How Does a Smart TV Get Ads to the Right People

New technology, including devices such as smart TVs, has opened a world of possibilities. Do you want to embrace new opportunities for the betterment of your business? Then you’ll have to keep up with the latest ways to advertise—including automatic content recognition, or ACR for short. So, what does automatic content recognition mean? And how can it be an advantage for your business advertising? Read on to learn more.

Why Use Smart TVs?

Most homeowners these days have upgraded their TVs, especially in the age of content streaming. In the year from 2018 to 2019 alone, ownership of smart TVs went up about 10 percent. With more and more smart TVs in homes, this makes automatic content recognition great for reaching many consumers.

What Is Automatic Content Recognition?

If you’ve never heard the term automatic content recognition before, you’re not alone. While it’s been around for some time, widespread awareness is just beginning.

Automatic content recognition is built into many smart TVs. While it’s not in all of them, more and more ACR-enabled smart TVs are being put out on the market. Most smart TVs, including from popular brands such as Samsung and Vizio, are likely to be ACR enabled.

Two types of automatic content recognition are used to track and provide the data advertisers want. They are broken into audio-based and visual-based ACR. These two categories are also known as acoustic and video fingerprinting.

Audio-based ACR and visual-based ACR essentially provide a way to see and hear what an individual is playing on their smart TV.

The audio signal can come from a tune, song, or frequency, while a video signal can be short clips or stills.

How Does ACR Work?

The process starts when an audio and/or visual signal is captured by the smart TV. This signal is just a snippet instead of a whole program. Once the signal is captured, it’s time to find its match. This is achieved through a wide reference library, which includes existing content snippets from all sorts of television programs, movies, and ads. Once a match is made, the content is identified and recognized.

This isn’t limited to live TV viewing either. ACR also works with on-demand viewing, video games, and devices plugged into an ACR-enabled smart TV, such as a Blu-ray player.

What Data Is Gathered Through ACR?

ACR shows a lot of helpful information to advertisers.

To start, it can determine on what platform an ad was played, such as live TV, video on demand, or a connected device.

Another type of information gained through ACR is the demographic of the viewer, including their IP addresses, email addresses, and/or street addresses.

This data can show the viewing habits of the smart TV’s owner, such as the times they watch their devices, how much or how little they channel surf, the type of content they watch, if they view ads and/or content in their entirety or skip or don’t finish viewing, or how long they typically watch a smart TV for.

As you can see, ACR data gives a good picture of individual smart TV viewers. So how can you use that to your business’s advantage?

How Can Businesses Use ACR Data to Find the Right People?

Automatic content recognition is another evolution of the targeted-based approach to advertising that has become very popular in recent years. The data gathered is very helpful for targeting specific groups.

The improved targeting of ACR takes into consideration things like viewing timeframes and the media watched. This is one of the ways it helps you target very specific groups.

ACR allows for frequency optimization, which ensures ads are shown at the best times and rates. Your business’s ads will reach as many viewers as possible.

Another way ACR allows your business’s ads to be viewed by more specific—and ideally targeted—groups is through reach control. Do you want to reach different people this time? The control allows you to skip households you’ve already targeted. Or are you interested in getting your ads across to loyal customers? Reach control helps with that too.

ACR data also helps measure viewership and ad performance. This includes measuring the overlap between who saw the ad while watching live TV versus streaming. It can also target ads to viewers when they’re on other devices, such as a laptop or smartphone, instead of their smart TV.

ACR data can even make sure an individual only sees the ads a certain number of times a week. That way, they’re aware of your business but not so oversaturated with ads that they refuse to consider you because they’re annoyed.
You can also work the data you’ve received from ACR into your actual ad campaigns—yet another targeting method.

Put simply, by taking advantage of this technology, ads for your business will be seen by the type of people who would buy what you’re selling.

Why Should a Business Owner Trust ACR’s Effectiveness?

The proof of ACR’s success in advertising doesn’t lie. Businesses have found that, in addition to driving up online traffic, ACR also brings new customers in-store or on location.

Technology is ever-evolving at a faster and faster rate. Sometimes, advertisers can tell when certain developments are no more than a passing trend. However, many advertising and marketing agencies have reshaped their approaches based on the success of ACR.
By using the helpful data received by ACR, marketers for your business can make better, more informed decisions about TV advertisements. It’s proved to be precise and accurate. So why not try it and see how well your business’ ads can reach the right people? Turn to us at Digital Marketing Group. We’ll devise the perfect strategy so you can start reaping the benefits of ACR.

We make it our mission to keep up with the latest developments in technology and digital media. This includes automatic content recognition, the metaverse, and so much more. When you work with us to market your business, you can trust you’re getting a head start. We’ll help you reach an audience you may not have known was possible. Find more information about Digital Marketing Group on our website.