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Today, Cox Automotive and Roku announced a partnership that pairs industry-leading data from Cox Automotive with TV streaming data from Roku, America’s #1 TV streaming platform, to better measure TV streaming advertising.¹ Through this partnership, Roku becomes the first TV streaming pilot partner to offer and market Cox Automotive data for measurement in the TV streaming category.
Cox Automotive’s family of brands, including Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book, reach two out of three online car shoppers during their research and shopping journey.² Together, Cox Automotive and Roku will use this unrivaled data set to help auto marketers quantify exactly how advertising in streaming TV impacts web browsing, vehicle sales, and more.
The market is clearly ready, as both retail media, which includes the auto vertical, and streaming TV advertising are growing rapidly. eMarketer projects that U.S. digital retail media ad spending will increase 31.4% to $40.8 billion in 2023, giving it an 18% share of all digital ad spending. And the shift to TV streaming is happening even faster than that. Auto marketers increased their TV streaming ad spend by 35% YOY in 2022, compared with just 7% YOY in 2021.³
“With our data capabilities combined, we will offer auto advertisers a holistic view of the consumer auto journey, revolutionizing how advertisers measure the impact of their digital advertising investment,” says Steve Lind, VP of Operations, Advertising, at Cox Automotive. “Cox Automotive’s unparalleled audience paired with the data insights from Roku will provide a new look at performance during every stage of the car buyer journey.”
What does this mean for auto brands?
Cox Automotive’s partnership with Roku achieves two things.
First, it fills a measurement void. Nearly half of potential auto buyers start their consumer journey 6+ months before a purchase.⁴ However, most measurement solutions for auto marketers today only capture basic sell-through metrics for new and used vehicle transactions. This leaves a blind spot for brands who want to understand how TV streaming impacts search, discovery and pre-purchase behavior.
Second, it brings scale to automotive streaming insights. Roku’s 70 million active accounts paired with Cox Automotive's 2.7 billion online visits across its online properties, offers unprecedented reach among consumers.⁵ This scale will give automotive marketers critical insights and proof points that will in turn raise confidence in their measurement methodologies and inform their media investment decisions for 2023 and beyond.
How will it work?
Advertisers who take advantage of Roku and Cox Automotive’s partnership will gain visibility into the entire car buyer journey – from early consideration to intent and ultimately to purchase.
To get started, an auto brand identifies its target audience and runs a TV streaming campaign with Roku. Roku then passes its de-identified and encrypted ad exposure data to Cox Automotive, which matches that data with their own first-party data set. Cox Automotive can then deliver reports that tie streaming ad exposure to consumer behaviors across Cox Automotive properties.
“The ad measurement of the future will start with data from direct consumer relationships because it’s more accurate and scalable,” says Asaf Davidov, Head of Ad Measurement and Research at Roku. “Roku and Cox are uniquely positioned to partner with auto marketers to go under the hood and make every marketing dollar work harder.”
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¹ Based on hours streamed, Dec 2022, Hypothesis Group
² Cox Automotive Car Buying Journey - 2022
³ SMI December Forecast for TV & Streaming, January-November 2022
⁴¯⁵ Cox Automotive Data - 2021
