• by Amanda Cabrera , July 20, 2018

Technology is moving consumers into new directions faster than ever before – and nowhere faster than in TV.

Advertising buyers need to understand that the death of television is not here. Rather, it’s the death of television viewing on a single box at a specific time. It simply doesn’t meet the needs of today’s time-poor viewers who want immediate access in a format of their choice.

But this isn’t news – especially among millennials.

Live streaming of big events, such as The Super Bowl or March Madness, is the next link in this chain to the future. It offers consumers the ability to watch premium content as they want. 

Broadcasters have inked numerous exclusive deals for rights to livestream TV sports and other tentpole events over the past year.

For advertisers, it’s a golden opportunity to get a brand in front of engaged enthusiasts, be sports, news, or entertainment content.  Further, that user is required to have a subscription or login providing an added layer of brand safety through authentication. 

However, live events are use-it-or-lose-it opportunity. Buyers must do it right the first time. Below are four live streaming best practices for media buyers:

Understand the space – consumers have multiple access points to the same content.

With so many ways to watch live TV, consumers choose the screen and connection that works best for them in the moment. TV is everywhere and marketers need to be, too. For example, if you’re a brand trying to capture a sports-viewing audience, you might think: “I want ESPN” and then restrict ad buys solely to ESPN.

The reality is you need to go to Sling, AT&T, Hulu and others in addition to ESPN to capture the entire target audience. Additionally, you need to be running on desktop, mobile, and CTV, not cherry-picking a single device.

No user is going to be streaming a game on ESPN on their TV while being logged into DirecTVNow on their phone and signed into WatchESPN on their computer at the same time. To capture everyone, you need to target cross-device and ensure you hit all points of potential content access.  

Understand the audience

U.S. adults spend over 12 hours a day consuming media that can expose them to a variety of ads – banners, videos and audio messages.

It’s important not to bombard viewers with ads as they will eventually become frustrated and install ad blockers. 

Frequency caps often don’t align with the user behavior of the people marketers are trying to reach. Live content is dominated by sports content, over 75%, so daily frequency caps are recommended.

Most games are several hours in length and occur in the evening and weekends. With a weekly frequency cap, marketers risk overexposing audiences during the week and missing out on opportunities to reach them when they are most engaged (i.e. watching a live event).  

Understand the timing

Prime time is still the best time for TV viewing. Most consumers wait until around 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. when they get home to turn on their TV, tablet or smartphone. Most of that prime-time spike can be attributed to live content.

Live sporting events, evening news programs and top reality shows, like “The Bachelorette,” can produce a significant amount of traffic for marketers to leverage. To be a successful media buyer, set up campaigns aligning with the time of day that most users are watching TV. Factor in a different weekend strategy to take advantage of spikes in viewership, as increased live streams and ad slots occur.

Understand the volume – pacing 

Live events are “use it or lose it” opportunities, so marketers have a small window of four-to-six hours to reach an audience. In a world of real-time bidding, the tech needs to move quickly. Many DSPs offer a variety of pacing options.

When targeting massive large live events like the World Series, Olympics or World Cup; set pacing to aggressively frontload on live streaming line items to ensure the bidder responds to as many applicable requests as fast as possible, filling the allocated budget for that particular event. 

While TV is still at the heart of media consumption, TV viewing is changing. It’s time to start incorporating live streaming into the programmatic TV conversation. The partnerships and technology for programmatic live streaming are in place, but it’s a matter of training marketers to best leverage these capabilities.