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Upfront season is here again, and with it comes the usual discourse about how advertisers can maximize brand awareness against all this new content. And while this season comes around every year, it’s only recently that performance marketers have unlocked the key to year-long success on the TV screen.
We’ve all seen the TV-watching landscape rapidly evolve over the past several years. As people cut the cord and adolescents have come of age without ever having purchased cable, streaming has become mainstream. The pandemic only furthered streaming’s stronghold as people stayed inside watching TV (and their purse strings).
With this shift to the digital age of television, advertising also followed suit. Advertisers are now able to use the TV screen in a way that they haven’t been able to in the past: for performance. The digital DNA of streaming TV has made targeting and measurement capacities available through the TV screen like never before. And now that advertisers have enjoyed performance results, from site visits to conversions, they aren’t turning back.
Matt Collins, Director of Product Marketing for MNTN and QuickFrame, credits this shift in advertising strategy partially to the COVID-19 shutdown. “When the pandemic happened, and businesses started to shut down, many CFOs directed their CMOs to either cut their marketing budget or shift it to only those things that could demonstrate a provable outcome — in other words, to performance marketing.”
Content providers have also been adjusting to the new normal of TV. While the initial offerings from streaming channels offered large libraries of original content for low subscription fees, these providers have quickly learned the importance of ad-supported options for their bottom line. Disney and Netflix announced their ad tier offerings at the end of last year. Amazon rolled out their ad tier (not to be confused with their FAST channel, FreeVee) to all subscribers at the beginning of this one. However, the more channels pop up, each adding their own variety of ad offerings, the more fragmented the landscape becomes, making it harder and harder to leverage streaming TV as a broad awareness channel the way linear TV has been used in the past.
Enter: performance marketing. While streaming TV may be plagued by fragmentation, its digital nature also gives advertisers access to precision targeting to reach their key audience, wherever they stream. Gone are the days of making generalizations about who’s watching based on the cast and content of a show. Instead, advertisers can pinpoint exactly where their targets are watching — because hey, men can watch Bravo, too.
Advertisers are rewarded for their efforts with extensive amounts of data that prove to their CMOs that what they are doing is working. These insights were, and still are, a large missing piece from linear TV buys — reporting is difficult, often costly, and slow. CTV, on the other hand, offers insights in near-real time, giving advertisers the power to see what’s working and what’s not and to optimize their performance metrics as they go. And that has proven to be an unbeatable advantage, especially as internal expectations have evolved.
Once advertisers started to focus on the performance outcomes of their efforts, they were hooked on the results, much like the way streamers hooked audiences on the new experience of watching television. “[Advertisers] are still demanding more and more performance. The good news is that the default way consumers are watching television now — streaming television — is giving CMOs the information that CFOs require,” Collins explains.
The data doesn’t lie — and it’s telling a similar story. We took a look at MNTN’s performance metrics across multiple verticals over the past month as compared to this time last year. Across Fashion & Apparel, Home & Garden, and Travel verticals, all saw increased performance metrics within the past year. The cost per visit for Fashion & Apparel decreased by almost 40% year over year. The Home & Garden segment boasted a whopping 68% increase in ROAS (return on ad spend) this past month, compared to the same month in 2023, while the Travel segment saw a 31% increase in average conversion rates. Many segments are seeing this increase in quantifiable outcomes — no wonder advertisers continue to turn to performance channels.
The new advertising landscape also means that advertisers need new creative strategies to support their efforts. Luckily, they have the performance metrics to help develop effective assets. “What advertisers put on the screen — the creative — will also have to change,” Collins explains. “I think advertisers are going to figure out, with a few modest modifications, TV ad creative can be made to deliver better results. And we can find which creative choices deliver those results through A/B testing, which can be done more affordably and faster than ever before.”
The shift in TV viewing, the indelible mark that the pandemic has left on us, and the digital DNA of the brave, new TV world have forever shifted how advertisers need to think about TV advertising. And in the season of the upfronts — when giant advertisers get discounts on giant spends — it’s an important time to remember that performance has not only amplified the results of TV buying but democratized it. At MNTN, 90% of our advertisers are first-time TV advertisers. And they’re winning with performance.
Your Performance TV Guide to Father’s Day 2024“Breaking records” is a recurring theme we’ve been seeing since we kicked off our seasonal shopping calendar last month with Mother’s Day. Now with Father’s Day on the horizon, shoppers are voting with their dollars. Last year’s Father’s Day spending amounted to a record-high $22.9 billion, driven by increased activity across major verticals like clothing, electronic, and personal care. This new edition of our Performance TV guide introduces fresh stats, guidance on the Father’s Day retail landscape, and everything you need to launch a high-performing campaign on Connected TV.
The Future of (C)TV Is NowIf you’re anything like us, you probably get excited about the updates for your favorite streaming services — like an improved search feature or a new billboard in Roku City. While these viewer-facing changes are happening, there’s also a ton of work going on behind the scenes to improve the Connected TV (CTV) advertising experience.
From improved audience targeting to advances in automated optimization, these changes can create significant results for advertisers, allowing them to make the most of their CTV budget. Vittoria Cipollone, Senior Platform Experience Manager at MNTN, recently joined the American Marketing Association (AMA) to discuss the latest innovations in CTV and the possibilities they create for advertisers. Let’s take a look at some highlights from the conversation:
CTV has gained popularity with brands and consumers alike in recent years, outpacing linear television and reaching more households than ever. As of 2023, 87% of U.S. households had at least one CTV device.
In addition to the growing audience, many CTV platforms are providing advertisers with a performance-first experience. While this concept was unfathomable years ago, premium CTV platforms have seen the rapid innovation of tools to evolve the channel into the performance marketing powerhouse it always promised to be, while still making it easier than ever for brands of all sizes to advertise. At MNTN, 90% of our customers have never advertised on TV before, so we’re ready to help you get your campaign live — whether it’s your first or your fiftieth.
Between the rising number of viewers on the platform and the latest advancements, advertisers are reserving more of their budget for CTV. In the U.S., CTV ad spend is expected to reach $28.75 billion in 2024, an 18.8% increase from the previous year. All of this means more marketers, both experienced and new to CTV, are relying on the channel more than ever to acquire customers, generate meaningful revenue, and grow their business.
Many marketers still think of CTV as an awareness-only play. While it can still drive acquisitions and reach new customers, the capabilities have developed far beyond a single segment of the sales funnel. Now, with the right tech, TV can work alongside paid search and social media in performance marketing strategies, with features like precision targeting and in-depth reporting.
There’s some powerful tech behind these CTV advancements — let’s take a look at some of the features you can expect to find in an innovative, performance-focused platform.
One way CTV can drive performance is through automated optimization. Once you enter your budget and goal on MNTN’s platform, the unique technology optimizes your campaign hundreds of thousands of times a day to deliver the marketing metrics that matter most to your team.
Advertisers have never had targeting capabilities with TV before — until now, with CTV. And since reaching the right people is one of the most essential elements of any marketing campaign, we think it should be done well. With MNTN, advertisers can reach high performance audiences, combining the prestige of television advertising with the power of digital to deliver results at scale.
One of the major challenges of TV advertising has been the lack of reporting. But CTV has changed the game (again), allowing brands to know exactly how their campaigns are performing. MNTN’s robust reporting suite allows advertisers to track the metrics that matter most to their brand and gain key insights needed to improve their campaigns.
While the barriers to entry have been lowered for many digital platforms, we know it still takes significant resources — including time, energy, and budget — to produce CTV creative. And it’s especially difficult to know where to start if you’re preparing to air your first TV campaign.
But producing the right ad creative is essential to CTV success. MNTN’s creative partner, QuickFrame, helps brands craft the right ad creative for every industry, objective, and budget, helping break down the creative obstacles.
It’s time to add TV to your marketing strategy. (Like, right now. Go request a demo.) With audiences flocking to the channel and CTV platforms releasing innovative features, CTV creates significant opportunities for advertisers who are looking to drive performance, connect with audiences, and optimize their campaigns.
Ready to learn more about adding CTV to your performance marketing strategy? Watch the full webinar here.
What You’re Actually Getting When You Buy Performance TVConnected TV is a buzzword in the advertising space, but it’s not always clear what it can actually do for advertisers. We often hear questions like, “Where will my ads be served?” Or, “How can I be sure the right audiences see my ads?” We can’t speak for other CTV advertising platforms, but we are experts on ours. Read on to learn what you’re actually getting when you sign up for MNTN Performance TV.
How MNTN Rewrites the Rules of ABMThere is no question that accounts-based marketing (ABM) works. 70% of marketers use ABM and 91% of marketers find that ABM-driven sales result in larger deal sizes. However, everyone is using the same playbook. From email and LinkedIn to retargeting and landing pages, ABM efforts can feel repetitive and make it hard to stand out. B2B brands have an even tougher challenge — reaching their specific audience and staying top-of- mind until they are ready to buy. However, there is a tool you may not be using to succeed in your ABM efforts that you should think about adding: Connected TV (CTV).
We’re Bringing Real-World Measurement to Real-Time Reporting — Introducing Offline AttributionIs brick and mortar dead? Or is it having a moment? Turns out it’s neither of those — in fact, it’s here to stay. The numbers don’t lie, either. In-store shopping topped an estimated $6.3 trillion in the US in 2024, per eMarketer, with in-store retail sales projected to make up over 83% of total retail sales (including e-commerce) this year. Between one million+ IRL stores and 1.8 million online stores in the US, the value of having both an on- and offline presence in your marketing strategy couldn’t be clearer.
Still, actually measuring this impact — especially from a channel like TV — has been notoriously difficult. Until now.
If you have brick and mortar locations, you know your TV commercials have a huge impact on real-world sales. We’re making it easier to measure the influence of your TV commercials on real-world conversions, such as purchases made in your stores, in-store sign-ups, and more.
With MNTN’s Offline Attributions, you can measure that impact with precision:
Measuring the complete impact of your marketing efforts should be seamless. Our process is similar to how you would already measure offline conversions on other performance channels like search and social.
Here’s how it works:
We’ve cribbed the best parts of other performance channels and made them even better:
Want to see how this feature works in action? Level up your performance marketing game and reach out for a demo today.
Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.