Better data on audiences and better measurement for advertisers were the name of the game as Nine announced new partnerships with Adgile and DataCo and a rebuilt data stack and customer segmentation expansion at today's Nine Upfronts event in Sydney.

The new pair-up with Adgile aims to provide independent measurement of effectiveness and attribution of each advertising campaign booked with Nine. It includes real-time insights into web traffic, app engagement, and share of search.

"We believe that transparency and measurement are critical in today’s advertising landscape. With Adgile’s expertise, we can offer our clients the tools they need to understand the real impact of their campaigns, whether they are investing $20,000 or $20 million," said Nick Young, Nine’s Commercial Director - Digital.

The deal with DataCo meanwhile, will enrich Nine consumer profiles using aggregated category spend via ANZ data, securely connecting this data with Nine’s own to provide more nuanced and sophisticated insights into sales uplift and category spend outcomes.

Nine also plans to enhance its attribution reporting by incorporating web traffic and search data insights into every report. The company will launch automated campaign reports with self-serve dashboards for every 9Now campaign in the coming months. These reports will cover off in-target delivery and reach metrics, 9Tribes analytics and footfall traffic reports powered by Near.

In addition, Nine said it has rebuilt its data stack to deliver an advanced audience data platform for advertisers in Australia, made possible by the rollout of Adobe's CDP solution earlier this year. This includes expanding out Nine's 9Tribes audience cohorts available to advertisers, which total 34 right now, to include more intender audiences. Insights housed in the CDP are derived from the combination of first-party data, plus data sharing arrangements with flybuys, Equifax, Avira, and now DataCo.

In all, Nine has integrated more than 40 data sources from across Nine’s assets, collecting real-time data points every month about who Nine’s audiences are, what they watch, read and listen.

"With 22 million registered users, Nine’s first party data is recent, relevant and we’re transparent about where it comes from. Nine’s tech stack and data gives a market-leading return on investment for brands and advertisers. The combination of Nine’s ability to identify audiences and bring that together with these rich behavioural and content consumption signals allows us to create the most comprehensive, single view of the consumer in the market," said Suzie Cardwell, Nine’s Chief Data Officer.

In 2025, Nine also will expand the forecasting in 9Predict - which uses AI to predict audience availability in broadcast - to include 9Now inventory.

Cardwell said it's also now able to match up customer data brands have in their own Adobe Experience Platform with its own CDP without moving between instances. From 2025, this will be expanded to clients with data on Tealium (used by Nine division, Domain) or Salesforce for secure matching.

The SMB play

Small and medium advertisers weren't left off the list either in terms of services. Nine said its self-serve SMB platform, Nine Ad Manager, is also expanding so that clients can buy Nine display advertising, plus search and social media inventory within the one place.

The capability is made possible with API links into search and social platforms. Display advertising includes all Nine properties, from SMH and The Australian Financial review to 9Now video campaigns.

"With our ability to precisely target audiences using age and sex demographics, postcode and Nine’s 9Tribes audience segments, Nine Ad manager is an all-in-one self-service ad platform that unlocks the power of streaming TV advertising for small and medium size businesses to connect with local customers in a safe, premium environment on the largest and most powerful screen in the home," said Young.

"Nine Ad Manager has proven to provide better business results for SMB's with over 4000 clients using the platform in our first year. These new advancements will drive even greater effectiveness and ease by allowing SMBs to buy search, social and display campaigns with the powerhouse of premium television all in one place."