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Netflix is marking the two-year anniversary of its launch of advertising by revealing that its ad tier now reaches 70 million monthly active users globally, up from 40 million as of mid-May.
The plan also accounts for more than 50% of new sign-ups in the territories where the advertising option is available, Netflix said.
Given the price point of $7 a month in the U.S., which is at the low end of the general entertainment streaming market, the ad-backed tier has been a consistent driver of overall subscription growth. The company has added more than 35 million subscribers over the past year. It does not break out subscribers by tier, and in 2025 will stop reporting subscriber numbers altogether.
The stats and a number of other updates were shared in a blog post this morning by Amy Reinhard, President of Advertising at Netflix. “There has been continuous momentum over the last two years, but we’re just getting started and can’t wait to see what’s to come,” she wrote.
One major initiative for 2024 is Netflix’s first broadcast of a major sports league’s games, with a Christmas Day doubleheader initiating a multi-year rights deal with the NFL.
Netflix said it has has sold out of in-game ad inventory for the two live games, with buyers including FanDuel and Verizon. FanDuel will be the exclusive pregame sportsbook betting partner, sponsoring an in-game feature with unspecified Netflix Christmas Gameday talent offering analysis and predictions using FanDuel betting odds.
The streaming giant said it has partnered with Nielsen to measure the games, following in Amazon’s footsteps with its Nielsen-tracked Thursday night games on Prime Video. A different vendor, VideoAmp, has been enlisted to measure the WWE’s Monday Night Raw, which will debut on Netflix in January.
While sports and other live events are key programming elements, a number of scripted titles are being positioned as draws for advertisers. For Squid Game‘s upcoming second season, Reinhard said Netflix has sold spots to a range of brands in its 12 ad-supported countries, including Kia, which is behind the company’s first single-title sponsorship in Korea. The automaker and Netflix teamed on a three-part custom ad and will host an experiential pop-up at Kia Unplugged Ground, the company’s cultural complex in Seoul.
The blog post also noted that Canada has officially started using Netflix’s in-house ad technology, a shift from the original 2022 blueprint, which included a tech partnership with Microsoft. As it phases out that third-party deal, Netflix plans to have its in-house capabilities in place around the world over the course of 2025. Programmatic ad tools are also rolling out, with the U.S., Brazil, Canada and Mexico up and running. Europe will gain access to programmatic buying in February 2025 and Australia, Japan and Korea will follow later in the year.
Advertising has helped Netflix implement another key part of its larger strategy, which is getting customers to pay to share their passwords. Over the past two years, Netflix has added a paid sharing plan, which is priced slightly higher than the cost of the ad plan. Instead of paying to share, many customers choose to initiate a Basic with Ads subscription. Either way, the thinking goes, the company sees increased revenue at a time when sign-ups had plateaued in North America.
