According to Statista, Smart TV shipments will continue to rise in 2017 with 244 million units shipped, up from 222 million in 2016.
Location data and the rich audience context that comes with it will play a significant role in generating alternative revenue streams in the Smart TV industry. By living at the device level on both smart phones and Smart TVs, manufacturers are well positioned to gain access to valuable viewer data on demographics, venues, and behavior, enabling new partnerships and advertising opportunities.
Advertising Attribution
Most Smart TVs have supporting mobile apps for iOS and Android, which customers use to interact with their TVs. These apps empower manufacturers to connect mobile data on customers with the programming they watch. This means that a manufacturer now has the opportunity to measure the effectiveness of TV advertising through the use of Infinite Geofences.
For example, a major electronics brand can partner with a Smart TV manufacturer and an ad network to understand how many consumers viewed the brand’s television ads on their Smart TV and later visited a real world store.
The TV manufacturer’s mobile application turns on geofences around each of the brand’s stores for consumers who view the ads. When those consumers visit the store, the manufacturer’s app attributes the ad network with a conversion.
This attribution opens an entirely new revenue stream for television ad networks who can now charge for conversions, in addition to impressions.
Audience Context & Predictive Modeling
Smart TV manufacturers can use location-based behavioral data on their customers to understand their media habits, shopping affinities, social behaviors and personal interests. Those profiles provide a critical mass of long tail psychographic data for predictive modeling.
Manufacturers are looking to cross-sell their Smart TV customers on kitchen appliance or electronics products. The more profiling data manufacturers have on their existing cross-product customers, the better they can understand which new Smart TV customers are likely to purchase other products from the same manufacturer. That’s valuable insight for sales and marketing campaigns aimed at upselling customers.
Improved UX for 3rd Party Developers
The Skyhook Precision Location SDK powers location services in tens of millions of devices, including devices without a cellular connection of GPS sensor. Because Smart TVs connect to the Internet via a hardwire or Wi-Fi, Skyhook can provide accurate location to the device and apps installed on it.
Smart TV app developers can deliver a more seamless user experience. Instead of requiring a user to input a postal code or city and state manually, those developers can use Skyhook hybrid positioning to set a default location automatically. Location features can frictionlessly power apps for making restaurant reservations, getting driving directions, ordering a taxi, or booking travel accommodations directly from the Smart TV.
