CHICAGO — The latest incarnation of a leading TV-synced online ads enabler is coming in to focus, with the announcement, by ad data company 4C Insights, that it has raised funds to acquire Teletrax, aiming to beef up its activities in social and TV advertising.
“We’re playing aggressively in the decisioning process for addressable TV and we’re hoping to streamline some of the creative decisioning,” 4C CEO Lance Neuhauser tells Beet.TV in this video interview, recorded in Chicago earlier this month.
Teletrax was first started as a TV watermarking and monitoring service by Medialink Worldwide in 2002. Six years later, it was acquired by Philips’s Content Identification unit, which later spun out as Civolution.
As Civolution, the company’s main technology play has been to trigger ads on social media platforms in sync with live TV broadcasts, maximising advertiser reach. The technology was deployed to target ads against in-game Superbowl plays back in January.
Civolution sold off its audience measurement and watermarking tech to Kantar last fall, reverting to use the Teletrax brand to focus on the TV-synced ads. Social ad click-throughs increase when delivered along with related TV broadcasts, the company says. It is this which 4C Insight is acquiring.
Chicago-based 4C already offers a measurement and planning platform that lets ad buyers target social media users by interests, TV programs and languages.
In its announcement, it says: “By combining data from set-top boxes, ad scheduling, and TV ad occurrences, 4C can address millions of households and provide TV verification for advertisers, agencies, broadcasters, and operators.”
4C is getting an Eindhoven, Netherlands-based company that will expand its feature set and geographic footprint, as the industry begins to apply online ad targeting techniques to TV, even combining the two.
To make the purchase, 4C raised further investment led by Jump Partners. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Civolution CEO Alex Terpstra, who joins 4C as EMEA managing director, says: “Teletrax clients will soon enjoy 4C’s unique ability to unlock the power of social connections in driving advertising effectiveness, while 4C’s clients gain access to our real-time TV analytics and TV synced advertising offerings. It truly is a win-win for everyone involved.”