Streaming TV firm Roku is buying Demand-side platform Dataxu for $150m (£117m) in cash and shares. Roku had more than 30.5m active accounts as of 30 June, 2019, and according to a June 2019 comScore analysis, streams more ad-supported hours than any other OTT platform.
Dataxu provides marketers with an automated bidding and self-serve software solution to manage ad campaigns programmatically across digital platforms. It uses TV and OTT media planning tools, a proprietary device graph, and data science to help marketers optimize for business outcomes across TV, OTT, desktop and mobile.
The Dataxu acquisition will complement Roku’s OTT advertising platform and enable Roku to provide its advertisers with a single, data-driven software solution to plan, buy, and optimize their ad spend across TV and OTT providers.
Advertisers today spend more than $70bn on traditional TV. According to Magna Global, OTT accounts for 29 per cent of TV viewing but so far has only captured 3 per cent of TV ad budgets. As viewers continue to migrate to streaming, automated media buying solutions are expected to unlock more advertising investment into OTT.
“TV advertising is shifting toward OTT and a data-driven model focused on business outcomes for brands,” said Roku CEO, Anthony Wood. “The acquisition of Dataxu will accelerate our ad platform, while also helping our content partners monetize their inventory even more effectively.”