Connected TV (CTV) is changing the advertising landscape in more ways than one. According to a new report from MNTN and Digiday, more advertisers are not only incorporating CTV into their media strategies, they’re structuring their internal organizations to support this initiative in a way that isn’t always the norm.
Based on a survey of 123 brand and agency marketers, the new research found that 35% of surveyed advertisers utilize a hybrid approach, which includes both brand and performance teams, to manage their CTV advertising and strategy. This approach speaks to CTV’s inherent advantage as an ad channel. Like linear TV, CTV is useful for branding campaigns, but its audience targeting and measurement capabilities also make it a highly effective performance channel. One that performance teams, who traditionally stick to web, paid search, and paid social channels, are finding crucial for driving consumer engagement and conversions.
Budgets are shifting to CTV from linear TV and social
Team structure isn’t the only thing changing from the norm. Among surveyed marketers, 58% said they have shifted budget from linear TV efforts to CTV. This isn’t all too surprising, since viewers have been making that same shift—watching less linear TV and more streaming television—for years now. What may be surprising is that 41% of marketers said they are shifting budget from their paid social media channels.
One possible explanation for the shift in social spending to CTV is the recent iOS 14 change, which asked users to opt-in to mobile app data tracking. Social media relies heavily on mobile apps to fuel their advertising businesses, and Apple’s privacy changes saw a low percentage of users opt-in to the tracking. Worldwide opt-in rates were only 11% when the change went into effect in April 2021, and have not improved much since, seeing only 21% opt-in as of September.
This has impacted social media ad spend and changed how marketers view its place in their marketing strategy. Once a reliable direct response channel that could consistently drive conversions, data privacy changes have limited social media’s effectiveness at delivering the type of performance advertisers are accustomed to. In turn, they are seeking out other options, and it appears CTV is a popular alternative.
CTV represents a direct response ad alternative
Since CTV can target specific audiences and measure outcomes directly tied to campaigns, like website visits or conversions, marketers can utilize it in a similar fashion as they do paid social media. What’s more, there is some creative synergy between the two channels—existing video ad creative used on social media can be shifted to run on CTV with a few adjustments to meet quality and runtime (15- and 30-second ads are the norm for streaming networks).
With budgets shifting and brand and performance teams joining forces to tap into the opportunity, CTV is proving to be a formidable ad channel in the industry. Combined with the fact we are still very early in its development, CTV could very well be a dominant piece in marketers’ playbooks for some time to come.
—Tim Edmundson, Director of Content Marketing, MNTN
