The rise of OTT/ CTV ad spend and the leader in measurement

Jeff Richardson, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Kochava, looks at the opportunities presented by OTT and CTV advertising, and the importance of accurate measurement of campaign performance.

There is a seismic shift happening in digital advertising. The over-the-top (OTT) and Connected TV (CTV) industry are experiencing record growth and performance for marketers. A growth marketer’s advertising strategy is built atop a pillar foundation: precision ad targeting, attributable quantitative results, and optimization based on those results. From startups to small businesses, large enterprise brands are turning to OTT/CTV advertising as a performance channel to drive real-world actions. The majority of OTT viewing has occurred on CTV devices, while mobile and tablet devices only make up 15 per cent of the viewing time. Among CTV platforms, Roku is the most popular by far.

According to a report from eMarketer, in 2020, US CTV ad spending will total $8.11bn and increase to $11.36bn in 2021. By 2024 it will reach $18.29bn, more than double the amount spent this year. It’s not without its issues, though. Advertisers’ biggest challenges with CTV are measurement, ad fraud, and planning campaigns in fragmented markets.

Kochava is the category leader in measurement and attribution for OTT/CTV solutions. Kochava specializes in delivering omnichannel, identity, and cross-platform attribution tools for all of the top streaming services, including Disney+, Paramount, Peacock, Discovery+, and more. Ad spend on OTT/CTV will exceed $18bn by 2024, accounting for 5.4 per cent of total media ad spending, also noted in the report. Providing this measurement layer will be of considerable value in helping marketers better understand the customer journey and optimize their ad spend.

What Kochava can give you when you advertise on OTT and CTV…

Analytics and Reporting
As an omnichannel measurement and attribution provider, Kochava can measure your advertising on any channel (mobile, OTT, CTV, etc.) and tie it back to conversions and other key performance indicators across connected devices. Through Identity Link, clients can perform identity resolution across platforms and marketing channels by associating user identifiers todevice-level behaviors and transactions (user identifiers include hashed emails, user ID, subscription plan status, and more).

Custom QR codes
QR codes have also gained a second life on these channels. Using Kochava’s deep linking technology, SmartLinks for TV, advertisers can get a custom QR code with a SmartLink embedded to display on OTT and CTV ad creatives. When a user scans the code from their TV screen using a phone or tablet, they can be directed to an online experience, be it a page on the mobile web or the app store to download an app or even deep-linked into an app that they already have installed. For example, Univision, the leading Hispanic media company, used Kochava QR codes during a television public-service announcement about voting during the November 2020 presidential elections. Read the case study here.

An undisputable reason for these upward trends is the significant value it delivers. Instead of only paying for cable or satellite services and watching the content available on those provided channels, viewers can decide what content they want to view and pay for it in various ways. Advertisers, too, can determine what type of TV content they serve ads on depending on the audiences they want to target.

Any brand can take advantage of advertising on OTT and CTV platforms. It can be a great addition to your existing omnichannel marketing strategy, especially knowing that you can measure these campaigns alongside your traditional mobile social and programmatic ones. In such a fast-paced ecosystem as digital advertising, it pays to stay on top of advertising trends and take advantage of them. With the influx of new streaming content, their popularity will remain for some time.

Learn more about the advanced TV ecosystem and how to utilize it for optimal engagement in our free guide.