Please don't - Roku plans to fill the home screen with more ads

Please don't - Roku plans to fill the home screen with more ads

If you thought the Roku TV home screen was already crowded enough, even more ads will be littering the display.

According to ad publication AdExchanger, Roku is looking to bring a host of new campaigns, primarily centered around interactivity and shopping via TV. During CES last week, Christina Shepherd, the company's vice president of global sales and partnerships, explained that Roku will "immerse advertisers in more of the home screen."

One of the leading major TV software providers and now a hardware distributor, the company is bringing several new display options to market, such as last year's Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV, and a whole new way to monetize its customer base The company aims to bring in.

The best way to do that? It's to grab their attention the moment you turn on the screen.

Last June, Roku rolled out a new Click-to-Buy advertising feature that allows companies to sell products to Roku TV customers through Shopify. This was one of the first strategies to highlight Roku's new way of thinking, which is growing rapidly in terms of monetization and ensuring that the company's TV OS platform can thrive in the new era of advertising.

Now, more interactive and shoppable campaigns that make it even more cumbersome to access your favorite apps, let alone personalize your home screen, are at the center of the newfound strategy. Previous years' iterations, such as last year's virtual showroom and virtual catalog, will only flourish on Roku devices.

In a conversation with AdExchanger, Shepherd described Roku's vision as bringing its software into as many homes as possible. This gives Roku's approach a wide berth when it comes to advertising, as more reach equals more advertising opportunities and then more money.

The company just announced a new lineup of Roku Pro Series TVs for 2024 that will help make this ad-filled home screen vision a reality. What's more, these ads won't just be for media and entertainment products, but will also include campaigns for everything from clothing to household necessities.

Users can change the way Roku advertises to users, which can be done in the ad settings window on Roku's website, but it does not completely remove advertising. This allows users to change what type of advertising and who does the marketing, as opposed to limiting the reach - reach already takes up a third of the screen at the moment.

Unfortunately, Roku is not the only platform experimenting with paid advertising: Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Hulu are beginning to roll out ways to monetize viewers through such campaigns.

Is there a way to escape advertising? Even the best TVs are not ad-free, but you can avoid ads by adding another streaming player, such as the Apple TV 4K.

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