Roku’s Acquisition of DataXu and Its Impact For Connected TV Advertisers

The industry was abuzz from last week’s announcement from Roku that it was buying DataXu for $150 million. The deal reflects the expectation that shift in ad dollars from linear TV to connected TV is only going to increase, and likely hit critical mass in the very near future. PMG’s Price Glomski weighed in on what advertisers could expect from the deal in a story published on Digiday.

“Beyond the data and inventory that Roku could provide to Dataxu, there’s the data and inventory that Dataxu can provide to Roku. Dataxu’s device graph would provide a way for Roku not only to keep track of the ads being served to people on and off of its platform, but also to target ads based on those on-and off-platform ad exposures.”

“It’s Experian-type data that now [Dataxu] can now provide to Roku and build outward. Start TV-first and then go back out programmatically,” said Price Glomski, EVP at digital agency PMG.

The article also stated that since Roku will now own a connected TV platform and DSP, it is better able to connect the dots across platforms deterministically via its 30+ million accounts, with Glomski speculating that there might be match rates as high as 80% within the DataXu environment.