Americans are watching more television than ever before, however, live, or linear, television viewing has been on the decline. According to MoffettNathanson Research, time viewed on broadcast and cable networks was down 9% in Q1 2021 and that descent is expected to continue.
What’s an advertiser to do? Consider Connected TV.
MORE REACH
Consumers have more screens and more content choices than ever before which means brands have more opportunities to reach their addressable markets than ever before.
In US households with connected TVs, 25% of television viewing comes on streaming services, up from 19% in the last 3 months of 2019 (Nielsen Streaming Meter). And 75% of US households have both a connected TV and SVOD subscription (Nielsen April 2020 Total Audience Report). Therefore, connected TV ad buys can effectively reach traditional television viewing households.
CTV and OTT can also extend that reach into the growing number of cord-cutters (households who stop paying for cable/satellite) and cord-nevers (households that have never paid for cable/satellite). These households are expected to grow to 44% of the US population in the next few years. (eMarketer, July 2019, US Population).
PRECISE TARGETING
With so many content choices and sources, consumers are becoming more selective and intentional about what they watch. But, when viewers find something that they do enjoy, they become highly engaged.
Programmatic OTT/CTV reached 72% of US households in Q3 2020 (Pixalate Q3 2020 State of Connected TV/OTT: Ad Supply Trends Report). All of this “non-traditional television” viewership allows marketers to specifically target households and individuals. CTV can reach your intended audience on whatever channel they are watching, unlike traditional television which targets channels that marketers think their customers would watch.
DATA-RICH ANALYTICS
Internet-enabled devices deliver a host of analytics that help marketers to better understand their audience’s behaviors, habits, and interests. With the increased segmentation that CTV and OTT can provide, marketers can look beyond basic household demographics to much more granular levels. Delivering intent-based, personalized, data-driven ads will result in higher ad recall and increased conversions.
UNFORGETTABLE AD EXPERIENCES
All the targeting in the world cannot generate conversions on a poorly designed ad. Advertising creative must be relevant and gratifying in order to drive engagement. And, with CTV, marketers can deliver truly personalized, interactive experiences well beyond standard video pre-roll ads.
Furthermore, 191.1 million adults went online while watching TV (Statista.com) and CTV can be used to drive conversions between those multiple devices.
It’s no secret that what we watch on TV and how we watch it has changed dramatically in recent years. We no longer are limited to just 3 network stations and a few advertising time slots.
According to the April 2020 Nielsen Total Audience Report, “U.S. adults spend 12 hours and 20 minutes per day connected to media” and, of that time, nearly 50% (5 hours, 43 minutes) is spent viewing video content across connected devices such as TVs, computers, smartphones, and tablets.
With the rise of streaming video, we can watch what we want to watch, when we want to watch it – and we have a variety of devices from which to choose. As a consumer, we’ve got more options than we know what to do with. But, for an advertiser, it’s really not as complicated as it seems.
There are dozens of streaming apps on the market today. However, YouTube and Hulu are the only ad-supported streaming platforms out of the top 5. YouTube represents 42% of CTV viewing hours, Hulu delivers another 28%. So, consider the devices viewers are using. By adding ad solutions from the top 2 devices used by U.S. consumers (Roku and Amazon Fire), advertisers can reach nearly all of the viewing hours represented by the dozens of smaller streaming apps (Pluto, Tubi, etc). Simple, right?
Nearly three-quarters of CTV buyers said they shifted budget from broadcast and cable to CTV in 2021 (The Drum. IAB:US digital video ad spend, driven by CTV, to form 56% of total video in 2021) What are you waiting for? Contact 535media and find out how you can connect with your customers through connected TV.
