BY Rachel Cagle
Has your client been sleeping on connected TV (CTV)/over-the-top (OTT) advertising? Their competition isn’t. According to a study by Premion, “Investment and optimism for CTV/OTT advertising are already high and rising.” In fact, 60% of advertisers believe that these ads are important and valuable. 25% of advertisers go so far as to say that these ads are the most important and valuable ad media type they use. Why is that?
The Benefits of CTV/OTT Advertising
Why Advertisers Value Them
Premion asked 151 ad agency or brand-side marketers who are involved in the decision making for their company’s CTV/OTT advertising why they value these ads so much. Well, there turned out to be so many benefits that Premion had to divide them into categories. Here’s what advertisers said are these ads’ biggest benefits when it comes to audience targeting:
- Precision audience targeting: 40% of advertisers agree
- Extended reach for linear TV campaigns: 39%
- Capture declining TV audiences: 38%
- Provide the benefits of TV with digital capabilities: 34%
- Reach a highly engaged opt-in audience: 34%
- Solution to mobile/desktop privacy changes: 18%
Performance pricing:
- Achieve brand awareness and performance marketing goals: 38%
- Detailed reporting, measurement and insights: 30%
- Affordable TV option for performance-driven digital marketers: 30%
- Improved ad references: 29%
- Shorter pods provide better exposure for my brand(s): 27%
- CTV tends to outperform linear TV: 25%
- Attribution capabilities: 23%
CTV/OTT vs. Linear TV Ads when targeting local audiences:
- Provide the flexibility and control I need to customize campaigns around locations, events or promotions: 71% agree
- Allow me to target in ways I can’t with linear TV: 68%
- Allow me to effectively reach my desired audience by location, interests and behaviors with minimal waste: 68%
- Let me fine-tune and customize my national or regional campaigns based on local relevance: 64%
- Allow me to minimize impression gaps in my national campaign: 58%
Does your client know about these benefits?
CTV/OTT Ad Dollars are Increasing
Many advertisers find CTV/OTT advertising worthy of a boost in ad budget, as well. Premion reports that 53% of surveyed advertisers plan on increasing their CTV/OTT advertising budget this year. That’s more than they plan to increase for social media, paid search, digital video, out-of-home, digital display, audio, linear TV, AND print. 44% of advertisers plan on maintaining their current budget, and only 3% plan on decreasing it.
Challenges
Now, all these benefits don’t mean that CTV/OTT advertising isn’t accompanied by challenges you and your client will have to overcome. The biggest challenges with these ads, according to Premion, are:
- Transparency on where ads are running: 42%
- Difficulty managing ad frequency across publishers/platforms: 40%
- Cost: 38%
- Fragmentation/too many providers: 34%
- Inconsistent measurement standards: 32%
So, before you approach your client with a pitch for CTV/OTT advertising, it would be wise to think through how you would overcome these challenges. If you think ahead, these challenges may not prove challenging at all.
Does Your Client’s Target Audience Respond to CTV/OTT Advertising?
Of course, one of your client’s first questions will be if their target audience even pays attention to CTV/OTT advertising. Chances are, they do. According to AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel, 39.1% of U.S. adults are OTT TV Viewers and 28.6% are OTT Streaming Service Advertising Responders. But is your client’s target audience among them?
To find out, check out their audience profile on AudienceSCAN. There, you’ll be able to see what percentage of that audience took action after seeing streaming TV advertisements and traditional TV ads. You can also discover how much TV they watch on a daily basis and which types of TV programs are their favorites to watch.
Photo by Clement M.