4 Reasons There’s Never Been a Better Time to Try CTV Ads
The COVID crisis has led to many unforeseen consequences for eCommerce and retail brand. Many brands are asking themselves just what they can do to succeed in this unprecedented and unpredictable time. We’ve talked in the past weeks about using the FieldTest platform to build highly-targeted ads to promote your products through the crisis, but your marketing doesn’t have to end there! One trend we’ve noticed since the start of the lockdown is an increase in the efficacy and effectiveness of CTV (Connected TV) and AVOD (Ad-Based Video On Demand) ads for driving brand awareness. With everyone inside and consuming more digital content than ever, video services are seeing huge spikes in viewership and revenue. This is a huge opportunity to put your brand in front of an ever-growing audience of highly engaged, highly interested intenders. If you’ve never considered running a video ad campaign, here are 4 reasons why you should.
1: An ever-growing audience
More and more it seems people are cutting the chord and making the move away from traditional TV packages and towards video on demand content as their primary entertainment source. One third of households have already completely dropped their TV packages and over 180 million will subscribe to a new streaming service every year. It seems streaming video on demand is not going away anytime soon, and a large portion of viewership is going to these services’ free-to-consumers, ad-supported options. Digital TV Research estimates that by the end of 2024 ad-supported streaming services will reach $56 billion in revenue, not exactly small potatoes! This is great news for advertisers as it means your audience is growing and your bar for entry is much lower than traditional video advertising. Where before you would have to establish relationships and make deals with television networks to negotiate placements, today getting your video ads in front of millions of viewers is as easy as going to FieldTest.
2: Ability to create a lasting impact
Another reason to consider video advertising is the level of control you have over your creative. With many advertising mediums you are constrained in your messaging and imagery, made to work a small facet of your marketing messaging into every ad unit in order to create a larger consumer journey towards purchase of your product. While this is proven effective, especially using FieldTest’s creative and targeting technology, there is something special about the ability to create an original piece of video that resonates with your customers. Everyone can recite their favorite line from an iconic commercial, and for good reason. Video is a powerful medium for driving conversations, creating emotional connections and is an important tool in leaving a lasting impression on your customers. All of this makes for an extremely powerful awareness-level marketing tool.
3: Precision targeting technology
Maybe the biggest benefit you receive from advertising your videos online and through CTV that you don’t get from traditional video media advertising is the ability to target and truly understand your customers. On traditional television you are only able to target based on legacy indicators of audience such as time slot or network. In today’s digital advertising environment you are no longer restricted to this guessing game, and are instead able to use all of the latest cutting-edge targeting technology to put your video in front of highly-qualified and highly-interested audiences. In addition to the state of the art targeting technology that allows you to reach new customers there are also householding capabilities that allow you to buy across devices in a single household (audio ads on Spotify/Pandora, mobile and tablet specific video, etc). No more do you have to throw darts at a dart board and hope that one hits the bullseye, now you are able to build custom audiences to ensure that your ads are seen exclusively by people most likely to love them.
4: Meaningful performance insights
Just as you are now freed to use targeting data to approach custom audiences, you are also given full access to performance data in a way never possible on traditional video platforms. On traditional TV placements your primary performance metrics were based almost exclusively on neilson polling which, while surprisingly accurate, is not nearly up to par with today’s performance monitoring technology that you gain access to with digital platforms. With CTV and AVOD placements you are able to track every view, every click, every conversion down to the individual consumer. This level of granular data tracking means that you are able to effectively allocate budget to campaigns that are performing well and make informed decisions about targeting and creative, fueling your awareness level marketing and your entire sales funnel.
Final thoughts
More than ever, CTV and AVOD models of advertising are becoming the norm for high-performing awareness marketing campaigns above and beyond standard display. These mediums offer unprecedented creative control, unmatched consumer connection, and state of the art data technology to help you run the most effective, most optimized campaigns possible. Now more than ever you have access to a highly curated audience of engaged consumers ready to learn about your product.