scale. This new workflow means marketers can reliably achieve better-performing ad creative, while creatives see how to produce and deliver ads they know will work better.

About Precisely
As a global leader in data integrity, Precisely ensures that your data is accurate, consistent, and contextual. The Precisely PlaceIQ programmatic advertising solution allows you to understand real-world audiences and patterns using movement and location data that prioritizes privacy and helps you accomplish your business goals. Over 12,000 organizations in more than 100 countries, including 93 of the Fortune 100, trust Precisely software, data, and data strategy consulting. Learn more at www.precisely.com.