What is Connected TV Advertising?

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What is Connected TV Advertising?

Many people may ask what is connected TV and how does it work? Connected TV is any device that is used to stream video over the internet. It is basically a traditional television that is modified and used for many modern functions. Smart TVs are considered connected TV devices that are used to stream videos on multiple platforms like websites, apps, and direct digital media.

In the past ages, people used to stream their commercials and ads on a traditional linear TV system with much effort and energy. The old traditional system has long commercial breaks, requires scheduled programming, and has less efficiency. Connected TV advertising is something drastic–in a good way. It is helpful in many ways for viewers and advertisers. If you see someone asking, what is connected TV advertising, or what is CTV advertising? Advertisers use digital TV ads on different OTT platforms like Hulu, Peacock, and other Smart TVs.

Like any other digital channel, connected TV advertising is efficient for advertisers to also find their niche audience and measure their campaigns with REAL time reporting. With cross-device technologies, connected TV advertising can measure the point at which a person is served your ad and when they then searched your brand, visited your site, and made a purchase. This is huge when discussing the differences between connected TV vs linear TV.

How Do Brands Use Connected TV Advertising?

Connected TV providers or connected TV publishers use connected TV advertising for multiple purposes. The most important one is using it for advertising by targeting their fit audience.

Keynes uses an audience-first approach when it comes to all digital advertising strategies, like connected TV advertising. Connected TV ads obviously need to produce a branded video asset (many have these lying around in their company Dropbox. It can even be as simple as stock videos. If you already have videos like this, use our CTV Spec Check to see if that asset is ready to run on the TV screen (legit the hardest part). Connected TV advertising allows you to boost your brand’s equity, engagement, and ultimately revenue.

How Does Connected TV Advertising Work?

So back to that CTV Spec Check, plug in your video to find out if you’re ready to run your campaign. As you’ll find, many connected TV ad specs are required for a connected TV platform:

  • Size
  • Width and Height
  • Video duration
  • Video quality
  • Audio quality
  • Video bit rate
  • General bit rate
  • Audio bit rate
  • Format
  • Frame rate
  • Channel stereo mix
  • Sampling rate

Partnering with a full-service team, like Keynes Digital, means saving your time and money. We build a bespoke media plan for you, set the campaign up, optimize the campaign, and send weekly reporting and optimizations with 24/7 reporting access, as well as detailed campaign analytics.

Sounds easy right? We’ll do all the heavy lifting, especially on how to buy connected TV through our DSPs.

CTV Creative Best Practices

In order to produce a needle-moving, CTV Creative Best Practices, and OTT creative best practices are essential. We’ve put together a guide for CTV creative best practices all advertisers can follow to create strong Branding or Direct Response assets. Visit our CTV Creative Best Practices page which goes more in-depth on each point.

Branding CTV Creative Best Practices Examples:
  • Determine the goal of the TV commercial
  • Highlight 1 to 2 Unique Selling Points
  • What will make someone remember your brand?
  • End Card
Direct Response CTV Creative Best Practices Examples:
  • Determine the goal of the TV commercial
  • Get to the point fast
  • Use persistent URLs throughout the TV commercial
  • State a strong Call-To-Action in the TV commercial

Connected TV Advertising Examples

Keynes has a TV Commercial Reviews page called One View. Our CEO and Founder rate a new TV commercial every week on Branding and Direct Response. Check out the links below to find connected TV ad examples for both Direct Response and Branding. Visit our TV Commercial Reviews page to find all our connected TV ad examples reviews.

Direct Response Connected TV Examples:

Different Approaches Brands May Take For A Connected TV Strategy

The best connected TV strategy is the audience-first approach strategy we mentioned above.

Keynes Digital takes your audience’s interests, behaviors, demographics, and even things like places they’ve visited to search through hundreds of data providers and thousands of audience segments. It’s the best recipe for success and the best recipe to test what works and what doesn’t.

CTV Platforms

Connected TV advertising wasn’t known in the early 2000s. The late 2000s introduced people to the new channel, connected TV advertising, to reduce costs and enhance efficiency. Some connected TV platforms include:

How Have Connected TV Platforms Shifted?

The shift of the CTV ecosystem was fast. Once people realized watching programs and content was easy and on their own time, they made the switch from traditional linear TV to connected TV.

Connected TV statistics report that following 2021 and the Covid-19 pandemic, people proved to still consume copious amounts of content. Also, consumers continue to sign up for more TV streaming subscriptions, fueling content wars between TV networks in 2022.

Viewers expect a consistent and strong flow of content from streaming platforms. However as we’ve seen for advertisers, viewers are accepting advertisements in exchange for lower TV streaming subscription prices (rather than linear TV).

With now almost 5 subscriptions per household, consumers are either choosing not to pay a subscription or pay a small subscription fee for ad-supported or ad-subsidized content.

So different streaming tv providers or connected TV channels have the need of the viewer. But they are also creating the space for advertisers to use these CTV platforms for effective and performance tv driven advertising.

Connected TV Measurement

Connected TV measurement reports back on your campaign. It reveals things like how many people are viewing your ads, visiting your site after your ads, and purchasing on your site after your ads. In a traditional linear TV ad spend, you are not able to report on connected TV advertising statistics or connected TV measurement.

Connected TV vs OTT

CTV “Connected Television”

CTV is a subset of VOD and is similar to OTT. A Connected TV is a device (think smart TVs) connected to the internet, that enables viewers to consume television content through premium networks, or OTT content. Some devices include Apple TVRoku, Chromecast, Xbox, and Amazon Fire.

OTT “Over-The-Top Television”

OTT is a subset of VOD. OTT is any direct-to-consumer television content delivered to viewers entirely over the internet, instead of having to subscribe to any traditional cable packages — think Apple TVHulu, and HBO. Streaming this content can be done through any device, such as mobile, laptops, tablets, or smart television sets.

Linear TV vs Connected TV

See above for the full connected TV term definition.

Linear TV “Regular Television”

Linear TV is your good ole traditional cable or broadcast television viewing through a cable or satellite subscription service. Networks run specific channels that deliver viewable and constant content. You’re on the networks’ schedule, so what is pre-planned to air on that network is what you get.

OTT vs OLV vs FEP

See above for the full OTT advertising term definition.

OLV “Online Video”

OLV is any form of video content streamed over the internet. This includes in-stream, out-stream, interactive, in-game, and webpage-based videos on any device, like mobile, laptops, tablets, or smart TVs.

FEP “Full Episode Player”

FEPs are Connected TV / OTT TV video commercials that are served via OTT network apps or websites online. These resemble a traditional TV experience, i.e. non-skippable and 15, 30, or even 60-second-long TV spots. FEP examples are crucial spots for advertisers, especially as they’re often served during “binge-watching”, long-form shows. These are direct response video spots if approached adequately.

Connected TV Vs YouTube

YouTube is a good platform to be considered as a connected TV platform. Youtube released its connected TV YouTube or YouTube TV App for users to now watch on their televisions. And it’s self-explainable how to connect youtube to TV from a phone.

How to Watch YouTube on Smart TV?

YouTube Smart TV App is another example of how connected TV advertising has shifted the television ecosystem. YouTube Smart TV activate button on your phone can even be used as the controller for your connected TV device. YouTube connected TV advertising is really considered OTT advertising as they allow for short clips and user-generated content as TV commercials.

Connected TV Market

Connected TV spend grew from 57% in 2021 to $15.2 billion and will grow another 39% in 2022 to $21.2 billion. Advertisers are still using linear TV spend, but they should be cautious of the amount of money they’re losing with nothing to show for it.

Advertisers are profiting from implementing connected TV advertising into their marketing strategies. By looking at a graph of TV advertising effectiveness 2021 in the COVID pandemic, people are attracted to it. The connected TV market is a vast market for advertisers. Their goal is to spread their brands among the masses and earn money and boost sales. For CTV ad spend 2022, Keynes Digital is one of the best CTV media buying platforms.

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