Google closes TV Ads buying and measurement platform

Vice president of product Shishir Mehrotra cited the shift to digital video as the reason to close the service and “double down” on developing other video advertising solutions, such as YouTube and AdWords for Video.

“We also see opportunities to help users access web content on their TV screens, through products like Google TV,” said Mehrotra.

Google’s TV Ads platform was designed to let advertisers bid to run their ads on certain inventory across more than 100 different cable networks. Advertisers would set their budget, pick their audience targets and upload and launch their ad.

Once an ad was running, Google would analyse anonymised data from set-top boxes to report back to advertisers about the performance of their campaigns. Google struck deals with a number of research companies, including Kantar, Tivo and Nielsen, to bolster its TV Ads measurement capabilities.