It’s time the legacy TV players and digital stakeholders got together to create shared value for the advertising ecosystem.
Today, it’s possible to utilize TV data to leverage
audience targeting and data-driven campaigns, just ike you can for digital.
It used to be that legacy television advertising was mostly done via traditional media planning, purchased for
specific programming and based on a small number of audience demographics. That made it difficult to understand how it connected back to other campaigns, not to mention the impact on ROI.
Yet,
TV content offers an emotional connection to its audience far superior to other advertising platforms. It’s remained a big part of the marketing budget for many media buyers, who spend
upwards of $178 billion annually, or 35% of all advertising revenue.
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We’re embarking on an exciting era of advanced TV advertising -- new data-driven TV ad
solutions across OTT, linear and more -- that can connect the dots beyond demographics and initial viewing. We now know who is watching an ad, how many times it’s viewed, and where a
person’s eyeballs are going next, regardless of device. It’s going beyond the traditional ratings.
The gap in targeting and measurement capabilities between digital and TV media
buying is shrinking. There are an estimated 182.6 million connected TV users in the U.S. (or 55% of the population) this year, up 8.1% from 2017, according to eMarketer. Additionally, ad spending for
connected TV this year nearly doubled to $8.2 billion compared to 2017, per Tru Optik, which noted 97% of those buyers are relying on third-party data.
There’s never been a better time
to reallocate a portion of your spend to a data-driven, targeted campaign using TV data.
Leveraging TV data with data providers
We’ve all experienced targeted omnichannel
advertising from digital campaigns. Searching for a dog groomer on your mobile phone, which later leads to local pet grooming ads popping up. Going forward, such ads will almost certainly be the case,
thanks to first- and third-party data providers.
The first part of this equation is for hardware manufacturers in the business of smart TVs and set-top boxes to harness first-party data --
like households and unique viewing measurements. When anonymously matched with data from various providers, it becomes possible to run targeted campaigns that focus more on a 1-to-1 approach, based on
what’s known about a particular household and their total media consumption.
Once you’re able to discover someone that falls within your target audience, it’s no longer
necessary to continue advertising solely based on the type of content being consumed. You’ll be able to achieve your goals using a wide variety of engagement touchpoints.
That means
advertising is not wasted on the wrong audiences.
So if you’re a huge fan of outdoor activities like camping, you can still be served ads from brands for tents, sleeping bags and
weather-versatile apparel — even though you occasionally watch a program that plays commercials about beauty products. It makes TV ad buying more effective, improves the experience for the
target audience and potentially deepens the emotional, immersive experience while viewing.
And it doesn’t hurt the bottom line to minimize waste.
Informing better ad campaigns
Improving TV watching by serving more relevant ads isn’t the only thing data providers can offer. They can also connect that data back to existing digital ad campaigns, essentially
making TV a much more important -- if not essential -- part of a multichannel strategy.
Data providers are advancing TV advertising by allowing advertisers to retarget linear TV ads to
households with connected TVs -- a particularly potent tactic for all, especially local advertisers.
Reporting and measuring the effectiveness of TV ads is also possible with the help of data
providers. That means getting data about how many households a particular ad reached, how often it was viewed, where else it was viewed (smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, desktop, etc.) and what
percentage of the target audience viewed the ad.
Brands and media buyers can then refine and improve campaigns based on this information to yield greater ROI.
TV advertising is
getting more potent
As the bulk of the digital advertising world comes to grips with exposing advertising fraud and violations of consumer privacy, legacy TV advertising is only becoming
more flexible, more potent. TV advertising nearly always bests other channels in terms of reach, in part because the quality of viewership and rate of ad completion is higher. Thus, leveraging TV data
for targeted campaigns is a game changer.
We’re only at the beginning of this new advanced TV advertising era, which is finally offering the kind of targeting and measurement that brands
and marketers have often cited as necessary. The future is bright.