- LiveRamp announced that it acquired television analytics company Data Plus Math at a reported price of $150 million (cash and stock)
- This deal will provide the ecosystem with a more effective way to buy, sell, and measure data-driven television
Recently, LiveRamp announced that it acquired television analytics company Data Plus Math at a reported price of $150 million (cash and stock). This will provide the ecosystem with a more effective way to buy, sell, and measure data-driven television.
“On the heels of our strategic partnership announced last year, we’re incredibly excited to now be joining LiveRamp,” Data Plus Math CEO John Hoctor remarked. “TV remains the most effective way for brands to quickly reach their audience, build their brand and drive product sales. Unfortunately as consumer’s viewing habits have evolved, TV measurement has struggled to keep up. With LiveRamp, we’re changing that.”
Data Plus Math is a media measurement company that works with brands, agencies, cable operators, streaming TV services, and networks to tie cross-screen ad exposure with real-world outcomes.
“While TV continues to be the most engaging screen in the household, the landscape is shifting,” said LiveRamp CEO Scott Howe. “Data and technology have transformed the relationship a brand can have with its consumer on TV, creating tremendous opportunities to improve how TV inventory is bought, sold and measured. We are excited for Data Plus Math to join the LiveRamp family and look forward to working closely with its deeply experienced team of industry experts. Together, we will accelerate LiveRamp’s TV efforts and offerings and unlock the amazing power of data-driven TV for the entire ecosystem.”
The combination of LiveRamp and Data Plus Math brings together the world’s largest people-based identity graph with cross-screen data and key sell-side relationships thus resulting in a big win for the entire ecosystem.
“LiveRamp’s identity resolution technology is an integral part of our ability to truly understand our guests and how they’re shopping at Target. As we continue investing in our reimagined media company, Roundel, this addressability plays a key role in our ability to create smart, personalized campaigns that connect our guests to the brands and offers that are most important to them,” added Kristi Argyilan, (President at Target’s media company Roundel). “LiveRamp is an important partner that shares our vision for addressable, measurable guest interactions, and the addition of Data Plus Math’s powerful, real-world insights is an exciting next step in our work together to create exceptional guest experiences on any channel or platform.”
TV advertising is considered the most powerful way for marketers to reach a wide audience, but it lacks the ability to deliver people-based addressability and measurement across channels. And brands and agencies can implement outcome-driven TV buying and measurement to deliver more relevant messages to consumers and generate higher ROI.
“This is an exciting acquisition for LiveRamp,” explained GroupM’s CEO of North America Tim Castree. “Our clients are seeking more precise solutions for people-based, cross-platform activation and measurement. The combination of LiveRamp’s identity management capabilities and Data Plus Math’s TV attribution expertise will certainly help us accelerate that.”
By combining the reach and scale of TV with the outcome-driven capabilities marketers require, brands and agencies are able to better coordinate the customer journey, deliver more relevant messaging, and tie TV campaigns to measurable return on investment (ROI). This move will also strengthen LiveRamp’s network and expands its ability to power experiences across the entire customer journey in a privacy-conscious way.
“For three decades, Horizon’s business has been built on an integrated business service model,” noted Horizon Media CEO and president Bill Koenigsberg. “Data Plus Math is a partner of ours because we trust them as business solution experts. They have been able to integrate TV and digital ad exposure with data analytics, insights, and analysis. Now we’ll look to LiveRamp to elevate what we’ve done with Data Plus Math, incorporating people-based identity into video buys, all within a Safe Haven environment to protect and uphold consumer privacy.”
Networks will be able to better measure reach across multiple consumer screens and deliver outcome-based decisioning to brands and agencies — which will ultimately improve yields.
“A+E Networks was the first to offer outcome-based guarantees, working to successfully shift the media industry mindset in partnership with Data Plus Math,” commented A+E Networks’ EVP of Ad Sales Peter Olsen. “Data Plus Math has been instrumental in our efforts to provide marketers with measurement tools that accurately reflect TV’s unmatched power to drive business outcomes. This deal will continue to help elevate the groundbreaking, foundational work that Data Plus Math and LiveRamp have already done – as neutral constituents – to bolster cross-screen measurement and outcome attribution for advertisers, agencies and media companies.”
And distributors can more easily tie exposure data to business outcomes to prove ROI for their premium addressable inventory. And all ecosystem participants will benefit from an independent source of cross-screen, people-based TV measurement and LiveRamp’s Data Safe Haven.
“A requirement for growing the market for audience-based buying is campaign measurement that goes beyond reach. We are encouraged by the work Data Plus Math has been doing to go beyond reach and map exposure to business outcomes,” OpenAP CEO David Levy pointed out. “Further cementing a relationship with LiveRamp is an important step that creates more opportunities for marketers to better measure and action outcome data across the consumer journey.”
This acquisition will deepen LiveRamp’s commitment to neutrality – a key component to driving adoption of these next-generation measurement capabilities.
“Our mission at NCC is to empower brands to connect with their audiences wherever and whenever they watch content, which is why we are so excited by this news,” said NCC Media CEO Nicolle Pangis revealed. “The combination of LiveRamp and Data Plus Math is a great thing for the industry and represents an important step toward building an open and flexible model for the next generation of TV advertising.”
This deal will also further LiveRamp’s ongoing commitment to providing an open and scaled omnichannel identity solution, which includes efforts like embedding IdentityLink into the bidstream, launching the Open Internet Measurement Initiative, providing LiveRamp’s identity graph to demand-side platforms free of charge via IdentityLink for Real-time Bidding, and expanding that to include cookieless inventory with its Authenticated Traffic Solution.
The acquisition is expected to close in LiveRamp’s fiscal second quarter. And in fiscal 2020, Data Plus Math is expected to contribute approximately $5 million in revenue and increase non-GAAP operating loss by approximately $8 million. And LiveRamp is expecting the transaction to increase GAAP operating loss by approximately $27 million due to higher non-cash compensation and estimated purchased intangible asset amortization.
In terms of the fiscal 2020 guidance update (excluding the impact of non-cash stock compensation, purchased intangible asset amortization, and restructuring charges), LiveRamp is expecting revenue to hit $363 million to $377 million, an increase of between 27% and 32% year-over-year. And GAAP operating loss from continuing operations of between $192.5 million and $172.5 million / Non-GAAP operating loss of between $78 million to $58 million. For the full year of fiscal 2021, LiveRamp is continuing to expect to be profitable on a non-GAAP operating income.
