Driving Success with 3 Unique Attributes of CTV
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When someone asks me why I’m so excited about CTV, I simply say, “It combines the best of television advertising and digital advertising”. Nice and simple. And while that’s true, the reality is a little more complicated than that.
Let’s first define CTV. CTV is a subset of OTT, professionally produced “TV” content that is streamed on a mobile, tablet, desktop or CTV device. CTV is that exact same content, but strictly viewed on a CTV device (Smart TV, CTV stick, etc). With definitions out of the way let’s focus on the three main elements of media buying where CTV is inherently unique from linear TV or digital: targeting, delivery/scale, and control. The key to unlocking the full power of CTV is understanding these variables and how they can be successfully applied.
At its most basic, linear TV is all about utilizing Nielsen data to target by age/gender (i.e., Women 25-54). On the other end of the spectrum is digital advertising, which allows for granular targeting based on limitless variables created by cookies. CTV has the ability to utilize both approaches but with key, and very important, differences.
There’s been a lot of buzz about the future of cookies and the impact to digital targeting. No matter what happens on that front, most CTV devices will continue to be cookie-free. That means to target the right audience, you need to map to the specific IP addresses or devices in those households. That mapping process has become a lot better over the last couple years, and will continue to improve, but picking the right data sources to map correctly is essential.
Ultimately, finding mappable targeting capabilities that leverage 1st- and 3rd-party data, alongside reliable household-based measurement solutions that really lean into audience testing, is crucial to hit the CTV sweet spot.
Mobile device and desktop targeting is great as it’s almost always one ad to one device. All the history and cookies on a device can tell you a lot about that user (age, sex, interests, behaviors). That’s very far removed from TV’s one-to-many approach, which can be useful at driving quick reach. CTV mainly falls in between the two.
A household typically has two to three CTV devices, each with multiple users. So Dad can be streaming a news program one minute and his daughter the new Disney hit ten minutes later. Very different audiences. And while there’s no perfect solution, the addition of user profiles and fully understanding the content you’re airing in can make a big difference with success or failure.
One of the nice things about linear television is you know exactly what program your ad will run in when you place a buy. On the digital side, web content is constantly changing, so you rarely know what content will appear next to your ad. Again, CTV falls in the middle.
While you never know exactly what show your ad will run on (unless you sponsor specific content), you’ll have a good sense of the content genre, especially in publisher direct buys. This knowledge is not only comforting to brands, but it allows you to tailor the creative to appropriate content where applicable.
And whether you’re matching your CTV buys to your linear content buys, or using the buy to differentiate between the two, you can be confident you’re uniquely reaching the hard-to-reach light TV viewer.
Those are just three examples of the unique aspects of CTV (and I haven’t even gotten into the “easy cost-of-entry” story!). As the market evolves, they’ll continue to change. It’s worth mentioning most current CTV experts come from either a linear TV or digital background. Makes sense since CTV pulls from each. But a whole new generation of experts is emerging with CTV as their main expertise. Relying on that new breed of CTV expert is wise to ensure you target your market successfully and hit your main KPI’s.
Please reach out to Eicoff’s resident CTV expert, Matt Cote, to learn more.
