Changes in the TV industry, including investment in content, new service offerings and the shift to on-demand viewing has prompted advertisers to adopt a more dynamic view of their video buying options. The new term, converged TV, is defined as the convergence of linear, connected TV and digital video viewed on desktop , tablet, or mobile.
Audiences are dispersed over platforms and screens and it is helpful to have a more holistic view of an advertisers video strategy including the linear TV content. The goal of convergent advertising is to drive more tailored and efficient marketing across all screens while empowering advertisers to strategically reach key groups of viewers.
The primary factors influencing converged tv buying decisions include:
- Audience targeting
- Reach
- Outcomes
- Overall costs
- Measurement
- CPM’s
Digital and first-party data are also very important when it comes to campaign decision making. When leveraging video ad inventory buyers want publishers to perfect the data and the placements. CTV fills a reach and targeting gap between linear TV and digital video. It is a great complement to linear due to its unique reach and targeting capabilities. CTV has recently been able to offer more scalable solutions to advertisers and it is helping to diversify the video mix in a more substantial way.
Challenges
One of the challenges with converged tv planning is creating a unified measurement. This is still a work in progress with advertisers relying on platform specific measurement solutions or other cross platform tools. It is also important to align metrics with the objective and where the strategy falls in the funnel. For a lower funnel video ad on a social channel, it could be used to measure direct performance whereas a video asset that is more top funnel will be tasked with attention and awareness goals. There is not a one size fits all measurement plan when it comes to converged tv.
Why does this all matter?
The IAB forecasts for 2023 ad spending percent share by channel projects increases in all video categories with Paid Search being the only non-video category to expect an increase:
- Digital Video (including CTV) – 22.4%
- Paid Search – 16%
- Social Media – 15.9%
- Digital Display – 13.1%
- Linear TV – 14%
- Other Traditional Media – 6.7%
- Digital OOH – 3.8%
- Podcasts – 3.7%
- Digital Audio – 3.1%
- Gaming – 1.4%
Written by Executive Vice President, Amy Ward
