Connected TV ad strategies: 10 tips on optimizing ad strategies via streaming media

42% of the marketers in a recent Singular webinar said they were currently running CTV ad campaigns. Another 50% said they weren’t, but plan to, and only 8% said they had no plans. All of which likely means that about 92% of marketers could probably benefit from some hot tips on connected TV ad strategies.

That makes a ton of sense, because check out this chart from Evan Shapiro of who’s winning in total viewing share in the U.S right now:

 

 

YouTube leads the pack, followed by Disney and NBC, which both own significant assets in both traditional TV and smart, connected, subscription-based as well as ad-supported CTV: Disney+ and Peacock. Netflix is up there, as is Paramount, which has had some big success lately with Paramount+. 

And you also see Amazon Prime, Roku, even Hallmark on the list.

Learning to navigate and win in this new landscape is fundamentally different than traditional mobile user acquisition or mobile marketing. So some new connected TV ad strategies should be helpful.

First: watch the connected TV ad strategies webinar

We had some amazing panelists in our recent Mastering Connected TV Ad Strategies webinar, and they’re the ones who have contributed these insights. 

They include:

• Alexandre Pham, EVP Enterprise, EMEA & APAC @ Vibe
  • Vibe’s claim to fame:
    “Vibe is the Google Ads of TV. We allow any marketer, any brand, of any size, to advertise on TV within 5 minutes.”
• Jake Richardson, Head of CTV Strategy & Partnerships @ Moloco 
  • Moloco focuses on AI:
    “Machine learning-powered performance advertising solutions”
• Ashley Parducci, VP Customer Insights & Measurement @ TVScientific
  • tvScientific says:
    “tvScientific is the first and only CTV advertising platform purpose built for serious performance marketers.”
• Evyatar Ram, VP Product @ Singular
  • Singular is an MMP and marketing measurement provider:
    “Singular empowers marketers to futureproof their growth with next-gen attribution and analytics.”

Check out the webinar on-demand right here …

OK: 10 tips on CTV ad strategies

1. CTV is incremental

1 fundamental thing you always want to know about a new channel is this: is it incremental?

For instance, if you’re advertising with plain vanilla SDK networks, you might be using multiple, but it’s entirely possible that all those fishing rods are ultimately dipping into a very similar river of potential users, customers, or players.

CTV is different, says Ashley Parducci:

“CTV is absolutely an incremental channel. We’ve found that with even the most saturated of apps. So we’re really excited to see what the reach is beyond search and social that our app marketers are traditionally doing today.”

Interestingly, her point is not just that CTV is incremental beyond SDK networks, which is understandable, but also the giants of performance marketing in search and social.

That’s impressive.

2. CTV is programmatic, RTB, targetable, and in multiple other ways buzzword compliant

Yeah, it’s TV. No, it’s not your momma’s TV.

CTV isn’t going to give you Android-like device-level targeting and trackability. It isn’t even going to give you iOS-like deterministic but non-granular attribution. But at the same time it is not the spray and pray of old-school linear TV.

“The same shift we’ve seen with programmatic advertising is also coming to CTV,” says Alexandre Pham. “So you have similar technologies, everything based on real time bidding, for example, and the capabilities and the targeting options that are much more precise than traditional TV advertising.”

Targeting is different, and we’ll get into that, but it’s not absent.

3. Competition is weak in CTV

There are huge opportunities right now for performance marketers in CTV, because the competition is not ready for the rigor and analytical approaches you bring.

“There’s a ton of brand advertisers in this space and very few performance marketers in this space,” says Jake Richardson. “If you’re first, you will get gains as a result of learning how your strategy points you towards the next five years while everyone else is still trying to figure out how to make CTV performance work.”

That doesn’t mean there isn’t competition.

You’re not getting My Super App ads streaming on Sunday Night Football for cheap.

But the competition, Richardson says, is largely brand competition. Which means that even though there’s money here, there are also cracks and optimizations and angles for smart performance marketers to come in, learn, optimize, and make bank.

4. CTV is diversification

Sole source is a dangerous strategy for any manufacturing brand. And a very limited pool of growth partners is a dangerous strategy for any marketing team.

So we’ve seen an increasing trend recently to diversification of channels and partners … in spite of the platform effects of App Tracking Transparency on iOS that reward scale per partner and per campaign.

“One of the main pillars that we’ve seen consistently over the last couple of years is diversification of UA activity,” says Evyatar Ram. “Everyone is expanding their reach. Everyone is trying to find new types of channels, whether it’s CTV or podcasts and influencers … and everything’s becoming a lot more complex.”

The interesting thing is that you can build some new connected TV ad strategies that are fundamentally different than your in-app ad strategies: on a big screen, with sound on, and a much higher video completion rate than on mobile.

5. CTV works for gaming, fintech, e-commerce, and more

A good thing to remember when building out your connected TV ad strategies is that CTV isn’t a 1-trick pony. Multiple verticals can work in CTV.

“What works for CTV is also anything related to the gaming space,” says Pham. “It’s gonna be IAP-heavy titles, subscription apps as well, fintech …”

“The biggest boost that we’ve seen [is gaming,]” says Richardson. “We have a lot of gaming clients, but then we also have a lot of consumer app clients and e-commerce clients.”

That’s interesting.

There’s been a lot of history of retail advertising on traditional TV, so the e-commerce success is not a shock. But gaming and other consumer categories are doing well on CTV.

6. CTV is a very different animal than in-app ads

It’s a bigger screen. Your ad is full-screen. Sound is usually on. Ad completion rates approach 100%. Targeting is household, not individual. Video is your only option, really. Interaction and engagement is limited.

“CTV is different,” says Singular’s Evyatar Ram. “You have to think of it as something different and you have to accept that it’s somewhat different and that’s part of the appeal … because it is different.”

In short, CTV is a new world. You can’t just do what you’ve always done in in-app advertising, or social advertising, or search advertising.

CTV requires tailored strategies — connected TV ad strategies — which means using different creative, different bidding, different targeting, and different measurement.

7. Subscription VOD doesn’t necessarily mean higher income than ad VOD

Traditional subscription video on demand like Netflix doesn’t necessarily only appeal to a higher income bracket. Ad-supported video on demand doesn’t necessarily only appeal to a lower income audience.

It really, really depends.

“I get customers that are targeting lower income, and they think that, no, I will not find my customer on a paid streaming service,” says Parducci. “But when you start to think about the economics of streaming, well I get three streaming services bundled with my cell phone plan, Instacart is including Peacock, for example … there’s just so much at play in the ecosystem.”

That resonates with me on a personal level.

I have Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Paramount+. We’re taking a break from Disney+, though, since we didn’t need 4 separate streaming services. And the Paramount+ is the cheap option with a few ads thrown in.

8. CTV is at the intersection of brand and performance

Brand versus performance is a complicated discussion, and ultimately all advertising has to be performant by some measuring stick, so it might ultimately even be a meaningless distinction.

However … all of us generally know what we mean by brand versus performance:

• Brand is generally thought of as upper funnel, awareness, an assisting force, a halo effect
• Performance is generally thought of as lower funnel, revenue-generating, closing the deal, and is often directly measurable

CTV intersects that conversation, says Pham.

“CTV is really at the intersection of branding and performance,” he says. “If your end goal, for example, you’re a gaming company, your end goal is to drive up downloads, you are also promoting your brand at the same time.”

“So even if you have website activity or you have games on PC or anything like that, you are also gonna have downstream events that are going on other channels … it’s just depending on what you wanna measure at this exact point.”

Which brings up a good point: measurement.

9. Measurement is different, but critical

Marketers typically want 2 things when it comes to measurement, says Singular’s Evyatar Ram.

“They want consistency, so they’ll be able to measure all their marketing activity using the same ruler, and they also want simplicity.”

That’s … a challenge for CTV.

One option that is working really well for some, particularly those with strong data science teams, is incrementality measurement, and that’s one that Singular can help with. There’s also adapting other in-app measurement techniques to CTV.

“The other option is to take the classic standard, let’s call it last click attribution framework that the industry is used to and adapt it to CTV,” says Ram. “On the Singular front, some of the things that we’ve done is, we can change some things in the attribution waterfall, in the time windows, in the importance of an impression versus a click … “

The goal is creating a CTV measurement solution that in-app advertisers recognize and can use alongside their other channels.

One note: it’s important to monitor other channels when you do a big CTV buy. Does your App Store search volume go up? Does your website traffic go up? Are they aligned to any calls to action that you had in your ads?

(You can get that kind of data in Singular, by the way, and correlate it to your marketing results. Talk to your Singular rep for details.)

10. Be realistic in your bidding strategies … but also be crafty

Start at the floor, says tvScientific’s Parducci, but look for a partner that’s very transparent on pricing. Then, as you start to grow your campaign and know what performs, you can bid up.

You also have to be realistic.

CTV might be the new kid on the block, but there’s some massive properties already in the space, and that drives costs up. But you can find deals in some places, if you look hard enough.

“You can’t run on Sunday night football at $38 CPMs running against all of the major car companies and hope that you’re gonna drive a $2 CPA,” says Richardson. “You just can’t. Whether or not you can drive a $2 CPA on NBC’s content is a different question … your bidding strategy has to adjust to your KPIs and be realistic.”

Sadly, the rules of physics do still apply …

So much more in the full webinar

You really have to check out the full webinar to get all the connected TV ad strategies that are going to propel you to success in CTV and streaming advertising profitability.

Check out the full webinar on-demand right here …