Sky Media, the advertising sales arm of Sky, has announced new Search Behaviour targeting capability for the AdSmart addressable platform. Driven by wider industry demand to bring digital and TV campaigns closer together, Search Behaviour attributes allows brands for the first time to target audiences based on specific online search behaviours including frequency and intent.
Using search data categorised by frequency and intent, which is then matched to Sky’s first party data – advertisers can engage audiences who are in market and actively searching for products and services. Leveraged through market leading AdSmart, targeted ads are delivered into relevant households in both live and on demand content across millions of Sky, Virgin and Now homes.
Seven search behaviour categories are available at launch: Home & Garden, Travel, News, Job & Education, Arts and Entertainment, Games, Pets and Animals. Search Behaviour Targeting identifies people at every stage of their purchase journey, from initial research, through to adding items to their online basket. Search behaviour habits can be combined with any of the other existing 1000+ AdSmart attributes to refine campaigns. This could include postcodes, life stage, mosaic groups or an advertiser’s own first party data. As an 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.
Ruth Cartwright, Investment Director at Sky Media– “TV remains the most effective and engaging platform for brands. 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.”
Helping advertisers connect with audiences wherever they watch is part of an ongoing roadmap of innovation from Sky Media, bringing TV and digital closer together. AdSmart launched nearly ten years ago and was the world’s first TV addressable advertising platform. Launched a few years later Sky AdVance opened-up digital targeting based on TV viewing and upcoming Creative Optimisation will help performance brands programmatically adapt their TV creatives to optimise response.