Connected TV (CTV) advertising is an answer to prayer for a lot of advertisers out there — because of the unprecedented levels of reach, targeting, interactivity, and measurement capabilities compared to other methods of connecting with your audience.
That’s why CTV ad spend has been rising year-over-year for a while now, but if you’re an advertiser looking into CTV, it’s important to remember that it’s not magic. It’s a more-effective conduit to your ideal customers, but just because you’ve arranged a meeting doesn’t mean you’ve sealed the deal. You still have to do your part — and that means making effective, persuasive ads that encourage your customers to take action.
In many ways, of course, creating an effective CTV ad is the same as creating any other kind of ad, and relies on many of the same principles. But CTV is still a unique animal in some ways, and it’s important to know what you’re dealing with so that you can get the most out of your marketing dollar.
In this blog post, we unveil ten helpful tips and tricks for getting the best impact with your CTV creatives, so you can leverage this powerful technology for your business. Read on:
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Blog: Measuring Brand Lift In CTV Campaigns: A Guide
Why CTV Advertising?
Real quick, before we dive into the ways to make CTV ads that leap off the screen (figuratively; 3-D TVs are so 2012) let’s discuss the reasons you’ll want to develop a CTV-focused advertising strategy to begin with.
Connected TVs are fueled by the internet, allowing viewers to access streaming content from service providers like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and more. Users now have total control over what, when, where, and how they watch their favorite shows — and all of that creates a rich environment for advertisers. But how?
- Targeting Capabilities: With CTV ads, you no longer have to show your ad to everyone watching a particular channel at a particular time. With CTV, you can target individual users based on demographics, interests, behaviors, location, time of day, and more.
- Audience Reach: Entire audience segments have begun “cord cutting” and moving away from traditional linear TV, meaning CTV advertising allows you to follow your audience to where they’re most engaged.
- Engagement: Compared to linear TV, streaming viewers tend to be more engaged with CTV content, with higher ad-recall rates and greater interactivity – interactivity that isn’t even technically possible on linear TV.
- Measurement: Because of the digital nature of CTV, advertisers can collect robust analytics that allow them to calculate a more-accurate ROI for their marketing campaigns.
- Cookies: Or, more specifically, the lack thereof. CTV advertising has never traditionally depended on the sort of third-party tracking cookies that power the rest of the adtech ecosystem, meaning that CTV advertising won’t be negatively impacted when those cookies go away.
CTV advertising brings all of the advantages of the digital age to the medium of television, and advertisers are seeing great results. With the greater targeting abilities of CTV, ads ultimately gain more conversions for less money, which is spurring a veritable gold rush on streaming platforms.
Convinced yet? Because now we’re going to talk about how to build a CTV ad campaign that draws eyes, turns heads, and opens wallets.
Ten Tips For Effective CTV Ads
Some of these will be no-brainers for folks who’ve worked with other types of ads, but collectively, these will help you get your creatives situated for success.
1. Know Your Audience
This goes without saying, except it’s important to say. You need to know your target audience, so you can target your audience. CTV allows you to send your ads directly to people by demographics, location, behaviors, and more — but that information won’t be very useful if you don’t know who your ideal customer is. Before you create an ad, you need to know who you’re creating your ads for.
2. Keep It Relevant and Contextual
While you want your ads to stand out, you also want to position ads among content where it will be relevant. If you’re planning on running an ad during a serious drama, a goofy tone and loud noises might be jarring or irritating. Topics-wise, try to place your ads with well-aligned context: a health and wellness program would be good for exercise and weight loss ads, whereas ads for snacks and beer will work well with a sporting event.
3. Focus on Visual Storytelling
TV is, unsurprisingly, a visual medium, and it’s important to keep that in mind when you’re putting your ad together. Pairing your messaging with compelling and eye-grabbing visuals will help cut through the chatter. Remember, some people could be seeing your ad on an 85-inch flatscreen, so making sure your ads play well at high resolutions is important. Which brings us to…
4. Optimize for Sound and Silence
Some CTV viewers are pretty fast to mute an ad during commercial breaks, especially if the volume balance is off between the program and the commercial. You’ll want to create visuals that might compel a viewer to un-mute your ad to hear what you have to say, or at least get the gist of your messaging even with the sound off. On-screen text and graphics can help sell your ad even with the sound off — but you’ll also want to create compelling audio, so your viewers can hear your ad even if they leave the room to grab a snack.
5. Leverage Interactivity
One of the biggest advantages CTV has over linear advertising is that CTV has interactive ad formats, to help drive customers into your sales funnel without them ever leaving the couch. Clickable overlays, QR codes, and more are useful tools you should consider incorporating to take full advantage of the CTV opportunity. Speaking of…
6. Personalize the Experience
Dynamic ad insertion technology allows for real-time adjustments Use data-driven insights to personalize ads based on viewer preferences. For example, an ad might begin with a greeting based on the day of the week, or offer deals based on the content of the video or podcast. Look into which personalization technologies might be available to you.
7. Keep It Short and Memorable
You can make the best, visually-appealing, most-personalized ad ever, with the best interactive elements, but you’re still interrupting somebody’s favorite show. Keep that in mind, and keep in mind how short attention spans are in the digital age. Aim to keep your ad message concise, with a 15-30-second runtime. On the plus side, shorter ads tend to be more-affordable than longer ones.
8. Test and Iterate
As is true with any digital advertising, A/B testing is your way to profits. Every campaign is going to give you actionable intelligence that you can use to optimize your approach, refine your targeting, and hone your messaging. Mixing up your elements to see what’s working and what’s not will allow you to field the strongest creatives you can.
9. Ensure Seamless Integration
Like we said earlier, even the best ads are still interrupting content. Your viewers didn’t pay extra to turn ads off, so make sure you don’t make them regret that. Avoid intrusive ads that disrupt the flow of content. Pre-roll and mid-roll ads align with natural breaks in programming and ensure a seamless experience.
10. Measure Performance Effectively
Last but not least, you’re going to want to collect as much data as you can — and to make sure that data is accurate. Multi-factor attribution can help capture the entirety of your customer’s journey so you can be sure of where your conversions are coming from, for example. No matter what data you’ve got, you have to use that data effectively to guide and optimize your campaigns. Teaming up with a partner who can do this for you, of course, is another edge.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, though a lot of the same practices that lead to success in other advertising are definitely present in CTV advertising, you do have to take the unique quirks and opportunities presented by CTV into account if you want to truly soar.
If you’re an agency or advertiser looking to more-accurately track your campaigns on CTV, or are looking to get into CTV advertising for the first time, COOL Media has the solution for you. You can get started today by reaching out to our team. With our proprietary attribution and brand-lift measurement solutions, we’re the name to watch in Connected TV.
