We’ve covered the basics of CTV advertising and how around half of adults in US households watched video on a connected TV daily in 2022. This growing platform is taking over the entertainment industry and is changing TV advertising before our eyes. Modern retargeting no longer ends with tablets and smartphones.
CTV is the puzzle piece that pulls together a robust cross-channel advertising strategy. Mobile marketers can now place ads on every device that audiences spend their time on. Read to find out how connected TV is changing the mobile marketing landscape and how app marketers can use CTV to retain and re-engage their users.
Traditional TV Advertising
Traditional, or linear, TV is defined as the old school form of television, which is programmed and watched through a satellite or cable provider. It is not streamed to a specific user on demand. The main difference between linear television advertising versus CTV is that CTV ads play before or after the streaming of content on connected TV devices, whereas linear TV ads are delivered during the commercial breaks of traditional TV programming.
Benefits of Traditional TV Advertising
Despite its traditional format, linear TV continues to have unique benefits that advertisers can leverage to reach their campaign goals. With linear TV, marketers have the ability to serve advertisements during real-time events such as global sporting events and live shows that involve audience voting, and news updates.
For example, the Super Bowl is a massive live marketing opportunity channeled through linear TV. Millions of people tune in to watch the Super Bowl, with 42% of viewers saying they watch the Super Bowl only for the advertisements.
Another benefit of linear TV advertising is the ability to reach an older demographic. Baby boomers are the only generation in the US that watches linear TV in significant numbers. Among those ages 55 and older, 38% spend more time watching content on cable than on any other platform, compared with 21% of Gen Xers, 16% of millennials, and just 9% of Gen Z adults.
Drawbacks of Traditional TV Advertising
Despite the many benefits of traditional and linear TV advertising, there are also drawbacks to advertising on these platforms. The first is a lack of measurement. When advertising via linear TV, there is no guarantee that commercials will be viewed and any insights into viewership location are restricted. It’s also difficult for advertisers to measure conversions on linear TV advertisements. This makes tracking whether or not a user downloaded or re-engaged with an app after viewing a traditional television commercial impossible to gauge.
Another issue is ad skipping. Around 86% of viewers skip Linear TV commercials or are distracted by other activities like channel surfing or viewing their other devices during commercial breaks. Ad skipping means that the precious marketing dollars spent on linear TV advertisements can go to waste.
Enter CTV Advertising
CTV advertising gives marketers the opportunity to reach consumers with more digital touchpoints than ever before. The growing number of CTV audiences provides opportunities for app advertisers to target audiences in new ways in order to drive success.
Around 97 million homes in the United States have CTV devices, which surpasses the 89 million that have cable. These “cord cutters” don't seem to have any regrets about canceling their cable television subscriptions with 82% of them saying they are satisfied with their streaming-only decision. Because of this migration to a streaming-forward world of entertainment, app marketers should have CTV in mind when planning their app advertising campaigns.
Benefits of CTV Advertising
While the demographic of linear TV watchers trends on the older side, CTV captures the attention of younger viewers. Around 50 million CTV users are Gen Z, 60.5 million are Millennials, 51 million are Gen X and 33.1 million are Baby Boomers. Millennials currently are the current largest group of CTV consumers, which means reaching these users is a smart tactic for return on investment. Gen Z's also tend to be more receptive to digital advertising compared to other, older generations. They also have a growing amount of disposable income that marketers can’t ignore.
Another benefit of CTV advertising is access to real time measurement and reporting. With traditional TV advertisements, advertisers only receive insights about their campaign’s performance after running ads for one month at minimum. They also can’t track the user journey as consistently as marketers can with CTV. Since Connected TV is a digital platform, it allows real-time reporting that marketers can access anytime.
Cross Promotion Advertising and CTV
With CTV advertising, app marketers have the power to use every device in a buyer’s journey to maximize reach. Advertising through CTV makes television marketing an affordable and measurable platform. Now that CTV is in the mix, app marketers have the opportunity to cross promote their brand across all mobile platforms.
Cross-device promotion is an advertising tactic in which marketers identify and message one user across multiple devices. Integrating this capability allows advertisers to create a consistent user experience to deliver significant impact for brand awareness, conversions, and extended engagement.
With CTV now in the mix of cross-device promotion, app marketers can follow their customer across the entire user journey, from connected TV and to apps on other mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Users are spending an increasing amount of time streaming television, amounting to nearly 8 billion hours of content per month. Marketers that wish to capture the attention of their users cannot afford to ignore this massive advertising opportunity revolving around CTV.
Takeaways of How Connected TV is Transforming TV Advertising
Connected TV is continuing to grow in 2023 and changing TV advertising before our eyes. CTV pulls together the ultimate cross-channel advertising, meaning that mobile marketers can now place ads on every device that audiences spend their time on.
Traditional TV Advertising: Traditional, or linear, TV is defined as the old school form of television, which is programmed and watched as scheduled through satellite or cable. While linear TV continues to have unique benefits, there are many drawbacks when it comes to this type of advertising including lack of measurability and ad skipping.
Connected TV Advertising: CTV advertising gives marketers the opportunity to reach consumers with more digital touchpoints than ever before. This type of TV advertising reaches a younger audience and allows marketers to have real time reporting and measurement of their advertisements. CTV also gives marketers the ability to cross promote on all devices that users spend their time on.
