Why You Should Be Selling CTV Ads On The Open Marketplace

Buying and selling Connected TV (CTV) inventory doesn’t need to be hard, and it certainly doesn’t need to be as fragmented as it currently is.

Getting ads on TV — whether connected or otherwise — used to be the preserve of the biggest 100 brands with the biggest budgets. However, the open ad exchange is making it possible for everyone to get involved in advertising on the biggest screen in the house.

But brands, agencies and broadcasters are being denied the highest ROIs and consumers are being denied the best ad experience because the open ad exchange is being under-used. In fact, four-fifths of global CTV deals are still being transacted by private marketplaces (PMPs).

You, and everyone else, should be buying, selling and viewing ads placed on CTV through the open ad exchange.

TV Is Changing – So Should Ad Buying

Everyone in adland knows that consumers are changing the way they watch TV. While reports (even B&T’s own) of linear TV’s death have been exaggerated at times, there is no doubt that fewer people are watching live TV as it happens through the traditional networks.

While CTV is inexorably taking the reigns from linear in terms of viewership, buying adverts on the medium has a range of problems — though they are all solvable.

For a start, ad fraud is one of the most often-cited problems with CTV ad buying.

“It’s the reason that the majority of global CTV ad purchases are still being transacted via PMPs or programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals and not within the open marketplace,” said Paul Gubbins, VP CTV strategy at Publica.

“Advertisers wrongly think that the open marketplace is murky at best and fraudulent at worst.”

One of the main reasons for ad fraud in CTV environments is the high CPMs on offer. As a result, most brands and agencies default to upfront deals or direct PG and PMP deals. While those methods of ad buying do offer the warm, comfy feeling that only a guaranteed deal can, it is changing.

Ads.Cert 2.0, for example, is being developed by the IAB Tech Lab to help fight digital ad fraud of all kinds, including in CTV environments. It cryptographically authenticates all parties in the supply chain and provides them with a distinct identifier, so everyone in the digital ad supply chain can see who’s who and what they’re doing together.

In fact, some of the concerns around digital ad buying in CTV environments do not even stem from TV advertising at all.

In digital advertising contexts, the open marketplace has, admittedly, suffered due to changing privacy rules, the ongoing depreciation of third-party cookies and the slow takeup of unified ID solutions. However, CTV environments are not subject to the same rules as regular digital advertising as they have their own operating systems, unique to CTV.

Creating an open marketplace strategy to work alongside PMP and PG would be better for everyone involved, regardless of whether they are large agencies representing the biggest brands in the world or small companies looking for a correspondingly small, but effective, splash.

Transacting to the open marketplace would not only allow everyone to compete on a fair footing, but it would also take advantage of the growing number of targeting and segmentation options that CTV offers. The days of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a 30-second spot on primetime TV are gone — instead, you can reach the audiences that matter to your brand.

There has been a level of concern about the scarcity of CTV inventory following the 2023 upfronts. Ad-buying agencies had taken the majority of the spots available and left smaller brands looking to advertise to fight over the crumbs. However, as the number of free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) services and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services grows, there will be more opportunities for everyone to get involved.

Admittedly, CTV as a whole might not have the scale of linear TV, there are other distinct advantages beyond simply scale. Incremental audience reach, addressability and dynamic targeting capabilities can all lead to more effective and relevant ad spots, particularly within the open marketplace.

The Advantages For Sellers

The advantages of using the open marketplace for those on the sell side might seem obvious but they are often overlooked.

By selling on the open marketplace, publishers are able to make sure that all of their inventory gets sold. This increase in bid density means that publishers can maximise their yields, generating a higher return.

In fact, publishers can sell on the open marketplace and directly at the same time. On one hand, they can fill inventory and potentially maximise revenue and, on the other, they can guarantee revenue and keep up existing relationships. Selling via both means will also give publishers the chance to assess the true value of their inventory and get the most bang for their buck.

Even for small publishers, the advantages of selling on the open marketplace are clear to see. The open marketplace gives small publishers the chance to fill inventory quickly and efficiently, while maximising value, despite not having large sales teams or direct agreements with agency trading desks.

What’s more, the open marketplace offers publishers a chance to sell to advertisers of all sizes, not just the biggest brands in the world who would have previously purchased TV inventory.

A Better Audience Experience

In these conversations, it can be easy to get lost in the weeds and lose sight of who you’re actually looking to provide advertising for — end consumers.

A few years ago, the CTV ad-watching experience was frankly poor. Consumers would complain about seeing the same ads over and over again. The IAB, along with publishers, buyers and everyone else in the ecosystem have taken steps to address this with pod buying and other systems.

However, by refusing to switch to the open marketplace, buyers and publishers are not giving consumers the best experience possible.

Not unfounded concerns around ad fraud in CTV environments had meant that consumers were missing ads from brands that they might have identified with and could have driven serious results. These concerns should, if they haven’t already, be at least waning.

What’s more, concerns around brand safety and ad context should also be waning as FAST and AVOD publishers start to deliver the kind of programmatic targeting that has been seen in digital advertising for years.

In truth, the golden ad experience for CTV will not look drastically different from the experience on linear. Consumers will see 4-5 relevant ads per break. In linear TV, ad spots for popular shows would cost more and ad spots for more specialist shows would cost less but would still be audience specific.

In CTV, those same rules can be applied. An ad featured during the latest episode of Succession would cost more than an ad during some low-budget Netflix movie. But, by not selling on the open marketplace and by not filling their inventory completely, consumers are being denied the best ad experience, brands are missing out on exposure and, perhaps most importantly, publishers are missing out on maximising their return.

Buying and selling CTV ads on the open marketplace is not just the right thing to do for everyone, it’s the right thing to do for business’ bottom lines.