The emerging future opportunities for selling TV ads smartly and with precision, in connected and even linear television channels, is messy and depends on getting your data house in order.

So says one executive working on understanding audience behaviors for a media owner with dozens of channels.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Julian Zilberbrand, EVP of audience science at Viacom, explains the challenges and opportunities of data-driven TV ad sales.

“There’s a lot of different companies that kind of help the ecosystem but, in reality, it is somewhat of a fragmented process, which requires a lot of work on our end to kind of cobble it all together,” Zilberbrand says.

His employer uses partnerships with the likes of FreeWheel for ad serving, with MVPDs for addressability as well as others , though even Viacom’s own diverse business units have to work hard on overcoming in-house fragmentation.

Viacom Media Networks’ e includes BET Networks, Comedy Central, Paramount Network, MTV and Nickelodeon.

It uses data to enable true “one-to-one” ad targeting in IP-enabled TV platforms, but even uses predictive models to better understand how linear TV viewers’ behavior is changing.

Underpinning all of this? Zilberbrand advises marketers that want to benefit from TV’s new tricks – get your data house in order.

“How much do you understand about what’s available in the marketplace and how you would use that data?,” he asks. “Making sure that you have the right discussions with your vendors, specifically about how that data can be used.

“Even the best marketer is going to have a subset of data that more than likely has to be modelled to reach to scale. So what does that process look like? How are you ultimately making connections with your vendors that allow you to leverage your data?

“And then how are you organising and open with them about getting information back, and sharing information, in a way that allows for us as sellers to be able to optimise for your success? And at the same time ensure that you have confidence in what’s being delivered on your behalf.”

Beet Retreat In The City @ Horizon Media is presented by 605 and Spectrum Reach. For more videos from the event, please visit this page