The power of reaching consumers via the largest screen in the house is already well established. What marketers now need to know, in order to truly take advantage of ad-driven CTV, is how to achieve cost-effective scale.

Currently, most CTV ad slots are purchased in a similar fashion to traditional linear TV – via direct insertion order (IO). This ‘white glove service’ has proved effective for many years, and relies upon marketers contacting broadcasters and platforms directly, and agreeing the predetermined details of a campaign – such as cost, run-time, creative – in advance.

However, as CTV has grown, so has the need for a purchasing method that grants marketers the ability to achieve optimal ROI on CTV. Programmatic purchasing has evolved alongside CTV and now meets this need to provide marketers with a buying experience similar to that of digital, to more effectively maximise the potential of their ad budgets.

The evolution of programmatic CTV

In its early usage, the auction-based programmatic purchasing method was mostly utilised in order to sell unused ad inventory in digital environments. But as CTV publishers and platforms continue to permeate audiences, and buyers take to the increased control of the purchasing process that programmatic enables, the amount of spend in programmatic CTV has grown – spend increased by 97% in EMEA between 2020 and 2021 alone. As demand from buyers has increased, CTV publishers have responded by making more of their inventory available for programmatic trading.

Where programmatic CTV has differed from its digital counterpart is in its increased use of private marketplace deals. At its core, programmatic buying is an automated auction that allows buyers and sellers to be connected rapidly. Deals can be achieved via an open auction, where any number of parties can take part in the process, or via private auctions, where a publisher invites trusted advertising partners to participate. Additionally, there are preferred and guaranteed deals, offering priority access and pricing on pre-negotiated terms.

Private market auctions have flourished in CTV due to the nuances of the channel. TV ads are the most trusted among UK consumers, and it is therefore no surprise that CTV publishers want to keep a close watch on which brands are advertising on their platforms to ensure high quality ad experiences. For marketers, CTV is also unique in that data activation is often coming from the supply side of the programmatic chain, enabling marketers to access the rich first-party data of media owners and device manufacturers.

Tailoring your buying

While increasing amounts of spend is moving to programmatic, direct purchasing via an IO  also allows an effective way to transact for both buyers and sellers, and in many ways provides a similar offering. Buyers are guaranteed a quality ad slot while having clarity over delivery, while also able to harness CTV publishers’ premium inventory for a set price.

However, for buyers and sellers looking for flexibility in their transactions, programmatic purchasing can offer some additional perks. Guaranteed programmatic deals, for example, act in a similar way to direct IO — selling for a fixed price with a specific amount of inventory. But, additionally, doing so programmatically enables buyers to retain the benefits of utilising a DSP, giving users increased control — easing workflow and allowing for optimisation mid-flight — and  more holistic reporting.

But, while programmatic purchasing may technically be able to offer these benefits, advertisers might currently find their programmatic choices restricted by publisher capabilities and offerings. Buyside appetite for programmatic executions shows no signs of slowing, so ultimately CTV publishers and broadcasters who are amenable to programmatic routes stand to benefit.

Taking buying to the next level

Programmatic ad buying in digital environments is at a crossroads. With third-party identifiers set to be phased out, there is an increasing importance being placed on first party data — and as a result, on the owners of this data, such as publishers and device manufacturers — to ensure effective targeting and measurement.

Traditional measures such as Barb have provided advertisers with a base level of insights in order to effectively run campaigns. However, the emergence of technology like automated content recognition (ACR) – a privacy-first, anonymised alternative content identification technology – and first party data from platforms and device manufacturers gives buyers more granular insights to drive their campaigns at scale and speed.

These insights can then be fed back into a marketer’s buying strategy, allowing for fine-tuning of campaigns in-flight. Furthermore, utilising programmatic CTV can turn the medium into the cornerstone of an omnichannel campaign. This approach – which gives marketers the ability to run a cohesive, holistic campaign across multiple devices – allows for optimal targeting and retargeting throughout the sales funnel. By identifying and retargeting exposed audiences across devices, with differing creative, marketers can better tell the story of their campaign and grab consumer attention.

For marketers looking to generate the best ROI, and gain maximum reach and impressions via CTV in a cost effective way, finding a balance between direct and programmatic deals is vital. While there are currently similarities in both purchasing methods, as publishers compete for ad spend investments, the additional flexibility of programmatic and offer of tailored purchasing options will become a differentiator. In turn, the greater autonomy, transparency, measurement, and targeting capabilities will become central to every campaign on the channel, and buyers will increasingly be looking towards programmatic CTV.

This may come as a surprise given CTV’s similarities to mobile, where data flows in abundance, even with Apple’s restrictions to ID-level targeting. Both operate through devices and apps, but where they diverge is in the availability and accessibility of data. Equipment manufacturers and, to a lesser extent, streaming providers are holding their assets close to their chest, perhaps seeking to avoid the commodification which devalued data on mobile and the open web.

While this guardedness is understandable, it is impeding cross-platform measurement and targeting capabilities, making it challenging for buyers to deliver consistent ROI while driving up CPMs for sellers.

To solve this problem, brands need to explore how adtech can bring life to this parched ecosystem, allowing data to flow to those who need it without compromising its value or its safety.

Lack of identity spine weakens CTV’s cross-platform capabilities

ID solutions are perhaps the most essential adtech solution for delivering effective targeted CTV campaigns, as they allow brands to identify users across different platforms and devices. With ID solutions, brands can deliver relevant ads to consumers no matter where they are, ensuring they reach the right audience at the right time.

For example, an ID solution can help advertisers pseudonymously recognise a user who watches a show on a connected TV and then clicks on a social media ad on their phone by linking the user’s CTV device ID with their mobile advertising ID. Being able to consistently recognise users is also vital for universal frequency capping and limiting ad exposure across platforms to maximise incremental reach. The advertiser can also deliver relevant ads on other connected devices that the user interacts with, providing a personalised and sticky experience across devices.

Unfortunately, with so many Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) in the market offering their own variation of device IDs and strictly controlling access to them, CTV lacks the identity spine needed to deliver accurate frequency control and measurement. The static nature of big-screen TVs has seen IP addresses stand in as identifiers, but this falls apart the moment a brand wants to measure outside of the CTV ecosystem (for example, in a cross-channel campaign that also targets mobile and web) or target an individual rather than a household.

Data exchanges are a bustling market of consumer insights

Data exchanges are marketplaces that act as intermediaries between data owners and buyers, making it easier for brands to access the information they need for effective targeting. Data exchanges can offer a range of data types, including demographic, behavioural, and location data.

For the media owners that set the boundaries of what is possible in CTV campaigns, data exchanges offer an opportunity to apply data targeting to campaigns — à la programmatic deals. This, in turn, increases the value of their inventory to a wider range of advertisers.

Brands, meanwhile, can use data exchanges to overcome limitations within their own data. This is particularly useful for brands that have been unable to use first-party data to make up for the shortfall of data availability in the post-GDPR era, as is the case for many CPG brands, for whom TV is a key touchpoint.

Most of all, CTV needs technology to empower data collaboration

The best way to help brands quench their thirst for data in the CTV ecosystem is to open the floodgates of data collaboration. If all siloed pockets of data (whether first, second, or third-party) along with all identifiers and ID-enriching signals can be unified and appropriately pseudonymised, the limitations of each component part can be overcome. Overlapping audiences between brands and platforms can be segmented and targeted not just within CTV, but across the wider advertising ecosystem.

Clean rooms are one of the ad tech solutions built to facilitate data collaboration. These are secure environments that allow brands to share and analyse data without accessing it directly, with cryptographic scrambling preserving user privacy and data ownership while still delivering valuable insights. In the UK, CTV broadcaster Channel 4 and retail media network Nectar used a clean room to discover shared audiences.

However, clean rooms are far from plug and play. Both parties must have their data organised to be compatible with the clean room they are using, which does not guarantee compatibility with any other clean rooms the brand may want to use. It is a significant investment of time, resources, and money to set up a clean room, and data sets must be regularly re-matched to ensure insights are up to date. Then, after all of that, there is no guarantee that anything actionable can be taken out of them.

Data collaboration, then, must not be limited to certain tools but be embraced at a cross-platform, cross-solution level. ID resolution and data exchanges can make more data available on CTV, while data collaboration tools can facilitate the smooth exchange of first and second-party data between the supply and demand side. A dedication to interoperability and an acknowledgement that no single approach can solve the ecosystem-level data drought will be necessary for CTV to thrive.

As CTV continues to grow and evolve, the role of adtech solutions in unlocking the full programmatic potential of the ecosystem will become increasingly important. With the right adtech tools, the promise of a CTV ecosystem that delivers the best of both linear TV and digital advertising can be realised. It will take collaboration, a more open attitude to data sharing, and perhaps some consolidation for us to bring life to CTV’s data desert.

OKAST enables FAST creation and distribution via a modular cloud solution called OKAST Channels that includes programming, playout, transcoding, distribution, and advertising monetisation services. The company says it has deployed over 500 OTT platforms and FAST channels. Broadpeak provides video delivery components for content providers and network operators deploying video streaming services, including operator CDNs. The company’s advanced video API cloud platform, broadpeak.io, offers as-a-service solutions for dynamic ad insertion, linear virtual channel creation, and content personalisation. The companies are now integrating OKAST Channels and broadpeak.io.

The vendors say their partnership results in an advanced FAST offer that enables publishers to differentiate themselves in the market to achieve greater audience engagement. The technology helps content owners better monetise their inventory, the companies claim. The dynamic adaptation of channel content is key to success, and this is achieved thanks to Broadpeak’s Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) solution (available on broadpeak.io SaaS) in combination with AI. The line-up of channels is customised to end user tastes.

The content line-up is also changed using dynamic programme replacement in order to meet the business rules associated with a diverse distribution marketplace. As the vendors explain, channel distribution to multiple connected TV platforms and applications, all with their own specific requirements, generates very high costs for publishers and high management complexity for channel editors. So, this solution uses ‘variant channels’ where the same video stream is adapted to the different format, language, regulation, cultural, business and advertising rules of distribution platforms, reducing distribution and editorial management costs.

Before, the original channel programme line-up had to be changed to suit each different CTV platform carrying FAST channels – so four CTV platforms meant four versions of the channel (to align with different language, regulation, business, etc. rules). OKAST and Broadpeak have swapped this approach for one that uses rules-based programme replacement (using server-side content insertion). This means that only one version of the original programme line-up is needed, plus SSAI-enabled adaptations on a per-distribution platform basis. This reduces costs and makes wider distribution economic.

The final value-add from the OKAST/Broadpeak integration is the use of Broadpeak’s Advanced CDN solution to distribute the FAST channels to Pay TV operators. “Integration of FAST channels into operator offerings means they reach a new, very large audience in addition to that of the usual CTV platforms.”

Editor’s comment

FAST channels still attract only modest viewing (as a total of all viewing) but are a welcome addition to the TV landscape, complementing standard linear TV programming as they often provide genre-focused content collections (on a linear schedule) or allow super-fans to binge the same show 24/7. Integration of the best FAST channels into Pay TV line-ups seems a natural move, and we also expect to see these appearing more in broadcaster streaming services where third-party content is welcomed, given that many broadcasters want their BVOD to become a digital destination in its own right rather than ‘just’ a catch-up service for their own broadcast channels. Seven Network in Australia is one of those pioneering the ‘third-party FAST inside BVOD’ model, and gave details about that at Connected TV World Summit in March.

Fans will be able to stream live games and watch NFL Originals – and a key part of the partnership is to improve the viewing experience, which will include more ‘community’, plus alerts for key in-game moments. Existing international customers for the NFL streaming service have been migrating to their new account on DAZN since late June.

NFL wants to grow its sport into a truly global proposition and DAZN gives it the greater reach it needs, operating in 250 markets. NFL Game Pass is available to fans either as a standalone package or as an add-on to an existing DAZN subscription, and fans can purchase the service in more ways now, including through an extensive list of telcos that DAZN already works with. With DAZN, NFL Game Pass will be available on over 100 different devices and that includes more connected TV devices to take the streamed sport to the television screen (PlayStation 5 and Smart TVs from Hisense and Sony are examples).

The public watch parties will be available for select games from the start of the season, enabling fans to share the experience and chat live, helping to create communities. On select devices a multi-screen feature will allow viewers to enjoy more than one game at a time. Polls, stats and ‘Pulse’, an online alert that takes fans straight to key moments in games, provides a more interactive viewing experience and should therefore drive greater engagement.

NFL Game Pass includes pre-season games (from August 3), the regular season (from September 7) and the Super Bowl LVIII, plus NFL RedZone, NFL Network and NFL Originals. There is an NFL archive.

Sameer Pabari, Managing Director, Media at NFL International, says: “NFL Game Pass has established itself as the must-have product for NFL fans around the world. Combining the full breadth of NFL content with DAZN’s powerful data-driven technology, global distribution network and marketing capabilities will help us grow NFL Game Pass to reach new international audiences and expand our fandom globally.”

Shay Segev, Dazn Group CEO, adds: “Accessibility and innovation is at the heart of DAZN’s proposition, and that’s what we will be delivering for the millions of NFL fans worldwide. It’s going to be a whole new ball game, with more ways to watch, more features to engage with, and more great NFL content than ever before. This is a landmark moment for DAZN as we embark on a 10-year partnership with the NFL, focused on showcasing the sport, the fan experience and growth.”

DoubleVerify is a leading software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics. TVision provides second-by-second analysis of how viewers are watching TV and currently maintains viewing panels in the U.S., UK and Japan. DoubleVerify’s ad exposure data, including viewable time and screen share will be combined with TVision’s viewer presence and eyes-on-screen ad attention signals.

“Our alliance with TVision is a significant stride towards comprehensive and reliable attention measurement in CTV,” says Daniel Slotwiner, SVP of Attention at DoubleVerify (DV). “By aligning TVision’s viewer presence and eyes-on-screen attention data with our own ad exposure and user engagement data, we are establishing a new standard for assessing the true impact of CTV advertising – ultimately driving superior outcomes for brands across the globe.”

Technical integration between DV and TVision will be ongoing over the next few months and the aim is to offer U.S. customers a closed beta in the second half of 2023. Broader market release will follow.

TVision is DV’s only partner currently for holistically measuring attention in connected TV. A spokesperson said DV will continue to work with TVision, and explore other enhancements and partnerships, as it expands geographical coverage beyond the U.S.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with DoubleVerify to advance the adoption of attention measurement across CTV environments,” declares Yan Liu, CEO & Co-Founder of TVision. “Our partnership enables marketers to gain deeper insights into where and when they get the most value in CTV.”

DV already measures ad exposure globally across devices including CTV.  It analyses over 50 data points related to exposure and consumer engagement for digital ads and devices.

Vevo represents the music labels, and offers a VOD catalogue of 800,000 titles as well as FAST channels, with its content available through multiple platforms including Samsung TV Plus, Roku, Apple, Amazon and also Pay TV platforms like Sky Q. Vevo on YouTube accounts for a large part of the reach for the music-focused programmer. McGurn describes Vevo as a ‘high reach, low frequency’ solution for advertisers, with that characteristic largely a result of how people watch music videos.

“This is what advertisers come to us for: reach extension with moderate frequency,” he declares. “What is interesting about campaigns on Vevo, from advertisers across consumer electronics to film and auto insurance, is that no matter what you buy from us, we deliver the audience, but frequency never reaches above three. That speaks to the diversity of the video offer. For one advertiser, we had to narrow the reach to dial-up the frequency they wanted, but I think it is a better challenge to increase frequency than deal with too much frequency.”

Vevo has rapidly expanded its FAST channel offering and viewers can now find up to 15 of these linear (ad supported) streamed channels on a typical connected TV platform. This is a lean-back, curated experience and because the channels are genre-based (spanning Pop to Hip-Hop, Country and Latino, for example) or decade-based (e.g., ‘80s or ‘90s) advertisers can reach largely different groups of people via each channel. “There is massive incrementality – as much as 95% incrementality,” reveals McGurn, drawing on research that Vevo presented at the IAB NewFronts in New York.

For consumers, FAST is about removing the decisions needed every four minutes on what to watch next, McGurn says. “It is too much work to constantly choose, and with the curated channels you have passive playback and if you don’t like what is on one channel, you can go to another. We can still keep them [the viewer] on the Vevo network. For us, it is also fun. We like being a curator and that is what the music industry expects from us – we are supposed to be promoters of new music and fandom.”

Asked if Vevo would like to be more than an app on Pay TV/MVPD platforms, in the way that direct-to-consumer streamers like Disney and Netflix are being deeply integrated into the home screen content promotions today, McGurn would only say that “we know our content will be popular wherever it sits, but it is not for us to decide how it should be promoted.” He did admit interest in Vevo appearing within broadcaster streaming (BVOD) services, as some broadcasters start to include third-party content. Vevo is not found in any primary BVOD services yet, “but I would see us as a great content addition in that environment.”

Another part of the Vevo ‘pitch’ to advertisers this year is its increasing understanding of context, down to the detail of what appears within scenes in music videos. This is then used to better match advertising to content. The company already offered mood-based advertising (since February 2021, when advertisers could start buying against moods like ‘heartfelt’ or ‘empowering’, for example). Most recently the company added the ability to match advertising creative to the ‘creative’ look-and-feel of a music video.

Colours, and even the beat of music, can be matched to ads. One illustration shown privately used a music beat and colour-feel that fed exceptionally well into an ad for an electric car. This is better seen than explained, but McGurn gives an example that is easy to imagine: you have an ad creative that is half-human and half-animated, and it might match well against the famous Aha video for Take on Me.

With the help of an AI tech partner, Vevo has also processed its entire music catalogue to find every example where a music video contains a brand representation, whether a coke bottle or a Cadillac car. This has been used to create a targeting package where brands can advertise against the content that contains these images. This is part of a second-by-second analysis of each video to uncover and then label elements of interest, whether logos, items or themes. Advertising packages can also be created for videos tagged with the same keywords – and the example given is ‘beach’ and ‘party’ to create a ‘beach party’ viewing hour, with brand sponsorship available.

McGurn admits the AI-enabled video intelligence does not foretell a tectonic shift in the advertising industry – but it does match advertiser desires for advertising UX innovation. He observes that Vevo can invest in this kind of innovation because its content is evergreen. Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns N’ Roses) received approximately 200 million views across the Vevo network last year, as one illustration of his point.

“You could not do this with television shows because everyone watches them and then they’re done, albeit with some later binge viewing. With music videos, we know the viewing and the ad revenues will be the same in ten years’ time, using the same insights.”

But this promise has not been fully delivered quite yet. Attempting to match ad exposure to consumer action reveals glaring holes in the data, while any attempt at cohesion across a CTV campaign — let alone the wider media mix — collides with the messy reality of a fragmented market. This should be CTV’s moment in the limelight, but shortcomings in measurement capabilities are holding it back from realising its full potential.

For CTV advertising to make the most of the consumer attention and ad spend coming its way, media owners need to recognise its current measurement shortcomings and fill the gaps with reliable, detailed, high-quality data on actual campaign effectiveness and the role CTV had in it.

IP and device graph matching: a match made in hell?

IP and device graph matching are currently used as the basis for many CTV measurement solutions. The assumption is, if the IP address of a household where an ad for an item was aired matches the IP address of a household where the item was purchased, it can be reasonable to infer that there was a relationship between the two.

However, IP and device graph matching suffer from several problems that make it almost impossible to really understand the effectiveness of a VOD campaign. On the TV side, the IP addresses identify the household and not the individual, so it is impossible to know who in the household was exposed to the TV ad. Furthermore, when the user leaves their house, they will be assigned a generic IP address from their mobile network which can be shared by multiple users, making it impossible to identify the user.

Brands are therefore ultimately not able to understand from IP matching whether the person who bought the product is the same person who saw the ad.

IP matching and device graph matching are also unable to detect attribution in cases where a brand sells through third-party websites such as Amazon. Finally, IP addresses are considered Personal Identifying Information and using them may create a GDPR liability for brands.

CTV has a fragmentation problem

But even if all the matching problems can be solved, CTV also has a fragmentation problem, as it’s another silo in the media mix. For example, a single consumer might have been exposed to an advertising campaign while watching TV, scrolling through social media, listening to a podcast, travelling on public transport, or while playing a game—isolating the effectiveness of the CTV exposure is close to impossible.

But the problem is even larger. A CTV advertising campaign will run across multiple VOD services, each with a different, siloed measurement system. For example, a user could see the same ad on Netflix, Samsung TV, ITVX, and YouTube. If IP matching is used, each of the services would claim 100% of the attribution. The brand will be unable to understand what worked and what didn’t.

Knowing the effectiveness of each component of the media mix is essential to campaign planning and in-flight optimisation but isolating the impact of CTV advertising in the current advertising environment is almost impossible.

It’s time to go back to the source

Much of the hype around CTV is focused on its likeness to the data-driven insights and scale of digital advertising, but to truly unlock its potential we need to use single-source data and measure it within the context of the entire campaign.

Thanks to several recent technological advancements, it’s now possible to build single-source panels that can track actual behaviours and actions in far more detail, right down to the ads they were exposed to, what sites they visit, apps they use, the online and offline purchases they make, and what physical stores they visit. With this approach, panellist consent is provided from the start and their participation rewarded so that data privacy is assured.

This model overcomes the inaccuracies of IP matching. By tracking individuals every step of the way, single-source data reveals the impact of campaigns on offline store visits, CPG sales, or online purchases through third-party websites, enabling accurate and deterministic measurement of CTV advertising for the first time.

The holistic view of consumer behaviour created by single-source data also solves the fragmentation issue, revealing how CTV advertising fits into the larger picture of the customer journey to purchase. By understanding the performance of the channel in context, marketers can use CTV advertising more effectively in their campaigns.

For too long, the CTV advertising ecosystem has been attempting to complete a puzzle with half the pieces missing. By breaking down silos and using single-source data, the industry can fill the gaps in their measurement capabilities beyond just reach and frequency to give advertisers a complete picture of campaign performance. Only then will CTV truly achieve its potential as the best of both the digital and linear worlds.

However, as the market becomes more fragmented, and the increased cost of living hits the pockets of UK audiences, a growing number of viewers are seeking out ad-supported CTV offerings. Two-thirds of consumers state they would prefer watching a free ad-supported streaming service over a fee-based subscription option.

And where consumers head, brands are sure to follow. Marketers spent nearly £1 billion on advertising in CTV environments last year. This growth is only set to continue, with a predicted £2.3 billion being spent in 2026 in the UK alone. At the same time, this expanding market has become a double-edged sword for advertisers. While CTV offers increasing insights and access to more varied and niche audiences at scale, the audiences are watching across a number of platforms — with more options being introduced regularly — creating real challenges for cross-platform media buying and measurement.

With a growing interest in CTV’s potential to enhance the consumer viewing experience while also improving ROI on TV ad spend, advertisers must identify ways in which to measure, and maximise, the success of investments. This is especially true when investing in new channels and for those taking an experimental or staged approach in redistributing spend from linear to CTV — to provide accurate measurements of success, a holistic view across multiple channels must be achieved.

For the TV advertiser, new targeting and measurement strategies, such as those using Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) — when used in conjunction with traditional TV measurements — can solve fragmentation and empower marketers to make smart, data-driven advertising decisions.

Obtaining the full picture of TV data

Traditional industry measurement organisations, such as Barb, have long played a role in understanding audiences, and as TV viewing habits have evolved, so too have their practices. Barb, for example, recently announced plans to broaden its measurement remit to include video streaming platforms in a reflection of increased viewers on these channels. But if advertisers are to understand, and optimise, the success of their investments they will need to achieve a full audience, cross-channel picture, which broader, traditional industry reports alone cannot provide.

Using new datasets such as ACR — a privacy-first, anonymised alternative content identification technology — advertisers can understand a viewer’s content consumption to generate a more detailed picture of their viewing profile. By conducting a ‘glass-level’ analysis of content — in other words, by reviewing everything that is seen on the TV screen — visibility of audience behaviours and preferences is increased.

Marketers are able to analyse not only the audience’s source, whether it be an inbuilt app, games console or other device, but also reveal additional information such as network, show name, and viewing time. Insights like this, gathered from ACR, can also be used to supplement audience segmentation for smarter cross-device media plans.

Unifying data for effective activation

In such a fractured market, the unified, holistic oversight that ACR gives marketers is indispensable. But gathering data is only the first step towards maximising ad spend. Marketers must activate their findings to effectively drive targeting across smart TV and connected devices environments.

Content-level targeting has always assisted marketers to reach their defined audience, but ACR data takes this targeting a step further; ACR is deterministic. It allows marketers to more accurately advertise to niche audiences across various content inputs, via packages of targeted anonymised audience segments.

The ingestion of data across multiple devices and channels means audiences can be filtered into specific demographics — gamers, for example, can be identified based on their gaming-device usage and those insights leveraged to place relevant ads on their smart TV, and other connected devices. Obtaining data diversity is important to enhance campaigns, but achieving it without a robust advertising solution can be difficult. By bringing all audience data under the same roof and layering ACR data with an advertiser’s first- and third-party data sets — such as demographics, geo-location, and shopping behaviours — marketers can build fuller audience profiles in a privacy-compliant manner.

Understanding campaign success

With media budgets under increasing scrutiny, there is a pressing need to measure and prove the ROI of advertising campaigns — especially for TV — and to understand on a granular level the investments which proved successful or unsuccessful, in order to improve effectiveness.

Linear TV has been hampered in the past by its more panel-based approach to measurement and inability to provide for deterministic insights, leaving advertisers with a limited line of sight to actual results. By contrast, ACR offers advanced measurement capabilities — including ad completion rates and conversions such as tune-in, app downloads, web traffic, location behaviour, and even purchase — that allow marketers to better understand the incrementality of their ad campaign.

The ability to leverage deterministic channel and audience data, along with supplementary industry insights, means marketers can not only optimise their marketing activations, but also continue to recognise and invest in the most suitable CTV channels for their objectives and audience.

As the CTV advertising space continues to become more competitive, marketers cannot dive into their investments blind. Granular audience measurement data is the antidote to this, providing a holistic view across input devices — vital to the optimisation of campaigns and audience targeting. While traditional industry measurements can be a strong foundation for creating a successful campaign, supplementing the insights with additional details derived from ACR data will give marketers the vital insights they need.

In 2021, all forms of TV advertising saw record-levels of investment – reaching a total of £5.46 billion, an increase of 24% on the channel’s 2020 investment. However, ad spend predictions for CTV investment in 2023 overshadow linear considerably, with CTV spend expected to grow by 14.4% year-over-year, compared to a projected decline of 6.3% in linear. Looking ahead, marketers are certainly hedging their bets on an upward trend of digital viewing.

However, linear has long been a trusted source of reach and awareness for brands – and marketers should not turn their backs on the channel so hastily, especially when a total of 85.2% of UK individuals are reached by linear every week. To stay cost-effective and meet long and short-term targets, it makes more sense for marketers to implement incremental shifts in budget for a more balanced approach between the two channels. This is especially true when linear’s vast reach means it is still securing large budgets; a shift of 10 – 15% of current investment would represent huge value in the CTV space, making that redistributed investment extremely cost-effective.

The TV balancing act

Buyers that are simply sticking to linear because it is what they know could be missing out on shrewd CTV investments, particularly when justifying and measuring these investments. It’s true that linear TV does not provide the same granularity as CTV, relying on metrics like reach and frequency as proxies for demonstrating effectiveness – and understandably, budgets are shifting away from offline as a result.

With a likely recession ahead and inflation running high, it’s easy to focus overwhelmingly on digital solutions to satisfy immediate targets such as low cost per acquisition (CPA) demands and strong return on ad spend (ROAS). However, it’s important not to forget about long-term growth and the high-funnel objectives where linear adds value. It is a crucial platform for brand building, and overlooking it could be a wasted opportunity for individual brands, but also an over-investment in digital solutions on a macro level could lead to under-developed industries — especially in unconsolidated industries such as cryptocurrency or blockchain technology.

Marketers must also consider  generational viewing differences when balancing their channel investment: while younger consumers may opt for CTV, subscription video on demand (SVOD) or advertising-based video on demand (AVOD), older consumers still dedicate over two hours a day to watching broadcast TV (35-44 year-olds), which increases to over three hours for 55-64 year-olds. Missing entire cohorts – especially those who potentially hold a higher disposable income – may mean brands lose out on important leads.

Harnessing the power of digital

 While long term viability and high-funnel awareness should be a consideration, short-term success is equally important, therefore the results of budget decisions must be measured and accessible. Through robust and comprehensive reporting, CTV affords advertisers the ability to accurately evaluate, in detail, the return on every penny spent. As a result, marketers can activate, optimise, and dial-back campaigns quickly and effectively, facilitating agility in the face of economic uncertainty. What’s more, CTV has the added capability to target niche audience segments while simultaneously appealing to a range of demographics.

Further developments in measurement, supported by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, mean that marketers can now combine data from linear and CTV to provide omnichannel, comparable key insights such as cost and incremental reach by channel. Accurate customer trends reports allow companies to optimise prospecting and retargeting efforts away from low-scoring audiences and towards those with high purchase probability – this robust analysis can guide companies in strategic decisions that set them up for success. Core KPIs such as customer propensity to purchase and lifetime value allow for a more holistic approach to ad spend, where marketers meet both long and short-term goals in a turbulent economy.

While CTV is an incredible tool to reach highly targeted audiences and receive detailed measurements, it is by no means the only channel worth investing in. Instead, implementing an omni-channel, digital approach supported by a robust first-party data strategy and strong attribution model will bolster a brand’s long-term position.

A holistic approach towards long-term success

It’s true that CTV offers up extensive opportunities in measurement and attribution for brands, but focusing solely on immediate success can lead marketers into a fluctuating spend spiral as they switch between short-term and long-term objectives.

Overall, linear TV – delivering high view-through rates and broad audiences – is still a key performance driver and crucial component of brand building, and marketers should not forget the good value it can provide long term. By contrast, CTV’s ultra-targeted and traceable offering gives advertisers clear visibility of key metrics, leading to accurate analysis and insights to allow for informed investment decisions.

Instead of rushing to shift large amounts of budget to CTV, brands must keep a holistic view of their investment to optimise results, and bind together CTV and linear as a mutually complementary partnership.

To help us navigate this rapid expansion, let’s look at this through the lens of what it was like being a teenager.

Most of us will remember the highs and lows of growing up: the sudden (and sometimes severe) physical changes to our bodies; the onset of more advanced, often overwhelming, emotions; new social arenas and constructs leaving us with identity crises, and existential challenges. All of which one must endure and complete before reaching the promised land of adulthood.

It’s a tough age indeed.

These same challenges, in their own way, are on show in the streaming industry as it endures its own adolescence.

The growth spurt

Kicked off primarily by the Covid pandemic, streaming video’s growth spurt has tripped up many players in the industry, with a substantial and unexpected rate and size of change.

CTV is forecast to take over one-third ($38 Billion) of ad spend by 2026. This is double the growth from 2022.

With a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of nearly 20%, this is gold rush stuff. Very few in the industry would have predicted this prior to the pandemic.

But, much like a teenager’s gangly limbs, it’s far from a uniform expansion. Growth is coming not from new households spread out evenly across the country, but from adoption of new devices – and younger demographics. This introduces significant technological and operational complexities.

So, it’s not just a matter of needing to be ‘in it to win it’. Publishers and advertisers alike need to join the dots, and discover ways to connect their audiences and their goals.

They need to work smarter.

Relevancy, context, and attention are all new words entering the trading lexicon. Growth will require adoption of automation in all manner of workflows, moving humans from the operating seat to the supervisor’s chair.

One way this could manifest is programmatic trading. Contrary to what you might have heard, data from our platform tells us that programmatic deals still make up only a fraction of CTV ad sales. Much like pre-teen children, there is promise in programmatic, but it’s yet to live up to its potential.

The in-crowd

Audiences for streaming channels are fickle. They are easily influenced by online icons, and more loyal to the content they like than the provider of that content. As increased subscriber churn has shown, lose viewers and it’s unlikely that they will come back anytime soon.

Talk about trying to be part of the ‘in-crowd’ at school.

Publishers are not only competing with their usual contemporaries and suffering costs that are ‘shooting through the roof’, but also a new wave of streaming natives that produce content from ‘inside their platforms, out.’ They are attracting larger and larger audiences that, while watching their content, are not watching yours.

Everyone wants to be their friend. Everyone wants to be invited to their party.

One advantage the big streamers have had to date has been extraordinary production values. But with a squeeze coming for commissioning budgets, it looks like even that is under threat.

Helicopter parents

And just as things couldn’t become more challenging, many publishers and advertisers have to answer to their helicopter parents – their shareholders.

Playing out in a dystopian ‘Mother-and-Father know best’ style, shareholder activism (like that underway with Disney) further destabilise businesses. It casts doubt, distracts and introduces second guessing across their business while they try to grapple with new regulatory, technological and operational paradigms.

For the next 2-3 years the industry will continue to grow before reaching adulthood. During this time it will likely be a bumpy and tumultuous road. We’ll trip over our own feet a few more times, and experience growing pains as we adapt to new formats, behaviour and technology.

Publishers and advertisers will both need to continuously evolve all aspects of their business to fully capitalise on the potential wins, and become fully functioning adults.

Cameron Church is CEO and Co-Founder of Watching That. Here he is on LinkedIn.