Oh, Say, Can you CTV?
CTV, or connected TV, is growing at a rapid rate. In September, streamed content, which makes up CTV, had the greatest share of viewership across all content delivery methods, including broadcast and cable. With CTV’s impressive recent growth, marketers need to be faster to reallocate their budgets to best reflect these shifts in audience preferences. There are still several points of confusion surrounding this emerging platform, such as its advantages over traditional linear channels, how to approach it from a privacy point of view, and even something as simple as what it is exactly. Let us answer some of these questions.
What exactly is CTV?
CTV is a subset of digital internet-delivered streaming video, along with social video and other digital video sources. CTV specifically refers to content delivered to a smart TV or an over-the-top (OTT) device, such as Apple TV, Amazon Firestick or a game console.?It typically comes in either an AVOD or vMVPDs platform. AVOD, or advertising-based video on demand, can be free and ad-supported, like Pluto or Tubi, or paid subscriptions, such as Hulu or Netflix. vMVPDs, on the other hand, refer to virtual multichannel video programming distributors, which are paid live TV offerings, such as YouTube TV and Sling.?
CTV Growth
While falling asleep may be a common occurrence while watching a favorite TV program, it would be foolish to sleep on CTV’s emergence as the newest champion of the viewership landscape. Indeed, just this July, for the first time, streaming viewership surpassed that of both broadcast and cable, comprising 34.8% of the view share, beating out cable’s 34.4% and broadcast’s 21.6%.[1]?[2]??While cable is likely to re-emerge as the front-runner with fall’s new season programming and the NFL in full swing and the NBA season starting, CTV’s growth remains steady. In addition, OTT services are now the primary homes of the most popular and award-winning TV shows, such as Netflix’s “Stranger Things” or HBO Max’s “Succession.” Despite this historical growth, marketers’ ad spend on CTV has responded slowly. In 2022, only 18% of total video ad spend has gone for CTV, even though its viewership share is nearly double that.[3]?However, as the industry continues to grow, along with a greater understanding of the platform, these numbers will likely catch up.?
Other Advantages of CTV over Linear
More Data Types
In addition to the continued growth in viewership, there are several other key advantages for marketers in reallocating more of their budget’s TV dollars to CTV. For one, even with the emergence of addressable TV in the linear landscape, CTV leverages far more data types than those available to linear television. Examples include:
This is data that is procured and owned directly from a first-party source, such as the brand’s website or paid media assets. This is never shared with other brands, publishers, or customers. According to the latest industry surveys, this is the most popular and attractive data type to be leveraged by CTV marketers for audience segmentation.[4]?
CTV uses IP addresses for this level of identification. Information such as a viewer’s city, state, country, DMA, MSA, latitude and longitude, ZIP Code, and area code are all available from this data point.
In addition to the IP address, CTV also logs a user’s user-agent string, which is a piece of information that identifies vital information about a user’s device, such as device brand and model.
While this will become less common, CTV marketers can still leverage third-party data when available.?
Real-Time Insight
Secondly, CTV data gets aggregated and logged in real time. This means marketers have a far more approachable landscape for flexibility and experimentation in crafting their marketing campaigns. No longer are quarterly reports required to adjust campaigns. With real-time data logging, tweaks to behavioral and addressable marketing campaigns can be made on a much less time-restrictive basis.???
New Conversion Metrics
Thirdly, CTV marketers get to work with a slew of new conversion metrics to measure campaign effectiveness beyond the simple view count. App downloads, QR code scans, in-ad games, and clickable links are just a few of the available metrics.[5]?And with CTV still emerging as a marketing channel, these new metrics are just the beginning of what’s to come as it continues to mature.
领英推荐
Self-Serve Setup and Implementation
Lastly, CTV has several self-serve platforms readily available for marketers to work with to implement their campaigns quickly and easily. This self-service model makes it easier and quicker for marketers to monitor, adjust, and optimize their campaigns on their own.
U.S. Privacy Regulations
Of course, with any new brand marketing technology comes the fundamental question of privacy compliance. With that in mind, some important considerations must be taken when leveraging CTV data. The California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) requires participants to provide a “do not sell my personal information” option in the U.S. When it comes to CTV environments, however, providing one is a bit more complicated than what exists in the browser-based or app-based web space.
At what point of entry is the notification prompted? And which party is responsible for it? The brand? The publisher? The device? All of the above? These questions are being discussed and worked through by various industry organizations, such as the IAB’s CTV/OTT working group.[6]?A recent development from the IAB is its multi-state privacy agreement, meant to formalize privacy expectations between buyer and seller based on not only the CCPA but all U.S. states with privacy laws, which include California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah.[7]?Until then, it is probably best to play on the safe side and leverage only pseudonymous data from a first-party environment when available.??
Conclusion
Fitting CTV into a neat box is a challenging task. While it produces television-like content, it delivers it in a browser, just like the internet would. Although internet privacy regulations have not quite caught up with CTV platforms, it is encouraging that industry regulators are doing considerable work to address that. Given the high growth rate in streaming viewership and the many advantages a CTV solution has to offer over traditional linear ones, it makes sense for marketers to begin investing in and planning around the platform sooner rather than later.
Originally posted on Acxiom.com (https://www.acxiom.com/blog/oh-say-can-you-ctv/).
BEN BERLINER
Product Analyst
Ben Berliner is a member of the Real Identity team for Acxiom, currently primarily focusing on rTAG enablement and optimization. Ben comes from an ad tech background, having studied and analyzed data in-depth from both the publisher-facing and advertiser-facing sides of the industry.