Four Questions About Connected TVs Everyone Is Asking – Answered

In this guest post, the ANZ country manager for ad tech firm dataxu, Matthew Joyce (pictured below), says almost half of Australians have a connected TV and he takes a look at what that means for brands and advertisers…

Four in 10 of us have smart TVs at home, and of that, 70 per per cent are Connected TVs (CTV). Beyond demonstrating just how much Australia loves CTV, what does this really mean? For starters, it signifies that the majority of us are choosing to watch internet-delivered television content – rather than broadcast TV channels watched live or played back on the TV set. Now, what does this mean to advertisers? This means that, finally, TV is no longer an offline channel, beyond the purview of the digital advertiser.

It stands to reason then, that CTV advertising isn’t just the next big thing – it’s here, and it’s here to stay. It’s still early days though, so naturally, many of us are still trying our best to navigate this new channel. As advertisers, here are four questions you’re probably asking.

1. How can CTV help me better measure reach?                                                                                                                   

The traditional way to measure reach with TV advertising is through Gross Rating Points (GRPs) or TARPs– a measure that allows advertisers to determine the number of people who may have seen their ads. While we have long relied on these numbers, these numbers are approximations, mere estimates of audience reach based on factors like age and gender. In the age of precision targeting, this is simply not enough. The beauty of CTV lies in its connectivity – it brings users’ TV-watching habits   into the fold, completing the picture of a cross-device user behaviour that “is tracked”. Additionally, advertisers can leverage the rich data gathered from other touchpoints beyond TV, pulling together an end result that is a far more accurate measure of reach. Better yet – it offers a comprehensive and holistic understanding of what users are doing on their devices, including the actions they undertake after watching an ad on CTV.  Here at dataxu we are regularly measuring a CTV audience in excess of 800,000 unique households.

2. How can CTV help me better measure frequency?

We all know that TV advertising, when poorly executed, can be extremely annoying. So much so that it has become a push factor for CTV adoption. Take Netflix users, for example – they save a whopping 160 hours of ad time a year.

Frequency measurement has always been a crucial KPI for advertisers, however, if you work with the right partners, you can actually go beyond measuring average frequency. A good media partner would advise on methods of frequency management, such as using frequency capping to avoid over-saturation. This drastically reduces the likelihood of annoying your viewers – especially if you can also apply this frequency cap across publishers and channels.

Not only should you be asking your technology and agency partners for Frequency in CTV, you should be asking for Frequency across platforms.  That means a frequency served across ALL available platforms.  Not per device.  This is available today.

3. Can I engage in audience buying on CTV?

Great news, advertisers – the advanced audience targeting capabilities offered by programmatic on other channels can now be extended to CTV. You want to remarket from your website to CTV – YES!  You want to target the same target audience as your mobile or desktop strategy – YES!

Custom audiences and insights can now be used as extensions to increasingly popular “secondary guarantees” found as part of today’s TV buys. Working with data providers, marketers can define their custom audiences, using insight they have from other channels.

What is even more exciting is that we can engage with audiences across websites, mobile apps and TV in a seamless and consistent way. To this end, dataxu is collaborating with Oracle Data Cloud to provide greater accessibility and control over TV buying.

Cross-device attribution also means that marketers can use existing information about their audience members to measure the effectiveness of their CTV campaigns in a much more holistic and comprehensive manner. This means that if you saw an ad for a product on CTV, did additional research on your mobile browser, and ultimately purchased it on your desktop, marketers would be able to see that entire process take place.

4. Can CTV really give me the reach and volume I want? 

Australian CTV streams saw an explosive growth rate of 351% between 2016 to 2017. Additionally, people  are increasingly watching videos on CTV, with over a third of their total digital consumption taking place on CTV – that should allay any fears about reach being insufficient.

The same can be said of volume. The Interactive Advertising Bureau found that in 2017, ad opportunities across Australia’s four main broadcasters saw CTV ad opportunities rise to 2.9 billion. There has not been any signs of slowing down either, especially when more broadcasters have looked to onboard their inventory in 2018. Based on these numbers, it’s clear that CTV is not a niche area, neither is it going anywhere any time soon.

The opportunities for growth in CTV are tremendous. It promises a bright future for advertisers in Australia, to take the leap into this exciting space – if you haven’t already.