Moving from Social Marketing to Connected TV is as Easy as 1-2-3

4 Min Read

Eric Hatzenbuhler, MNTN’s Senior Digital Marketing Manager, joined Ascent to share how social marketers already have the skills to launch on Connected TV. He walked through why Connected TV is an essential channel for B2B businesses, how setting up CTV closely mirrors launching social campaigns, and some tricks to finding success after launch. 

Connected TV Addresses the Pitfalls of Linear TV for B2B Businesses

Hatzenbuhler started by highlighting that at MNTN, we’re B2B marketers ourselves, and therefore understand what boxes an ad channel must tick to be effective. While linear TV wasn’t a top channel for B2B marketers, Connected TV has addressed many of its predecessor’s shortcomings. With CTV, advertisers can accurately reach their audience. “With precision targeting–unlike linear TV, we can target by job title, we can target by company size so we don’t waste the impressions that you may waste on the linear TV side,” Hatzenbuhler highlighted. Not only does CTV offer advanced targeting, but it also boasts accurate measurement and the ability to drive specific goals, key elements to an effective B2B campaign.

Hatzenbuhler went on to showcase a study from one of MNTN’s own video campaigns. Two ads were tested against each other: one with MNTN CCO Ryan Reynolds’ face and another with only his voiceover. Surprisingly, the ad without his face was the one that drove results. Through the Performance TV platform, the results of the campaign were easily trackable, from website traffic to cost per visit, vital marketing KPIs that would be untrackable with linear TV. 

Setup as Simple as Social

“The best news for us as historically social marketers is that the set-up of a CTV campaign is incredibly easy. It mimics the set-up of a lot of social platforms that you’re familiar with, including LinkedIn and Facebook,” Hatzenbuhler said. Launching on CTV, much like LinkedIn or other social platforms, can be done in three easy steps. 

1. Identify the Details: First, define the campaign parameters. Input the goal type for the campaign, as well as the budget and flight dates. “It’s that simple.” 
2. Find Your Audience “The next step is maybe the most important out of the whole set-up process which is finding your audience,” Hatzenbuhler said. Using MNTN Performance TV, B2B marketers can target audiences in the same way they do on social, repurposing those same top-performing audiences. Hatzenbuhler highlighted how he uses this for MNTN campaigns: “As B2B marketers trying to hit other marketers, we’re able to pinpoint specifically those marketers at other organizations that we want to serve ads to and the volume is significant enough for us to run campaigns against and drive really incremental performance.”
3. Select Your Creative: The final step of the setup is selecting the creative for the campaign. Social marketers can easily repurpose their video assets running across other platforms. If no video creative is on-hand, there are other, simple solutions to get assets. 

Video Creative is No Longer a B2B Barrier

Hatzenbuhler assured viewers that a lack of video creative does not have to be the barrier that it once was. B2B brands can now employ a service like Quickframe by MNTN to receive  high-quality video creative, without the cost of engaging a creative agency. Quickframe is a creative marketplace that pairs brands with experts to capture the right tone of voice and message, he explained. “They can do that same level of quality, but in much more efficient ways, in scalable ways so that you can constantly introduce new A/B tests. You have creative in your back pocket so if you need to do refreshes, either around seasonality or occasionally just to keep the creative fresh, there are options for every need that you have,” Hatzenbuhler said. 

Budgets are Easy to Manage with Real-Time Data

Once live, Hatzenbuhler provided a few of his best practices to make sure that the campaigns perform as best they can. “Really what I recommend is kind of the main lever that you have to pull is the budget allocation across campaigns and audiences.” With access to a real-time dashboard, Hatzenbuhler suggests checking campaigns both at the mid-month mark and at the end of the month. For underperforming audiences or campaigns, he recommends shifting budget slowly to measure the full impact. He also reminded viewers to double check their frequency when shifting budget, as ABM and retargeting line items are often smaller audiences.

Watch the Full Webinar

To learn more about Hatzenbuhler’s tips for adding CTV to your ad mix, be sure to check out the full webinar here.

• Related: Learn more about CTV advertising.