Connected TV Advertising
With more and more people cutting the cord, Connected TV digital advertising has become a popular method for reaching people online.
Key Takeaways:
Connected TV (CTV) ad spend rose nearly 60% from 2020 to 2021, reaching $14.4 billion.
CTV refers to televisions like Smart TVs or Amazon FireSticks that use the internet to stream video.
When choosing how to target your audience, you can get a lot more granular on CTV than you would with traditional TV ads.
It’s been around for over a decade but is still considered a new player in the advertising game. Analysts project that CTV will continue to grow as a large number of people rely on the internet to consume content.
So what exactly is connected TV advertising?
By definition, connected TV or CTV refers to televisions that use the internet to stream video—think Smart TVs that let you download apps to your favorite streaming services. This definition also includes devices that give television the ability to stream online like: video game consoles or FireSticks.
CTV
CTV advertising in turn is a form of digital advertising that reaches people while they're using a CTV device. CTV does not provide video using a traditional broadcast satellite or cable channels. In turn, if ads are viewed by way of traditional cable or satellite television, then those ads are not CTV ads.
Another acronym that you might hear used with CTV is OTT. While these terms are connected, they're not quite the same thing. Again, CTV are the devices.
OTT
OTT stands for Over-the-top. OTT is the platform or app downloaded onto the device where content is then streamed and presented to the viewers. Philo, Hulu, Prime Video, HBO, Max and other popular streaming platforms would be considered OTT streaming services. This is because subscribers consume content through the internet, and not through traditional methods of viewing television.
OTT video can be viewed on different devices via the internet including laptops, smartphones and connected TVs. The term OTT is used when referring to the content (not the device).
Investing in CTV Ads
While Connected TV advertising is fairly new, the basic principles of advertising still apply.
Before you invest in connected TV ads, you should know:
Who you want to reach.
What you want those people to do after they viewed your ads.
This information not only shapes the content of your ads, but also helps you choose the best audience targeting strategy when preparing to launch your campaigns. When choosing how to target your audience, you can get a lot more granular than you would with traditional TV ads.
You can also gain access to campaign insights that help shape future marketing decisions. Programmatic advertising tools are essential to your CTV ads. These tools use automation to manage your digital ad campaigns. For example, instead of you going to each place you want to advertise, bidding for ad space manually updating your budget and targeting the programmatic software does a lot of that for you.
If you don't have a ton of experience with programmatic advertising, you may want to get in touch with an agency that can help you out with the details. And those are the basics of CTV digital advertising.