Up to 79% of U.S. homes now own a smart TV, giving them one-click access to a trove of content available via streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Tubi and many others, according to Hub Entertainment Research. Many of these consumers subscribe to ad-supported tiers, which are cheaper than their ad-free counterparts, but still provide the same high-value programming.
Many brands and retailers are capitalizing on the rise of ad-supported streaming by testing and investing more strategically in connected TV (CTV) advertising. In fact, research conducted by Retail TouchPoints and MNTN reveals that 59% of brands spend between 11% and 50% of their marketing and advertising budgets on CTV. Moreover, 59% of executives expect their CTV advertising budgets to increase slightly or significantly over the next 12 months. These brands are testing different CTV ad formats, creative approaches and calls-to-action to support both brand and performance marketing goals.
“CTV is now a valid, effective performance marketing tactic and strategy that you can add to your entire marketing mix,” explained Tim Edmundson, Senior Director of Content Marketing at MNTN during a recent webinar. “At this point, CTV is as advanced as it’s ever been, which not only affects advertising technology, its capabilities and its value to marketers, but also connects the dots for consumers.”
But what separates the CTV advertising winners from the pack? The survey results uncover five key traits and behaviors.
1. CTV Winners Take a More Holistic Approach to Goal-Setting
CTV advertising, unlike its linear TV counterpart, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. CTV ad formats and capabilities integrate into other digital advertising channels and, in turn, can support a more robust set of business goals.
Although most survey respondents (66%) still use CTV advertising as a customer acquisition channel, many brands are using it to generate both online and in-store sales (54%) and even drive traffic to physical stores (52%). And when asked to share the CTV advertising capabilities that are most beneficial to their business, 47% called out its integration with other ad channels and touch points.
2. CTV Winners Bring All the Right People to the Planning Table
Because CTV advertising leaders are taking a more holistic approach to goal-setting, they’re bringing a cross-functional team into all strategic discussions. In an industry riddled with silos, the winners are not just bringing marketing/content leads (70%), social media teams (41%) and the C-level into discussions (32%); they’re also bringing product/merchandising (32%), operations (20%) and store leads (15%) into the mix.
“If you have brick-and-mortar locations, you want that foot traffic and that opportunity to move product, so you want to make sure your ads are doing that effectively,” Edmundson said. “You can track that offline attribution for CTV.”
Bringing merchandising, operations and store leads into the conversation also helps ensure that CTV ads focus on the right collections, deals and in-store experiences. Clear synergy and ongoing collaboration among these teams help ensure brands fulfill their promise to consumers when they set foot in a store.
3. CTV Winners Use Advanced Targeting to Reach the Right People with the Right Message
CTV leaders have more diverse ad targeting strategies, delivering ads based on demographics (51%), purchase intent (46%), interests (44%) and even past on-site behaviors and actions (23%). At the geographic level, they employ a rich combination of regional (50%), city (23%) and ZIP code (14%) targeting.
Edmundson recommended: “If it doesn’t deplete the audience too much, refine your targeting a little bit more. Find the folks who are most likely to engage with your brand within the geographic location you care about, and you might end up motivating the right people at a better clip.”
Those targeting capabilities “take the best of what TV offers and combine it with digital capabilities,” Edmunson added.
4. CTV Winners Strategically Reuse and Repurpose Content
Marketing teams are squeezed for time and resources, which means they can only spend so much on new content. But simultaneously, they feel pressure to be on every channel possible to drive visibility, awareness and intent.
Up to 61% of survey respondents are spending money and bandwidth on creating net-new content for CTV. With CTV being a new channel for many brands, it makes sense that they want to spend the appropriate resources on creative. However, only 18% of respondents said they repurpose existing video and TV ad creative, but they tailor it to the unique capabilities and best practices of CTV, such as adding distinct calls-to-action based on your campaign goals and tailoring content to consumer locations and interests.
“Video ads are nothing new to marketers, but what’s interesting is…you see a split between how they put together their creative,” Edmundson noted. While most respondents are still building their creative processes and approach for CTV, a small group recognizes the long-term value of visual creative and is finding ways to break down, reuse and reformat video content for different channels and tactics.
5. CTV Winners Test, Learn and Iterate
Brands and retailers use a cornucopia of metrics to assess the impact and value of their CTV advertising efforts, from in-store sales generated (45%) to the number of users reached (28%) and total verified website visits (22%). With such a robust set of KPIs, marketing and advertising teams can get a holistic picture of how CTV ad campaigns impact all business levers and channels.
Many respondents use these metrics to create more effective CTV campaigns (62%) and optimize their creative approach moving forward (30%). In fact, the agility and flexibility of CTV ad platforms give marketing teams the power to test, iterate and optimize in-market campaigns so they can boost results, something many respondents acknowledged.
But only 41% of respondents use CTV campaign insights to optimize creative across other channels, such as social media, email and even retail media campaigns. Edmundson noted that this presents a clear opportunity for improvement, especially as CTV attribution gets more robust.
Want to get more insights and best practices from CTV winners? Download the research today!
