Why Connected TV is an Important Part of Your B2B Advertising Mix

6 Min Read

“Connected TV is bringing the prestige of television to B2B advertisers,” Ali Haeri, VP of Marketing at MNTN, noted on Friday. Historically, TV has been a small part of B2B advertisers’ ad mix, as it doesn’t address many of their specific needs. However, as the landscape of TV continues to shift and audiences move to Connected TV, B2B advertisers can take advantage and reach their audience where they are watching.

Ali Haeri and Hooman Javidan Nejad, Director of Performance Marketing, shared their marketing expertise and experience as B2B marketers themselves with MarketingProfs. They discussed the history of B2B advertisers on TV, walked through a case study of one of their own campaigns, and dove deep into why CTV is so important for demand generation. You can watch the full webinar here or keep reading for some key insights from their conversation. 

B2B Advertising Has Been Missing From the Largest Screen in the Home

Haeri got right to the point. “The history of B2B on TV is not a long and rich one.” If you have seen B2B advertising on TV, it’s very likely it was during a Sunday afternoon golf game. Without deeper audience targeting on Linear TV, this has been the best guess of where to reach B2B decision makers. And this guess usually misses the mark. Haeri noted that while he would fall in that valuable B2B audience, he’s not a big fan of golf. With linear TV, “it’s likely going to be really difficult to be able to find that perfect show and that perfect network where you feel like you’re going to get great penetration of your target audience.”

This lack of audience targeting is a big reason that B2B advertisers have been absent on the TV screen. “We’re used to precision targeting, going on a platform like LinkedIn, for example, and targeting by function or seniority or industry,” Haeri highlighted. The inventory across linear is expensive, even more so when your ad impressions are wasted on those outside of your target audience. Additionally, there is no way to directly measure success on your linear campaigns. While third parties may offer lift studies and other metrics, these are also expensive, limited in scope, and slow to be delivered.

But this is where CTV can help. Haeri and Javidan-Nejad have first-hand experience as B2B marketers. They use the MNTN platform, Performance TV, to advertise and well, they’ve found some pretty interesting results.

When Launching a B2B Campaign, Be Sure Your Platform Offers Essential Tools 

Javidan-Nejad walked through a case study with some explosive creative. He shared both creatives, one with MNTN Chief Creative Officer Ryan Reynolds’ face and one with just his voice (both of which you can watch here). “Leave your assumptions at the door,” Javidan-Nejad prefaced. Spoiler alert: Ryan’s face wasn’t the ad driving the most visits to our website. 

A key component of running the successful test was the available targeting technology so they could specifically target marketing professionals and get actionable data. “At the end of the day, your campaign is as good as your audience targeting,” Javidan-Nejad noted. This is a key feature to look for when selecting your CTV platform. Other key tools to make sure your platform includes: 

1. Access to premium inventory: make sure the inventory you are buying is non-skippable and only running through a Smart TV or CTV device to ensure your ad has the highest impact.
2. The ability to test creative: A/B testing should be as easy as uploading the different creatives.
3. Measurement tools: You should be able to view the results of your campaign in near real-time within a dashboard. The option to have that data flow through your existing Google Analytics dashboard is a bonus.

CTV Advertising Creates Demand Rather Than Relying on Existing Demand

On a more macro level, CTV offers something that other popular advertising channels don’t—demand generation. “A lot of B2B advertisers don’t get that deep to understand the difference between generating and creating demand and capturing existing demand,” said Javidan-Nejad. While paid search is an easy win for B2B advertisers since users self-identify, it’s also a competitive space, which takes a lot of practice to get right. You may spend years working on your strategy to capture this small, self-identifying audience. Then what happens when they have already been captured?

Javidan-Nejad highlighted that CTV captures an incremental audience, reaching people who would benefit from your services, but may not be actively searching. An added benefit? “With CTV, you go live and the technology is going to take care of the optimization by itself–there is no learning curve,” he said. Rather than the competitive learning curve of paid search, CTV is an easy solution that doesn’t require years of experience. One thing to remember though is “Connected TV is not responsible for converting your leads; Connected TV is responsible for driving qualified traffic to your website.” Before setting up your CTV campaign, be sure your website is optimized to take advantage of the increased traffic.

This is the power of marketing – not just relying on existing demand, but generating it. “With marketing, you can actually drive a lot of business success, a lot faster,” Javidan-Nejad underscored. “That type of impact can never be replicated by just scaling the sales team.” Plus, demand generation makes the sales team’s job easier. The MNTN case study showed that incoming leads had a shortened sales cycle. The leads were warmed and they had a greater awareness of the product and company. Sales benefited from prospects who already knew what the company does and what was offered.

We’re Just Getting Started 

Webinar attendees asked great questions, getting even deeper into the world of B2B on CTV. For continued reading on the subjects, see the questions below.

• How does YouTube advertising compare to Connected TV? 
• What are some examples of “premium networks”? 
• Since TV is not clickable, how do you measure website traffic on a separate device? 
• How do evolving privacy requirements around cookies affect this type of advertising? 

Watch the Full Webinar

To learn even more about B2B advertising on CTV from our own marketing experts, be sure to check out the full webinar here.