App Promotion Summit: Figuring out connected TV is key to OTT advertising

Digital video has been performing well for marketers investing in Over The Top (OTT) advertising in the past 12 months.  The IAB U.S. 2020 Digital Video Advertising Spend Report found that CTV spend has increased to $16MM per advertiser — an eight percent increase year on year.

For newcomers to the digital video space, some of the terminology can be confusing. Here’s what you need to know:

• OTT stands for “Over The Top” and refers to any service that provides content without the interference of a traditional intermediary such as a broadcaster, by means of streaming technology. The service is delivered “over the top” of another platform, hence the moniker
• CTV stands for connected TV and denotes the physical television set that is used to stream video via the internet. This streaming process usually takes place via CTV platforms that are connected to smart TV devices, or with set-top boxes and sticks SVOD stands for “Subscription Video On Demand” and refers to streaming services that users must subscribe to for access, such as Netflix
• AVOD “Advertising Video On Demand” and refers to streaming services that offer content access to users for free, but with ads — like Hulu
• Dual screening is when a user uses a mobile device to browse the web while watching a connected TV

So, OTT is the service you stream the content from. This service runs over the internet. And the TV where you do the watching is CTV.

There are two main types of OTT advertising: client-side and server-side.

In a client-side setup, the viewport for the streaming media loads the ad before the episode or film is shown. In a server-side ad insertion, the ad is integrated seamlessly into the frames of the media, meaning it is not possible to ad-block. However, it is a much more technically challenging proposition to support server-side ad insertion, so it is still relatively uncommon.

One of the benefits of OTT advertising, and the unique value of connected TV,  is getting your ads on the living room screen without the legacy media price tag — reaching cord-cutters and highly-engaged viewers. There are some connected TV advertising statistics that really underline why it’s an area that should be considered for your app’s marketing mix.

• During January, people in the UK watched an average of 2 hours, 21 minutes of commercial linear in-home TV set viewing a day. This shows the expansion potential that CTV has.
• Some 95% of UK households owned a TV at the beginning of 2020.
• An estimated 3 million online adults gained access to an SVoD service for the first time during lockdown.
• Adjust data found that UK households surveyed spent an average of £44 per month on SVOD alone.

CTV allows you to combine the reach and quality of the TV screen with the targeting and measurement capabilities of digital. It’s possible to track OTT ads with the precision you’re used to for your other performance marketing channels. Increasingly your audiences are on CTV and OTT advertising gives you another opportunity to reach them.

Having good data allows you to improve ROI/ROAS on your CTV and multi-screen advertising campaigns. Adjust’s OTT solutions allow you to track the performance of your apps across CTV platforms such as Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku. This enables you to:

• Increase customer loyalty and test new ways to boost LTV
• Combine with Subscription Attribution for full lifecycle insights
• Measure the impact of your CTV app marketing

Adjust’s in-house OTT expert, Director of Connected TV and New Channels, Gijsbert Pols, also provided his expertise to the conference, and we recap his insights here.

How does the ‘connected’ in CTV change TV?

• Improved customer choice and improved customer control
• More interaction between device and consumers — TVs are becoming more interactive
• New verticals for TV, gaming is moving rapidly into the CTV space — 25% of apps on Apple TV are gaming apps

The TV is the ‘fireplace’ of the modern living room

• Most games on CTV are party games or board games — the social aspect of TV is important
• Exercise apps are increasingly used in the living room
• Travel apps are popular on CTV because they can see higher quality — and share memories or plans

How can advertisers take advantage of these changes?

• At its best, CTV brings together the most desirable parts of TV and digital marketing.
• It combines the measurability and the targetability with the quality of TV
• Because TV is more laid back, people seem to be more tolerant of ads on TV — plus people are used to having ad breaks when they watch TV
• If you manage to properly use these properties to your advantage, you’re in a very strong place

What is unique about OTT advertising creatives?

• OTT ads allow you some innovative opportunities — such as pause ads or embedded product placement, which can be targeted on a local or even individual level in real time
• The technology behind these innovations is increasing all the time, with real-time shoppable content in the very near future
• With these innovations, CTV is increasingly becoming a performance channel as well as a branding channel, breaking up the boundaries between performance and branding

If you would like to start advertising your app on OTT/CTV, making sure you have a measurement plan in place is a must. And for app developers, CTV provides new territory to gain users.

Having a measurement partner, like Adjust, helps you navigate the world of OTT, extend your performance measurement capabilities to CTV apps, and start making data-powered decisions in this exciting new space.

And if you would like to find out more about OTT and CTV measurement, our dedicated page breaks down CTV AdVision solution.