Facebook tests ad targeting for people streaming certain shows on Roku and Apple TVs, linking FB profiles with IP addresses
The social media company is working with A&E and a streaming startup to tailor more conventional commercials for viewers. — by — Subscribe Reprints
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the targeting mechanics behind a push already underway: Facebook had been building toward TV money since its new ad products aimed at TV dollars in 2015, and weeks before this report it began testing delivery of TV ads through its ad network into apps on devices like Apple TV and Roku (the November ad-network test). What this Bloomberg piece adds is the connective tissue — Facebook matching its member profiles to living-room devices by IP address, with A&E and a streaming startup as first partners.
The stakes are Facebook turning its social-graph targeting advantage into connected-TV inventory, a space it doesn't own hardware for. The follow-on coverage shows where this was heading: a dedicated Facebook video app for Apple TV and other set-top boxes, and eventually talks to sell HBO, Showtime and Starz streaming services directly on its platform.
First-order effects
- A&E and the unnamed streaming startup become the first programmers whose conventional commercials can be targeted to specific Facebook-identified households on Roku and Apple TVs, rather than bought as broad TV spots.
Second-order effects
- TV networks and their ad-sales arms now compete against an entrant that can offer profile-level targeting on the same screens, pressuring them to open up their own viewing data or lose premium budgets to Facebook's network.
Third-order effects
- If IP-to-profile matching proves durable, identity rather than channel becomes the unit of TV advertising — consolidating buying around whoever holds the richest cross-device graphs, and inviting privacy scrutiny of silent household-level tracking.
The trend: Social platforms are extending their profile-based ad targeting onto living-room screens, eroding the line between digital and television advertising.