TV has always been a powerful tool for driving brand awareness, but measuring its performance across the funnel has typically been a challenge. Today’s advertisers need to be able to understand how all of their media investments are driving impact – including TV.
That’s why Comcast Advertising has prioritized making advancements and working with key partners to build out robust attribution solutions that enable advertisers to see how their TV advertising is driving outcomes from awareness to action, including website conversions and sales.
Recently, we’ve partnered with Kochava, a leader in omnichannel measurement, to redefine how TV advertising is measured and valued. As the first MVPD to integrate with Kochava for Publishers & Platforms, we’re bringing advanced attribution to our clients. With this new partnership, advertisers can gain real-time insights into campaign performance—including tracking actions like clicks, views, and streaming app downloads directly tied to their campaigns—across home screens, featured apps, and tiles. With scalable tracking, privacy-safe data sharing, and instant conversion data, Kochava’s technology empowers brands to optimize campaigns with confidence.
This partnership sets a new standard for performance-driven outcomes when it comes to TV advertising, proving it isn’t just impactful—it’s measurable. To highlight the value of this partnership and what it means for our advertiser clients we sat down with Jason Hicks, GM of Measurement Solutions at Kochava, to provide a bit more insight into the world of TV attribution and what this collaboration means for the industry.
Let’s get into it.
Q. Can you provide an overview of Kochava and describe your role within the organization?
A: In 2011, Kochava launched as one of the first mobile measurement partners (MMPs). For anyone unfamiliar with MMPs, we provide unbiased, independent attribution for brands to connect the dots between their marketing efforts and their app growth, really showing them where their next ad dollar will drive the greatest impact. While we’re still well known as an MMP, that term can be misleading these days, as we’ve evolved far beyond “mobile.” Today we power measurement, activation, and optimization across mobile, streaming TV or connected TV, web, gaming consoles, and every other connected device and channel. Our measurement disciplines include last-touch attribution, multi-touch attribution, and always-on marketing mix modeling.
In terms of my role, I’m presently the General Manager of Measurement Solutions. I’ve been fortunate to spend well over a decade at Kochava, leading the growth and expansion of our measurement stack, which at first was geared toward advertisers. In 2020 we launched Kochava for Publishers to provide outcomes measurement services to publishers and platforms, including Comcast Advertising. We realized the supply-side of the ecosystem could benefit from our expertise in measurement and optimization to prove the performance of premium ad inventory.
Q. How does Kochava define attribution, and how does that impact your strategic approach when it comes to partnerships ?
A: We like to think of attribution as helping marketers measure what matters to them. For advertisers on the demand side, that’s understanding how their campaigns drive growth against the outcomes that matter to them. For the publishers and platforms we serve on the supply side, it’s being able to prove performance against lower-funnel outcomes to their advertisers.
For those advertisers that leverage Kochava for their omnichannel measurement, every new partnership we forge enables our clients to bring that partner’s media into focus alongside the bigger picture of all their other media mix partners. That helps break down siloes that too often exist within marketing departments where different channels and relationships are managed and measured in isolation.
Q. In your view, how has the landscape of TV advertising attribution evolved over time?
A: Performance storytelling is a term that surfaced about 3 years ago at this point. I still think that’s one of the best terms to describe what we’ve observed. There has been a seismic shift from thinking about TV (both traditional and streaming) as a brand play to recognizing it as a performance marketing channel where the story of performance can be told in ways that were once impossible. Advances in measurement technology are enabling marketers to connect the dots to the outcomes that matter for their business, impacting how TV media buys are transacted.
Q. What do you consider to be the most impactful aspects of Kochava’s partnership with Comcast Advertising? What elements of the collaboration are particularly exciting to you?
A: Comcast Advertising has this incredible legacy and leadership within TV advertising – one that is rooted in their high-fidelity audience data combined with premium video content To see how they’re adapting their offerings and democratizing access to their premium media through Universal Ads and self-service capabilities… is incredible. We’re excited to be a part of how they are proving the performant nature of that inventory and sheer reach, to power the real-time attribution signals that will help Comcast Advertising drive maximum outcomes and performance for their advertisers.
Q. How do you envision the future of TV attribution, and what trends should the industry be preparing for?
A: Converging traditional TV and streaming into the same measurement paradigm is something we’re working toward across our partnerships. Recent research out of eMarketer projects 2027 as the year CTV spend will surpass traditional, yet traditional will still account for tens of billions annually into the distant future. Enabling that cross-platform visibility into incremental reach and outcomes performance is what advertisers need to effectively optimize ROI.
The proliferation of FAST channels is leading to explosive growth in supply, just as more self-serve capabilities are coming online that make streaming activation a tangible reality for the SMB (small and medium business) space. We see outcomes measurement playing an increasingly crucial role in justifying the spend from the SMB market. There’s a need for proven results to justify investments and that requires real-time attribution.
Lastly, Kochava is committed to connecting media investments to business outcomes (KPIs) and our outcomes marketplace is growing rapidly. Not only do we support digital outcomes such as mobile + streaming app installs (+ events), website and Shopify conversions, we’re doing more with advanced outcomes like theatrical movie ticket sales, footfall visitation with sales outcomes, automotive purchase registrations—and more. It’s really about removing the barriers to what can be measured, so you can prove performance no matter what the campaign goal may be.
Learn more about the power of proof of performance and attribution for multiscreen TV.
