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SMI Releases Pricing Intelligence Tools for Unified View of CPMs


Author: Robert Williams
Publication: Beet TV

Standard Media Index, leading data and analytics company, this week introduced software tools to help compare the cost of streaming video and linear TV. Its Pricing Intelligence Suite includes a digital CPM for streaming video along with a traditional and advanced audience effective CPM (eCPM) for linear TV.

“The combination of these two products provides a unified view of CPMs across all classes of video including TV,” Ben Tatta, president of Standard Media Index, said in this interview with Beet.TV.

The company captures census-level billing data for more than $90 billion of ad spending in the U.S. market from media buyers. It recently expanded to Canada, and plans to roll out service in the United Kingdom this summer, followed by Spain, India and China.

Its new product suite includes TV eCPM for standard demo-based audiences and advanced audiences, based on TV unit-level pricing data from real agency spend, along with third party viewership and impressions data from leading measurement companies.

“What’s really important about our pricing intelligence product is the fact that it’s much more granular,” Tatta said. “In addition to just average CPMs, we also look at different dimensions around those buys, whether it’s targeting dimensions … or whether it has to do with some of those taxes on the CPM, such as ad-serving fees or campaign verification, ID resolution.”

SMI has a feature called “campaign composition” for every CPM to give buyers and sellers a sense of what went into that metric. It also helps to see the different forms of adtech that go into a CPM calculation to help compare campaigns on a like-for-like basis.

“There really is a huge void on the digital side of the house, in particular,” Tatta said. “The only kind of CPM insights that are available are either garnered through a survey or through some kind of qualitative research. It’s OK directionally, but doesn’t really help either the buyer or the sell-side in terms of optimizing on a like-for-like basis.”


Standard Media Index is now a Guideline company

Learn more