- Contest Factory
- January 26, 2021
“Whether viewed on a connected TV set at home, on a streaming device at the gym, or on a desktop at work, video content remains an advertiser’s most powerful tool to connect with audiences, wherever, whenever, and however they may be watching.” – IAB – Interactive Advertising Bureau
Since over the top media is quickly becoming the new norm, it’s crucial that brands understand how to maximize the advanced audience targeting capabilities that come with digital advertising.
Because without the right target market solution, your ads will not reach the right consumers, which is definitely the wrong approach.
Here is a deeper look into how over the top media targeted advertising can reduce your ad spend and maximize your growth in the year to come.
OTT Targeted Marketing Options
The biggest advantage of OTT for marketers and consumers is the personalization of the experience. The more tailored your brand’s ads are to your audiences’ needs and interests, the more receptive your audience will be to your ads.
Below are a list of the various targeting methods that harness the power of OTT ads through precise, granular targeting.
Demographic targeting uses a combination of variables to identify the right audience for your products based on characteristics such as family size, income, and educational level, etc.
Brands can also employ geotargeting, leveraging GPS data to target customers at the household-level. For example, a politician might want to present different campaign issues to voters living in urban areas vs those who live in rural communities. Advertisers can geofence certain lateral and longitude zones to hit the neighborhoods on interest. Keep in mind when advertising using this method that you will be hitting all devices in that home including kids and teenagers.
Technographic targeting uses device characteristics to find potential customers- desktop vs mobile; iOS vs. Android; and Chrome vs. Safari. Here’s how it works in action: After discovering individuals using Mac computers spend 30% more a night on hotels, Orbitz.com was able to increase profit margins by targeting Mac users with higher-end hotel ads.
Contextual targeting, in contrast, reaches audiences based on keywords and website or program content. So a company like Le Creuset might run its ads on a popular cooking show while a sports sunglasses retailer might choose to advertise on runnersworld.com.
Day Parting references the ability to flight your ads during the hours of the day you want them viewed. This controls when your ad will be viewed to reach your preferred customers at the perfect time. If you were aiming to get your products in front of sports fans, for instance, you could choose to run them during a televised game. And we’re all familiar with the popular pizza commercials that start floating across our screen at 6:00 pm; these would not be effective at 8 am as pizza joints are not open then. However they may very well be successful with the hold pizza has on Americans.
Behavioral targeting tracks consumer browsing and purchase history, allowing you to target consumers who are already actively shopping for the products or services you sell.
To take it a step further, connected TV ads enable brands to display highly personalized content across a single user’s multiple devices. Research shows that two out of three people use a second screen to search for a product they saw advertised during a program, so you can retarget viewers at the moment they are primed for purchase.
Consider the following scenario: A man uses his desktop to search for new drill sets on Target’s website. He gets tired of browsing and starts watching a Netflix show on his TV, which uses the same IP address as his computer. Within minutes, he starts seeing ads for drill sets on his screen, inspiring him to look up a product that caught his attention.
How to get started with OTT Marketing?
Identify Your Audience & Call to Action
As with all marketing endeavors, you need to know who you are targeting to create content that will resonate with and reach your audience. Still not convinced? Reporting shows that data-driven ads typically bring between 5 and 8 times greater return on investment.
It’s equally as important to identify what your ad’s CTA is and make it as possible for viewers to follow through. Interactive CTAs are the most effective, making it effortless for the viewer to click directly on the ad to take action.
However, not all connected devices are “clickable,” which is another reason you need to research your audience. Once you know what devices and platforms your ideal customers are using, you can integrate the best sizing and format practices to optimize your results.
A popular offline method for tracking response is offering something exclusive in text so that your audience is incented to text you while the ad is streaming.
Create Content that Goes the Distance
OTT advertising still requires a level of quality and standard best practices that any media campaign would. Some third-party ad networks like Google Ads will provide you code, which allows you to run ads automatically with little development work. But in most cases, you will likely need to create custom content to meet platform-specific requirements.
If you haven’t done video advertising before, it’s worth investing in a professional video agency to help you create high-quality content. Even if you start small, it’s better to have media that will make a great first impression and work across multiple devices and platforms. If you’re looking for a quality video partner, you may consider our sister company Classitech.
OTT Programmatic Advertising & Real-time Bidding
Programmatic Advertising is the best way to get your ads shown on premium programming, but Real-time Bidding (RTB) will get there for a lot less.
RTB means that ads are bought and sold on a per-case basis, based on availability and the specified characteristics of a brand’s target audience. Each time someone visits a website, his or her data is sent to an ad-exchange that initiates a real-time auction between interested advertisers who match the criteria.
We’ll use our friend shopping for drill sets as an example. Each time he visited a site, ad-exchange agencies used OTT targeting to collect data that matched the requirements of interested bidding advertisers. So the ad he saw while watching Netflix was that of the winning bidder.
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There’s no question, OTT advertising is quickly becoming the primary way to reach your target audience with premium content. Now that you know the lay of the land, it’s time to stake your claim on the ever-expanding opportunities to laser-focus your digital marketing strategy for unparalleled success!
