You can reclaim advertising real estate and control of your brand messaging with connected TV advertising.
The digital universe is the perfect channel for delivering your brand messages to consumers in a multitude of ways. Unlike television, the internet is universal in its capability to empower you to deliver communications from anywhere to anywhere – and to nearly any device.
Now, internet-connected smart televisions are opening up a new, cutting-edge marketing channel – connected TV advertising. Internet-connected TV is any device that can stream multimedia content via the internet.
What Is CTV Advertising?
Now, consumers can receive your brand messages through internet-capable TVs, video game consoles, Blu-ray disc players and other streaming devices. The connected TV is the joining of the internet and web 2.0 capabilities into a new generation of smart televisions. Resultantly, CVT is a hybrid of television and computer technology.
These new devices feature a user interface that resembles a smartphone. Because of this, connected TVs are often called smart televisions. Connected devices can access a range of streaming services, such as:
- Hulu
- Movies
- Netflix
- Pandora
- Photos
- Spotify
- Tidal
- YouTube
On the other hand, traditional televisions can only receive media broadcasts. New generation smart televisions, however, enable consumers to engage with online interactive media, internet TV and pay-per-view content.
What Is Connected TV? What Makes It So Special?
Through the magic of widgets, consumers now have a range of new entertainment options. This latest iteration of television showcases the evolution of the medium.
You may want to know what this has to do with your business. The answer is that you can advertise through every medium and device mentioned above.
That’s right. You can deliver your brand messages through nearly all of the popular applications and devices used by consumers today, and – of course – you’ll still have access to traditional television advertising. With each device and software application, however, technical nuances will vary.
Traditional television doesn’t support internet-connected engagement. You can’t use it to transmit digital ads like you can with an internet-enabled smart television. With CTV, however, you can reach consumers with your advertisements, and with perfect timing.
Who’s Using Smart TV Advertising?
13.5 million households left traditional TV behind in 2019. In large part, this was due to the purchase of internet-enabled televisions.
Now, over half of U.S. consumers use their smart TVs with Apple TV, Roku or gaming platforms. That’s the equivalent of 164 million consumers with access to videos via their smart televisions. Experts forecast that this number will expand to over 204 million consumers by 2022.
North America isn’t the only region that’s feeling the impact of connected TV advertising. In the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, for instance, CTV penetration will rise past the 50% mark over the next two years.
As a result, connected TV advertising is becoming a robust platform that marketers can use across a variety of applications and services. Best of all, it streamed right into the living rooms of your ideal buyers.
In the coming years, advertisers are hungry to capture the attention of up-and-coming demographics, such as Gen Z and millennials. For now, smart TV viewers represent a little over 8% of the total viewing audience between the ages of 18 to 49. As time goes on and consumers adopt new technology, however, this percentage will rise significantly.
The connected TV advertising opportunity is a boon for marketers. It enables brands to increase engagement and raise brand awareness right on consumers’ multi-screens.
Consumer research shows that 80% of consumers use devices such as their computer, tablet or smartphone to watch digital content. These viewing habits include texting to talk about programming as well as searching for information about actors, movies or shows.
Target TV Advertising for Your Business
Viewership across traditional television is dropping. At the same time, the cost to advertise on television is rising.
Connected TV advertising is a new channel that you can use to grow your audience. This kind of opportunity is essential for your brand.
Today, many consumers don’t watch a second of live television. As consumers gravitate toward smart TVs and other devices, this change in habits creates a unique opportunity for you to reach your audience with precision accuracy.
Data-enabled devices enable you to track how consumers behave, what they buy and what they do. This wellspring of information is a never-ending opportunity to learn about the nuances of your audience.
In the coming years, connected TV advertising will become more prominent. As advertising switches from traditional television to CTV, marketers can save on campaign costs.
What’s more, your brand can get more bang for your buck with CTV. Research shows that families with smart TVs consume entertainment with at least 2 to 3 people in the room. What this means is that your brand will receive more impressions per advertisement as smart TVs become more popular. Over time, your cost per impression will drop drastically.
Globally, spending on CTV advertising is rising sharply. By 2022, industry watchdogs expect the vertical to generate $80 billion.
Ad targeting is one of the top benefits of connected TV advertising. When consumers use their smart TVs, they must log in using either a password or social media account. This process uses third-party data that includes geolocation information, ZIP Codes, interests, device information, language preferences, online behavior and other defining characteristics.
Targeted TV Ads Done Right
It’s important to note that connected TV advertising is slightly different from internet advertising. The most significant difference is that your visual media will require a high-resolution.
Often, brands overlook the importance of making original, memorable creative content. However, your advertisements must deliver a compelling visual hook if you want to convert viewers on their smart televisions. Other than that, CTV advertising is relatively the same as programmatic marketing.
Imagine, for example, your ideal customer is women between the ages of 25 to 35 with children and an above-average income. Targeting this group will be as simple as choosing the right options on your CTV advertising dashboard.
Next, you’ll launch your campaign. As the campaign runs, it will analyze the data it receives from devices, such as smart televisions, smartphones, laptops and tablets. Hypothetically, this data analysis will return results, such as:
- Smartphone #1. is used by a man that’s a certain age and income level
- Laptop #1. is used by a woman between the ages of 22 to 36 years old
- Laptop #2. is used by a child between the ages of 1 to 8 years old
This kind of detailed analysis will reveal that the household is the perfect candidate for your good or service.
Your CTV advertising platform will continue to collect detailed information about the consumers who view your advertising. An algorithm will determine the main content that’s viewed by the family members. Then, it will deliver advertisements accordingly.
CTV advertising supports all kinds of brand messages across nearly all internet-connected devices. It’s a unique solution in that it meets both the supply and demand side of advertising needs for commercial stakeholders who can use the channel to achieve their objectives.
Best of all, connected TV advertising is flexible. API integrations make it easy for you to receive the maximum benefit out of every advertising campaign.
With CTV advertising, the data collection process begins with gathering information about the activity of each individual device. Next, an algorithm will identify the primary content consumer in the household. In our example, that would be the woman in the family. Therefore, the algorithm would deliver ads that cater to her wants and needs based on her online behavior.
A Look Under the Hood: Targeted TV Ads
Connected TV advertising is the latest best-case use for data science. Now, digital advertisers can clearly see the impact of their marketing campaigns
Data science takes the guesswork out of marketing. Now, marketers know in real-time how their brand messaging is performing.
Today, advertisers can learn about their consumers with granularity and precision. Furthermore, they can gather information about consumers across all digital touchpoints. With this information, they can develop a complete picture of their consumers’ online habits.
Resultantly, marketers have an accurate measurement of how their campaigns conform with CTV. Gone are the days of blind spots where brands must make guesses about consumer behavior based on their last touchpoint. Television can’t even come close to providing this type of information.
Now, brands can find out as much information about consumers from their televisions as they can when consumers browse the internet using their computers or Smartphones. Resultantly, a new advertising science has emerged.
Television attribution identifies the contribution of connected TV advertising consumer behavior. Much like tracking consumer behavior while they use their smartphones or computers, television attribution enables brands to make informed decisions.
Now, decision-makers know precisely what works – and what doesn’t. They can tell when people watch television, what they watch and what they watch it on. Most importantly, television attribution enables your brand to measure return-on-investment accurately.
There are many different ways to measure and analyze consumer behavior. Despite the method, internet connectivity makes it possible to gather a wealth of information about your potential buyers and existing customers. As
As a result, smart TVs will revolutionize the advertising industry. Not only will they enable you to analyze your consumers at a granular level, but they will also allow your organization to pivot on a dime. As consumer tastes change, you can adjust your marketing strategies in real-time, thanks to connected TV advertising.
With all its benefits, it’s important to note that marketers must adjust to this new environment. Short-term marketing strategies will become increasingly important.
This can raise some concern for veteran advertisers. Television advertising is typically a long-term proposition. Connected TV advertising may change the game entirely.
As a result, enterprises may have to rethink their long-term marketing mix. At the least, advertising to modern consumers will become increasingly complex.
Moving Forward With Connected TV Advertising
In 2019, advertisers in the travel industry were primarily focused on social media. For now, social media will continue to serve as an essential marketing channel.
In 2020, however, travel brands have more significant concerns. They need ways to funnel consumers to buy. Also, they’re worried about falling behind in a fast-moving advertising landscape, and they need a better way to prove their return-on-investment. Issues such as brand safety and legal compliance, however, are low on their list of priorities.
This sentiment rings true around the world, except in North America. In this region, marketers want more bookings and a higher return-on-investment than their competitors. In the Middle East, nearly 50% of marketers want more personalized ads and they want to deliver them in real-time.
Overall, however, travel brands want more business. As a result, many of them see CTV advertising as a means to meet that end.
On Your Mark, Get Set, Build Your Brand!
This kind of information isn’t meant to satisfy your curiosity. It’s meant to make you money. However, it takes time to learn about, understand and implement new concepts.
If you’re not satisfied with the performance of your marketing campaigns, it’s time to take action. You can uplift your brand to the next level by adding connected TV advertising to your marketing mix. With persistence and a sound strategy, the technology can help you to realize a healthy, sustainable return-on-investment.
