Automotive advertisers gain deeper insights into TV ad performance

Three days ago, on January 22, 2025, Effectv, the advertising division of Comcast Advertising, announced a strategic partnership with automotive analytics firm Clarivoy. The collaboration aims to provide detailed attribution metrics for automotive advertisers across traditional television and streaming platforms, with the launch planned for the second quarter of 2025.

According to Steve White, CEO at Clarivoy, the company observes more than 160 million automotive shopping sessions monthly, providing comprehensive visibility into consumer purchase patterns. Through this extensive dataset, advertisers can track how their television campaigns influence various stages of the car buying process, from initial research to final purchase.

The partnership leverages Blockgraph technology to analyze television advertising exposure while maintaining viewer privacy. The system matches anonymized viewing data from Effectv with Clarivoy's measurements of consumer behavior across automotive marketplaces and dealership websites. This technical integration enables automotive advertisers to measure the impact of their campaigns on specific business metrics, including website visits, lead generation, and vehicle sales.

Anthony Jingoli, Head of Local Automotive Strategy at Effectv, stated that "Clarivoy has set the standard for the auto industry when it comes to clear, timely and unbiased measurement metrics." The integration of Clarivoy's measurement capabilities with Effectv's insights and scale aims to provide automotive advertisers with detailed performance metrics throughout the purchase funnel.

The measurement solution combines data from multiple sources to track consumer behavior. When potential car buyers interact with automotive websites or visit dealerships after viewing television advertisements, the system attributes these actions to specific campaign exposures. This granular tracking helps advertisers understand which aspects of their media strategy drive tangible business outcomes.

Effectv maintains a significant market presence, operating in 66 markets across the United States with approximately 35 million owned and represented subscribers. This scale provides automotive advertisers with extensive reach across both traditional television and streaming platforms.

The new attribution capability marks the first component of Effectv's Suite of Attribution Solutions, a comprehensive set of measurement offerings designed to provide advertisers with enhanced insights into their media investments across multiple screens. The suite integrates with Effectv's Audience Addressable solution, which enables household-level targeting capabilities.

From a technical perspective, the system processes vast amounts of data. Clarivoy's platform analyzes over 160 million automotive shopping sessions each month, creating a substantial dataset for attribution analysis. This volume of data allows for detailed pattern recognition and correlation between advertising exposure and consumer actions.

The partnership addresses specific challenges in automotive advertising measurement. Traditional attribution models often struggle to connect television advertising exposure to subsequent online and offline behaviors. By combining viewing data with shopping activity, advertisers can better understand the relationship between their television campaigns and consumer actions throughout the purchase journey.

The measurement system accounts for both linear television and streaming content, reflecting the diverse ways consumers access video content. This comprehensive approach helps advertisers understand how their messages perform across different delivery platforms and viewing environments.

For the automotive industry, this development comes at a time when measuring advertising effectiveness has become increasingly complex due to fragmented media consumption patterns. The integration of television viewing data with automotive shopping behavior provides a more complete picture of advertising impact across multiple touchpoints in the consumer journey.

The collaboration between Effectv and Clarivoy represents a significant advancement in automotive advertising measurement, combining extensive datasets and sophisticated attribution methodology to provide detailed insights into campaign performance. The planned second-quarter launch will make these measurement capabilities available to mutual clients of both companies, enabling more precise evaluation of television advertising investments in the automotive sector.