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.

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.

The companies say the ACR-powered viewership data will enable advertisers “to achieve incremental results beyond linear TV buys and measure campaign reach and frequency” in a country where 82% of the adult population watch connected TV content.

The announced launch marks the fifth international expansion for Samba TV in 2022, after having expanded its advanced TV footprint in Britain, Germany, Australia and France. It also represents the second consecutive “top 15 world advertising market” it has entered this year alone.

David Barker, SVP of International Sales at Samba TV, said: “We are thrilled to be announcing our latest partnership with Smartclip in Spain to offer advertisers an advanced new capability to connect with audiences across every screen, delivering seamless viewing experiences in the growing CTV space.

“The combination of our privacy-compliant viewership data and Smartclip’s impressive tech infrastructure will empower advertisers to drive meaningful business impact and future-proof their omni-screen advertising strategies as viewership behavior continues to evolve.”

Ángel Fernández Nebot, Country Manager Spain at Smartclip, commented: “At Smartclip, we continue to move towards integrated solutions, which respond to current multi-screen consumption. Our strategic partnership with Samba TV allows us to achieve a unique position in the market.

“Thanks to this agreement, we can offer the best advertising solutions, taking advantage of the synergy between linear television and the rest of the media. Together we will deliver the Spanish market far greater efficiency in the media plans of our advertisers, helping to maximize the results of their advertising investments.”

He said: “TV has traditionally been based around linear TV advertising. So now if you bring in the technical capability to be able to address ads to different people at different times, then the whole ecosystem around planning, buying, optimisation, execution, and distribution of advertising has to be operated to be able to do that. And that takes time.

“That is what the evolution that is happening on the TV side is. People have started to experiment with addressable on TV, leveraging the experiences they’ve had with addressable on digital, but it will take a while for the majority – or the entirety – of the TV ecosystem to get addressable ads even when the technical capability to deliver addressable ads continues to expand.”

The Kantar report argues that Smart TVs can move addressable advertising forward significantly. It makes the case that by moving addressable up the delivery chain into the screen which actually delivers the content, its simplifies and standardises how ads are delivered.

Manish elaborates on this point: “To deliver addressable ads the system has to go all the way back to wherever the ad server is to pull the ad and bring it back, but keeping it closer to the user experience is probably the more efficient way.”

He argues that greater collaboration between advertisers, Smart TV companies and measurement companies is needed to fully realise the promise of addressability. Advertisers want to know how their ads are performing in terms of reach and viewer attitudes, and eventually, willingness to buy the product. To determine pricing, advertisers also need a strong sense of the effectiveness and efficiency of addressable compared to conventional ad spots on linear.

He continues: “They also want to know ‘if I reach people in a linear environment do I want to reach them again on addressable? Am I reaching the same people or different people?’ So you end up with different data sets. Advertisers may have their own, Smart TV companies may have their own, and third-party companies like Kantar has its data set. For advertisers to get a full view on who is being reached by their ads across the platforms, the various datasets need to be integrated and combined with linear TV data sets.

There has to be a high degree of collaboration between the three, with sharing of insights, assets and learning. That’s the collaboration we’re talking about because data is available and sits around the ecosystem with different players, both on the buy side and sell side.”

Manish outlines how the evolution of TV has made it more difficult to measure unduplicated reach, and can therefore result in viewers experiencing excessive exposure to the same ads.

He says: “Linear TV is a bit easier as it’s a single harmonised ecosystem. You can see if you advertise ‘here’ and advertise ‘there’ what the unduplicated reach is and the frequency of exposure. When you start dealing with three or four different walled gardens, while you can reach viewers in a very targeted manner, you need to keep track of who you are reaching, whether you have reached them before, where else can you reach them, and what is the most operational way for you to deliver your advertising messages.”

The Kantar report argues that router meter solutions for measurement is imperative to track new forms of ad activity, and that panel-based measurement in particular enables the “the required data exchanges and data ingestion to capture advertising exposures” across audience segments. Router meters are installed in panelists’ households and work together to provide a complete picture of content consumption in a home, according to the company.

With regards to measurement, Manish notes two salient questions: ‘who is watching?’ and ‘what is being watched?’ While the latter question can be addressed with automated content recognition (ACR) data from Smart TVs (which takes content fingerprints and matches them against reference libraries), the former is complicated by the fact that TVs are multi-user devices.

He says: “When a house has three different members you might have three people watching at different times and watching different shows. To attribute viewing accurately, even if it’s just one person watching, you need to know who that person is. It gets even more complicated when you have more than one person watching TV, which of course happens a lot.”

Manish advocates for a panel-based solution to measurement and an integration with larger viewing datasets to provide a complete and accurate view of viewing. Viewers join Kantar’s panel and give permission to the data and analytics company to track their viewing, with panelists reporting proactively on when they are watching TV.

DeepIntent also compared its findings with real-world viewer data using automated content recognition (ACR) technology from LG Ads Solutions. Surprisingly, while 96% of linear TV viewers said they watch their favourite shows via satellite box or cable, only 48% of their viewership actually took place on cable, meaning “audiences stream content more than they realize.”

DeepIntent has pointed to these findings while arguing for the importance of using ACR data when planning, measuring, and optimising advertising campaigns across linear and CTV. It has integrated LG Ads Solutions’ real-time ACR data repository – a dataset covering over 30 million LG smart TVs in the United States – making it “the first and only demand side platform (DSP) with this capability” according to the company.

John Mangano, Senior Vice President of Analytics, DeepIntent, commented: “For too long, healthcare marketers have struggled to reach relevant audiences at scale. By combining the targeting power of CTV with ACR data, DeepIntent’s patented technology optimises campaign audience quality and script performance in real-time. Consumer research has proven that this combination influences patient outcomes.”

AJ Kintner, Vice President of Sales at LG Ads Solutions, said: “Understanding the efficacy of programs is about measuring as much of a campaign as we can to have a holistic view. ACR data is fantastic in terms of allowing us to understand exposure in a way that we couldn’t from a set-top box.”