Today Roku announced that they are buying Dataxu in a $150 million deal to boost its ad business. Dataxu helps companies manage ad campaigns across digital platforms.
“TV advertising is shifting toward OTT and a data-driven model focused on business outcomes for brands,” Anthony Wood, Roku CEO, said in a statement. “The acquisition of Dataxu will accelerate our ad platform while also helping our content partners monetize their inventory even more effectively.”
Roku now makes more money from ads and subscriptions than they do from selling streaming players. This move seems to help Roku transition further into primarily being an ad company that also sells streaming players. According to Roku, advertisers spend more than $70 billion on traditional TV ads. As streaming grows, Roku hopes more of that spending will continue to move online through companies like Roku.
In the second quarter of 2019, Roku saw revenue from ads and subscriptions jump 86% to 167.7 million compared to just $90.3 million in the same period 2018. This is compared to revenue from streaming player sales that was just $82.4 million up 24% year over year.
According to Ad Age, Roku is already the top streaming ad solutions provider. It seems that Roku plans to keep it that way through deals like this one.
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