If you’re involved in the marketing world, the chances are that you’ve come across the term CTV or connected TV advertising.
What you may not know is how connected TV advertising is threatening to take over traditional TV advertising.
A clash of the titans is at hand in the marketing world.
It’s David vs. Goliath, and let’s face it. Traditional TV is dying. Slowly, but dying surely.
Let’s go over what makes CTV so powerful and find out how you can leverage this new market to slingshot your brand into the future.
What this means for your brand
First, let’s get a general overview.
A connected TV is any TV or device that lets you connect to the internet and stream video content. Any device like a smart TV or a PlayStation counts as a CTV device.
People stream this content through over-the-top services, otherwise known as OTT. This includes services like Netflix and Hulu, but the list goes on.
Are you starting to see the value here?
There are only going to be more CTV devices and OTT platforms. Advertisers and businesses alike need to learn about CTV advertising before they get left in the dust by competitors.
Advertising on these platforms is, no doubt, the next generation of marketing.
As traditional TV viewership fades and binge-watchers of The Office increase, connected TV advertising is only going to become more valuable to advertisers.
If you’re looking to spend those ad dollars efficiently, then pay attention.
We’re going to go over some of the most powerful tools CTV advertising has to offer and why it performs time and time again over traditional TV.
1) The future is now, and it’s looking programmatic.
With programmatic advertising, you get some serious power with your ads. CTV programmatic ads offer you the ability to control exactly when, where, and to who your advertisement airs.
It’s like programmatic ads are the tailor, and you need a slick 3-piece suit — it doesn’t get more personalized than that.
If that isn’t enough, you also get to leverage the flexibility of real-time metric tracking.
Information is power in this world — knowing right away, what works, and what doesn’t can put you in the right position to optimize your ads quickly.
Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of CTV ad metrics and how you can use these to get ahead faster and more often.
Real-time tracking metrics
Digital advertising campaigns help you watch how your CTV ads perform in real-time. No more waiting around and hoping that your ad conversion rates are high. Get your feedback fast.
With real-time metrics, you can find out exactly what kind of impact your ads are having on your audience. You’ll have instant access to clicks, views, responses, and conversions. You won’t have to spend much time wondering how good your ad is because you’ll see results as soon as your ad is launched to an audience.
When an add is flunking, you need to be able to act quickly. Luckily CTV ads are as dynamic as the connected TV devices.
Optimize ads on the fly.
An unspoken benefit of having real-time metrics is the ability to change. You know right away if something is bombing or taking off. And thanks to CTV and OTT, you can do something about it.
With connected TV, you have the power to adapt if something isn’t working on the fly. You can change the target audience, rework the ad — there are all kinds of ways to evolve with CTV advertising.
With CTV, the options are endless.
Alternatively, if a specific ad is doing great, it can always be better. Once you analyze your metrics from already-running ads, optimize your ads even further to enhance your audience engagement.
In a world where just about every market feels saturated, it pays off big time to be adaptable.
Traditional TV advertisements are more static and just don’t offer the same rate of change.
2) Pinpoint advertisement targeting
If precision advertising is something you’re looking to include in your marketing arsenal, then you need to be targeting CTV devices.
You can seriously get to know your audience when you have access to massive amounts of consumer data.
Got a product or brand that only certain people will benefit from? No worries.
Through connected TV ads, it’s more than possible to make sure your ads reach the right audience.
But more precise targeting just doesn’t stop there:
CTV goes deeper than consumer data. With CTV, you can leverage the power of geofencing — a powerful and precise marketing tool that can target audiences in specific locations.
Old fashion traditional TV just doesn’t offer you the same accuracy.
Let’s dive deeper into these tools and find out how you can become a marketing marksman.
Sweet, sweet data that traditional TV just can’t touch.
Let’s be honest:
Data is king in this information age. And now with connected TV, you have access to it.
Have you ever felt like Facebook could tell what you were thinking?
Well, now you can do the same thing to your audiences.
Having access to massive amounts of consumer data gives you a serious edge. You can tailor-make your ads to fit your audience’s intent and interests. It might be creepy in a way for consumers, but advertisers are using data to read minds — sort of.
What advertiser wouldn’t want that type of insightful precision targeting at their disposal?
If for some reason, you aren’t impressed with having the ability to target an audience’s interests and curiosities — the targeting gets even more advanced.
Geofencing is a serious advantage.
It’s time to talk about geofencing. You might not have any idea what that is, and that’s okay! But what you need to know is that it provides you with freakishly accurate targeting abilities.
As if the consumer data wasn’t good enough.
Geofencing lets you dig deep into location, and the strategies you can use with it can get pretty complex.
But in a nutshell, this is what you can do with geofencing:
- Advertise to consumers in a general location like a town or neighborhood.
- Set your ads to appear when a CTV device enters an imaginary fenced-in area.
- Target exact home and IP addresses with unmatched precision.
All of these features allow you to finely-tune your ads to reach your ideal paying consumer.
For example:
Let’s you’ve noticed many of your customers frequently visit certain stores. You would know many of their habits thanks to advanced data. But now you can set geofences on those stores to really make sure you keep your customers thinking about you.
Or, another popular technique businesses use with geofences is targeting the exact addresses of their competitors.
Now that’ what I call precision. And that’s what you have access to when you tie together geofencing and CTV into your digital marketing arsenal.
3) The future of digital advertising is bright, and it’s filled with CTV.
As technology evolves, so do the people. And the market for OTT services and CTV devices is exploding.
Take a look at this chart that compares 2017 and 2018 third-quarter time spent on devices by different age groups:
Source: 2018 Q3 Nielsen Total Audience Report
Everything in green, yellow, orange and red is considered a CTV device, while everything blue and purple is old fashion radio and TV.
In 2018, more than 60% of the US population had a CTV device in their household.
That percentage is only growing.
It’s no secret that older generations tend to have trouble adapting to the new technology while the new kids live and breathe ground-breaking tech.
And as you can see, things aren’t looking so good for the future of Traditional TV. Its viewing times in 18-24-year-olds have dropped to just 25 minutes a day.
Can you guess what they’re all watching now?
That’s right, Netflix, Hulu, Starz, etc. And they’re doing it on computers, smartphones, and other connected TV devices.
That doesn’t spell success for the future of traditional TV. So if you neglect the consumer base of the future, then you’ll seriously be missing out on the ride to the top.
The youth are the future.
Millennials and Generation Z are the absolute largest consumers of OTT content. This makes them prime candidates to own or use CTV devices.
These generations aren’t going anywhere soon, so it’s safe to say they are the future. If businesses start catering to them now, they could get their loyalty for a lifetime.
As the world becomes more digital, so do these younger generations. They adapt and learn how to harness new technology better than anyone else. Not to mention — there’s a growing number of people who are only reachable through CTV and other digital routes.
An estimated 63 million people. And guess what? That number is only going to grow.
That means the reachable audience with CTV grows, and so does your brand if you get on board.
Prime audiences, premium ads
Connected TV advertising gives you access to some of the best audiences available.
You can also put your ads within content like the hottest movies or shows. This means your ad is running into an audience that’s dedicated to finishing their favorite shows and movies. While traditional TV audiences don’t always care what scheduled program they’re assigned to watch on a channel.
With the untraditional nature of CTV ads, you have much more creative freedom with how your ads are displayed. You can use banners, videos, 3D, interactive, animated — the choices are endless.
Original and creative advertisements using digital methods can get you better engagement from those prime audiences.
It’s no secret that audiences like to be dazzled. So it’s time to get to it and embrace your creative side with premium ads.
It’s time for your brand to jump on the CTV train.
What are you waiting for? The future of marketing is here, t’s exciting, and CTV is its platform.
Don’t waste your ad dollars on traditional TV advertising with outdated metrics and targeting.
OTT and CTV are the future. And trust me, no businesses, big or small, should neglect this bright future for digital advertisers.
If you’re looking to track down the perfect audience and advertising campaign, then you’re at the right place.
Are you ready to take advantage of the future of advertising? Contact us today to get started.
