Singapore – Popular streaming platform Netflix is finally rolling out its ad-supported plan on November 3 this year, starting off with a price of US$6.99 a month, three dollars less than the typical US$9.99 a month subscription plan.
The ad-supported plan will first roll out in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Through the new plan, users will be presented with a much smaller library of movies and series, and will have on average 4-5 minutes of ads per hour, ranging from 15 to 30 seconds each. Users will not be able to download their favourite shows for offline viewing.
In order to roll out their ad-supported plan, Netflix has partnered with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science to verify the viewability and traffic validity of their ads starting in Q1 2023. Ads can be specifically targeted by the geographical location of the viewer and the genre they are watching.
Mark Zagorski, CEO, DoubleVerify, said, “Over the past decade, the team at Netflix has done a tremendous job building one of the most popular streaming services in the world. As we continue to expand our coverage across premium video and CTV environments, DV is thrilled to extend our third-party verification solutions across their platform, ensuring campaigns meet key quality criteria while maximizing performance and outcomes for advertisers”.
Meanwhile, Lisa Utzschneider, CEO at IAS, commented, “We are excited to partner with Netflix as they introduce their much-anticipated ad-supported tier that will dramatically increase the global supply of CTV advertising inventory. IAS provides marketers with the tools necessary to monitor the quality of their media buys as they expand their CTV inventory. We look forward to offering essential coverage to brands and the ability to purchase ads on the Netflix platform with confidence.”
It should be recalled that Netflix tapped Microsoft as its adtech partner following their interest to launch an ad-supported plan.
“While it’s still very early days, we’re pleased with the interest from both consumers and the advertising community — and couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead. As we learn from and improve the experience, we expect to launch in more countries over time,” Netflix said in a statement.
Netflix’s launch of the ad-supported plan comes after six months of their interest to launch said offering. The platform has been losing performance this year, resulting in a massive layoff and slow growth.