Author: Joseph Gray

System Status 12/14/21

Joseph Gray System Status

2:15PM ET Update – Appears we had a hardware issue crop up this AM that the team has been working on the past hour. If you’re seeing this message, that’s progress! We hope to have AdSphere back online momentarily and apologize for the issue.

3:10PM ET Update – It appears there was some kind of hardware/software issue in the control module of our SAN storage system. The underlying issue has been resolved but it appears it’s going to take most of the day to get systems back to normal. Our apologies and we will post more information as it becomes available.

4:30PM ET Update – Progress is being made but our team is still working on getting all of the critical systems back online after the control module issue of earlier today. We should be back to normal by end of day.

6:00PM ET Update – Adsphere is back online. We appreciate everyone’s patience today! Thank you.

iSpot Acquires DRMetrix To Bolster DTC, Direct Response Offerings and Addressable Advertising Capabilities

Joseph Gray AdSphere , , , , ,

BELLEVUE — Oct. 11th, 2021 — iSpot.tv, the real-time platform for measuring the business and brand impact of cross-platform TV advertising, today announced the acquisition of DRMetrix, a real-time TV ad measurement company specializing in products for direct-to-consumer and direct-response TV advertisers. 

The deal expands iSpot’s measurement of emerging formats for addressable advertising and enhances its ability to track rotating calls-to-actions, including website URLs, SMS and toll-free numbers. This capability — coupled with iSpot’s ability to track distinct creatives at scale and correlate ad exposures to conversion events such as digital actions and in-store traffic — gives brands of all sizes the expanded ability to measure the business impact of complex and dynamic ad buys across platforms. 

“iSpot is constantly investing in the development and acquisition of technologies required to accurately measure the TV advertising of tomorrow,” says Sean Muller, founder and CEO of iSpot. “DRMetrix has developed unique and real-time measurement capabilities around creative versioning and dynamic advertising that will become increasingly important as the TV ad market evolves.” 

DRMetrix’s AdSphere™ developed a measurement system for monitoring all TV ad formats and executions including those delivered via digital program insertion (DPI) ad breaks. The DPI measurement capabilities allow precise identification of ad creatives that are sold by the cable networks as “cover-ups,” which MVPDs inconsistently overlay with their own inventories. 

This inventory, which includes addressable and local advertising, creates a continuous blind spot for networks, agencies and brands. The cover-ups are a favorite means for DTC and DR advertisers to invest in and test television, as they often come at a heavy discount. But both the buy and sell side struggle to accurately quantify the performance and value of this inventory because, until the combination of DRMetrix and iSpot, they could not be measured precisely at scale. 

“We developed a unique system for accurately measuring one of the most dynamic and difficult portions of TV advertising, and we amassed a client base that represents a growing and important part of the TV ecosystem,” says Joseph Gray, founder/CEO of DRMetrix. “In iSpot, we’ve found a home for our innovations to thrive and a vehicle to accelerate our shared goals of making all TV ad measurement more transparent, more actionable and easier.”

The combined capability will also create cost savings for advertisers that traditionally rely on spike analysis, rotating phone numbers and links as the primary means for attribution.

DRMetrix serves 120 brands, networks and agencies, growing iSpot’s customer footprint to more than 450 annual brand subscriptions representing 60%+ of brands in the Ad Age 100 and 95% of TV networks in North America. This is iSpot’s second acquisition of a real-time ad measurement company. It acquired Ace Metrix in January to combine business and brand impact using Ace’s comprehensive qualitative approach to measurement and scoring of creative performance. 

About iSpot

iSpot.tv is the market leader in real-time cross-platform TV ad measurement and attribution. The company’s always-on platform measures the business impact and brand impact of TV advertising and offers fast, accurate and actionable information that empowers brands to justify and optimize TV and video investments.

iSpot persistently measures TV-device impressions and second-by-second attention for all TV ads in a unified manner across linear, time-shifted, VOD and streaming environments. iSpot’s Ace Metrix product measures brand perceptions for TV and video creatives using rapid qualitative panels, and its market-leading attribution solution enables advertisers and TV networks to plan, optimize and transact on business outcomes. 

iSpot delivers its solution in real time via intuitive and modern dashboards as well as APIs and customized analytics. iSpot.tv has hundreds of brands and all major TV networks licensing its enterprise solution and has become a trusted currency for both networks and brands. Founded in Bellevue, Washington in 2013, iSpot has offices in major cities across America.

System Status – 8/24/21

Joseph Gray System Status

Problem with airing level videos

A recently discovered issue is impacting airing level video playback. An airing level video should be available for the first 10 days after a creative airs. This is a helpful feature for creatives that use different 800 numbers across different networks or make any creative modifications which may be network or airing specific. When one clicks view links, during the initial 10 day window for any airing, such as in airing detail excel outputs or in the network log view, the video that plays should be of the actual airing and contain the correct 800 number, etc. Currently, the system is not playing the correct airing level video but rather a video sample of the creative which can be from any network.

For advertisers using different 800 numbers across networks, this situation may result in the wrong 800 number appearing in the video playback for airing level videos. This situation is due to a programming error on the part of our AdSphere development team and we are still working to determine when this issue started. Normally, user input would have exposed this type of issue, however, in this particular case, a member of our team happened to notice the issue. Our AdSphere development team is currently working to fix this issue and the plan is to push the fix to AdSphere on Friday of this week after they spend 2-3 days doing proper quality control checks. We sincerely apologize for this issue.

8/27/21 Update – The fix for airing level videos has been pushed to production. Please report any issues to support@drmetrix.com

System Status – 8/18/21

Joseph Gray System Status

There was a major power issue this evening that we understand impacted a rather large 30+ mile radius area which happens to include DRMetrix’s data center. In addition to the power related issues, part of a fiber optics ring was taken offline causing a regional loss of internet which impacted websites across the region. One of DRMetrix’s uninterruptable power supplies was damaged during the event. As a result, we have numerous servers that have to be rebooted, file integrity scans performed, etc. One of our database servers was also damaged and needs to be repaired. Presently, we have a technical support team working on all of these issues but it is going to take some time to resolve all of them. Please know that videos and thumbnails will not work until database server is repaired. It’s unlikely that all systems will be fully restored by the morning so these impacts may continue during the day on Thursday. We’ll post here as additional details become available.

8/19/21 7:00AM Update – Repairs are still ongoing. AdSphere is currently in maintenance mode but we are trying to bring it back online. When we do, initially videos and thumbnails may not work until repair on video database server is also complete. That process is ongoing. Will post update when we have an ETA on completion.

8/19/21 9:47AM Update – AdSphere is back online but work on DB server for video and thumbnails is still ongoing. A message will appear that video and thumbnails are not available and to try again in some time. Recovery of additional servers to get ad detections functioning normally again is ongoing.

8/19/21 8:30pm. Video and thumbnails are working once more in AdSphere.

System Status – 8/15/21

Joseph Gray System Status

Due to circumstances beyond our control, and until further notice, DRMetrix will be unable to monitor Fusion Network. We would very much like to continue monitoring this network if they are willing to authorize a receiver for DRMetrix. We do not charge networks anything for monitoring. If you purchase media from Fusion, please let them know that you would like to see them monitored by DRMetrix!

August 2021 Build

Joseph Gray AdSphere

We are pleased to bring some new features to our latest AdSphere build.

Exclude Response Type Filter

The introduction of a new Response Type filter “Exclude” makes it possible to exclude creative results where any combination of URL, SMS, TFN (toll free number) or MAR (mobile app response) elements exist. As an example, let’s say you’re interested in studying brand/dr campaigns that use any combination of URL, SMS, and MAR but you want to remove any creatives that have TFN. Previously, there was no way to do this but now you can select TFN together with the new Exclude button and click Apply! This will make it easier to isolate pure web based direct-to-consumer campaigns and much more.

Category / Sub-Category Fields

Campaigns in AdSphere can be assigned to one or two different categories / sub-categories. We have added fields for this in various reports so that users can easily determine which are assigned to each brand and ranking reports can easily be sorted using these new fields as shown below:

Track when new networks are added or removed from a brand or creative’s media schedule

In our May build of AdSphere, we added some new features on the network details page includes Active / Inactive network tabs, Active Weeks Counter, and Consecutive Weeks Counter. To read about these features, please click here. To put the finishing touches on these new features, we have added the ability to schedule recurring reports that key off of new Active or Inactive networks being added to a brand or creative schedule. As you will see below, when clicking the blue excel button, on either the Active or Inactive tab, will allow you make a variety of choices. In the upper section of the pop up dialog, you can request an excel output for either Active or Inactive networks. On the bottom section, you can optionally choose to have an automated weekly report scheduled and emailed to you every Monday based on any of the following conditions: When there are new active or new inactive networks, Only when there are new active networks, Only when there are new inactive networks, or run weekly whether or not there are new active or inactive networks.

There are multiple use cases for these new capabilities. It’s now easier than ever to track a particular brand or creative and be alerted should a new network be added to the schedule. You could also be alerted should a network be removed from the schedule. The reports you receive on Monday will alert you to any changes that were made in the prior media week.

We hope everyone enjoys these new features!

System Status – 8/2/21

Joseph Gray System Status

A new software build was pushed early in the AM today that will help to further increase infomercial detection accuracy. The main focus this week for the ACR team will be further enhancements to ad discovery and working to get caught up on outstanding new ad candidates. We wish to thank all of you who are uploading new creatives via AVS and/or sending us post log airing times so we can further expedite registration of new and/or missing ad candidates. We appreciate those of you who have brought various issues to our attention. Our team has been able to research and resolve various edge cases due to everyone’s super helpful input! Thank you.

System Status – 7/28/21

Joseph Gray System Status

I’m happy to report that network reporting delays have largely been resolved. Additional improvements are coming this week when the ACR team implements a new “multi-thread” solution designed to further speed up processing and system stability. A lot of work is being done on infomercials and we’re planning to push additional enhancements over the weekend to get infomercial detections back to normal. Ad discovery has become a main focus so that our team can get caught up on bringing new creatives, brands, and advertisers into the system. Those of you who wish to upload new creatives via AVS can help short cut that process. Thank you for your continued patience as we continue to work to get our systems back to normal.