NBCUniversal launches self-serve programmatic ad portal for Peacock TV

NBCUniversal has unveiled a self-serve programmatic ad portal for its Peacock TV streaming service, allowing greater access for businesses of all sizes.

What it does. Scheduled to launch in the second half of this year, Peacock Ad Manager will give performance marketers and their agencies access to “full-funnel attribution” ad measurement. It will incorporate the Peacock AX audience management platform, enabling “precision audience and geo-targeting and built-in performance measurement across the purchase funnel — from website visits to app downloads to purchase conversion.” 

The service, developed for NBCU by CTV ad-tech firm tvScientific, lets advertisers enter their budget, choose their target audience and KPIs, upload creative, and measure delivery as well as performance. The goal is to make Peacock more accessible for local and small- and medium-sized businesses. It will allow anyone “to unlock advanced targeting, performance insights, and attribution for the many advertisers who don’t have existing [demand-side platform] relationships,” Krishan Bhatia, NBCU president said in a statement.

Growing audience. This comes at a key moment for Peacock, which is expected to hit 64.3 million US viewers this year, up 25% from 51.5 million the year before, according to eMarketer. That viewership will mean it is reaching one-fifth of all internet users. At current growth levels it will expand to more than one-fourth by 2026, for a total of 84.2 million viewers. 

While Netflix recently lost 200,000 subscribers on news that it would have an ad-supported subscription tier, Peacock faces no such challenge. Of Peacock’s 24.5 million active subscriber accounts at the end of 2021, only a third existed at the free level. The majority of paid Peacock accounts are also ad supported, making ads a major revenue stream for the platform. 

Even with the increases Peacock will still be far behind CTV leaders Netflix, which has more than 170 million viewers, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+ and HBO Max, all of which have well over 80 million subscribers. However, it will rank ahead of ESPN+ and Apple TV+.

Why we care. Programmatic ads and marketing automation should be a boon for small- and medium-sized businesses. That said, it is sometimes the case that using them can be challenging and expensive. If NBCU’s system operates as described it will aid SMBs as we head into rockier economic times.

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