#218 - CTV Isn't Just a Branding Channel Anymore

I think a lot of people think about CTV as when it first became type of inventory and the consumers were migrating their user behavior over to connected TV and streaming services.

It became this, well, I'm going to buy less linear TV and just plop those same dollars into connected TV and but it serves the same general purpose as TV, which was just brand awareness, wide reach.

And I think that has changed so much now with the targeting.

And you think about connected TV, not as this thing that only luxury big brands can afford, but that can be part of everyone's strategy if done right.

Over time, Lauren, all our clients are getting very, very sophisticated in their marketing efforts.

Everybody's starting to think about the value that marketing is adding to their business.

We've over time, we've seen clients realize that organic is great, but they require a bigger push to be able to hit their goals.

And that is where they are starting to spend more in marketing as they are spending more in marketing.

And this is for like small brands, bigger brands, midsize brands, all of them.

As they're starting to spend more and more in marketing, they're realizing that they're hitting a cap.

And the cap is 100% real.

It is plain maths.

There is a finite number of users to reach out to who are already at bottom of funnel and ready to convert.

And more and more of our clients as they're investing dollars in marketing are realizing that they are reaching the cap sooner than they expected to.

And that is where I think the idea is more appealing to the clients now where we have to invest in generating demand.

And we have to do it through content that resonates with our users.

And CTV is absolutely one of the strongest places to be able to generate that, to be able to put your brand in front of users.

We are starting to see a lot of that resonate with our clients today.

The biggest challenge always is if you still think about it in this old school TV replacement way, you think about the KPIs for connected TV are reach and frequency and speed.

maybe a little bit of engagement.

That absolutely is not the case either.

When you think about deploying it and saying, I've capped out search, I'm capping out the hand raisers.

And if I continue to dump more money in Google, I'm just marginally less efficient with every dollar I spend.

How then do you layer on CTV in a way that still affects the bottom line? Because ultimately, that's what every marketer is accountable for.