Connected TV Advertising: Why You Should Choose MNTN Performance TV vs. Other Data-Driven CTV Competitors

7 Min Read

You’ve been on the hunt for a Connected TV (CTV) advertising partner for a while, or perhaps you’ve been testing the waters to see what’s out there. Perhaps you’re new to the world of Connected TV and just started learning more recently. Whatever the case may be, there are a lot of CTV ad solutions out there claiming to champion data-driven advertising — but are they really? We want to set the record straight to help you make an informed decision — and we hope it’ll convince you that MNTN Performance TV is the only option you need. 

The phrase “data-driven” is music to every performance marketer’s ears — who wouldn’t want an advertising platform that skips the fluff and focuses on incrementality, attribution, and measurable ROI? Most CTV ad platforms claim to offer all of these packaged in their solutions, but many miss the mark. Here’s why:

They Don’t Accurately Assign Credit Where Credit Is Due

At MNTN, we recognize that attribution is not one-size-fits-all. We support a variety of different ways to measure the success of your CTV campaign so you can trust the performance you’re driving:

Verified Visits™

Since you can’t technically click on a television screen as you can on other devices, we use an attribution model called Verified Visits™. This is a site visit driven from your campaigns from a streaming TV commercial that’s watched to completion, and the visit must have occurred within a window of time defined by you. Here’s how it works: 

1.  A user watches your full streaming TV commercial
2. This user then visits your website on any device within their household, within a time frame defined by you. Most of our advertisers start with a time frame equal to their purchase cycle.
3. MNTN uses our proprietary identity graph — which monitors cross-device connections across 132 million households — to confirm that the household who watched your TV commercial is the same household visiting your website.
4. Once the user converts, it’s counted as a conversion within our reporting.

Integrations With Google Analytics and Rockerbox 

We’ve also integrated Verified Visits with Google Analytics and Rockerbox so you can accurately measure site visits generated by your CTV campaigns alongside your other marketing channels and use your preferred attribution settings to determine when CTV gets credit for conversions. 

Control Versus Exposed Incrementality Measurement

We built our incrementality reporting with transparency in mind, so you can see the true impact of Connected TV versus the results you would’ve produced without it — all with absolutely no additional costs or upfront planning required. These insights are available to help you make more effective optimizations and investment decisions — and maximize the value of your MNTN campaigns.

Linear TV Commingles With Connected TV Inventory for a Subpar Brand Experience

Is it really a Connected TV advertising experience if you don’t have the inventory to match? MNTN only serves ads on premium, top-tier CTV networks that are both brand safe and vetted for their ability to drive performance, but many players in the space market themselves as CTV while including other types of sub-par, skippable web video inventory to drive down CPMs. (Boooo.) One such competitor sneaks in low CPM inventory by stirring linear TV buys into the CTV pot in hopes of increasing your impressions, but more often than not, this hinders campaign performance. If you see CPMs lower than $20 to $25 on CTV, be wary — it might be indicative of linear TV buys included in your campaign. Consequently, you’ll likely see a ripple effect across your metrics, in the form of increased bounce rates and shorter time spent on site, since you’re not being as targeted with your approach when commingling linear TV and CTV inventory. The former is not audience-first targeting, so audiences are less likely to engage.

MNTN Performance TV adds science to the art that is your ad creative. It starts with our non-skippable ads, which are served across 150+ blue-chip TV networks including CNN, NBC, and FX. After their ad is served on the big screen, advertisers have the option to utilize our MNTN Multi-Touch capability, which serves related ads across web and mobile to immerse consumers in the brand on other channels and devices and guide them down the customer funnel. This entire journey can also be mapped out and measured as like any other digital channel, ensuring your ads are actually being served on CTV and your campaign performance delivers results.

Audience Targeting Isn’t Always … Well, on Target

A campaign is only as good as its targeting, and this is where many — if not most — Connected TV advertising platforms fall short. Some platforms tack this on as an added cost, while others leverage third party vendors that, shall we say, aren’t exactly leaders in their industry. One major competitor has the tools to help clients reach audience segments by working with third party vendors and leveraging first party data. However, they’re only approaching targeting on a broad channel / demographic level, which means your ads may be served to users who would not be interested in your brand — which, as every advertiser knows, is a waste of both impressions and ad budget.

MNTN Performance TV prioritizes audience (and performance) with its targeting efforts, so you can have the utmost confidence that the ads will be served to users who are in-market for your products or services. We’ve partnered with prestige data provider, LiveRamp for this very reason, which provides thousands of audience segments well-known for their reliability and accuracy.

Reporting and Analytics Aren’t up to Speed With MNTN’s Suite

Mixing low-CPM and Linear TV inventory with imprecise targeting can have a domino effect on your reporting. Performance marketers also want to make sure that any analytics come from the most reliable source possible. This is why we’ve integrated Google Analytics and Rockerbox — the gold standards for performance marketers — into our platform.

One player in the CTV space positions themselves as a one-stop shop for strategy, targeting, media buying, optimization, and reporting. They market themselves on their ability to deliver the performance metrics that matter most to its clients. They tout a measurement system that encompasses demographic studies, brand response measurement, and media-mix testing.  However, because they include linear TV in their inventory mix, it degrades the validity of their reporting. We built MNTN Performance TV with performance marketers in mind, and our reporting capabilities are the proof in the pudding. Performance metrics are housed in one user interface, and include hundreds of metrics which can be configured any which way to fit to any reporting format that an advertiser finds most valuable. Thanks to Verified Visits™, we accurately map the entire customer journey, so those performance metrics take each touchpoint into account. You also have the ability to measure the incremental performance of your campaigns with MNTN incrementality reporting.

Our Google Analytics and Rockerbox integrations give advertisers a bird’s-eye view into how their CTV campaigns are faring alongside their other digital advertising channels on a cross-device basis, and they offer a new level of transparency into the full scope of the user journey. Advertisers can then use this valuable data to optimize their overall strategy.

We hope this gives you the insight you need to make an informed decision when shopping around for the right CTV advertising platform for you. MNTN Performance TV is an optimal choice that blends the best brand building capabilities with performance marketing precision. Watch this space as we continue to assess the industry and track how we measure up against the competition. (Would we really be a performance-driven solution if we didn’t?)