The key to RMN’s success is how interactions with brands can enhance the shopper experience. Digital media experts at Kroger and The Home Depot have spent years developing media networks keeping this key point in mind. If a branded ad interrupts the customer’s journey, it doesn’t help the brand, the retailer or, most importantly, the customer.

Helping when customers research products

Where can brands get involved in the customer journey? At The Home Depot, a supplier approached the retailer about retargeting customers on social media. Soon, the company created opportunities for other suppliers to deliver ads that drove customers to the retailer’s product pages.

This was back in 2018. In 2019, The Home Depot’s Retail Media+ (known as RM+) was launched. Brands now have opportunities to show ads on company owned properties, including homedepot.com, the retailer’s app, in-store and email, as well as offsite media channels like social and video.

“We didn’t want it to disrupt the customer experience,” said Melanie Babcock, vice president, Retail Media+ and monetization for The Home Depot. “Our customer spends a lot of time researching on our site before making a decision. They’re thinking about if they have the right tools, skills, time and capabilities for a project. You have a light to install, should you do it on your own? The consideration time is much less for traditional retailers.”

Because of this longer, more involved customer journey, the retailer decided  decided to let suppliers have the lion’s share of the RMN ad inventory. That means that most of the ads served to customers during their journey are endemic products, ones that can be bought at Home Depot.

“Onsight and in-store are very connected,” said Babcock. “We see that in our customers’ behaviors, and we wanted to be additive to that by keeping the customer in mind and not just monetizing the website. We’re bringing the supplier into the customer journey.”

Personalized precision with customers

Supermarket chain Kroger is another major retailer with a robust RMN, called Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM). KPM is managed under a wholly-owned subsidiary, 84.51˚.

“The common denominator is data science,” said Brian Spencer, KPM’s marketing director. “We have a legion of data scientists available under 84.51˚. There’s shelf assortment and other areas of personalization in our stores. That same talent base is what fuels the personalization behind Kroger Precision Marketing as well.”

Prior to starting its retail media business, Kroger built digital experiences for customers to search products, create grocery lists and receive digital coupons. These tools made it possible for KPM to introduce brands in a relevant way.

Unbranded search terms are 90% of the top 500 searches in Kroger digital touchpoints, Spencer said. That means many customers are looking for products without a specific brand in mind. Directing those customers to a specific brand or product is a logical next step in their journeys.

And, because digital customers are multi-taskers, they aren’t only looking for products available at a Kroger store. For instance, you could be planning a Super Bowl party and need to buy snacks. But what if you also are considering a new TV? Cases like that, but also many others, are where non-endemic brands fit in.

“As we explore non-endemic opportunities, top of mind is that this is activated in a way that isn’t intrusive or obnoxious to our consumers,” said Spencer. “If it’s something that makes sense for our shoppers, we’ll take a look.”

Expanding to offsite journeys

“Retail media data is very advantageous to all kinds of brands, particularly in the grocery category,” said Spencer. Grocery shoppers make purchases several times a month, and often multiple times per week. And these purchases cut across many categories. 

“That kind of information is obviously necessary for consumer packaged goods, but outside of CPG there’s greater interest because some of these non-endemic brands are looking for relevant ways to reach audiences,” he said. “Automotive brands or fast food brands, they may think of our data set as another way to activate across the open web.”

Offsite RMN opportunities are the fastest-growing area for KPM. Kroger has been a partner with streaming service platform Roku for three years. And this week, Disney Advertising announced a partnership with KPM for some Disney media properties, beginning with Hulu.

Dig deeper: CTV added to Kroger’s retail media network business

“Brands, but more typically agencies, are able to go in and activate programmatic display and CTV through a DSP of their choice, and set their own safety standards and activate through a self-service portal — and see sales results and optimize against in-store and online sales,” said Spencer.

“Retail media is more and more being considered as just media,” he added. “It’s more and more part of the total touchpoint consideration set that agencies are looking at. The traditional lines between shopper marketing and brand marketing are becoming more blurred.”

The Home Depot is also looking at how to expand RM+ offsite into CTV. It’s also piloting in-store video screens at 50 locations, currently, to see how shoppers’ digital journeys can be enhanced when they get to the store.

“We’re the last mile in advertising, which is always the most expensive part of the journey,” said Babcock. “There’s huge value to our supplier to connect to that customer and also to know more about that customer.”

The post How Home Depot and Kroger use RMN to improve shoppers’ ad experience appeared first on MarTech.

Why we care. You know you’re in pretty good shape when a 10.8% revenue increase is a major slowdown. The 35% of 2021 would have been tough to repeat even without last year’s inflation, interest rate hikes, geo-political thunderstorms and four quarters of being told there’s a recession right around the corner. Having near 11% growth and all those impediments? That may be a bigger accomplishment than 2021’s gaudy numbers.

IAB’s CEO David Cohen expects 2023’s number to be lower. “Looking ahead, there is definitely still growth to be had, but it will be harder to achieve and likely less than we have become accustomed to,” he said in a statement. 

He has good reason to say that. Consumer spending continues to slow as do housing sales. Inflation persists, although it’s an unusual type, caused by corporate profit-taking instead of too many dollars chasing too few goods.  

However, something could upset the doom-and-gloom apple cart: Artificial intelligence. Will it spur economic growth like two other revolutionary technologies, the telephone and the internet, did?

A troubling trend. The good growth numbers were a result of a phenomenal first two quarters, which saw internet ad revenue increase 21.1% and 11.8%, lifting the third and fourth quarters which saw increases slow to 8.4% and 4.4%.

Search finds its way. Organic search, which has the largest share of ad revenue, grew by 7.8% last year, to a record $84.4 billion. However, its total share of revenue dropped to 40.2%, from 41.4% in 2021. 

Display shows growth. Display ads, the second-largest format, saw increases in both revenue — up 12% to $63.5 billion — and total share, going from 30% to 30.3%.

Audio is mixed. Digital audio had the largest percentage gain of any format, increasing 20.9% to $5.9 billion. However, its overall share of total digital ad revenue was nearly flat, going from 2.6% in 2021 to 2.8% last year.

Video sees clear gains. With a 19.3% increase, digital video had the second-best percentage gain. More significantly it had the largest dollar increase of any format: up $7.6 billion, to $47.1 billion. Also, its share of Video’s share of total digital ad revenue rose from 20.9% to 22.5%

Strong programming. Programmatic advertising’s revenues increased by $10.4 billion, or 10.5%, to a total of $109.4 billion.

A bit less social. Social media growth got off to a strong start in 2022, with ad revenue rising $1.8 billion in the first half of the year, but dropping dramatically to $0.3 billion in the second half.

Mobile is on the move. Mobile grew 14.1% to a record high of $154.1 billion and a 73.5% share of total digital ad revenue. 

The post 2022’s strong digital ad revenue growth unlikely to continue appeared first on MarTech.

This is the profile of your typical smart phone user, surfing the net, looking for the next thing. As they flip from page to page and scroll up and down, they may experience one of six basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust and surprise.

If the page view sparks the right emotion, then that viewer could be turned into a lead. But which emotion can do that? Can this be done in a loud, distracting environment (like in real life)? And can you score the interaction for ad effectiveness use it to optimize a campaign?

First, some background

The hypothesis that all humans feel one of six basic emotions was proposed by psychologist Paul Ekman. His work also inspired others working the intersection of psychology and marketing, looking for ways to measure emotional response so they can sharpen their approach to consumers.

Machine learning and AI modeling have been used by various businesses, all taking different approaches to the reading of emotions through human facial expressions. Some of these approaches were limited by technology, requiring the subject to sit in front of a desktop PC, either in a lab or at home, so that the digital camera could scan their faces and calibrate these images with the software, Max Kalehoff, VP of growth and marketing at Realeyes told us.

With people using smartphones, staying still long enough to be calibrated was not going to work.

Dig deeper: You smiled, so we think you like this product

Cue the face

Realeyes built its facial recognition app for mobile on previous work. It’s AI had been trained on close to one billion frames. Those images were then annotated by psychologists in different countries to take account of cultural nuances. The algorithm in turn was trained by using these annotations, Kalehoff explained, yielding over 90% accuracy.

The potential for Realeyes to work on the mobile platform intersects with the explosion of social media, and in this realm the app is agnostic. It does not matter what the user is looking at — TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. The Realeyes app is gauging their reaction.

“To (the best) of our knowledge, this is the first time it’s been done,” Kalehoff said “We are answering a demand to provide detection of attention to creatives in a mobile environment.”

To put Realeyes on the smartphone, users have to opt-in, and are then directed to an environment where they can look at some ads. They are told to scroll through some screens, “doing what they normally do,” Kalehoff said. A small app will reside on the phone helping measure visual attention data and clickstream interaction data. “Our definition (of attention) focuses on a stimulus while ignoring all other stimuli,” he said. “The experience for the participants is under three minutes.”

Looking for data in the right places

What Realeyes looks for depends on the media the consumer is viewing. One outcome sought is what they call a “breakthrough.” “Real people try to avoid ads,” Kalehoff noted, so breakthrough occurs when an ad successfully gets someone’s attention despite a naturally distracting environment.

This matters as people “swipe, skip or scroll” past ads to get to content. They will swipe on TikTok, scroll through Facebook or Instagram, or skip in YouTube, Kalehoff observed. Did the ad get through?

Then there is the type of viewing, like Netflix or Hulu, where the consumer’s involvement is passive. Here Realeyes is looking for “in focus reaction.” Is the viewer paying attention to the ad? What are they seeing, second by second, and is that creating a positive or negative impression?

Then there is online shopping, for example on Amazon. Here validating visual data gets a four-question follow-up, testing for brand recognition, ad recall, trust in the brand and likability of an ad.

The simplicity of Realeyes’ approach is that scanning for facial expression will work anywhere with anything. As two-thirds of the digital media spend goes to three or four major platforms, “you only have to go to a few places to get where the attention resides,” Kalehoff said.

Room for improvement

The foundation of Realeyes is the training database that informs the AI of the meaning of a facial expression. Porting the app to the handheld means being able to spot smiles and frowns, then using that information to correct a bad impression or improve on a good one.

Still Realeyes is aware there is room for improvement. It has had to work on adjusting its face-reading app to work in low-light conditions while remaining accurate, Kalehoff pointed out. The AI has also received additional training recognizing different skin tones and again delivering accurate readouts.

There are also some upsides. Realeyes can tell if the same face appears more than once. This can be an issue with paid surveys, where a subject may want to participate more than once to score a little extra cash, Kalehoff noted.

As for practical application Realeyes worked with Mars Inc. on a project to boost sales using increased attention metrics. The experience yielded an 18% sales increase across 19 markets, optimizing the ad spend by about $30 million, Kalehoff said. Even a five percent increase in “creative attention” can lead to a 40% increase in brand awareness.

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Recent years have seen gaming become an attractive advertising opportunity for brands. As more people are playing video games, there’s a huge potential for advertisers to reach new audiences. To gain further insight, DISQO CX surveyed 28,244 nationally representative consumers.

Their findings suggest that gaming is mainstream, with over one-third of the US population likely to have regular metaverse interactions within the next 5-10 years. Of those surveyed, 76% had noticed advertisements from brands. Consumers favored in-game experiences, bonus content, and embedded functionality, as these formats enhance the gaming experience for both gamers and advertising partners.

Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download How Brands Can Get in the Game. You’ll learn how to use the gaming medium to level-up your marketing, gain a better understanding of in-game audiences, and which ad formats are most popular with consumers.

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Gatorade is currently running ads for its new energy drink Fast Twitch. Kraft Heinz tested ads for multiple brands, including Velveeta. Both campaigns used basketball themes to connect with March Madness fans.

Why we care. Cooler Screens’ technology shows video images of in-stock products to shoppers when they’re deciding what to grab and buy. This makes the screens eye-catching and relevant for serving ads. On the back end, the technology uses “identity-blind” sensors for traffic and behavior data that demonstrates campaign performance.

At a time when many retailers are launching their own retail media networks (RMNs), Cooler Screens cuts across a number of retailers with this new all-at-once offering, giving big brands opportunity to scale, and to do so with a video experience that is more useful and interactive than standard in-store video screens.

Dig deeper: Why we care about retail media networks

In-store network. Cooler Screens’ 10,000 screens across retailers serve ads to nearly 100 million viewers per month.

Using data from the screens, brands can measure sales lift, brand equity and real-time shopper actions — like opening the refrigerator door — to optimize the campaigns.

The Kraft Heinz test campaigns delivered between three and six percentage points in sales lift across their brands.

The post Kraft Heinz and Gatorade tap in-store video screens for March Madness appeared first on MarTech.

“Our goal is to empower organizations across the ecosystem to execute data collaboration at scale, without the need for ongoing technical resources or the need to move the data,” said Matt Kilmartin, Habu co-founder and CEO, in a company release.

Why we care. Marketers are looking to data clean rooms as a way to enrich their data and boost ad campaign performance in an increasingly regulated digital ecosystem where data is precious. Interoperability increases the opportunities marketers have to build clean rooms with publishers and other digital media partners.

“Data clean rooms come in very handy to help us broaden the ways we use data beyond just a one-to-one kind of transaction,” said Roku’s head of ad platforms, Youssef Ben-Youseff, in the release.

Dig deeper: Why we care about data clean rooms

Data and intelligence tools. Habu’s improved platform allows clean room owners to work more effectively with business intelligence derived from the data clean room. Reports and analytics dashboard environments generated from the clean room can now be templatized and packaged.

Also, an improved Question Builder in the new version of Habu now makes it easier to author new clean room use cases and templates.

New integrations. Enhancements to the platform include a new simplified integration with Facebook. Marketers can now add Habu to their Facebook Ads/Advanced Analytics account.

Additionally, enhancements to integrations with TikTok and Twitter reduce rate-limit disruptions and other errors, taking away the need for ongoing manual support on those social platforms.

Amazon Marketing Cloud. Last fall, Habu became a certified Amazon Marketing Cloud partner. This opened up the Habu platform to marketers using Amazon Ads who want to expand their campaign through the marketing cloud and use Habu’s intelligence tools.

Using a library of plain English queries and visualizations, the no-code and low-code Habu tools allow marketers to enrich data and gain intelligence with little to no experience in data science.

Dig deeper: Amazon announces AWS Clean Rooms

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In-game advertising merges ads with the game environment seamlessly. Imagine seeing billboards while racing through the streets or branded in-game products you can purchase. These ads are more powerful and effective than in-app advertisements — those annoying pop-ups or banner ads you commonly see in mobile app games.

With nearly 3 billion games worldwide, in-game advertising can give brands incredible reach. From virtual billboards to branded experiences, video games have become a marketer’s paradise for reaching the coveted gaming demographic.

This guide covers the basics of in-game advertising, including common ad types, available targeting options, associated costs, challenges and best practices.

Types of in-game advertising

Before exploring how to take advantage of in-game advertisements, let’s review the most common types of game ads.

Static in-game advertising

These ads are directly hardcoded into the game. Since the ads can’t be changed and will exist in the game ad infinitum, rates are expensive and charged on a fixed-fee basis.

Dynamic in-game advertising

Dynamic ads can be replaced quickly and deployed instantly. These ads can appear in different places and formats (display and video ads are the most common). The 2008 billboards from Barack Obama in Need for Speed: Carbon are a great example of this ad format’s simple yet powerful use.

Sponsored game content

Sponsored game content involves integrating a brand or product into the actual game content, making it even more tangible and visible to the player and engaging them with the brand.

Dig deeper: PepsiCo’s strategies for marketing via online games and esports

KFC did this exceptionally well when it partnered with Nintendo to create a virtual island in the popular game Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The island was designed with KFC-themed items and decorations and even allowed players to win a voucher for chicken in real-life.

Advergames

Rather than integrating the ads into an already existing game, advergames are games specifically designed to promote a brand or product. They provide a fun and engaging way to interact with a brand and can effectively build brand awareness and loyalty.

Chex Quest, made by Chex, was the first video game ever to be included in cereal boxes as a prize. It was a top-to-bottom conversion of the popular game Doom but adjusted it to be family-friendly. The game was a hit among consumers and even won several awards.

Activision Blizzard Media has recently created many Playables — branded stand-alone mobile app games.

Product placement

The classic advertisement method still works. Advertisers can put their products directly into video games to guarantee players see the brand and “use” the products.

I remember playing Mario Kart 8 on the Nintendo Wii and unlocking the Mercedes-Benz cars. This made the branded products more exclusive since they had to be earned.

Targeting options for in-game advertising

The other unique benefit of in-game advertisements are the targeting abilities. It starts with choosing the right game (or games). Advertisers can focus on consumers based on demographics, geolocation, device type or platforms. However, integrating these traditional targeting approaches with behavioral targeting makes in-game advertisements even more effective.

Behavior targeting uses the actions the player has taken (or has not taken) to create an ideal segment of users to reach. For example, an advertiser could target players who have demonstrated a willingness to open their wallets by spending money to buy items in a game — or players who have reached a certain level and are, therefore, more engaged.

Combining these different ways of targeting and deploying them across various games that reach consumers on multiple platforms (gaming consoles, computers and smartphones) makes in-game advertising extremely powerful. With abundant reach and powerful targeting, brands can build awareness, drive engagement and boost sales quickly and effectively.

How to buy in-game advertising

Getting started with in-game advertising will ultimately depend on the types of games you want to appear in and your budget. 

When selecting an approach to buying in-game advertising, consider the specific goals, budget and target audience of the campaign. 

Game publishers

• Example: Activision Blizzard Media

You can work directly with game publishers to create custom ad campaigns within their games. This approach provides more control over the creative content and targeting and a deeper level of integration with the game environment. 

However, it can be more time-consuming and expensive than other options and may not offer as much scale or reach since it is limited to a single game.

In-game ad networks 

• Examples: Admix, Unity Ads

Ad networks connect brands with multiple game publishers, providing access to a broader collection of games. They offer greater scale and reach and more efficient pricing and targeting options. 

The downside is that you have less control over the creative content and placement. Some ad networks are not as high-quality and have limited targeting options. 

Programmatic advertising platforms 

• Examples: Bidstack, Anzu

Programmatic platforms use data and algorithms to automate the buying and placement of in-game ads across multiple publishers and platforms. This approach can offer greater efficiency, scale and advanced targeting options based on user data and behavior. However, programmatic platforms may have less control over the creative content and placement and may require more technical expertise.

The costs of in-game advertising

How expensive are in-game ads? It depends, but it’s only going to get more expensive. In-game advertising pricing can vary based on several factors, including the type of game, ad format, targeting options and the size and scope of the campaign.

CPM pricing is the most common approach, and rates can vary widely based on factors like ad format and targeting. The average CPM for in-game display ads ranges from $10-20, with video ads from $15-30.

These numbers will vary dramatically depending on the audience, game, targeting and ad formats. For example, CPMS for in-game ads targeting Gen Z and Millennials were 30-50% higher than those targeting Gen X and Baby Boomers, according to an Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) study.

You can also expect CPMs to continue to rise with the growing popularity of games and the high demand to reach gamers who are otherwise difficult to reach. Other in-game ads follow a flat-rate pricing model, especially static ads or advergames.

Challenges and best practices

It’s all fun and games until your campaign stops performing well. In-game advertisements come with their own unique set of challenges — and fatigue is a real concern. 

• Players can quickly become bored or annoyed by seeing the same ads repeatedly. Be sure to monitor frequency and refresh creative as often as possible.
• Players will also be upset if ads are intrusive, distracting, or disrupt their gameplay in any way. This isn’t commonly an issue, but it’s an important consideration.

As with any advertising, targeting is critical. It’s best to use non-intrusive creative formats to engage users. If possible, rewarding users with in-game currency, items, or exclusive content can increase engagement rates and brand affinity. The aforementioned example of being able to earn Mercedes-Benz cars in Mario Kart is a simple but effective model of this in practice.

What’s in store for in-game advertising?

In-game advertising is a powerful way to reach a highly-engaged, lucrative and fast-growing audience. There is no shortage of different types of games and no reason not to try in-game advertising.

Mobile games and handheld gaming platforms like the Nintendo Switch make it even easier for brands to stay connected and engaged with users even more than ever before.

New technologies like virtual reality and the Metaverse will bring more gaming environments, unique experiences and even more diverse opportunities for advertisers to explore.

The post In-game advertising: A marketer’s guide appeared first on MarTech.

The shifting trends in media consumption

Media consumption has altered drastically in the past few years. Streaming services proliferate, while cable subscriptions and satellite customers keep defecting and cutting the cord. The internet has irrevocably shifted the media landscape format with major implications for advertisers. 

Dig deeper: Why we care about connected TV and OTT advertising

What’s the difference between CTV, OTT and linear TV?

The two primary differences here are the device used for streaming and how people watch the content delivered to that device.

CTV vs. OTT 

CTV is delivered on large-screen devices, like the TV in the living room. It’s the biggest screen in the house and connects advertisers with multiple people simultaneously. It is delivered within streamed content through services like Netflix and Disney+. It can also be streamed through smart TVs, Blu-ray players and game consoles like PlayStation and Xbox (there were 1 billion in 2019). 

It provides significantly better targeting capabilities than traditional TV, boosting efficiency and amplifying ROI. It’s also immensely popular, reaching 204.1 million worldwide viewers in 2022, according to Insider Intelligence.

OTT is delivered on smaller-screen devices, like tablets and smartphones. It connects advertisers with fewer people and is better suited for developing a 1:1 relationship. Both CTV and OTT can also include video-on-demand (VOD) services. 

Linear TV

Linear TV is “traditional” television programming delivered by satellite or cable, generally only available on larger screens, whether in the living room, den or even a bedroom. 

Programming is consumed linearly — meaning viewers watch episodes as they air and in the order they air. (This doesn’t account for cable/satellite services offering DVR functionality.) Linear TV can offer limited on-demand services, but not in the same way as CTV or OTT.

What are the benefits of CTV advertising

It’s more cost-effective than traditional options. CTV advertising ad impressions increased by 31% quarter over quarter in Q4 2020, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming report. 

Dig deeper: 4 tips to get the most out of CTV advertising

It provides powerful targeting capabilities, improved engagement, increased reach and access to detailed campaign metrics to inform future advertising decisions. While cookies are going away, IP targeting is here to stay. Mobile phones can also be targeted; users often project video from their phones to a bigger screen.

It also offers:

• Cost savings via programmatic buying,
• High-quality delivery of visual ads. 
• Enhanced opportunities for interactive campaigns.
• Performance measurement and optimization. 
• Easy integration with new platforms.

Setting up a CTV campaign: A step-by-step process

Leveraging the benefits connected TV advertising offers isn’t rocket science, but it requires specific steps.

Step 1: Understand your target audience

CTV advertising lets you connect with almost any segment and helps you broaden your reach. Remember that these ads are usually displayed on the largest screen in the home, which often means presenting your campaigns to multiple people — parents and their children, for instance. So, in addition to understanding your target audience, you should consider how others will receive your ads within the viewing group. 

Step 2: Define your goals 

What do we want viewers to do after seeing the ad? Should they:

• Purchase a product or service?
• Learn more about your offering?
• Connect with your brand elsewhere?

How will that action funnel viewers toward the next touchpoint? What is the next touchpoint after that? 

Successful CTV campaigns start with a plan based on clearly defined goals that matter to your success.

Step 3: Choose your platforms

The CTV ad marketplace works across streaming platforms. However, you’ll need to choose your platforms with care. Each one has a slightly different audience composition and membership numbers. 

For instance, now that Netflix is showing ads on lower cost subscriptions, it offers a large and vert diverse audience. Apple TV, on the other hand, has a much smaller audience base, which is less diverse because it doesn’t have the same breadth of content as Netflix. Ask yourself a few questions here:

What type of content does my audience gravitate toward?

Netflix has something for everyone, but what about platforms like Discovery+? HBO Max could be well worth your time and money, but what about IMDB or Tubi? With the proliferation of streamers, advertisers must dig deep and do their due diligence on each potential platform to make informed decisions.

How does the platform handle ads?

Each streamer seems to take a different path here. For example, Hulu places ads strategically throughout streamed content. Peacock has a different viewership strategy and puts all the ads at the very beginning. Consequently, ad placement/timing affects audience retention. The real-time auctions can be slightly different, provider to provider. Each platform’s definition of video completion rate might differ.

Based on your answers to these two questions, you can move on to the next step: creating effective video campaigns.

At my agency, we also like to use keywords for targeting. This helps us find buyer intent signals which are great identifiers of penetration opportunities in the marketplace. Doing so gives more relevance to the personas we pursue and complement other targeting layered in to create the most responsive campaign possible.

Step 4: Create effective video campaigns

You’re putting an ad in a place where premium content is broadcast. Your content has to match that quality. Today’s sophisticated audiences expect company-produced content to be polished and professional. That means doing more than using high-end equipment and working with the right individuals from ideation through production and delivery. 

Various ad formats will be essential to help capture different types of screen sizes but making a storytelling video that’s “ready for primetime” is probably your biggest hurdle.

How to measure CTV effectiveness 

Some of the primary KPIs to include in your dashboard are:

Reach

Reach shows how many people have seen your ad and helps you understand visibility and campaign exposure. To determine this, divide the number of unique viewers by the total number of viewers. Your reach is also tethered to inventory (i.e., how big of a stake you buy in any one package).

Impressions

This is the number of times your ad has been viewed overall and does not account for unique viewers. It can help you determine how often to show your ad and understand overall exposure. Determining impressions is simple — add up the number of times the ad has been shown.

Viewability

Viewability refers to whether a viewer saw the ad. This factors into campaign success because if the ad is displayed but not seen, it cannot build awareness or create conversions. Viewability is determined by dividing the number of viewable impressions by the total number of impressions.

ROI

Calculating return on investment can be tough, but it’s important for determining the overall success of your CTV ad campaign. You can track viewer conversion rate or track brand awareness or purchase intent.

Completion rate/viewer engagement

Completion rate speaks to viewer engagement and it’s just a measure of how many people watched your ad all the way through. A high completion rate may indicate that people are engaged with your ad. However, some platforms don’t broadcast skippable ads, which can skew your results. With some pre-roll, you can sometimes match YouTube’s policy and not pay if someone skips before five seconds.

Frequency

If your ad is shown to the same people too many times within a short time, it can lead to fatigue. However, it can also be a good tactic for building brand awareness. Shoot for balance here and use a measurement tool that tracks the number of times each viewer has seen your ad.

Conversion rate

Conversion is the Holy Grail of all advertising, not just connected TV advertising. It’s also one of the most critical metrics for determining campaign success. Make sure to define what counts as a “conversion” before your campaign goes live, whether that’s a website visit, purchase or something else.

A note on metrics

It’s not always as simple as “video clicks” because CTV ads will likely produce more view-through than first-time click-through conversions. Remember, we’re at the top of the funnel! Give your audience time to absorb and catch up with your brand across all your placements. 

Dig deeper: How CTV can deliver market research for B2B marketers

View-throughs take place as late as 30-60 days for some consumer products and services. This means the content worked, but they weren’t ready to take action when the video played. Meanwhile, we’ve gotten 3-5% CTR on mobile devices streaming a very high-end TV spot we produced.

Your advertising metrics can create audience segments and guide your campaign’s performance. This also allows for clear attribution and precision since you will have tons of data to sort through. The more organized you are upfront, the better.

Moving your advertising game forward with CTV

CTV advertising looks to continue as more and more people shift away from cable and satellite to streaming platforms. However, not all platforms are created equal. 

Advertisers should dig deep to determine which streamers best suit their connected TV efforts. They should then create evocative ad campaigns based on actionable, meaningful goals supported by KPIs to measure progress and success. 

The post How to set up and measure CTV ad campaigns appeared first on MarTech.

The rise of streaming services and the proliferation of smart TVs are leading more people to cut the cord and turn to CTV. This switch leads to many advantages, including the ability to target specific demographics. 

The benefits of CTV advertising

With data from streaming services and smart TVs, advertisers can create highly targeted campaigns that reach the right audience based on content and timing. 

As we know, this level of precision is not possible with traditional TV advertising, which relies on wide-ranging demographic groups and broad-stroke targeting.

Another key advantage is the ability to measure campaign effectiveness. With traditional TV advertising, tracking how many people actually saw an ad and whether it impacted purchasing behavior is challenging at best. 

Conversely, CTV technology tracks:

• How many people saw an ad.
• How long they watched it.
• Whether they engaged with it. 

This level of engagement and overall measurement is essential for optimizing campaigns and maximizing return on ad spend.

Dig deeper: How CTV can deliver market research for B2B marketers

CTV brings unique advertising opportunities

The shift we’re seeing in viewing habits has seismic implications for the advertising industry. As of late 2022: 

• Netflix alone has eclipsed 200 million subscribers worldwide. 
• Disney+ now touts more than 152 million subscribers worldwide.
• Domestic-only provider Hulu still has 46 million subscribers.

This rise of CTV reach has also led streaming services to develop new ad formats better suited to the environment.

Interactive ads, for example, allow viewers to engage with the content and learn more about a product or service. These dynamic ad formats are proving to be more effective than traditional linear ads across both measurable engagement and conversion.

The larger reach is also translating into an overall increase in ad spend. Some marketers are shifting budgets away from the iOS and social placements where scale is becoming sparser and re-investing in CTV advertising. 

Right now, CTV advertising is projected to increase by over 14% in 2023, according to the IAB. What that all rolls up to is a CTV ad spend that will likely exceed $26 billion in 2023 and $31 billion in 2024.

So, how is this shift in ad spend to being justified? 

Brands and marketers are seeing that CTV offers unique advertising opportunities including:

Audience targeting

CTV is built on data that allows marketers to build or target specific audiences based on many more factors than other forms of TV advertising, including location, language, content and consumption.

Eyes on ads

Because streaming providers don’t often allow for ad skipping, this equates to a much better ad completion rate, ensuring that all ad content is seen by the targeted audience.

Identity and data insights

Because CTV devices are stitched into home networks, marketers can build anonymized insights based on IP address and other device IDs. As such, identity signals can be aggregated into audience insights for even deeper segmentation and traffic monitoring (i.e., which ads led to a website visit).

The overriding goal is to get more eyeballs on both content and ads. With that, many streaming providers aim to provide subscribers the option to switch from the current subscription model to a “no-cost but fully ad-supported” streaming experience. 

Netflix and Disney+ plan to introduce a fully ad-supported option for their subscribers. While the specifics are still sparse, 64% of CTV viewers polled say they would prefer to watch ads than pay for more content, according to a DeepIntent survey. 

That said, Netflix is entering this area cautiously until they can ensure they won’t lose subscribers accustomed to commercial-free viewing. 

Dig deeper: Brands are betting heavily on CTV advertising

How to get the most out of CTV advertising

Whether the model stays subscription-based or ad-supported (or something in-between), we must continue to adapt to take full advantage of CTV targeting’s benefits. 

With the right strategies and partnerships, we can create data-driven targeted ads to find new customers, build more robust and longer-lasting relationships with existing clients and ultimately drive more brand awareness and sales. 

For marketers looking to get the most out of CTV advertising in 2023, here are four tips to remember.

1. Target fraud-free and premium inventory

Until now, TV advertising offers minimal controls in the open exchanges to monitor where and within what content your ad is shown, leading to a slew of brand safety issues. 

With CTV targeting, you can work within CTV aggregators, allowing them to only show your ads in and around brand-safe inventory and to an audience with a higher propensity to engage and convert.

2. Measurement and attribution

The data and identity-driven backbone of CTV advertising allow for:

• Directly matching sales data with ad exposure data.
• Getting deeper insights on the impact of CTV ads viewed on the path to purchase and overall campaign success.

3. Enriched viewership data

With CTV devices connected to IP addresses and other device IDs in the household, you can overlay viewership data with offline and online data.

This lets you better analyze household make-up and create ad creative and messaging tailored to specific audiences.  

4. Revamping ad formats

With ad completion rates so high for CTV ad formats, marketers can get creative.

Consider campaigns incorporating short but interconnected ads that can be shown throughout the program. Such narrative-style ad campaigns can tell a story across multiple commercial breaks within one show or series.

Get ahead with CTV advertising

While we don’t know how CTV advertising will evolve over the next year or two, it’s clear that this format will be a significant area of growth for brands and marketers.

CTV advertising is set to become an increasingly critical part of the overall advertising landscape for many years to come.

The post 4 tips to get the most out of CTV advertising appeared first on MarTech.

As part of their Building for Privacy Series, the organization also released a primer for clean rooms that outlines the industry with definitions and concepts, and includes a roadmap of future clean room proposals and initiatives.

Why we care. Over the last two years, data clean rooms have emerged in digital advertising as a way for publishers, advertisers and their tech partners to share data for matching ads with individuals in a privacy-compliant manner The establishment of clean room partnerships by independent adtech companies, as well as the roll out of clean-rooms-as-a-service by AWS, has created a diverse field of offerings difficult to navigate without clear definitions and standards.

Dig deeper: Why we care about data clean rooms

Guidance and efficient interoperability. “There is already a multitude of clean room vendors available, each with their own unique data-sharing mechanisms that their clients must work with,” said Shailley Singh, Executive Vice President, Product & Chief Operating Officer, IAB Tech Lab, in a release. “IAB Tech Lab is collaborating with the industry to create technical standards guidance and more efficient interoperability, which will make it easier for advertisers to leverage emerging and exciting DCR technology.”

“As this segment of the ecosystem matures, vendors can adopt IAB Tech Lab’s growing library of clean room standards to enable interoperable data collaboration use cases,” said Bosko Milekic, Chief Product Officer and co-founder for clean room technology company Optable, in a statement. “The goal is to enable secure, purpose-limited and privacy-protected data collaboration no matter who uses which technology provider and to do so while minimizing data movement.”

DCR Guidance and Recommended Practices. This document outlines baseline expectations for DCRs. It establishes the standards for privacy and security of data used in the clean room technology, so that data owners can be certain that data is safe and secure.

The new specifications offer guidance across various DCR use cases in digital advertising.

Open Private Join and Activation (OPJA). OPJA specifications help define interoperable clean room interactions, and were developed within IAB Tech Lab’s Rearc Addressable Working Group. The goal is to provide a framework for different parties to enhance audience activation in advertising without transferring personally identifiable information (PII) from one partner to the other.

This library of purpose-build specifications aims at providing the rules of the road between different vendors. Establishing and defining these interactions and use cases will make it easier for data owners to collaborate, making data clean rooms truly interoperable as the DCR marketplace matures.

The post IAB Tech Lab launches first clean room standards appeared first on MarTech.