YOU NEED TO GET DOWN WITH OTT
I spent part of the week speaking to experts in OTT advertising, and frankly I was amazed how much this has grown in the last two years. OTT advertising is an internet-based, non-skippable, immersive, video-on-demand content format that allows advertisers to engage with a unique audience that is committed to the content it is consuming.
OTT ads are considered the same as CTV advertising because OTT just refers to a larger platform. “CTV” or Connected TV means a television set connected to the internet. In comparison, OTT programming can be played on Connected TVs, but can also be streamed via mobile devices, tablets, or desktops.
OTT ads allow for superior targeting, much more so than linear television ads. Linear television ads are network and cable TV commercials. Linear TV spot pricing options are set at a premium. In comparison, OTT advertising is often available through auctions with a set budget determining the ideal placement. Advertisers can know ahead of time the exact audiences who will be viewing their ads.
Much like with original TV advertising, companies can purchase over-the-top advertising via a guaranteed media buy or real-time programmatic bidding. A guaranteed media buy offers the advertiser fixed pricing and impression numbers based on the audience reach and ad frequency.
These aspects of the advertising agreement would be negotiated in advance. If an advertiser opts to engage in programmatic buying through a DSP like StackAdapt, they’ll be able to browse offerings for ad placement and inventory.
Leveraging a real-time bidding environment for your OTT ad placements can offer you:
1.Competitive pricing
2. Deep, data-driven targeting and analytics
3. Precision reporting
4. Real-time optimization and flexibility
5. Strategically using these features of OTT advertising will only strengthen the performance of other platforms like your display, native, and video advertising as part of an overall, holistic campaign approach.
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Expert Insight
with Gary Mittman
CEO of KERV INTERACTIVE
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Gary Mittman of Kerv Interactive
What’s the coolest thing about OTT advertising?
IN the OTT / CTV space it is offering the opportunity to think outside the box of traditional interstitial/interruptive TV ads. We are in an environment where the content owners can create formats and concepts that can provide the viewer a user curated experience and give the advertiser an optin user with true intent.
How did the Pandemic Affect OTT Advertising?
With the advent of people being stuck at home and the expanding of the streaming channels we have begun to see subscription fatigue. Consumers are getting entertainment and content from multiple sources. This includes Social, OTT, CTV, Broadcast, Internet Streamers etc. This has caused networks like Netflix to see a decline in subscribers. As we have seen in the press they are now talking about AVOD or ad driven free content. We are at a convergence point of consumers trained to enjoy ad free
content and the networks needing to supplement with alternative and creative methods while keeping the viewers interested.
What type of first party data is being used to track?
In the CTV space it is a data driven process, in the OTT space the networks have the user viewing preference data. The question is can the registration data be used for other applications and maintain privacy boundaries.
What is a great way to target locally?
With CTV it is a standard process, but with the OTT networks they have detail on where the user is and can target the ad opportunities with the residence details. IF the user is on a digital device away from that location you have the IP address for now that can assist but there is question if that is going away in the future.
What is KERV offering that is different?
KERV provides a real-time visual analysis with sophisticated AI to understand, like the natural eye, what the viewer is seeing, this is converted into visual metadata and or contextual relevance. WIth these data points KERV can provide a few paths of advertising applications; 1. Contextual data for programmatic relevant ad buys, 2. Creating object specific interactive experiences across all platforms and devices with our Automated ad creation platform. We are thinking out of the box to
generate new and interactive experiences for both content and advertising alike.
JOIN GARY ON LINKEDIN
Cyrille Vigneron
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ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW, CONDENSED
1. Here are five ways to succeed with CTV/OTT, improve ROAS, and boost your bottom line: Match strategy to sales insights, Use actionable CRM data to segment and target, Use real-time feedback to target in real
time, Use multitouch attribution.
2. What is the future of OTT? Whether you’ve been using AI marketing for years or you just started, you’ll continue to see changes in the industry that will affect OTT and CTV advertising. Media platforms and digital technologies are rapidly changing to better address the demands of your savvier audience.
82% of U.S. households with a TV have at least one internet-connected device or platform, so brands would be wise to gravitate toward OTT and CTV advertising. AI in marketing supports your efforts in this area, as you can more easily strategize and develop a plan for implementing an approach to reach your targeted audience.
3. Integral Ad Science (IAS), a global player in digital media quality, has released research showing that most US consumers feel that their ad experience is better on digital streaming platforms than traditional TV when watching major sporting events. Key takeaway? Anticipatory Behavior Drives Content Consumption: Consumers engage in a variety of activities in anticipation of major sporting events, which include increased online content consumption
and use of ads to help plan for these activities. Some 43 per cent of US consumers find ads helpful when planning for activities leading up to a major sporting event.
3. Netflix is now open to offering lower-priced ad-supported plans after years of pushing back on ads on its platform. Co-CEO Reed Hastings, who has long been opposed to including commercials on Netflix, said during its recent earnings call that having a cheaper option for consumers would "make a lot of sense". The ad-supported plans will most likely roll out over the next year or two, and Hastings explained that this is not a short term fix as once Netflix
starts offering a lower price plan with ads some consumers might be more inclined towards the offering. "It's pretty clear that it's working for Hulu. Disney's doing it, HBO did it. I don't think we have a lot of doubt that it works," he said, adding that the ad-supported plans will be a planned layer similar to Hulu's. At the same time, consumers who want ad-free viewing will still be able to have that experience.
4. Can New Brands Connect to OTT? If news brands have a genre of content beyond news that they have found a loyal audience for historically, it is theoretically possible to spin that out. There may be a few rare associations with some brands but even then, the numbers would never pan out to create a sustained business.
5. Cord cutting has grown substantially since 2015. Currently, only 56% of Americans report watching TV through cable or satellite, down from 76% in 2015. However, 78% of consumers living in the United States have access to a subscription video service. Despite this major shift, OTT spending, meaning spending spent on streaming service advertisements, makes up only 3% of digital advertising spending because the space is dominated by subscription
services with no or light ad loads. This increase in spending, despite still being a fraction of overall spending, reflects a growing shift towards ad-supported streaming.
6. There are 253 million adults in the U.S. over the age of 18. Of those, 28 million are Streaming Only, 39 million are Linear TV Only, and 177 million are Mixed Platform using the previous
definitions. Let that sink in a little. Out of 250 million adults, 87% stream digital video content whether they watch traditional television or not—and according to Comscore, those who stream video content use an average of five OTT services. MIXED Platform OTT consumers have an average household income at $84,000— because they can better afford to enjoy both modes of video consumption.
7. Addressable TV is the main differentiating factor between cable and OTT. On cable, the same commercials are shown to every viewer. With addressable TV, different viewers can see different ads, even when watching the same program at the same time. For example, Shannon and Carly are best friends and they both enjoy watching
The Bachelor each week on Hulu, an ad-supported OTT platform. However, while watching The Bachelor, Shannon might be seeing ads for baby apparel—which she’s been searching for lately—whereas Carly is seeing advertisements for workout apps she’s been considering. Although they are both watching the same episode at the same time on the same streaming service, they are seeing different advertisements.
8. 20% of media companies stated that video streaming (OTT) has become their number one digital product purchased by local advertisers, with spending projected to surpass paid search within three years according to this Benchmark Report. The report claims that major shift in purchase
behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to center on how local businesses moved a good deal of their budgets from Google paid search to targeted banners served programmatically.
9. Using spoofing tactics, bad actors can gain access to CTV servers, disguise bots as real viewers and even purport to run ads when no ads are present. Advanced TV advertising company MadHive finding that as many as 20% of streaming video ad requests are purely fraudulent. "Complete viewability sounds promising on the surface, but actually poses major questions from a fraud perspective. For example, nefarious players could implement server
farms and create bots that simulate someone watching a CTV ad." ( Ken Harlan)
10. The best method to minimize fraud is to set requirements for inventory partners. Marketers should use accredited third-party verification partners and work with inventory that allows pixels for tracking. A third-party test and review of inventory sources is a step in the right direction to minimize fraud and build greater confidence in ROI.
11. Innovid and DoubleVerify have both claimed new advertising measurement accreditations from the Media Rating Council (MRC). DoubleVerify gained its latest MRC accreditation for display and video rendered ad impression measurement and sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) filtration, including app fraud, on connected TVs. Innovid got the MRC nod for its measurement of rendered display ad impressions, which the company said expands its omni-channel ad
server’s existing accreditations in video and OTT.
12. While OTT viewership has skyrocketed during the pandemic, the industry is becoming increasingly competitive with the launch of new streaming services. That increases the likelihood of subscription fatigue and makes it even more essential to prioritize customer retention. Thus, one of the key challenges OTT apps face is "stickiness," and how they can become engaging enough to stay top-of-mind while ensuring that users will want to keep coming
back for more. Programmatic allows app marketers to use quality supply to target specific segments of users at scale and in real-time, which creates a more personalized experience for users. OTT enables you to provide your users with customized entertainment based on their preferences.
13. The latest guide from Meta is all about Landing Pages with Meta’s Consumer Growth Consulting team partnering with Branding Brand to analyze 500 landing page experiences to glean key insight into what works, what doesn’t, and what makes people more inclined to continue along the purchase funnel.
14. “It is no surprise that Netflix is considering an ad-supported model,” said Andrew Frank, VP, distinguished analyst at Gartner. “The explosion of competitive premium streaming offerings from Amazon, Apple, Disney/Hulu, HBO, Paramount, Peacock, and so forth have drastically shifted the balance of
supply and demand since the days when Netflix had the streaming SVOD market to itself. With such high-powered competition and so many ad-supported options, the need to diversify revenue is unavoidable.”
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Amazon OTT (Over-the-top) ads are a great way to reach high-intent shoppers.
Here are some key points you should know about video ads using Amazon DSP:
1️⃣ OTT ads are 15 or 30 second video ads that appear before, during, or after streamed video content
2️⃣ OLV (online video) ads are 6, 15, 20, and 30+ second video ads that appear across browser and app content in a variety of formats like in-feed video, in-article video, video in-banner, etc.
3️⃣ Amazon often requires $35k+ minimum budgets to manage. If you work with an agency that has their own access, like Ad Advance, we can run video campaigns at any budget (no minimum).
4️⃣ Amazon has a compelling OTT offering since we are able to use the same audience-building capabilities as DSP display ads. Amazon also has very unique OTT inventory, like Fire TV (1 in 3 connected TV users view OTT on a Fire device) and IMDB TV.
5️⃣Utilize OTT if: 1. You have available budget after Sponsored Ads and DSP Display ads are built-out and optimized; or
2. You are running OTT ads through Google or other platforms and can allocate a portion of that budget to Amazon OTT.
According to Amazon, running OTT in conjunction with DSP Display led to 320% more page views and 150% higher purchase rates than running Display alone.
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The Watercooler
Impress your Co-Workers with these useless facts about marketing
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What is the first video on YouTube?
The first ever YouTube video was uploaded on April 23, 2005.
YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted the 18-second video, titled "Me at the zoo." It has since garnered over 90 million views. To this day, it is the only video on Karim's channel.
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All About Us & Advertising
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ADOTAT.com is the product of over 20 years of online marketing publications and articles by Pesach Lattin & many more experts that have contributed!
Want to advertise? Contact pesach@lattin.us
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