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.

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.

Make a solid media plan

In traditional media buying, you always start with a media plan that is looking for the right balance of where to invest your client’s money, looking for optimal reach at a fair price. And for the seller, you are determining if you are willing to except more volume at a less expensive price, or if you are holding your price.

The buyers’ choices of where to invest are predicated on how many meetings you schedule, sit through, and follow up on. There has always been a limited supply of quality video destinations, not necessarily because they do not exist, but because the process of collaborating with them was time consuming. The joy of programmatic for the buyer is that now your consideration set can be wider.

While you still need to make sure what you are buying is of quality, the investigation process is simpler. You can now see what choices are available in your DSP, check out their media kit online, sample programming on their app, and electronically send out a proposal. All in the time it would have taken you just to schedule the initial meeting.

Now, this may scare the seller because his buyer has more options, but the seller can now be exposed to many more buyers. And this does not mean it is a race to the floor bottom like what happened to Internet banner advertising years ago. While programmatic does open up more options for buyers and sellers, quality video is still an extremely hard business, and there will always be supply and demand in quality video that will not allow for a race to the bottom.

Utilise smart technology

If you are a buyer looking for a DSP, or a seller looking for a SSP, there are many choices. However, quality choices for programmatic video are limited. Many claim that they are the biggest ‘this’ in mobile, or the biggest ‘that’ in banners, but that doesn’t mean they have a robust video platform. Proper video technology needs tools that can: set pricing thresholds, control frequency capping, minimise double-spotting, and apply category separation, to name a few. DSPs from The Trade Desk and Octillion Media have the tools that understand how video ads are bought cross-platform on a national and local basis. And SSPs such as Freewheel’s AudienceXpress and the Beachfront Marketplace have a solid grasp for the sellers.

Act on timely reporting

For traditional media, there has always been the concept of the affidavit, or a proof-of-performance. That requires a report that confirms that I got what I planned for and bought. The problem is that reporting could be based on a sample of the audience, and/or take a day or so for you to get your hands on it.  With programmatic, because the machines are talking to each other in near real-time, you can see your reporting quickly and act on it right away.

This benefits the buyer because, for instance, if you see a certain channel is under-delivering on target impressions halfway through the flight, you can adjust and allocate more impressions somewhere else while still in flight. For the seller in this situation, you will not have liability to worry about from the “makegood” you would have to give the buyer in this instance.

Make a plan, utilise good technology to execute, and act on timely reporting. These have been the hallmarks of good media buying and planning for a long time, and they are still the Top 3 even in a programmatic world. But, like most things, boiling them down to three points can be over simplistic. There are certainly other issues in programmatic, like whether the cost of a DSP or SSP is worth it for your organisation at this time. And if covering those costs come at the expense of personnel such as salespeople. But to sit programmatic out because of fear – that is not recommended.

Think if you were a stockbroker who did not learn what a Bloomberg platform could do, or a travel agent who ignored what power Expedia has. Electronic trading has come to video advertising, so don’t miss the opportunity to learn now.

The Smart TV manufacturer and service provider leveraged Xandr Curate to run the pilot campaign, in collaboration with Lucidity. Samsung tapped into Lucidity’s blockchain-based technology to analyse and glean insight into the ad supply chain for any unconfirmed impressions, clicks, or other breakages hindering the delivery of ads. It then used Xandr Curate – a Microsoft-owned self-serve platform that allows users to create packages of curated inventory and sell them programmatically –  as the mechanism to transact against those insights.

Ben Kneen, Senior Director of Product Manager at Xandr, explains that Samsung’s collaboration with Lucidity enabled it to identify the supply that should be bought. The question remained as to how to operationalise around those insights to buy “that specific supply from those exact paths in one or several DSPs.”

He continues: “That’s when Xandr Curate came in. Xandr Curate is effectively a marketplace creation and management tool. More tactically it’s a way to build multi-seller deals from inventory across the programmatic ecosystem, packaging that inventory into deals any DSP could buy and then layering any additional value you want to bring as a curator (in terms of data assets you have.)”

He cites the SPO strategy developed with Lucidity as one instance of an asset that can be laid over the curated inventory packages, with other examples including unique negotiated commercial assets or unique data. He says: “A lot of times people who are playing in [the curated inventory] space set up independent trading desks. You have to sign IOs (Insertion Order) with them. They would have to run the campaign and pick the DSP.

“Our curated marketplace has really solved the problem of buyers wanting to use their own DSPs.  If you’re a media buyer who wants to transact programmatically, you might not want to sign an IO, you might want the reporting to be in your system. Xandr Curate lets all the players in the market that have unique assets – like Lucidity with its supply scoring capabilities – make those assets transactable in a programmatic way for any buyer, with any DSP of their choice.”

This is made possible by the fact that all of the inventory packaging runs off the Deal ID. Kneen remarks: “The Deal ID has been in the market for about ten years. It is probable that 50% of the market is going to get transacted through Deal ID. It’s a really robust, mature, well-supported way to transact, that’s integrated across the entire ecosystem.”

In the case of Samsung’s pilot campaign, Xandr built a Deal ID that targeted the supply Lucidity advised Samsung should buy. He clarifies that transacting against the Deal ID effectively bypasses any SPO logic or optimisation technology that is typically in a DSP. He says: “Deal ID is typically a ‘I know what I want to buy just let my buy it’ mechanism’”.

Xandr research shows that roughly half (47%) of media buyers say driving spend towards performing inventory is a requirement for their supply strategy, and 30% said their objective is to improve transparency.

The agreement will enable a “first-of-its-kind” integration between Disney’s proprietary Audience Graph and the open-source identity framework, Unified ID 2.0, within a secure environment. The companies say this will allow buyers to discover more addressable and biddable inventory across Disney’s portfolio, giving them more flexibility, choice and control

Disney and The Trade Desk also believe that the move sets the stage for better measurement, giving advertisers a path to leverage their first-party data in biddable environments. This becomes increasingly important “as the industry faces new disruption caused by the deprecation of third-party cookies” according to the companies.

Rita Ferro, President of Advertising Sales, Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution, said: “Disney Advertising had a bold vision backed by proven results from the start, and we’re thrilled to continue to deliver on our commitment to power greater automation and addressability for our customers through this expanded deal with The Trade Desk.

“We have spent years investing in our data and technology strategy to create innovative solutions for advertisers to engage their audiences with greater precision and accuracy in a privacy-focused way. This first-to-market capability sets the stage to empower access to the Disney portfolio, validated by powerful audience insights, in a way that’s automated and accessible.”

Tim Sims, Chief Revenue Officer, The Trade Desk, commented: “With this agreement, Disney and The Trade Desk are pioneering a new approach to audience addressability in a post-cookie environment.

By creating interoperability between Unified ID 2.0 and Disney’s Audience Graph, we are unlocking the opportunity for our customers to activate their first-party data at scale programmatically, against some of the world’s most premium content, across all channels. As a result, advertisers will be able to deliver relevant advertising, while ensuring consumers have more control of their own privacy.”

According to Finecast, by allowing advance bidding on inventory from multiple ad exchanges simultaneously, header bidding reduces the inefficiencies of a sequential waterfall approach to ad buying, while improving “transparency and visibility of available inventory for marketers”.

Trials conducted by Finecast in collaboration with SBS have delivered 33% more reach to SBS audiences, according to the companies. Additionally, when compared to a tag-based approach, header bidding increased the bid rate for available impressions by 30%.

John Miskelly, APAC Investment Director for GroupM, said: “This is an exciting development in the Connected TV/OTT video space where we can harness the agility and addressability of programmatic and have access to the best inventory.

“The broadcasters are doing a great job as TV transforms, and SBS and Finecast are demonstrating true best practice for access and innovation in the CTV ecosystem.”

Lee Callagher, National Digital Operations and Technology Manager for SBS, commented: “Being able to prioritise both direct and programmatic demand whilst maintaining our premium ad experience is important for SBS’ future commercial strategy.”

Rhys McLachlan, Director of Advanced Advertising at ITV, gives the example of advertising alongside food-related content: “If you are a food advertiser, you’re not just going to advertise beside food programmes. We have 24 food-related programmes but food, or meal times, as they appear across the entirety of ITV’s programming estate, are actually represented thousands of times. So we are using machine learning to understand when those meal times occur and what’s been served [in the content] – is it pizza? Burgers? Spaghetti Bolognese?

“We’re able to create advertising breaks for advertisers adjacent to that concept, unlocking what we’re calling ‘next generation contextual targeting’ using metadata already inherent in the content we have.”

The new product has been tested in market for six months and  ITV is “delighted” with the feedback it has received about its performance.

McLachlan revealed that Planet V has onboarded almost 1,300 users [meaning TV buyers], with most of them being monthly active users. The broadcaster has converted the entirety of its digital video billing system to Planet V, and does not take direct orders [for digital video] anymore. To illustrate the range of businesses using the platform to advertise across ITV’s programming he brings up several recent examples, including a chain of tanning salons across Stockport, solicitors firms in Birmingham, and a glass fitting company in Glasgow looking to amplify its proposition by advertising to customers within a certain drive time of where it is located. He says: “Everything is going through Planet V. We have thousands and thousands of advertisers – our run rate is ridiculous – and we’re driving into new markets as well.”

Speaking briefly about ITVX – ITV’s forthcoming streaming service – McLachlan believes the new offer will “revolutionise” the broadcaster’s business. We’re fully re-imagining ITV’s streaming proposition and it’s going to knock your socks off.”

McLachlan believes that broadcasters are at risk of collectively failing if they cannot compete with digital native businesses that have innovation “hard-coded” into their DNA. He argues that broadcasters do not compete with each other so much anymore, but with companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and TikTok that have codified “disruption, agility and a hacker mindset” into developing their advertising products.

He comments: “They could move much faster. They had much greater dexterity, and were able to work with greater confidence around risk – around unknowns.” According to McLachlan, until recently ITV had not succeeded in significantly tapping into the discretionary budgets allocated to advertisers to spend on innovative ad products, but over the last two years the company has been “quietly moving innovation into the beating heart” of its business.

He notes that around September 2021, the broadcaster had put into place a process which allowed it to codify its “innovation journey” into an ad labs proposition, developing a group of teams that have the designated responsibilities of delivering innovation across the entirety of the company’s estate. The broadcaster has been reviewing its systems, data, processes and tech stack, and developed a set of concepts that went through a rigorous assessment phase – from ideation through to concept, then to pilot and on to a beta protocol that clients can participate in.

McLachlan says: “The world is crying out for more progressive solutions that allow broadcasters, advertisers and agencies to avail of the richness of the ecosystem in which we now operate.

“This is how we win. This is how we re-frame what TV is about when the ecosystem is changing so quickly and other businesses are trying to muscle in on our territory. This is how we fight back, and we’ll be more effective if we do it together.”

However, approaching CTV media buying in exactly the same way you would with digital formats such as display, could have some detrimental impact affecting access to premium video inventory.

Critical conversations are now happening backstage about the best ways to deal with the convergence of the digital and TV landscapes. In our recent panel session at the Future of TV Advertising Global event we posed the question: CTV is Great, But Can TV (Really) Re-Invent Itself? By exploring the growth of CTV to date and the expectations broadcasters now face, we focused on what needs to happen in the next season of TV’s evolution.

The rising star

There’s no doubt CTV has made a name for itself. US ad spend for CTV grew by almost 60% in 2021 to total $14.4bn, making it something of a blockbuster. Meanwhile in Europe, 84% of marketers who participated in a FreeWheel survey* expected advanced TV spend to rise in 2022, with CTV in particular growing in double-digits in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany.

Now, the industry needs to prepare for what this growth means, as the rise of CTV will have significant ramifications for all stakeholders. In fact, for the value of premium video inventory to truly shine, some points must be carefully considered:

• The promise of “unique” demand: Many think that simply connecting platforms, selling premium video programmatically, and enabling header bidding will attract new buyers who are keen to purchase TV inventory similarly to digital display. In practice it’s more complicated and requires a collaborative approach between the buy and sell sides. For example, broadcasters that can make additional first-party data available to inform marketing decision-making will boost their appeal to media buyers.
• The call for supply path optimisation (SPO): There has been much discussion around SPO which attempts to minimise the many intermediaries and ensure the most direct access to publisher inventory. This has been a key TV strength, and while SPO might be needed in a complex and nebulous display environment, it hardly does in a premium context. Broadcasters such as Channel 4, ITV, or Sky have built their own advertising platforms and operating their private exchange prevents the dilution of value and ensures that buyers have an almost direct, transparent and optimal access to their inventory. In a sense, the TV industry invented Supply Path Optimization.
• The pot of gold at the rainbow’s end: There is often a view that, if display-like buying (ease of auctioning and high competition) can also be brought to linear TV, then broadcasters, through premium scarcity, stand to profit with CPMs remaining high. While this may look appealing, it goes against basic economic principle, as the fundamental behind programmatic trading need to change to be embraced by the TV industry and one must talk more about standardization than competition.  

   

  How will the narrative progress?

  Central to harnessing digital-like capabilities is data. In an industry that may soon be lacking identifiers (IDs), first-party data holds renewed importance. As Katie Coteman, Vice President, Advertising and Partnerships at Discovery says, “we need to have much more of a direct relationship with our consumers”, following not only the need for privacy-compliant data, but also how audiences are engaging with premium video content across platforms such as CTV, broadcaster video-on-demand, and subscription video-on-demand.

  To navigate a fragmented market, broadcasters require technology that enables data connections while protecting both consumer privacy and the value of first-party data. In the words of Paola Colombo, General Manager at Publitalia ‘80, “defining the rules of the game, the standards for addressable TV” are vital steps for market growth. Alongside standardisation, the ad industry needs a sustainable approach to identity resolution, data sharing, and data usage rights in the TV landscape.

  Against a backdrop of consistently developing user privacy regulations, it will be necessary to create tools and frameworks specifically designed for the future of TV. Broadcasters must ensure they continue to lead the way in building new and effective techniques, as well as trusted relationships. Veriça Djurdjevic, Chief Revenue Officer at Channel 4, shared how the broadcaster’s business strategy encapsulates this approach, through “shifting how we think about ourselves in terms of ‘pivoting to digital’, to ‘[prioritising] digital growth ahead of linear ratings’.”

  Although CTV has accelerated the evolution of the TV landscape, it is so much more than just a digital screen. It shares the premium quality, high engagement levels, and immersive content of TV, making it a standout performer when combined with its strong potential for data-driven capabilities. By building solutions that enable the use of data at scale, retaining ownership of their assets, and generating value for both buyers and sellers, the ad industry stakeholders can transform the premium video ecosystem and ensure that TV and CTV work in symbiosis.

  * ​The study was conducted between 23 July and 2 August 2021 with 577 marketers surveyed (comprising primarily of advertisers and agencies) in key European markets:  Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK, in collaboration with independent research company CoLab Media. Details available here.

   

Cameron emphasised that the increased complexity of ad trading with programmatic means that it is more difficult to locate and quickly fix loading problems in real-time, if media sellers lack a holistic view of the functioning of the entire ad supply chain (the ad server, play-out app, SSAI vendor etc.). He explained “[With the rise of programmatic] you go from a party of one-to-one to a many-to-many relationship. If they’re all sitting there seeing it from their own local perspectives, no one has the global view.”

“The ad server can only know what it sees – and that can be the inbound request and its decisioning back out – but then they hand off to the SSAI vendor, who then goes through another process of fulfilling and stitching, and from there it doesn’t necessarily hand-off to its own application, but a partner application which it doesn’t control.” The increased number of hand-offs associated with this many-to-many model of trading ad space, combined with the 24/7 “in real-time” nature of programmatic trading, renders traditional error reporting ineffective at stopping problems from reoccurring, Church argues, and action to address fulfilment issues typically lags 24 hours after the error has occurred.

Analogising the Watching That platform with an orchestra conductor, Church explains that the service seeks to remedy these programmatic issues by synthesising information from all data points across the tech stack, to provide media sellers with a unified view of the end-to-end process. He emphasises that the service not only provides reporting and insight to clients, but also allows companies to manipulate advertising in stream, by providing automated alerts, troubleshooting, optimisation and forecasting services – all of which, Church believes, are indispensable to media sellers for maximising their advertising revenues.

He believes that a significant benefit for publishers working with Watching That is access to their expertise with regards to video advertising. “We pride ourselves on our human element, and our ability to offer ‘white glove’ service. In this market, where the labour market is already heavily constricted, there is no school where you can go to learn video advertising.”

Audience login and authentication allows advertisers to target individual households or viewers, while digital attribution helps identify the link between ad exposure and engagement. At the same time, return data flow and rapid execution means buyers can analyse and optimise campaigns with agility, without needing to lock in to lengthy or rigid upfront commitments.

With analysts predicting digital video and CTV spend to grow 14.8% and 34.8% in 2021 respectively, CTV is emerging as the premium channel for the post-linear future. Still premature in many markets, there are a few key ways ad tech platforms that can help buyers and sellers realise the full potential of CTV around the world.

Apply programmatic methods

CTV benefits from being driven by real-time data, providing an opportunity for precise targeting at the local, household or even device level. Today, marketers can use first-party data from their own customer relationship management (CRM) and transaction records, online data such as website visits and available digital segments indicating, for example, kids at home or occupation type, to identify when and where to reach their desired audience.

Frequency capping and competitive separation

Consumer fatigue due to excess ad exposure can be a brand-killer and a waste of valuable advertising budgets. Frequency capping allows media owners to specify the maximum number of times ads are served to a viewer, while competitive separation ensures ads from similar or competing brands are not played back-to-back. Both methods are key to maximising a campaign’s efficiency.

Increased responsiveness

The digitisation of the TV-buying workflow will speed up ad trading. More than that, the ability to activate, optimise, report and adjust campaigns rapidly allows ad buyers to change their creative messaging or spending commitments far quicker than traditional TV would typically afford, as many had to do early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

CTV has grown at a tremendous rate, accelerated by the rise of on-demand consumption. These changes are leading to a broader convergence of traditional and digital media and increasing innovation in TV advertising products. With the right technology in place and partnerships across the industry, ad tech platforms can help participants on all sides reach their full CTV potential.

The next chapter of growth and innovation

Increasingly, we are seeing TV players ramping up their digital capabilities to complement their traditional strengths, while online players are looking to integrate third-party audience metrics into their platforms to improve comparability and transparency.

Proactively tackling challenges arising from emerging formats like CTV – around identity, context, campaign planning and outcomes – and ensuring that buyers can transact with assurance and drive performance has been top of mind for everyone.

Innovative thinking and solutions are fundamental to go beyond traditional CTV capabilities. Xandr’s data science-based CTV pacing solution, for example, instills confidence that buyers’ budgets are allocated correctly, and its novel content taxonomy system enables a user of curated marketplaces to transact and report on a clearly defined and manageable set of OTT content descriptors, gaining critical insight into where their ads are running.

Around the world, broadcasters and technology platforms are working to align and simplify access, thereby making it easier to buy across multiple channels. This exciting evolution will ensure all parties are able to reap the benefits of CTV.