Let’s Talk with Natalie Guest – Smarter TV and Digital Advertising Solutions

Today, I’m joined by Natalie Guest, Regional Sales Manager for AdSmart from Sky, covering Cheshire and Lancashire. Natalie has been a driving force in the advertising and marketing world for over 20 years, and she’s passionate about helping businesses connect with their ideal customers. One of her proudest achievements has been bringing the power of AdSmart to local businesses, allowing them to showcase their offerings alongside Sky’s premium content, targeted to the right audience.

For those unfamiliar, AdSmart is a revolutionary approach to TV advertising that lets businesses reach specific audiences based on a wide range of factors like location, demographics, and interests. Think of it as tailoring your message to exactly who you want to reach, making TV advertising more relevant and effective for businesses of all sizes.

Natalie recently hosted a successful AdSmart event in her hometown of Wigan, partnering with local production agency Voxy Media. Let’s dive in and hear more from Natalie about how AdSmart is changing the advertising game.

Leon: AdSmart from Sky is all about helping businesses connect with the ‘right’ audience. Can you walk us through how it helps businesses define and target their ideal customers through TV advertising? What kinds of data and targeting options are available?

Natalie: AdSmart from Sky connects advertisers with their ideal audience through precise, targeted, addressable advertising. By using advanced data from partners like Experian, Nectar, and Tesco Media, along with Sky’s own verified household data, we tailor ads to reach the right people at the right time, whatever they are watching on Sky. Different households are served different ads, even when watching the same programme, to ensure every campaign reaches the correct household demographic.
We can offer millions of targeting combinations using relevant, regularly refreshed data. Our bespoke, up-to-date audience profiles are built to match individual campaign goals. We can segment audiences based on socio-demographics and lifestyle factors, such as household composition, life stage, interests, financial status, and vehicle ownership. Geographical targeting allows us to focus on specific areas, including BARB regions, local authorities and postcode areas. We also use behavioural data like purchase patterns, home mover status, TV viewing habits, and online search behaviour to refine targeting further. Additionally, we offer custom solutions by matching advertiser data to reach existing customers or exclude them from campaigns, ensuring maximum relevance and impact. AdSmart from Sky makes advertising smarter, more meaningful, and highly effective.

For e-commerce businesses, measuring the effectiveness of campaigns is critical. How does AdSmart’s attribution modeling help track online conversions and sales driven by TV campaigns?

AdSmart from Sky offers award-winning evaluation tools to measure how TV campaigns drive online conversions and sales. Advertisers can upload sales and enquiry data to match leads with households served the TV ad, demonstrating direct ROI. Our web attribution tool places a pixel on the advertiser’s website to track visits and customer profiles linked to ad exposure. We also provide brand evaluations, which compare exposed and unexposed audience groups to assess the campaign’s impact on brand recall and consideration, offering a clear view of its effectiveness.

With so many brands focused on mapping the entire customer journey, how can AdSmart’s data and insights integrate with other marketing channels to give a full picture of campaign performance?

AdSmart offers tools to assess performance across the marketing funnel. Brand evaluations measure shifts in brand recall and consideration among audiences exposed to the TV campaign. Web attribution links TV ad exposure to website visits, providing short-term insights. Performance evaluations align sales and enquiry data with ad exposure to identify converting customers and offer tailored insights for future campaigns. These evaluations also analyse customer attributes and behaviours, helping brands refine their overall marketing strategy by identifying key audience segments and regions. AdSmart’s insights support decision-making across all marketing channels for a holistic campaign view.

Do you have any examples of businesses that have achieved great results with AdSmart? What lessons can other organisations learn from those campaigns?

We have a wide variety of success stories from a range of industry sectors which can be viewed here: Case Studies – AdSmart from Sky. A recent campaign I have worked on recently was for Runshaw College – they reported their highest ever open day attendance and were thrilled to see their ad appear between an episode of Friends for an entry level price – this was because we targeted only households with 15-17 year olds in neighbouring postcodes, whatever they watch across our 127 AdSmart TV channels, 8 apps and 50 devices. I’ve also worked with a recent national retail brand who reported an increase of £250k of revenue on expected growth during the month long campaign.

AdSmart’s digital offering with short-form, non-skippable ads sounds like a powerful tool. How does it complement traditional TV advertising, and what benefits do businesses see when combining the two approaches?

Our digital platform reaches 36 million unique adult users per month, and gives advertisers the opportunity to place their brand alongside world class content with enhanced targeting, across multiple platforms. AdSmart’s digital offering comes in the form of short-form, clickable, non-skippable ads appearing before our highlights video content. Digital advertising with AdSmart from Sky can be placed across Sky News and Sky Sports websites, app, YouTube channels and our extensive publisher player network of partner sites. Combining both TV and digital approaches creates a more integrated and impactful advertising strategy, extending the reach outside of Sky and Virgin subscribers. We have also recently launched a digital self serve platform making it easier than ever to plan, book and measure digital campaigns on Sky.

Streaming and on-demand content are huge right now. How does AdSmart ensure its digital ads reach the right audience across all devices and platforms? Could you share a bit about the targeting options and how you measure success?

AdSmart ensures its digital ads reach the right audience across devices by using advanced targeting and detailed measurement. It leverages audience data to deliver ads based on geography, demographics, interests, and behaviours, and even occupation, reaching viewers on connected TVs, mobiles, and tablets. Cross-device targeting ensures consistent messaging, while performance metrics like reach, completion rates, and attribution help advertisers track and optimise campaigns in real time. This ensures ads are relevant, impactful, and deliver measurable results. We can mirror the advertising used in TV campaign, or extend the reach to encompass a wider demographic.

How can e-commerce businesses use AdSmart’s data and insights to create a seamless strategy across digital and TV touchpoints? Can you share an example of how a business might guide a customer from awareness to purchase using AdSmart?

AdSmart helps e-commerce businesses create a seamless strategy across TV and digital, guiding customers from awareness to purchase. For example, a brand could use targeted TV adverts to build awareness, then retarget those viewers with personalised digital ads on mobile or streaming platforms, reinforcing the message. AdSmart’s data can also identify users who visited the website but didn’t make a purchase, delivering tailored offers to encourage conversions. With detailed insights, businesses can measure performance across channels and refine campaigns to maximise ROI and ensure a smooth customer journey.

With privacy being such a big focus these days and third-party cookies on the decline, how does AdSmart continue to offer effective targeting while respecting user privacy? What solutions do you provide to keep things secure and compliant?

AdSmart ensures effective targeting while respecting user privacy by using first-party, anonymised data instead of third-party cookies, fully complying with GDPR. We create audience segments from trusted sources, use secure data-matching methods, and operate within consent frameworks to honour user preferences. Additionally, we offer contextual targeting based on content and viewing behaviour, ensuring relevance without relying on personal data. This approach allows advertisers to reach the right audience effectively while maintaining consumer trust and privacy.

Thank you, Natalie, for sharing such fascinating insights into how AdSmart is helping businesses connect with the right audiences in smarter, more meaningful ways. It’s exciting to see how targeted TV and digital advertising can work hand-in-hand to drive real results, from increasing brand awareness to boosting conversions. Your examples and advice really bring to life how AdSmart is changing the game for advertisers.

If you would like to get in touch with Natalie, you can contact her via LinkedIn.