Putting TV to Work for B2B Businesses

4 Min Read

The shift in TV advertising over the past few years has opened up a multitude of opportunities, including for B2B businesses. Reaching key B2B audiences on TV was once a nearly impossible task, but Connected TV has addressed many of these issues and has become an important channel to message the right people. 

Want to know the best way to activate on CTV from MNTN’s very own B2B marketers? We’ll be discussing this in-depth at our upcoming webinar with MarketingProfs Friday Forum, illustrating how to maximize your advertising dollars on CTV. RSVP Here.

Linear TV is not an ideal solution for B2B Business Objectives

Linear TV has historically not been a popular solution for those businesses looking to advertise in the B2B space, and for good reason. B2B advertisers have a specific list of needs when investing in their advertising solutions and linear TV doesn’t address many of them. Perhaps the biggest barrier: linear TV is expensive and does not offer measurement to justify the price. Even as people are continuing to leave traditional TV for Connected TV offerings, the price of advertising on linear continues to rise. B2B advertisers are looking to make the most efficient use of their ad spends; linear TV has a hefty price tag with unproven effectiveness. 

Not only is linear TV expensive, but it is also imprecise. Targeting for linear TV is sold on network and programming affinity–what amounts to essentially a guess about who is watching the content. While this may be a stop-gap solution for reaching a broad demographic, it’s even harder to reach the niche B2B audience, as key decision-makers are most likely watching a variety of content. Combined with the expense of advertising across these shows, it’s no wonder linear TV has not been a large part of the B2B ad mix. 

CTV is Bringing B2B Back to the Living Room 

Luckily for B2B advertisers, the largest screen in the home is no longer the least efficient. CTV advertising has fixed many of the problems that have been barriers in the past. Using third-party targeting segments, advertisers are able to reach viewers who are known decision-makers no matter what content they may be watching (we don’t judge!). That’s because CTV is audience-first, and not programming-first, meaning the ads follow the viewers wherever they spend their streaming TV time. With CTV, each dollar put towards the ad spend is reaching the intended audience.

Not only can B2B advertisers reach the right audience for less, but they can measure the effects their campaign has on driving conversions and other key metrics. CTV technology, including Performance TV, offers access to quantifiable results from site visits to conversions. Rather than waiting for a report that takes weeks post-campaign, B2B businesses can see real-time information that allows them to optimize all the way through the campaign flight and maximize those important ad dollars.

As B2B Advertisers, We Put Our Money Where Our Tech is 

So how do we know so much about what a B2B advertiser is looking for? We’re B2B advertisers ourselves! We wanted to see our name in lights and our performance in dashboards so we put together a test campaign, complete with A/B tests and multiple audiences. And while we were shocked by what creative performed best, it was no surprise that our CTV commercial drove conversions. The campaign accounted for over 23% of traffic to our website and 16.49% of our conversions, a huge win for our B2B business. Thanks to TV’s evolution, it is now a vital part of any B2B’s advertising mix.

The B2B Story Has Just Begun

Want to learn more about B2B advertising on CTV? Don’t forget to tune in to MarketingProfs Friday Forum. Learn about the history of B2B on TV, essential CTV tools, and even Ryan Reynolds’ reaction to the results of our A/B test. RSVP now.