AI-driven media intelligence company Samba TV recently announced a strategic partnership with Kochava, the omnichannel measurement and attribution company. This new collaboration aims to solve one of the industry’s most persistent challenges: having always-on, consistently measured performance across both TV and digital platforms at scale.
By marrying Samba TV’s first-party viewership data with Kochava’s advanced attribution analytics, the partnership will deliver outcomes insights across linear TV, CTV, and digital, and provide a cohesive measurement pipeline for existing and new customers.
New Digital Age spoke to Kochava CEO and Founder Charles Manning to find out more.
Tell me about Kochava and its evolution to date.
At its core, we’re a measurement and attribution company that helps brands and advertisers understand the efficacy of their media spend. We started in the mobile app space, as what’s known as a mobile measurement partner, a category Meta really defined in the early 2010s. Back then, the focus was on measuring installs, post-install engagement, and the ads that drove those actions. That was our core business for six or seven years, and we grew substantially.
Over time, customers began asking if we could extend our capabilities to measure across traditional web and other channels that were important to our customers. That led us to building an omnichannel measurement system spanning mobile, web, CTV, gaming platforms, and more. Kochava has long been the dominant market leader for media and entertainment as a market segment with over 90% market share of the top streaming companies. This position afforded us early insight on the importance of omni-channel measurement.
What does the new partnership with Samba TV add to Kochava’s offering?
The one nut we hadn’t cracked was linear TV. We’d tried various approaches — inferring measurement from as-run logs, for example — but the data just wasn’t accurate enough. Samba’s strength is automated content recognition, giving us a highly accurate signal of what’s actually on screen, importantly for linear TV. For the first time, we could bring digital-level measurement to linear, and fold it into real-time omnichannel evaluation. The value proposition is simple: wouldn’t you like to know how your linear TV spend compares to your CTV, social, or short-form video spend? That resonated, and it’s why we’ve gone to market together.
What are advertisers asking for right now?
Brand safety is less of a concern in CTV than in digital display because ads are interstitial; they’re the only thing you see. Where we see the most interest is in comparative efficacy: understanding how linear performs against CTV, and both against other digital channels. The outcomes that matter aren’t just reach and frequency. What is important is ‘outcomes’ from the ad exposure. Outcomes include app downloads, website visits, store visits or other business drivers. For our media and entertainment customers, there’s also ‘tune-in’, driving audiences to a specific show, then measuring whether they actually watched. It’s the TV-world equivalent of digital re-engagement, and it’s hugely important for premium streaming platforms and their linear affiliates.
Are there any other trends in the marketplace worth paying attention to?
Linear usage is declining, but with so many new TVs shipping each year, and every one essentially a 65-inch connected device, CTV capacity is exploding. We’re seeing a period of expansion and contraction: the proliferation of FAST channels means there’s more content than ever, but advertisers still need scale, which is best delivered by the big, consolidated platforms. You can run an ad on a niche FAST channel, but maybe only five people will see it. That’s why you’re seeing moves like Disney folding Hulu into Disney+, Prime integrating Freevee, and Warner Bros. Discovery unifying properties. There’s a drive toward larger, unified streaming ecosystems.
What does success look like for Kochava over the next few years?
Last year we kicked off a three-year strategic plan built on three pillars. First, serve brands and agencies to help them grow. Second, help premium publishers demonstrate the value of their inventory. Third, transform advertising workflows into repeatable, automated processes – campaign planning, activation, optimization, creative analysis – so they’re faster, better, and easier.
Advertising is full of workflows, many undocumented and locked in tribal knowledge. We believe a major industry shift over the next two years will be making those workflows agentic and scalable, and we want to help lead that.
